I can't get soft synth clips to play in the clip arranger in a track from my FM8 plugin.
I just purchased Sonar X2 Producer and have already made a few songs from 3rd party clips. I have figured out how to load sounds from the audio library and 3rd party loops into the clip arranger. The loops play, I arrange them how I like, save as MP3 and my song is done. Doing this has been very fun and made it already worth the purchase. The problem I'm having started when I wanted to generate original sounds from Sonar itself after purchasing NI's FM8. Sonar and FM8 are registered and fully functional. FM8 works as standalone and it shows up in my insert soft synth and plug-in instrument lists. I'm working on a Dell Inspiron 15 with Windows 8, a 1.8 ghz Intel Pentium Processor, 4 gb of ram, 64-bit operating system and a 450 gb hard drive so I don't think it's the specs. FM8 read when Sonar first scanned for vst plug ins. I open a new normal project. I add two tracks to the project for drum and melody loops later. I click insert soft synth, scroll to vst plug-ins, click FM8, make sure simple instrument track and synth property page are checked and then ok. I've also tried loading the soft synth with "all synth audio outputs: stereo" and "midi source" selected instead of simple instrument track but still nothing. FM8 is listed as my third track and the plugin itself pops up. I use FM8's browser to form a sound I like. From here, I know four ways to add clips to the track from a plugin. 1, switch to piano roll view and draw sounds in with the pen. 2, highlight the buttons to specific notes in the step sequencer mode. 3. expand the track, choose notes, and draw notes into the clip pane. 4, press record on the specific track and play with an external midi keyboard. I have no external keyboard so my fourth option is out. When I click piano roll view and draw with the pen, it makes the Fm8 sound only when I draw with the pen. It actually shows up as lines in the clips pane in the track, but when I play the track no sound is made. When I expand the track to show "clips, notes and automation" and select notes, it lets me draw notes into the clip like in piano roll view(they make sounds as I'm drawing them like they can be played), but when I play the track only the very first note plays. The timing marker continues to roll down the track, but no sounds are made from the rest of the notes. Lastly, when I switch to step sequencer mode, I can select and deselect the notes to be played, I hear them as I'm selecting them, but when I hit play on the step sequencer, a different order of notes is played and some notes aren't played at all. Its like it picks random notes from my selection. The lines are visible in the clips pane that I've made new notes from the step sequencer. Then, when I play them on the track, an entirely different order of notes is played than what I heard from the step sequencer! It picks a different random order of notes! I obviously don't know how to transpose notes from my plugin, to my sequencer but I can't figure it out. I've googled the problem in every way I can think to phrase it but all of the threads I find just say to rescan Fm8 in Sonar. I've looked on Youtube and the instruction manuals for both software and can't find anything. Nothing that shows specifically putting Fm8 notes into Sonar X-2 Producer. If anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate it.