Hi guys
 
This may be a stupid question but I have always created MIDI tracks by dragging the soft synth I want and letting it be created via the pop-up dialog, or by inserting instrument from the track menu.  However, I decided to create my own project template with 8 MIDI tracks and a couple of Audio tracks as a quick way start project.  Everything was fine until I went to add the soft synths to the existing MIDI tracks and I suddenly discovered I didn't know how to, I expected an ADD instrument menu option for each track, or if I tried to drag a soft synth onto the track I was greeted with the insert soft synth dialog and a new MIDI track would be created, the track menu  option for add instrument only has a CREATE button not an ADD or a select existing track prompt.  I have gone back to the tutorials and documentation but all I can find is the ways I have always done it, no way of adding to existing track, or have I missed something?
 
Apologies if it is a stupid question but an answer to a stupid guy would be gratefully appreciated.
 
Cheers
 
Andy 

Assuming you have your existing MIDI track present and your soft synth loaded (but not connected)

Your existing MIDI track can even be populated with MIDI notes and controller events.

Give your MIDI track focus and then open up the inspector (Press " i ").  Look down the bottom, just above the track name is the destination of that MIDI track.  Click on the little down arrow and you should see a list of all your MIDI ports and loaded soft synths.  Choose which ever soft synth you wish this MIDI track to drive.

You could also use the console to do the above as well. Head to the console and look near the track name to see the MIDI track's destination port or soft synth.  You may have to scroll the console to reveal the track name.

Hope that helps.

An instrument track consists of two tracks, a midi track and synth track. The easiest way to see the settings, is to insert a Instrument Track, right click and select 'Split Instrument Track'. This is what you are aiming to duplicate.
 
You have the Midi Track, so insert a synth track, and when the 'Insert synth soft synth Options' box appears just select just one of the three 'Synth Audio Output' options.
 
You now have both the synth and Midi, so you need to assign the output of the midi track to your synth.
 
If you want to combine the two tracks to make into an single Instrument track, right click and choose 'Make instrument track'

For a soft synth to work it needs a Midi track and an accompanying Audio track.
2 ways to insert a soft synth:
 
1) as a Simple Instrument Track
(Audio track is hidden in the background, but can be exposed by using "Split Instrument Track")
 
2) Insert as separate linked Audio and Midi tracks
(Midi notes playback through the audio track, but the two tracks can be simplified back into one using "Make Instrument Track")
 
If you already have existing midi tracks in your template, you would still have to insert the soft synth one of these 2 ways, as far as I know. If you have midi note information on those template tracks, it may be easiest to cut and paste those notes into the midi instrument track of the inserted soft synth, rather than to figure out the routing and linking between audio and midi tracks.

Thanks guys, much appreciated.  I just thought there would be a simple drag and drop a soft synth from the browser onto an existing MIDI track to make a single instrument track.  Truth be told I normally create a synth from the track menu and output to an audio track so I can keep the CPU overhead down if I would be using a fair number of synths, especially Kontakt synths.  But I will follow your guidance,
 
Cheers
 
Andy
 

Wow , does everybody do things different.. 
I have always "inserted" a soft synth to my projects. It is done now via the right hand browser window using the instrument tab. I always have a separate track for the VST and Midi data. 
In the old days we used the synth rack and the + to add. It's still sort of the same. I use Home studio and it doesn't have the synth rack but the insert process is the same as Splat. 

Software synths in pretty much all DAWs live on audio tracks, not MIDI tracks. Some, like Sonar's instrument tracks, can create what looks like one track but is in fact two, a MIDI track ad an audio track. MIDI effects and processing live in the MIDI track fx bin and the synth in the audio track's fx bin or pro channel.

This makes sense because MIDI isn't audio, and while a synth can receive and often send MIDI it outputs audio, which requires an audio track to exist in and/or to host any audio processing you might want to do to the synth's output.

Personally I prefer not to use instrument tracks but seperate MIDI and audio ones because I find that a simpler way to work and conceptualise what's going on.

The way Sonar works with software synths kind duplicates in software how external hardware instruments are used - they get MIDI sent from a controlling MIDI track, and the synth's audio output is recorded via an audio interface into an audio track.

Andy3252
Thanks guys, much appreciated.  I just thought there would be a simple drag and drop a soft synth from the browser onto an existing MIDI track to make a single instrument track. 

 
-Insert the synth like always
-then hold SHIFT and CNTRL While clicking on your old Midi track,
-then drag that midi clip/data from the old track to the new.
-delete old one

The comments above provide a good explanation for the way that Sonar defines tracks strictly by type.
 
Maybe the confusion could be from using a DAW that does the track thing a bit differently, or just because Sonar has some of this hidden away with the simple instrument track.  The instrument track concept might be more obvious to someone coming from a hardware synth background.  Sonar began life as a MIDI sequencer that added audio tracks later.
 
I have used a couple of other DAWs that were developed more recently that don't have strict track types.  They let you add a track, then the track becomes whatever you put into it.  Examples are Reaper and Tracktion.  Insert a new track, insert a virtual instrument onto that track, setup your MIDI input and go.  But yup, Sonar is different!