I have the Garritan Jazz & Big Band 3 library.  I bought it for working in Finale.  The sounds are good enough for what I'm doing, and the Aria player seems to be stable under Finale.
 
But when I try to use Aria under Sonar, it ain't so great.  It works, but keeps going silent on all 16 tracks.  I can't pick up any pattern that triggers this problem.  I can be working along editing MIDI and suddenly the Aria tracks stop sounding while all the other synths in the project keep working.  In the past, I was usually able to rectify this by reloading all the instruments into Aria.  That worked, but was really annoying.
 
Today I updated to the latest Aria engine (as it doesn't appear there has been an update to the Aria "Player" itself  for several years).  That definitely didn't improve things.  I think they got worse.  More frequent cases where the Aria tracks go silent.  And now when I try to reload my template of sounds, I might have to do that three times before the right instruments are actually loaded into Aria.  It does other goofy things like making certain instruments 1/10th the sound level of the others.  I have been through every possible parameter I can think of and couldn't resolve that.  I finally just gave in and boosted the gain through a compressor.
 
I know there are some amazing horn libraries out there, but I don't want to spend $2000 when the Garritan sounds are good enough for my projects.  But that player looks like a lost cause.  I know the earlier Garritan packages used Kontact.  Are there any options other than Aria for using these sounds in Sonar?
 
Anybody have experience with First Call Horns?  That is $199 and the samples sound good.  That uses Kontact 5.

I haven't had issues but I use individual instances of Aria with Garritan products (GPO and IO) ...you might want to take this issue to their forum.
http://forums.makemusic.com/viewforum.php?f=6
 
EDIT- fixed link

You need to go into Sonar preferences and then to the Projects/Midi section and uncheck "zero controllers when play stops". Easy fix.....drove me crazy till I found it somewhere. 
 

I am a little confused about Kontakt.  I was thinking that might be an alternative that would run more reliably under Sonar.
 
See http://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-5-player/kontakt-player-vs.-kontakt/
The free Kontakt 5 player seems to play only libraries that are purchased from NI whereas the purchased Kintakt 5 edition plays "unlicensed libraries".
 
But then there is a crossgrade price for the purchased Kontakt 5 edition for $249  See
http://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-5-player/kontakt-player-vs.-kontakt/
 
It says "Only for registered users of qualifying 3rd party products that run in KONTAKT PLAYER. See list qualifying products. You won't be able to install and activate this version unless you own one of the required products listed above!"

 
But the Garritan JABB library is on that list of qualifying crossgrade products.
 
So it looks like one option would be to buy Kontakt 5 for $249 and run the Garritan libraries under that.  I am guessing that would run very reliably under Sonar.
 
I guess I will try running individual Aria instances to see if that works any better, but that seems really messy when dealing with a large ensemble.

mugician41
You need to go into Sonar preferences and then to the Projects/Midi section and uncheck "zero controllers when play stops". Easy fix.....drove me crazy till I found it somewhere. 
 

 
Ahhh.  Thanks.

Having Zero Controllers when Play Stops on causes so many problems I think they really need to change it to be defaulting the other way. 
 
Drove me nuts with one of the 8dio Kontakt instruments because it kept zeroing one of the filter knobs (but I didn't notice it did it).  Since it didn't happen every single time I never connected the two.  Not exactly sure why Sonar wasn't zeroing every time, that's a different issue, but when it would zero that controller it would animate the filter knob and cut off all the audio.
 

mugician41
You need to go into Sonar preferences and then to the Projects/Midi section and uncheck "zero controllers when play stops". Easy fix.....drove me crazy till I found it somewhere. 
 

ahh, yes I should have mentioned that considering most Garritan products don't make any sound when the mod wheel is all the way down.

Duct tape your mod wheel all the way up until you are done recording your midi tracks.
 
I don't turn off "zero controllers when play stops" because it actually does perform other useful functions, like resetting pitch bends, etc. Anyway, once you've got the mod wheel data recorded, you can remove the tape...I'm only half kidding.
 
Regards,
Dan
 
 

In my case, I don't think the pitch wheel is involved, or at least not the cause of the silence.  I am using MIDI generated under Finale.  That might have some pitch bends, but it wouldn't simultaneously hit all 13 of the tracks I have in Aria.
 
Is anyone using the Garritan libraries with Kontakt 5 and Sonar?  Basically I just don't trust Aria because Finale/Garritan has been pretty close to out of business for a couple of years now.

In my case, I don't think the pitch wheel is involved, or at least not the cause of the silence.
 
We were talking about the mod wheel, not the pitch bend.