Hi I'm trying to create a midi track with a drum map but I cannot figure out how to make it sound. I've been through the docs, my SONAR book, and google, but so far no luck. Here is what I did: I inserted a new midi track. Then I added a new drum map with the inspector. Then in the step sequencer, just like with a soft synth, I make some beats, but nothing sounds. The meter levels show that something is happening. It works fine when I add a soft synth drum track, like for example Session Drummer, but that also adds what they call a Simple instrument (audio) track. Also for any soft synth. When I add a drum map there isn't an audio track associated with it. Is this an issue? So the midi works other than with a drum map. Audio works. And my drum loop is producing some sounds. Any help appreciated. Regards, Lindy All outputs seem to be ok because other things work fine.

Are you sure you need a drum map at all??
Drum maps make no sounds, and that's why they don't get inserted with an audio track. Drum maps  are used when the key mapping in drum software and the key mapping of the MIDI material don't match.

Say: Your drum soft synth has kick drum on key X, but the MIDI loop from manufacturer WWW you're using has kick drum on note Y. Now you need a Drum Map between the MIDI beat and drum soft synth to guide the note Y to trigger the kick in X.

If you are using Session Drummer and building your own beats, you have no use for drum maps.

Thank you very much. I was sort of expecting such an answer based on my internet and forum searches. It's not unusual for the answer to be, Why do you want to do that? :-) Quite often we get lost going down the wrong path. So I think I got it. All those drum maps go with a particular soft synth or hardware synthesizer. If I had a drum map for my Jupiter-80 then I would know easily what keys do what. And I think I found a practical example. SI Drums has only the note names, A, Bb, G#, etc. So I need to pick the SI drum map so that it then tells me what drum is what. I think I got it. Thanks. Lindy

In the Piano Roll View (PRV) right-click on the keyboard. In the note names dialog select the "Use these note names" radio button then select "General MIDI Drums" from the dropdown.

Nice!

Wait-wait-wait... what's the point to have the right notes without AD2 synth itself? 
 
Say I have inserted the track from AD2 track template, now I have 15 tracks, the last one is MIDI, which output is set to "DM1-Ad2 Standard" drum map. The notes in Step Sequencer are now properly named. But there is no drum sound!! 
If I change the output to "Addictive Drums 2" then I get the sound but the notes again look like G5 and G6.
 
So either the note names or drum sound but not both.
 
This doesn't make sense to me. I would expect drum map concept to be transparent for user. Is it possible to somehow fix the note names and hear AD2 sound at the same time?
 
Thank you!
 
 

Open the drum map in the Drum Map Manager and verify the Out Port column is set to AD2.

Thank you! Now the question is how to assign AD2 to all notes at once :) Are they supposed to be assigned one by one?

 http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=DrumEditor.05.html
 

Nevertheless, I must explicitly say in P.S. that Cakewalk UI sometimes doesn't make sense: in order to completely obscure the dram map thing there must be a talent involved. Such a simple thing - and yet the usability is so fundamentally broken.