I am trying to get my expression pedal to control the Wah Wah in one of the Guitar Rig 5 effects, while I play a MIDI instrument through Guitar Rig 5.
 
I've created two tracks.
 
Track 1 = Kontakt 5 virtual instrument (a guitar sounds; doesn't matter which one).  This track's audio FX box contains an instance of Guitar Rig 5.  I'm using the "Classic 70's Wah" preset, which has a Wah Wah component.

Track 2 = MIDI automation, with output being Guitar Rig 5.  I then used the "Learn" functionality in Guitar Rig to get the Wah Wah component "listening" to the expression pedal.

So far so good, except that it seems that I can only play the soft synth or the automation, but not both at the same time:
 
When I select Track 1, the keys control the soft synth (good) but the expression pedal controls the volume rather than the Guitar Rig 5 Wah Wah component (bad).

When I select Track 2, the expression pedal controls the Wah Wah component (good), but the keys don't do anything (bad).


So, it doesn't seem that Track 1 and Track 2 can both "listen" the keys and pedal at the same time.  This means I can't play the soft synth and control the Wah Wah at the same time.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Thanks!

Was it wrong to create a separate MIDI track for the pedal to control Guitar Rig's Wah Wah slider?
 
When I tried to get Guitar Rig to "learn" the pedal while the main synth track was selected, it didn't work.  That's why (after Googling) I created the second track.
 
Is there another way to do this?

Tripecac
Was it wrong to create a separate MIDI track for the pedal to control Guitar Rig's Wah Wah slider?
 

That's how I usually do with other plugins that require MIDI in to control a parameter.  I was trying to do the same thing with TH3 but that does not work because of a known issue with TH3.

In your case, make sure you have enabled "MIDI in" on the Guitar Rig 5 VST configuration (Although, I suspect you have done this, otherwise it would not be visible on the MIDI drop down for the MIDI destinations on your second MIDI track). 

One other thing to check is to make sure that Guitar Rig is set to the same MIDI channel that your second MIDI track is transmitting on.  Ideally Choose Omni to get it to listen on all channels.

The instructions to change the listening channel (I think - I can't check, I do not own GR5) is outlined in the Application Reference manual on page 65.

GR5 has a controller section I had to disable because I had been cycling patch changes on an audio track during playback... and they took. No MIDI track ever involved. This was years ago now but NI suggested disabling that controller section (which you want to use). IIRC, you can also add controllers in that same section, but I never intentionally set one up.

I think I understand my problem, but I don't have a solution.
 
The problem: The output of a MIDI track can go to either Kontakt (the soft synth) or Guitar Rig (the effect), but not both.  This means only one of those plugins (Kontakt or Guitar Rig) can hear me play the notes and/or pedal.
 
Therefore, I need to find a way to send MIDI to both plugins simultaneously.  How is that possible?

Okay, I am getting closer, but am not quite there yet.
 
I found out how to get both the soft synth and the effect plugin to listen to my MIDI controller at the same time:
 
1) create a second MIDI track for the plugin
2) set the second MIDI track's input to All Inputs / MIDI Omni
3) set the second MIDI track's output to the effect (Guitar Rig 5)
4) set the second MIDI Input Echo to On  <-- this is the step I was missing
5) select the first MIDI track and start playing
 
This works, but there is one remaining problem:
 
The volume control on the soft synth is still affected by the pedal.  I want the soft synth to ignore the pedal.  Is there a way to do this?
 
Also, I notice that I will probably have to arm both tracks manually before recording, since I can only arm "on the fly" whatever track is currently selected, right?

Ah, I found a way to disable the volume pedal in Kontakt:
 
1) click on the spanner/wrench icon to the left of the patch name in Kontakt
2) click Instrument Options
3) click the Controller tab
4) untick Accept standard controllers for Volume and Pan
5) click Close
 
The neat thing is this only affects that one Kontakt instrument, not the others.  So, the organ, for example, still changes its volume according to the pedal.
 
Another slight annoyance: each time we are done playing the synth and effect combination, we need to remember to turn off MIDI echo On for the effect track.
 

Another problem: I need to remember to delete the note data from the recorded effects clip, and the pedal data from the synth clip.
 
Hmm...

Is there an easier way to do this?  Ideally, I would have the notes and the pedal events on the same MIDI/synth track, so there is no duplication of events, and no need to arm multiple tracks.
 
Would the notes and pedal events need to be on different MIDI channels, since they are going to be "heard" by multiple plugins (a soft synth and an effects plugin)?

Tripecac
Is there an easier way to do this?

Currently, with Sonar, yes this is the only way....  Because, at this time,  a Sonar MIDI track can only have one destination.  When using a simple instrument, the single MIDI destination has been allocated to be sent to that soft synth.

This situation is a perfect use for a "MIDI Send".  You know how you can have sends on audio tracks to route audio signals to an Aux track or a bus, it would be great if a similar MIDI send and be configured for a MIDI track so that duplicate MIDI signals can be sent to multiple MIDI inputs.

Now, if sonar had such a "MIDI send" , then with that would could use a MIDI track's MIDI send to send a duplicate MIDI signal to the Guitar rig (or any other plugin that has a MIDI in configured).  MIDI sends have been feature requested, but I am not sure if it's being considered.

I hope I am making some sense here.