Hi Fog-

Susan, ok.. no audio, ya do realise no vst-i's ?.. ya can't have it both ways . The bottle neck thing was really if you used hardware gear. Things now have more poly.. 128 etc. but still, it is a limit.

I must not have expressed myself clearly. I use softsynths, an external hardsynth, and microphones for recording. I record softsynths and my hardsynth (Motif) to MIDI tracks initially, then bounce/freeze/whatever to convert those to audio tracks. I never said "no audio", or "no vst-i's", at least I didn't mean to if I did. Never a bottleneck so far with my hardware (Motif).

Thanks-

-Susan

ORIGINAL: Susan G

Hi Fog-

Susan, ok.. no audio, ya do realise no vst-i's ?.. ya can't have it both ways . The bottle neck thing was really if you used hardware gear. Things now have more poly.. 128 etc. but still, it is a limit.

I must not have expressed myself clearly. I use softsynths, an external hardsynth, and microphones for recording. I record softsynths and my hardsynth (Motif) to MIDI tracks initially, then bounce/freeze/whatever to convert those to audio tracks. I never said "no audio", or "no vst-i's", at least I didn't mean to if I did. Never a bottleneck so far with my hardware (Motif).

Thanks-

-Susan

Susan:
Have you ever used your Motif as a GM soundsource? I wonder if that would give a bottleneck to MIDI? I usually use my Mo7 (an original one) as a MIDI keyboard and don't record the actual audio output. I tend to use the Mo's audio as a zero latency monitor when recording. I'm just not enamored enough of the Mo's sounds to commit them to audio in Sonar. I find much better sounds available from my softsynths/samplers (Kontakt 2, Sampletank, etc.)

Typing this whilst listening to Charlie Brown Christmas music on the cd player.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to all!

No bloated ware.... only users who don't need it. No offense...... drop everything else.... keep Sonar 8 Producer. Thanks for listening to me Cake!!!!

ORIGINAL: John

I still use and like hardware synths. I augment them with software synths but I rely on the hardware. I like Sonar just the way it is although the MIDI area could be improved. As for limited polyphony with hardware there are ways to overcome that with breaking dense material into separate tracks that you send later. Its called project management. Another way is to get more hardware. I know a few that have multiple hardware synths of the same type just for this reason. Take the XV 5080 for example. Did you know that you can chain them together and use them as if they were all one synth? The notion of a MIDI only program is silly in that you would still need some audio ability if for no other reason then to record the resulting audio from the MIDI. Then you would want to add FX then it would be useful to be able to edit the audio and maybe cut it up and so on. As for the idea of bloat in Sonar because of the audio features. If you don't use them they wont interfere with your MIDI.

John,

I repectfully disagree with your last sentence. From what I have been able to learn in the 5 years I have been with Sonar, midi kinda takes a back seat to the audio processing.

Perhaps one of the resident pros will chime in but as I recall, the problems start with the fact that there are essentially 2 independent clocks running, 1 audio, 1 midi. My experience shows me that Sonar will always give audio precedence over midi. And heaven help anyone with a array of keyboards that utilizes USB for midi transmission and reception which they have set up that way to take advantage of the high polyphony instruments such as the typical 128 notes available today on for example a Motif or Korg. You simply cannot utilize that kind of polyphony over a midi din cable

Fwiw, I have just received my new Core i7 ADK machine today and I have bought the highly recommended Motu Midi Time piece as part of the plan to do away with as many of my Maudio usb patchers and any other USB instrument ports that I can. I also plan to order on friday either Lynx or Apogee convertors. It will probably make no difference but I'll then retire the Tascam Dm24 with 24 i/o via if/fw which really wasn't even being processed by the computer anyway. I then intend to setup midi over lan on farm machines to purposely keep many of the sound libraries off the new DAW and run them as stand alone. But honestly, with the investments I had already made over the last 5 years trying to solve the midi/audio sync problems I have encountered, if I was a betting person, I would bet right now that Sonar will still drop the ball on handling 40 or 50 midi tracks and reliably be able to keep them absolutely and perfectly in sync with audio tracks.
But maybe this one more no holds barred try will do it. I sure hope so because I am over these asinine problems now.

Danny

I'd like a mostly-midi editor too, so I can prep a file, and then load it into a full sequencer to render audio and edit that.

The MIDI editor in C-Lab Notator (Atari) was superb, and I've never seen anything as good for the PC. There were a bunch of handy routines to delete ghost notes, fix timing, clean up a track, etc. Now, technically, Sonar and other sequencers can do all this, but not as easily. I hate having to figure out AGAIN how to select notes (all the closed hats, for example) and transpose them to another pad. I know, it's not that hard, but it is a pain to go through, for me.

If Cakewalk had a MIDI-only editor that really made it easy, I'd buy it in a hearbeat. Sonar 8PE is wonderful, I won't diss it, but NOBODY makes a simple, powerful MIDI-focused editor that I know about.

I hope Cake keeps their ears open to people like Susan. I've seen her posts about this for a long time, and I agree with her.

Well, I guess that's not a good example. But, when I first tried to do it in earlier versions of Sonar, it baffled me. I couldn't tell if I was copying or moving the notes, and there was no audible cue to let me know I was moving them to the correct destination. But, it is simple, I agree, now that I know how to do it. But, the interpolation matrix thingie is not simple, and getting rid of ghost notes is not trivial. CAL has some nice basic routines for some of these actions, but CAL gets buried deeper into Sonar with every version.

With Notator, I could click one easy-to-find button and clean up a MIDI file, and then go on editing it.

This isn't meant to slam Sonar. The MIDI FX and tools are better now than they were. But I'd still like a little program that I could load up a MIDI file, tweak it quickly, and run it into a hardware module.

I've had MIDI files (commercial) in Sonar that refused to switch from GS to XG, and Sonar showed me no data. The Sysex utility is a pain, and doesn't always work (for me). Also, try deleting a selection of multi-track MIDI file starting at beat one if ALL the tracks don't have data in the selection. You have to go to the short tracks (maybe they don't have data until a later measure) and INSERT dummy data in order for Sonar to delete properly. This is an old complaint, as others here will know.

I'm just saying there is a market for a simple, powerful, non-complicated MIDI-only program. I've used PG Music's program, but it has faults in other departments. Sonar does everything I need, but it ain't a cakewalk to get it done.

ORIGINAL: pianodano

From what I have been able to learn in the 5 years I have been with Sonar, midi kinda takes a back seat to the audio processing.

Perhaps one of the resident pros will chime in but as I recall, the problems start with the fact that there are essentially 2 independent clocks running, 1 audio, 1 midi. My experience shows me that Sonar will always give audio precedence over midi. And heaven help anyone with a array of keyboards that utilizes USB for midi transmission and reception which they have set up that way to take advantage of the high polyphony instruments such as the typical 128 notes available today on for example a Motif or Korg. You simply cannot utilize that kind of polyphony over a midi din cable

Fwiw, I have just received my new Core i7 ADK machine today and I have bought the highly recommended Motu Midi Time piece as part of the plan to do away with as many of my Maudio usb patchers and any other USB instrument ports that I can. I also plan to order on friday either Lynx or Apogee convertors. It will probably make no difference but I'll then retire the Tascam Dm24 with 24 i/o via if/fw which really wasn't even being processed by the computer anyway. I then intend to setup midi over lan on farm machines to purposely keep many of the sound libraries off the new DAW and run them as stand alone. But honestly, with the investments I had already made over the last 5 years trying to solve the midi/audio sync problems I have encountered, if I was a betting person, I would bet right now that Sonar will still drop the ball on handling 40 or 50 midi tracks and reliably be able to keep them absolutely and perfectly in sync with audio tracks.
But maybe this one more no holds barred try will do it. I sure hope so because I am over these asinine problems now.

Danny

Danny:
Your post shows so many misunderstandings of things I hardly know where to start, but I'll give it a go.
First: It may seem like there's separate clocks for both, but I think your misunderstanding stems from latency issues. That's why you'll have MIDI and audio tracks seeming out of sync with each other.
Second: To be correct, on a Motif at least Yamaha refers to it as 128 voice polyphony (you can have up to 4 elements in a voice on an original Motif). Your statement about using USB to access 128 voice polyphony on an instrument like a Motif (at least an original one) is wrong. You can access the full 128 voice polyphony on a Mo from MIDI. What the USB connection allows you to do is access the Motif over multiple channels, which is 3 IIRC. And remember the polyphony on a MO also depends on how many elements you have playing in a voice. So if you have a patch that has 4 elements playing, you'll only have 32 note polyphony available.
It sounds like you're using both external MIDI modules and an array of computers. Keeping that whole mess in sync is going to be a problem without a master clock source. Along with all that high-end stuff you're buying you might want to think about a good clock source like an Apogee Big Ben.
I too run a Motu MIDI Timepiece AV USB (I'm assuming that's the one you're talking about). Take your time when setting up the Timeworks driver software and your system. It's easy to make a mistake here and not get MIDI routed like you are expecting. Documentation on this beasty is not the best in the world. One thing I didn't like that the manual says you can do is to rename inputs and outputs on the MIDI routing matrix in Timeworks. Can't be done on a pc - maybe on a Mac? It's kind of tough trying to remember what synth you have hooked up to what I/O ports on the back of the unit and being able to rename them on screen would be nice. Unfortunately a lot of the things a Motu piece can do are not available to those of us who use a pc for music.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to all!

I have a large midi & audio based studio. Hardware Synths, external sequencers, playback devices, external FX patch changes, console automation systems,  midi/CV conversion cv/midi, midi clock/transports,  you name it. It can be chaos for sure, but I do it for a reason.  I personally need them both as much as the other & sonar works well for the task.

But back to the original topic. You want a stable dedicated midi sequencer on a netbook? Done.

1. Lenovo s-10 series netbook.
2. Ubuntu Studio
3. USB Midi interface. (recommend Roland)
4. Choose one of the few bundled midi sequencers. (rose garden is a great midi focused choice)
5. Midi sequence till you drop.

And Eric Beams post is pure spam.