Understanding MIDI

Just got Sonar 4 Studio up and running, was doing some of the Tutorials and just want to confirm something. Do you always need two tracks when setting up midi and a soft synth. One midi track and one audio track?

Depends, it will ask you if you want a compainion MIDI track when you insert a softsynth into the rack. This makes it easy for folks that don't work with MIDI a lot and saves them the extra step of setting the midi output of the midi track to the softsynth. However, if you have existing MIDI tracks and want to assign the output of one or more of those to the softsynth then answer no to the extra midi track and then after the synth is inserted it will show up as one of the possible output selections on all of your midi tracks just like hardware midi outs.

But yes, it takes at least one midi track to "drive" a softsynth to make any sound. You also have to remember this when you bounce them to an audio track you have to remember to select both or the target track will be blank. Keep in mind it's possible to have more then one MIDI track feed into a single softsynth you just set the output of each track to the softsynth. The output selection is on the I/O tab of the MIDI track properties.

You only need two tracks, one track to record the MIDI data and an audio track host the softsynth.

You do NOT need a second MIDI track.

The virtual devices thing was hard for me to get at first also. In the old days I could see the midi cable connected to my sound card and to the external sound module, drum machine, or keyboard. Then I could see the audio cables going from those devices to my analog mixer. So visually I could trace everything down. For a while we had sound cards with a midi synth built in or a SCC1 card and you could direct your MIDI tracks to that output on the MIDI hardware list and that took some getting used to but at least they were always there no matter what project you were in.

These days, most virtual sound modules don't appear as a MIDI output device in the global MIDI I/O dialog in Sonar. They only appear as selectable outputs for the MIDI tracks AFTER you insert them into the synth rack of that project. Hope that clears things up.

short answer...yes.

A softsynth will require at least one audio track to host the synth. Some softsynths can use more than one.

You can assign several midi tracks to a single softsynth on a single audio track if you wish.

If you want to use 5 different instances of a softsynth or 5 different softsynths, you will need 5 different audio tracks to host the softsynths.

ORIGINAL: alto1

OK so if I have 5 midi tracks using 5 different soft synths I will need 10 tracks to do this right?

Yes, or maybe more if more then one MIDI track uses the same synth. For example you might have drums split out to seperate midi tracks by note (drum) but have them all feeding into one soft synth. Other MIDI tracks like the piano part may have it's own. Many soft synths are just for one type of sound, they are not GM like the VSC. They may only do organ like the Native Instruments B4 or just piano like The Grand. Or one might be just drums. You may even use one for most of the drums going to channel 10 on the VSC but have the kick go to a sampler with your favorite kick sample in there.

Also, you don't "need" 10 tracks but you will end up with at least 10 tracks if you use all the soft synths. A soft synth can be in a project with no midi tracks outputing to it at the moment and there is no problem with that, it will just sit there in the rack (and in track view) till you get ready to use it. However, at the point you decide you don't need it then go back and delete it from the synth rack so it's not using any resources. I tend to leave them there till I get done composing the MIDI parts then I bounce the performance to audio tracks, archive the MIDI tracks and delete the soft synths from the project.

I agree with you lfm seemed confusing that is why I started this post. And thank you everyone for your prompt response, partly why I chose Sonar is that the Forums seemed populated with helpful people which you all have proven to be.

Sorry LoopJunkie you thought my title was misleading but this setup for midi seemed confusing and that was the part that I was addressing. The first tutorial threw me for a "loop" when I couldn't hear anything, which I understand why now so I did one on my own and set it up with a softsynth and it just seemed weird to me to have to double my tracks to hear something.

But all is cool and I will start my course down the great Sonar highway! Thanks Again.