How do I save a MIDI file with muted tracks?  Each time I do this and re-open the file the tracks are in-muted.  I'm sure there must be a way to do this.
 
Thanks
 
Tim

Short answer, if you save it as a regular Sonar file, cwf, mutes should be preserved. Mutes and most other Sonar features can not be saved in a .mid. If you need it as a .mid, you could set the volume as '0' on the tracks you want muted.

hmmmmmm... that seems odd as I do have some MIDI files I've acquired along the way that do indeed have muted tracks when you open them in SONAR.

Are you sure they still have a .MID extension? Bill's right that the MIDI spec doesn't support saving track mute status in a standard MIDI file, and I don't think there's any other feature of a MIDI fle that would result in SONAR muting the track on opening the file.

Yup.  There are .mid.  I actually have a number of them that open with muted tracks.  I would attach one here if there was a way to do so.

PM'd an e-mail address so you can send me a file if you like.

HI:)
 
>>hmmmmmm... that seems odd as I do have some MIDI files I've acquired along the way that do indeed have muted >>tracks when you open them in SONAR.
 
Interesting!! I've looked in some of my acquired Midifiles, and there are some files with muted tracks in it!!
 
I've by hand "MIDI Programmer's Handbook" from Steve de Furia and there's no way to mute any tracks in a standard midi file.
 
So how does this work??
 
Would be nice for me to know:)
 
The only possibility I can think of is to make a ".kar" (Karaoke File) which has different specifications and rename it to *.mid
 
Possibly....
 
Bassman.

I checked out a file that Tim sent. Looks like SONAR mutes any track that has no MIDI data in it - probably just to make it clear to the user that it's silent. I've often seen MIDI files that have empty tracks where the track name is used to show copyright or other info as in the example Tim sent. But I didn't remember that they get muted; it's been a long time since I worked with 3rd-party GM files.
 
In any case, this is something SONAR is doing on opening the file based on the track content. It isn't saved with the file. Add a single note event to any of those tracks, save it, re-open it, and the track will be unmuted.

So it cannot be done.
Next question is: why do you want to do it?
 
Often there is a way to get the result you need without using a feature that does not exist.

That's really odd if Sonar does that with empty tracks.  I have many other MIDI files that also have nothing in the track that do not show as muted when opening in Sonar.