No, I mean once Control Surface plug-in is using some control, for example some Knob, it informs Sonar about that so that MIDI is not leaking to MIDI tracks.
 
Let say your Knob1 is sending MIDI CC 7. A-Pro plug-in is "owning" it, it use it for whatever you configure in the plug-in. For example, Pan for Track 1 in one mode, ACT Knob 1 in other. Imagine you start recording some MIDI track and during that recording have decided to pan it full left. Do you expect that your VSTi start produce absolute silence then? I do not think so. But that is going to happened in case A-Pro plug-in will not block CC 7 since CC 7 is Volume in case it is delivered to VSTi.
 
Sonar supports Track automations. That can be volume, VSTi parameter and even CC. It does not matter how they are "created", with mouse on track or recorded from changing parameter in VSTi (by mouse or throw ACT).
 
Unfortunately, Control Surface API has no function to control CC automations. So in case you do not have corresponding to required CC plug-in parameter you can not use ACT to write automation for it.
 
In short, if you use A-Pro keyboard with A-Pro (or any other) plug-in, you can not record MIDI CC coming from its knobs/faders. You can only record automations for parameters which these knobs/faders control throw the plug-in.
 
Many controllers (not sure about A-Pro) are able to change "the mode" quickly, I mean they change hardware preset so that controls are sending another CCs. Since these CCs are not used in CS plug-in, they are delivered to MIDI tracks/VSTi. Also you do not normally need to reconfigure hardware preset for sending particular CC for particular VST since the mapping can be done within Sonar using MFX (MIDI FX) on related to VST MIDI track or using "Remove control" for CC Track automation. But in any case, you need some not intercepted by CS hardware control.
 
 

Sonar supports Track automations. That can be volume, VSTi parameter and even CC. It does not matter how they are "created", with mouse on track or recorded from changing parameter in VSTi (by mouse or throw ACT).

I think I understand the concept but still unclear.  When I move a fader on the keyboard that mapped to the A-PRO plugin to control freq sweep, for example, I do see the corresponding virtual fader of the plugin moves and the freq do get sweep. When playing back the only thing recorded is the notes and velocities.
From reading the quote above, are you saying that if I use the mouse to move the fader on the A-PRO plug-in or the sweep knob on the virtual synth, those will get recorded on Track automation?  But do see those move when I use the keyboard knob.  Or are you saying that I need to enable the audio track automation, in this case the synth plug-in, and not the midi track?  Sorry I'm a bit slow today (or any day really). Perhaps can you give me a step by step.

Normally only reading track automation is allowed ("R"), to write automation you should enable it ("W") (Track Inspector). If you just press on "W", any parameters you change will be recorded, including all track parameter (Volume, pan, etc) and all VST parameters. They will get separate automation lanes in the track view. But you also can enable automation writing for particular parameter. Add automation first (in the track view, click on "Clip"/"Automation"/<select the parameter you want>) and then open automation lanes, you will see separate "R" and "W" buttons for each automation.
 
Note, if there is no automations for the track and you open automation lanes, Volume automation will be added automatically. And it will have one value, to which your volume will always "jump". Do not forget to delete that value. The same for other automation parameters. Just closing automation lanes does not delete the data.
 
You can always temporarily disable automation reading for all or particular parameter. That is a good way to tune parameters without removing good automation already written, once you enable reading again, the value will be restored. If you have found good value and want "Save" it to automation, there is "Automation snapshot" (in the right click volume fader menu for example).
 
In general, Automations in Sonar are powerful but complex topic, check the documentation for future details.

Thanks I got it now.  I'm very familiar with Audio Track automation for vol/pan/fx-send/etc. and Fx plug-ins parameters.  I have never used (didn't know that you can) it for vst instruments though.  For years I've always recorded the Midi message which can be edited in Piano Roll or Event Viewer so that was my thinking.  Always good to learn a few new tricks.  Would be interesting to see how many parameters are available for a synth though, can be a lot.

Audio track automation works reasonably well.  The obvious limitation is you can't export a midi file which contains all your performance 'envelopes'. If you want to record midi CC, you can do so outside of ACT as always.
In ACT is there a way to define a pad as 'latched'? So the pad would stay lid when it's on.  You can do this in the standalone A-PRO Editor but I can't find it anywhere in the A-PRO plug-in.
Anyway I will be off the grid for a week and hopefully still remember what I've learned when I'm back. Thx
 

As stated by the OP in this thread - and by Roland's marketing pages, ACT configuration should be straightforward. For me, not so much. I followed the basic instructions for configuring ACT - in preferences > control surfaces.
 
In Port: A-PRO 2
Out Port: A-PRO
ACT, WAI boxes: checked
WAI color: (why not?) green
 
In Utilities the named controller shows up. On the list of presets, I do not find a Roland A300. There is an entry for an Edirol 300/500/800 which is the predecessor of the Roland-branded board, but those presets do not work.

Just to verify, yes, I checked the "Active Controller Technology" checkbox in the lower left of the Utilities > Controller dialogue, and yes, I activated the blue "act" button in the upper right corner of the dialogue. And, yes, I activated the physical act button on the Roland board. It lights up orange.
 
I see evidence that something is happening. In Sonar LE, (which I installed before upgrading the Roland's kit DAW to Artist) I see pixels light up at the top and bottom of sliders when I push a controller button. In Artist, not much, but it does show the spinning wheel every few seconds when "act" is activated on the board - and the green WAI bands are present around the tracks. (remember, I picked green in the preferences dialogue)
 
The basic test I try is to use the transport buttons. Nothing. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I strongly believe the idea with ACT and transport buttons is that those buttons act as physical surrogates for the transport buttons in the DAW.

I can imagine other controls could be a mystery, so I stuck to the transport buttons for basic config testing. If they don't work out of the box with the provided DAW, as Roland suggested, I don't want to go further into configuring custom setups. Not yet.
 
Okay, so maybe I missed something. I did install A-Pro editor. I found Cakewalk Control Surface plugins on the Cakewalk site and used the provided .exe installer (Windows)

I checked that I had installed the A300 drivers from Rolands site. Check.
I found some A-Pro series preset control maps on the Roland downloads page. Nothing in there for Sonar.  I found the A-Pro Control Surface Plugin for Sonar on Roland's download page. Installed it.

I see a Shared Control Surfaces directory in my Program files > Cakewalk directory. I see an A-Pro .dll in there.

Not sure what I'm missing. I would expect to find Roland A-Pro presets among the long list of presets on the Utilities > ACT Midi Controller dialogue. 

It gets worse. I abandoned any interest in presets and ACT for a few days and just used my new board. And another board from another maker - with no DAW controllers.
 
When I turn off ACT on the Roland board, it no longer works for whatever soft synths I have installed. The other board continues to play songs, as it were, but whatever soft synth was listening to the Roland goes silent. Switch input to omni or the other board and the other board works. I usually have to shut down Sonar, and restart. I think one time or two I had to unplug the USB cable to the Roland board, restart Sonar and plug the Roland A-PRO in again before it would recognize keyboard notes again.
 
 I contacted both Roland and Cakewalk with my allowed 2,000 character support request, but it probably takes more than 24 hours for either for them to respond, which is how long it's been (well 20, but close enough - one business day)
 
This is not right. Could be something wrong with the board, but there's got to be a way to test that. I could start configuring the board with the A-Pro editor but I'm wary, not having first seen a stable configuration from the manufacturers who imply the board and DAW have at least some basic transport pairing with ACT.

I concur with earlier reports that the documentation is abysmal. I've seen references to .mid, .spp and .xml files as protocols for storing control configurations. I've seen references to a vast pool of information about Midi CC numbering conventions available via a google search. Closest I got to something relevant was that Sonar's transport buttons are somewhere between 58 and 63. For eight buttons. Six numbers. I'm not ready to start editing in A-Pro with not much more than that to start with.
 
Admittedly, I'm new to Midi but have more than a little programming and IT experience. Give me a reasonable starting place and I usually study, learn and explore my way into a technology, which I'm confident I can do with Midi control surfaces. In this case, the reasonable starting place - the safe configuration to which I can return if all else fails while I'm learning - is not there.
 
Any ideas?
 
 
 
 

If you have "more than a little" programming and IT experience, then:
 
I think you understand the difference between programs (plug-ins) and data (presets). "ACT MIDI Controller" and "A-PRO" are different programs (plug-ins). You DO NOT NEED "ACT MIDI Controller" for your A-300. If you have it in utilities menu, remove it from Control Surfaces preferences in Sonar.
 
You need working "A-PRO" there, with correct input and output point to A-300 ports. To get it, you have to install:
a) the drive for A-300, from http://www.roland.com/support/by_product/a-300pro/updates_drivers/
(you have not specified your OS, select and install correct one, check the documentation to switch A300 into "advanced" mode with hardware switch on the device)
b) plug-in for Sonar, from the same page, "A-Pro Series Control Surface Plug-in for SONAR"
 
After that, in "Add" dialog for Control Surfaces in Sonar you should be able to see "A-PRO". After you have added it with correct ports, check it is not displayed in brackets in the list, otherwise you either do not get it with correct bitness (32/64) or some MS Runtime is incompatible. If everything is ok, you should get "A-PRO" in the Utilities menu which opens A-PRO specific interface.
 
If your ports are configured correctly and you switch on A300 before starting Sonar, transport buttons (and other controls) should work out of the box. If not, check Input and Output ports. The plug-in attempts to put A-300 into specific mode, if output port is incorrect it can not do this, leaving A300 with whatever settings you have in it and so nothing is working correctly.
 
Once basic staff like transport, volume, pan control is working you can move to plug-in parameters (VSTi, FXes) mapping. That (and ONLY that!) is tricky part with A-PRO (and other controllers). That is discussed in this thread and on my site. That involves .xml files editing when some of them are corrupted.
 
Inside "A-Pro" plug-in (NOT with Preset Control Map) you can configure what your controller does in Sonar. And you can save the result as Presets. You can then export/import such presets using Utilities/Cakewalk Plug-in Manager as ".spp" files.
 
Notes about the terminology:
* "ACT" is a generic name for Cakewalk Control Surface protocol. "ACT MIDI Controller", "Generic Surface", "A-PRO", "Mackie Control", etc. are all "ACT" plug-ins. But they are thought for different devices and have different functionality.
* "ACT Mapping" ("ACT Learn") is used for one part of "ACT" which is dynamic mapping between virtual controls inside plug-ins and automation parameters of VST.
* A300 can be used as a generic MIDI controller, so it has own "Presets" (and a editor for them). I guess they are saved as normal MIDI files (.mid). They have nothing to do with "Presets" of "A-PRO" plug-in in Sonar (.spp).

Thanks Azslow, that cleared it up. When I first added the control surface in Preferences, I either did not notice the drop down menu on which Act MIDI Controller is the default, or maybe I connected it before I installed the Roland plugin and APro was not yet on the list. Either way, it's there now. The default Sonar controller mapping utility is now replaced with A-Pro, which opens a GUI that resembles the layout of the control surface.

Of course, it takes more than general programming knowledge to know A-Pro functionality is not a subset of ACT Midi Controller, that the A-Pro plugin is a different plugin than ACT MIDI Controller. As far as I still know, ACT is not a plugin, but part of the core Sonar technology that exposes control surface mapping to whatever plugin is active at the time, along with whatever developer-provided presets or user-generated mappings various plugins might allow.

After checking the Cakewalk documentation, I see that "ACT support is not available in SONAR LE" which is odd, because Roland ships Sonar LE with the board, and the board has a prominent ACT button. I would presume, then, that the Roland plugin configures the control surface without ACT and now better understand the original meaning of this thread - we can manually configure control surfaces to work with plugins or use ACT. I see the board controls the Sonar screen without the ACT button activated.

As I have written already, at different places "ACT" has different meaning. Most of the time, people/documentation use it for "dynamic plug-in parameters mapping" (all related controls, even in Cakewalk own plug-ins, use it with that meaning as well!). From Sonar documentation:

Active Controller Technology (ACT) allows you to control whatever plug-in effect or soft synth currently has focus

 
Some people use it for "ACT MIDI Plug-in", because it is in the name of this plug-in and it has "ACT enable" button (for "dynamic mapping").
 
Another meaning is Control Surface "technology" for Cakewalk products in general.
 
Roland mention "ACT" with all meanings: as "a button", as the function of this button for A-PRO plug-in, as dynamic mapping used in A-PRO plug-in and just for the fact A-PRO plug-in is based on Cakewalk CS API.

binario
I would presume, then, that the Roland plugin configures the control surface without ACT and now better understand the original meaning of this thread - we can manually configure control surfaces to work with plugins or use ACT. I see the board controls the Sonar screen without the ACT button activated.

That is correct, it took me a few days to understand that when I went through this.
Without ACT way: Roland includes a 'stand alone' plugin.  This simply uses midi CC#.  You map midi CC# and then save the 'mapping' to file on the computer and load/save it to the keyboard. Apro has 18 users memory slots so you can save and recall from the keyboard.  The reason you see thing starts to work b/c some controller has the corresponding midi CC# with Sonar, most likely GM midi value, for example volume = CC#7.
When you get into ACT mapping that's when the real fun begins :-)