Newbie question about fx processing vs. multiple MIDI tracks

Hi! How are ya? Lets see if I can answer your questions.

So is the case that in order to do any real mixing that you have to render all the MIDI tracks to new audio tracks, and then mix those? I think that's the case but I just wanted to confirm that.

Correct.

That you should be able to load two of the same types of synth folders, each with their own audio output and MIDI input tracks. Map the MIDI tracks to the appropriate synth and map the synths back to the appropriate audio tracks and all should be well, right? And I'd just set the MIDI tracks for the two folders to receive on different MIDI channels.

Yes you can use as many instances of a softsynth as your computer can handle. But I think you might be going the wrong way when inserting them. Instead you can just let Sonar do all the routing for you by clicking on menu bar INSERT>SOFTSYNTH and searching for the one you want (sorry if it's not exactly like this since Im telling you from memory). Make sure you have selected you MIDI I/O in Sonar.

One question for you. Which syftsynths are you using when you do this?

When you install a synth from either the install synth (as Jose suggested) or use the Synth Rack to install a softsynth, the MIDI track is automatically routed to the correct audio track.

Yeh, I was just speaking generally. I do use the Insert->Synth thing to get the basic setup for a synth going.

Anyway, thanks for the answers. I think I'm just about to the point where I'm ready to try something semi-serious, just as a testbed to force me to do a soup to nuts pass on a piece where it matters. I may end up bailing out halfway through if I find out I made a lot of bad technical choices and just starting over. But I won't know until I've done it.

Given that I'm just getting back into play seriously, it's not too great a risk yet that I might decide to toss something, since my guitar playing ain't what it used to be, and though my bass and keyboard playing wasn't that great in the day, it's not what it used to be either, which is even worse <ha,ha> In the intervening years I became a hard core software engineer, so the technical stuff is pretty easy for me, other than just getting over the localisms and nomenclature of a large new product like SONAR. It's going to be actually having to play something worth producing that's going to be the trick for a while.

Actually, this is kind of my customers getting revenge on me. My product is a very large and generalized software based automation product. Like SONAR, it's a huge tool, not an end product itself, one of those things where you load it up and you bring up the tools and are presented with a blank slate and it's left as an exercise for the reader to create something amazing.

ORIGINAL: droddey

The issue is that you can insert a synth and you can patch various MIDI tracks through it, so you can put each drum on a separate track, for instance. But, there's no real fx processing on the MIDI tracks, only on the audio track that the synth is outputting to. So is the case that in order to do any real mixing that you have to render all the MIDI tracks to new audio tracks, and then mix those? I think that's the case but I just wanted to confirm that.

Yes... and No! If you want to process e.g. each drum part differently AND your synth doesn't provide individual outputs for them, then you'd have to render each part before putting effects on it. But: Many synths have more than one audio output channel, particularly drum samplers like Session Drummer 2. With these you can use multiple audio tracks with individual effects.

Sonar's concept for softsynths is flexible, logical and easy:

Each softsynth requires at least 1 MIDI track as source and 1 audio track as output channel.

Each MIDI track can either hold the MIDI events in clips or/and receive the events from an external source like a controller (via MIDI device) or from another softsynth in Sonar that is capable of outputting MIDI. External source (MIDI device) or synth MIDI are selected via the track's input menu which lets you choose a particular MIDI channel or omni for each device - or even combinations via "Preset"/"Manage Presets..". The output field below determines the destination synth (or MIDI device) the events are routed to. Only 1 destination possible here, but individual notes can be routed to different synths (or MIDI devices) using a drum map.

Any audio track can serve as output channel for the synth's audio signal in Sonar. By selecting a synth output in the track input menu, the track turns into a synth track. The only difference to an "ordinary" audio track is the fact that it can't be armed for recording anymore - rendering is done via bounce, freeze or export. Other than that it behaves exactly like any other audio track. Particularly it can hold audio effects in its FX-bin and can be used like any other audio channel. As long as your computer can handle it, there's no need to render the synth output to audio. A synth can have multiple audio outputs, and you can just insert additional audio tracks and set their input to the synths outputs to get these signals into Sonar.

And yes, all these routings can be made by Sonar automatically. Although I believe it helps knowing the principles behind it. Sorry for the very basic explanation, but I wanted to outline Sonar's softsynth concept from the ground up in order to show how logical it is. And that's all there is to it - at least as far as I know.

EDIT: Hm, well... ok, one more: A synth can be inserted into the FX-bin of an audio track as well. In the past this was necessary if you wanted to automate synth parameters without falling back on MIDI - but that's no longer required. However, if you want to control effect parameters via MIDI, those effects have to be configured as synths in plug-in manager. Otherwise they won't appear as destinations in MIDI track output menus.

Another issue I had was loading multiple instances of the same synth.

As has been said, you can have multiple synth instances in a project without problems. There might be the occasional synth that doesn't allow it (even only in a particular host), but this should be considered a bug of the synth then.

werner

Jose - you're welcome! I hope I didn't forget anything important - usually I do