Hi,
 
I'm currently running Sonar Platinum 21.7.00, 64x, on Windows 8.
 
I recently purchased a few VSTs from EastWest for the first time, and am fiddling with the keyswitching options. I am able to change the articulation if I activate the keyswitch on the East West's Play Window directly, or if I depress the keyswitch note on my MIDI controller. All these while without recording anything.
 
But then I tried to incorporate the keyswitching in my MIDI track recording (e.g. playing C0 at measure 1, then E0 at measure 3, then D0 at measure 7 and so on..). I first tried to input these notes (C0, E0 etc) onto the MIDI track itself in staff view. However these notes do not activate the keyswitching that I expected - looking at the Play window, the keyswitch notes are not even depressed/activated, even though I already entered all these notes into the staff view. They are still stuck at the same original keyswitch note throughout the whole recording, as if I didn't enter anything.
 
Then I attempted to record the keyswitching real time, but because I had to do it on the same MIDI track without erasing the existing data, I had to create "Take Lanes". This is where another problem came in. I intended to input the keyswitch notes on Lane 2, while Lane 1 consists of the melody. But the moment I clicked the "record" button, I am not able to hear anything from the MIDI track at all. I tried to randomly change to another VST, and then changing back, thinking it could be the Play engine issue. The first time it worked - I could hear the sound again. But for subsequent times, everytime I create a "Take Lane" and click Record, the sound will annoyingly disappear again.
 
Then I tried using another VST (one of the SONAR in-built ones), and partially solved the mystery why I was unable to hear anything. I realized that sometimes I could hear Lane 2, other times I could hear Lane 1, but I can never hear both together. And which Lane i am able to hear also appears to be a random thing. I could select Lane 2 but still hear Lane 1. Then I select Lane 2 again, and now I can hear Lane 2. Other times I clicked on the main MIDI track and I suddenly switched to Lane 1 again.
 
needless to say, with only one Take Lane activated at any point in time, the keyswitching still cannot take effect. Then I tried to combine both events into one Take Lane. Again, the keyswitching also did not take place.
 
I'm not sure if the above is due to:
 
1) Issue with SONAR (since even using the in-built VST i still encountered the latter problem)
2) Issue with Eastwest
3) My inexperience with SONAR and VST as a whole
 
I also realize that if I change the keyswitch note on the Play window itself before playing MIDI track, the articulations will be correct. This apparently seem to mean that I can only afford to have one keyswitch articulation in one MIDI track. So I can create multiple MIDI tracks, each one for each keyswitch articulation, but I really hope there is a much simpler way than this, since that defeats the purpose of having a keyswitch. 
 
Sorry if this is a very basic question, and any help given will be greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks in advance!

stantough
I intended to input the keyswitch notes on Lane 2, while Lane 1 consists of the melody. But the moment I clicked the "record" button, I am not able to hear anything from the MIDI track at all.

First, make sure you're recording in Sound on Sound mode, not Comping which will mute previous takes of note events (or keyswitches) in favor of new ones.
 
Also, it came up a while ago that arming a specific lane effectively mutes other lanes while recording. I think this might be intended, but it's not helpful in sound-on sound recording. Just arm the parent track, and let the keyswitches go into a new lane that SONAR creates for you.
 
As for the synth not responding to recorded/drawn keyswitches, if it's not due to comp-recording muting the keyswitch clip, I'm thinking this might be due to a channel assignment problem - i.e. that you're drawing channel 1 events, but the instrument and the note events are on some other channel. Setting a forced Output channel on the track should take care of that. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the problem would be;  I don't have EW, so if it's EW-specific, I can't help you. 
 
 

Thanks for the reply. Somehow changing the recording to "Sound on Sound" mode resolved both issues (for now).

FWIW, I create drum maps for all my keyswitching and view it above the regular PRV so I can change artics and enter notes in the same screen.
 
I wouldn't bugger around with take lanes as this introduces a needless layer of complexity and source of confusion.

Also note that octave numbers in EW and Sonar are not the same. Play back in PRV and make sure the keyswitch triggers the correct note in Play.

I would not use take lanes. Either record the keyswitches in real time or use sound on sound mode. I usually draw them into the PRV. You can also put them on a separate track. That way transposing won't affect them.

Drum maps as mentioned above are also a great help.

Thanks for the advice. It all makes sense now why that had happened:
 
Initially the keyswitch notes entered into the staff view were not the same as the keyswitch in EW, because the octave numbers are different. Hence they were not activated. Then, when I tried to record the keyswitch notes live, I did not enable "sound on sound" recording. This again resulted in the keyswitch not activated.
 
Two different causes giving the same effect. Many thanks for the clarification.