I use Sonar. My wife uses Reason (in a Windows platform). She would like to use the Korg Legacy M1 and Wavestation VST's. Is it possible to use Sonar as the (slave) VST host, with Reason as the Master and Midi/audio recorder?
In other words, could Rewire be used to send MIDI from Reason to Sonar/Korg Legacy, and use Rewire to send audio from Sonar/Korg Legacy back into Reason?
 
thanks
 
Keith

mcdonalk
I use Sonar. My wife uses Reason (in a Windows platform). She would like to use the Korg Legacy M1 and Wavestation VST's. Is it possible to use Sonar as the (slave) VST host, with Reason as the Master and Midi/audio recorder?
In other words, could Rewire be used to send MIDI from Reason to Sonar/Korg Legacy, and use Rewire to send audio from Sonar/Korg Legacy back into Reason?
 

This article explains how ReWire works. MIDI data goes from the host to the client, while audio goes from the client to the host. SONAR can serve as a ReWire host, but not a client. 

Additionally, Reason can only be the ReWire Slave.  It cannot be the host.
 
There are a fair number of posts on the Propellerhead forum about accomplishing almost the same thing using the new MIDI out device in Reason.  
 
Basically, the MIDI path is:
Reason -> MIDI Out to some loopback device -> your synth
and then the Audio path is:
your synth -> Reason.
 
ReWire (and thus Sonar) don't enter the picture at all.  It's pretty easy to do the audio stuff on a Mac, some folks had used a program called "Jack" to do a similar thing on the windows side.  I have played with Jack and found it a bit fiddly for my taste, but YMMV.
 
Hope that helps.

It was and is fiddly, but possible. I had it working under X3 last year - full bi-directional control with both programs running (Sonar as host, Reason as slave), sending MIDI and audio in either direction, however I wanted to. Round-trip latency was even manageable, not brilliant but not crippling. But it took a bunch of brain-befuddling workarounds to get it happening, and I never ended up using it for anything in a production sense. Just one of those technical mountains one climbs "because it's there"... wait, does anyone else do that?

Yes, I do that.  And that's why I walked away from that one.  Spend so much time fiddling that you forget to make music.

In lieu of using the virtual audio cables which you all have indicated are troublesome, are there any PC audio interfaces that provide an internal digital loopback path? (She is upgrading her PC, including her audio interface as well, and now is an opportunity to acquire an interface with this capability.)

I have a Focusrite 8i6 which is supposed to have this capability, but I cannot get it to function in any practical sense.
 
Since the ASIO driver can't be opened by multiple programs simultaneously, there's no way to send output to the the loopback channel. They have a video on setting this up, but it's done on a Mac where I suspect the CoreAudio drivers handle this a bit better.
 
I only mention this because the spec sheet of the Scarlett interfaces would lead you to believe that it will meet your requirements, but I just don't think that it will on a Windows machine.
See below, the interface can be configured to work this way.

AndyDavis:
 
I had also recently seen a video on YouTube demonstrating virtual loopback on the 8i6 (or at least stating that it was possible), and I was looking to buy one. Thanks for the timely information which likely saved us a few hundred dollars.
 
Keith

AndyDavis
I have a Focusrite 8i6 which is supposed to have this capability, but I cannot get it to function in any practical sense.
 
Since the ASIO driver can't be opened by multiple programs simultaneously, there's no way to send output to the the loopback channel. They have a video on setting this up, but it's done on a Mac where I suspect the CoreAudio drivers handle this a bit better.
 
I only mention this because the spec sheet of the Scarlett interfaces would lead you to believe that it will meet your requirements, but I just don't think that it will on a Windows machine.

The ASIO limitation is that only one driver can access a device.
Multiple audio hosts can address the ASIO driver this is what happens when Sonar is set to share driver with other programs. When you select this only the audio program that has Windows focus can be heard. So make sure it's deselected. I only mentioned it as it seems counter intuitive.

You're right that Sonar will mute if it is sharing the driver and loses focus.
 
However, with the 8i6, I have found that the second application cannot initialize the ASIO driver regardless of the share driver setting in Sonar.(See below)
 
I opened up a support ticket with Focusrite to make sure that I haven't missed anything.  I will post back if I end up with any new information.