I am having problems connecting and mapping my two Akai midi controllers to Sonar Professional. I have contacted both Akai and Cakewalk support, neither of which could solve the problems. Akai essentially dismissed the issue under the pretense that Sonar was not a "real" DAW and entirely unsupported. Cakewalk support, while more congenial, was equally ineffective at solving the problem. I will list the problems in order of importance.
 
Problem #1: My Akai EWI 4000s does not work properly with Sonar. The Akai is connected to my computer with a mio midi interface, which Sonar recognizes; however, the inserted plugins produce no sound whenever I play the instrument. I am certain Sonar is receiving some variety of data since, when I play the EWI, I can see keys on the virtual keyboard in the piano roll being depressed. I am playing within the range of the instrument as verified by another midi controller and the virtual keyboard. This problem occurs with every plugin, both 3-party vsts and proprietary cakewalk instruments. Even instruments that work fine in stand-alone mode, such as EW Play, fail when nested in Sonar as a plugin.
 
I produced some slight sound one time, but have never been able to reproduce the feat. I have tried turning the breath sensitivity up all the way, such that outside Sonar the settings would produce constant unintentional signals, yet I fail again and again within Sonar.
 
I have, on the advice of Cakewalk support, tried to modify midi CCs in the event list, but playing the EWI produces no events to modify.
 
Problem #2 I cannot properly map my Akai Max25 as a control surface in Sonar. Sonar recognizes the Max25 as a midi device but every attempt to configure the device using the ACT mapping fail. The key bed, mod wheel, etc. all work; however, I cannot use the transport controls, faders or pads. Whenever I try to set the Max25 as a control surface, I can select the input and output, but they just disappear whenever I hit OK.
 
Cakewalk support was polite and did, in fact, spend quite a bit of time helping me, but ultimately the best advice the rep could provide was "get a Roland A-300pro," which was not the advice I was hoping for. The rep said he would talk to someone else and email me a list of compatible devices. I haven't heard anything since last week, nor have I received any list.
 
Conceivably, I could work around the issues with the Max25, but the issues with the EWI are altogether critical for me since only one other variety of such instrument exists anywhere, and it (for reasons I needn't discuss here) would not work for me.
 
I would appreciate any and all help on these issues.

Stuntpickle
The Akai is connected to my computer with a mio midi interface, which Sonar recognizes; however, the inserted plugins produce no sound whenever I play the instrument. I am certain Sonar is receiving some variety of data since, when I play the EWI, I can see keys on the virtual keyboard in the piano roll being depressed.

I would ignore the synth response issue for the moment, and just figure out how to get SONAR to record and echo MIDI. If you set the Input on a plain MIDI track to Mio - Omni (all channels), and enable Input Echo (if not already auto-echoing due to Always Echo Current MIDI Track being enabled in preferences), do you see activity in the track meter as you perform? And if you then arm the track and record a short performance (ignoring that you can't hear anything), what shows up in the Event View?

Stuntpickle
Problem #2 I cannot properly map my Akai Max25 as a control surface in Sonar. Sonar recognizes the Max25 as a midi device but every attempt to configure the device using the ACT mapping fail. The key bed, mod wheel, etc. all work; however, I cannot use the transport controls, faders or pads. Whenever I try to set the Max25 as a control surface, I can select the input and output, but they just disappear whenever I hit OK.

Control Surface plug-in could not be loaded (you should see the name in parentheses "(ACT MIDI Controller)"). Installed incorrectly, moved, can not find some MS Runtime library. Have you installed Sonar with CCC, by manual download on in Steam? 
If that part of installations is bad, there can be other producing strange effects.

brundlefly

Stuntpickle
The Akai is connected to my computer with a mio midi interface, which Sonar recognizes; however, the inserted plugins produce no sound whenever I play the instrument. I am certain Sonar is receiving some variety of data since, when I play the EWI, I can see keys on the virtual keyboard in the piano roll being depressed.

I would ignore the synth response issue for the moment, and just figure out how to get SONAR to record and echo MIDI. If you set the Input on a plain MIDI track to Mio - Omni (all channels), and enable Input Echo (if not already auto-echoing due to Always Echo Current MIDI Track being enabled in preferences), do you see activity in the track meter as you perform? And if you then arm the track and record a short performance (ignoring that you can't hear anything), what shows up in the Event View?

Okay, this actually accomplished something. Upon creating a new midi track with the input set to mio omni and turning echo on, the EWI suddenly seemed to work. It produced sound through MS Wavetable (default), and recording captured a generous stream of midi data -- both in the piano roll and the events list. Strangely, all midi was on ch. 16.
 
When I tried to repeat the process with Kontakt as a synth instrument, I got no sound with echo enabled. Recording did, however, capture midi data, but that data never elicited sound from the plugin -- whether during playback or during real-time recording.
 
Thanks for taking the time to help. Any further assistance would be appreciated.

azslow3

Stuntpickle
Problem #2 I cannot properly map my Akai Max25 as a control surface in Sonar. Sonar recognizes the Max25 as a midi device but every attempt to configure the device using the ACT mapping fail. The key bed, mod wheel, etc. all work; however, I cannot use the transport controls, faders or pads. Whenever I try to set the Max25 as a control surface, I can select the input and output, but they just disappear whenever I hit OK.

Control Surface plug-in could not be loaded (you should see the name in parentheses "(ACT MIDI Controller)"). Installed incorrectly, moved, can not find some MS Runtime library. Have you installed Sonar with CCC, by manual download on in Steam? 
If that part of installations is bad, there can be other producing strange effects.

I'm sorry, but I do not know what CCC refers to. I have done a preliminary search on it, but despite finding numerous references to "CCC," I found none especially explanatory.

For Kontakt, you also need to track the output routing:  it goes from Kontakt to something in Sonar, and you need to make sure that "something" is a thing that eventually gets to your audio output.  Begin with the little "output" button on Kontakt, the click on the individual routing, then translate something like "plugin out 1/2" to something that makes sense in your setup.    Seems like magic at first, but when you've finally got it right you can forget about it.

Stuntpickle
I'm sorry, but I do not know what CCC refers to. I have done a preliminary search on it, but despite finding numerous references to "CCC," I found none especially explanatory.

Cakewalk Command Center.
 
For the rest, I recommend to read Sonar Reference Guide. I do not have Kontakt, but with to get any MIDI input to Audio Output throw VSTi, there are many settings to check:
* either your MIDI has it's way to SONAR (you have checked that already)
* which channel you have (you see 16) and which channel expected by VSTi. You can force the channel in the Track Inspector.
* setup VSTi for that channel
* route VSTi Audio output to some bus
* check audio settings in the preferences (driver mode ASIO, reasonable buffer size)
* route the bus to correct audio output
* depending on the audio interface (many have software/hardware mixer) check that the output is not muted

Stuntpickle
Strangely, all midi was on ch. 16.
 

I suspected something like that might be contributing to the problem. You might want to check check the EWI's manual to see if you can set it to transmit on channel 1 instead. If you leave it channel 16, you can either set the forced MIDI output "Ch" parameter on the track to change the channel of events on playback ormake sure Kontakt is receiving on channel 16. I don't know Kontakt that well, but most soft synths will respond on any channel unless they are multitimbral (or in a multitimbral mode), in which case you would need to make sure the instrument you want is loaded into the correct channel.
 
Also, as Mr. Copper intimated, you'll need to make sure you have an audio track that has it's input assigned to the correct output of Kontakt.
 
CCC is Cakewalk Command Center, the installation manager.