Newbie questions. I can run Dimension Pro as a stand-alone synth, seperate from Sonar X1, so I can play it from my MIDI keyboard. I can't figure out how to do that with Cakewalk Sound Center. Is that possible? If not, how do I set up CSC inside Sonar X1 so that I can play it from my MIDI keyboard? I'm just learning some of this stuff.

I'm not really sure if the Cake VST's operate in stand alone mode. I know the NI stuff does. I would say "no" at this time, but I will try that in a few when I fire up the DAW.

Guitarhacker

I'm not really sure if the Cake VST's operate in stand alone mode.

Dimension Pro, Rapture and Z3ta+ all work as standalones.

Yep, when I upgraded my Dimension LE to Dimension Pro, it added a shortcut to my desktop that'll load and run Dimension by itself, seperate from Sonar. I'm just looking for a way to play the Cakewalk Sound Center sounds with my MIDI keyboard - if not as a stand-alone, then while it's up & running inside Sonar.

DAn... yeah that is totally possible. I run CSC all the time in live mode from inside the DAW platform.

I have never run any synth in standalone mode. I always run them inside my DAW.

I imagine it's easy to do, I just haven't figured it out yet. What's the method?

I don't have Cakewalk Sound Center (nor can I find anything about it on the Cakewalk site), so I don't know whether or not this will work, but I have used the following method to create a Dimension Pro microhost by adapting an existing Rapture microhost.  It turned out to be unnecessary, as I subsequently discovered that there was already an official Dimension Pro microhost available.  Anyway,...

Create a folder somewhere away from any VST plug-ins.
Copy the Rapture.exe file into this folder.
Copy the DimPro.dll file into the same folder.
Re-name the DimPro.dll file to Rapture.dll.
Create a shortcut (in your start menu or desktop) to the Rapture.exe file and rename the shortcut to something appropriate.
Running the shortcut launches Dimension Pro.

Maybe some variation of this method will work for you.  Substitute Sound Center for DimPro and substitute any of the other rgc:audio softsysnths for Rapture.  It may or may not work.

Hi Dapper:

Which version of SONAR do you have?

In the SONAR help file, there is a tutorial named Tutorial 4 – Playing and recording software instruments for SONAR X1 and SONAR 8.5.
Tutorial 8--Using Soft Synths for SONAR 8.
SONAR 8-X1 are the only versions I have on my system, but the tutorials on softsynths will walk you through how to use one step by step.

I've got Sonar X1 Essential, with Dimension LE upgraded to Dimension Pro, plus some extra expansion packs. Yeah, after I posted some of this I started thinking that the simple answer is probably in the tutorials and in the X1 manual, which I have the PDF of in my computer here somewhere. I'll just try to look it up. Thanx.

I'm pretty sure the answer is no. You have to use it in Sonar, not standalone.