Thanks very much. I cleaned up my midi routing...and now the Roland synth sounds are coming through. Appreciate the help.

Don't forget if you change the patch on the Rolandthen the Midi track will be driving your new patch.
 
If you want to use the original patch in your song you'll need to bounce it to track before changing patches, this is if you want to build up a performance just from the Fantom.

Is the Fantom multi-timbral? If so, you can set each MIDI track to a different MIDI channel and have 16 patches playing back.

it is, and this option has already been covered above.. a "performance" in the Fantom X is a 16ch multi-timbral setup.:)

jatoth
Is the Fantom multi-timbral? If so, you can set each MIDI track to a different MIDI channel and have 16 patches playing back.

I play a FX-8 as well, and have tried for months to incorporate the patches from the fantom onto midi tracks in Sonar Pro for all the versitility afforded. I'm setup with the FantomX-8 through an OctoCapture interface into SP. (back when Roland had Cakewalk I thought it best to keep it all in the family)
In the past I have just recorded as direct audio and made do. I have read the article in SOS (referenced earlier) repeatedly and frankly have a hard time "wrapping my head around midi inputs and outputs". For some reason it just seems backwards to me. I have been able to get the synth voices from the Fantom onto a midi track and got it to change voices from the Fantom. (I partook in vast amounts of distilled libations to celebrate that one!) I would love to understand how to transfer the .ins file into Sonar, the instructions provided through the PDF file in the above link did not apply or I couldn't find the screens provided in the examples except in 'preferences' (from which I'm sure all this needs to be done indeed) and they didn't (or I didn't) follow well. And the idea of a midi track folder to utilize all 16 channels of the Fantom would be marvelous! If somebody could just direct me to a link (as I don't mind reading at all) I would be most grateful as I'm sure this is a newbie topic. Thanks again for all of your time and effort!

When I 1st got into MIDI and commented that I found it confusing a dude said to me:
 
'There are 16 TV channels and that you have 16 TVs.
If the TV Station is broadcasting on a Channel then one of you TVs (or more if you want) needs to be set to receive that channel for you to watch it.'
 
After hearing that I was able to get my synths to do what I want. (Well - I could get the signal flow where I needed it -  it didn't fix my terrible keyboard playing)
 
 
 

I used a Fantom X6 for years, it's got some great sounds. I've retired it for the time being but here is what I did:
1. Use the Fantom USB driver for MIDI, check the Roland site, it should still be available.
2. For audio, route the main outputs into your audio interface. I use an external mixer for monitoring so I never had any problems with latency. YMMV if you're monitoring inside Sonar. Note: Fantom outs are TRS (balanced), so you should be able to get a clean, no buzz signal.
3. I hacked the XG ini files to give me all the patches and drum sounds, they matched the patches on my synth perfectly including all the expansion ROMs I installed, I still have them if you want them. Send me a PM with your email address and I'll send them to you. I also reformatted them for Pro Tools, gotta luv vim. :)
Setting it up this way allowed me to select any preset on the keyboard from inside Sonar and use the keyboard for midi input and output. Monitoring through the mixer let me capture performances regardless of the PDC settings. Not quite as nice as having a VST control like Virus, but it worked quite well.
P.S. You'll have to bounce in real time.

I'm currently attempting to set up my Fantom X6 up as an instrument in Sonar Platinum but not having much success.
 
My Fantom X6 is MIDI'd to my PC via a MOTU MicroLite USB MIDI interface and I've installed the Fantom X Cakewalk INS file but how should I route the MIDI track/s inputs & outputs in Sonar? For some reason I can't get this to work!