Midi Drum busing

Hello all...
 
Loving my newly purchased Sonar Professional!  Got a newb question here.   I use EZdrummer 2 for drums.  I currently have 16 individual outs from the kit going to a drum bus.  Problem is that when I mute the drum bus, I am still getting sound from the midi track that is set up when you add Ezdrummer.  Make sense?  I'm sure it's a simple fix, and that operator error is to blame, but I wanted to check with the experienced forumites. 
 
Thank You!
Freq
 
P.S.   Is it possible to smart swipe tracks in the console view to widen and narrow strips?  Going to the menu just adds an extra step, and though it is somewhat tolerable, it can kill the creative flow. With 16 drums tracks, they take up a lot of space. Thx again!

Yes, new tracks default to the Master bus so make sure all the SD tracks audio outputs are routed to your Drum bus.
 
Also if you have "Sends" on those tracks check the output on them as well. If they don't send to the Drum bus they'll be bleeding through somewhere else (which is kind of the only reason you'd have sends) so if you have Compression or Reverb or whatever bus being fed by those sends you'll still hear them unless you mute those target busses as well.
 
More detail needed to troubleshoot further.
 
Cheers.
 
Edit: And just because you mentioned you're a new user I feel I should point out that when I'm talking about routing the outputs of all those SD tracks to the correct location this does NOT include the actual MIDI track (where the MIDI clip/notes/data lives). That will be routed out to the softsynth's input channel(s) and of course the individual audio outputs from the softsynth itself go into the audio/instrument tracks you have set up in Sonar.

It sounds like maybe you originally inserted EZ Drummer as a Simple Instrument track (Combined MIDI and Audio), and then added audio tracks to host the separate outputs. If that's the case, you can right-click the EZDrummer track, and choose 'Split Instrument Track'; then delete the audio track that's probably receiving output from EZDrummer's internal Master bus, and outputting directly to SONAR's Master bus.

I don't have EZ2 but I have the original  EZ and I setup 16 mono tracks out with a drum bus and routed all to the drum bus.
Swipe all tracks
Then  click on  Tracks on the menu
Selected Tracks Output and  select your  drum  bus in audio output
That ensures all the drum are going to the drum bus.
Mute the drum bus and let us know what happens. You should hear nothing.
Let us know how you get on.
 

Ok...
Took Brundlefly's advice...

brundlefly
It sounds like maybe you originally inserted EZ Drummer as a Simple Instrument track (Combined MIDI and Audio), and then added audio tracks to host the separate outputs. If that's the case, you can right-click the EZDrummer track, and choose 'Split Instrument Track'; then delete the audio track that's probably receiving output from EZDrummer's internal Master bus, and outputting directly to SONAR's Master bus.

and got the drum bus to mute---including the midi track.  But that option only left me with one audio track and one midi track(I didn't add audio tracks to host the separate outputs)... so I don't have 16 tracks to tweak each drum.
When I initially opened a softsynth (from my original post), Sonar added the 16 tracks for me automatically. I'm sure I am missing something with regards to understanding signal flow...
The workaround for now is that EZdrummer comes with its own mixer, so I can control things from there, but I still can't compress or eq etc. etc. individual drums.  
Appreciate all who are chiming in and offering suggestions.
Thank you!
 

lowerfreq
Ok...
Took Brundlefly's advice...

brundlefly
It sounds like maybe you originally inserted EZ Drummer as a Simple Instrument track (Combined MIDI and Audio), and then added audio tracks to host the separate outputs. If that's the case, you can right-click the EZDrummer track, and choose 'Split Instrument Track'; then delete the audio track that's probably receiving output from EZDrummer's internal Master bus, and outputting directly to SONAR's Master bus.

and got the drum bus to mute---including the midi track.  But that option only left me with one audio track and one midi track(I didn't add audio tracks to host the separate outputs)... so I don't have 16 tracks to tweak each drum.
When I initially opened a softsynth (from my original post), Sonar added the 16 tracks for me automatically. I'm sure I am missing something with regards to understanding signal flow...
The workaround for now is that EZdrummer comes with its own mixer, so I can control things from there, but I still can't compress or eq etc. etc. individual drums.  
Appreciate all who are chiming in and offering suggestions.
Thank you!
 

You're getting close. To expand on what Brundlefly was saying... when you click on the + button in the Synth Rack you should get a popup window called the Insert Synth Dialog. This gives you multiple options on how the synth is set up. Yes... it can be confusing at first because there are quite a few options that are rather cryptic unless you know what they do. In your case it sounds like you had the "First Synth Audio Output" option checked off which creates one stereo track (and a separate MIDI track if you have MIDI Source checked off) that has the synth's Master Output routed to it (in this case EZD).
 
To get an audio track for each channel change that option to "All Synth Outputs: Stereo" or "All Synth Outputs: Mono".
 
For the Stereo option each EZD kit peice will have a Sonar stereo track created. With the Mono options it will generally create TWO mono tracks for each kit peice (essentially a split stereo track).
 
Now for me I prefer to have mono tracks for each kitpiece (just like if I were recording a live drum kit) so neither of those options is ideal. So what I USED to do was use the mono option then delete the second track for each kit peice. Now though I just build/route my multitrack drum setup manually by inserting the tracks and changing the outputs (which can then be saved as a Track Template).
 
For you, for now, the Stereo option is probably the simplest way to go and it really doesn't screw up the sound.
 
ALSO with almost all drum synths and synths in general just setting up all those tracks doesn't finish the job. They do not get manually routed FROM the synth. You have to go into the synth's internal mixer pager (or whatever machanism the synth has for routing) and change the output of each channel (in this case each kitpeice/virtual mic) and send them to the corresponding track in Sonar. Usually by default all the kitpeices get routed to the synths main master ouptut so you don't get that piece by peice track separation.
 
And on final thing... if for some reason the Insert Synth Dialog does NOT pop up when you click that + button in the Synth Rack then you may have somehow unchecked the box in the dialog that says "Ask This Every Time". I believe at that point whenever you press the + button it just inserts everything based on the last settings you used to insert a synth.
 
If that is the case then there is a way to make it so the dialog pops up again (and you can check off the Ask Every Time option) but I have no idea how to do that because I've always kept the dialog active.
 
Hopefully that answers some of the questions/problems you may have/encounter.
 
Cheers.

lowerfreq
Perplexed... Retraced my steps from beginning to end(the same way I did in my initial post), and "now" the midi drum track is muted when I mute the drum bus... go figure.  Could it just have been a rogue project that had a weird glitch and failed?
Thanks for providing me with some basic information and little signal flow knowledge-- I will use it going forward!  I'm sure I will be posting again with regards to some other topic in the future.
 
Salud All!!
 
Freq
 

Yup. Been there (and I don't mean "rogue project" but run into thos too which makes things extra special confusing when trying to learn).
 
It took me WELL over a year to fully understand what in the heck all the Insert Dialog options meant (by reading, watching vids, harassing the fine doods and doodettes on the forum, experimenting/testing).
 
Initially I'd do something, completely convinced I had followed all the elaborate steps and understood what was up only to face epic failure. Going back through it again a second or third time and bingo bango all is well.
 
I still run into this when I'm learning new techniques/program features. Used to tick me RIGHT off but after a while I just accepted that this all might be a bit harder than I originally thought. So I do the thing a ton of times over and over again (in a test project or whatever) and then really try to bend the crap out of whatever I'm doing (like exploring all the menus and options or whatever just to see what happens while googling/referencing the manual anything that doesn't make sense or isn't working).
 
I think back to how insanely befuddled and frustrated I was with this exact topic for quite a while but now it's just automatic (even when I'm doing things the hard way manually). Also by understanding it I can now really focus in on exactly what goes where and why if I want to do one of my unusual experiments.
 
That's a long winded way of saying welcome and keep at 'er. It does get easier and the forum is always ready to help.
 
I would highly recommend checking out the CakeTV vids. There is an old one about setting up Session Drummer 3 in Sonar. Some of the things have changed in Sonar since then but the Insert Softsynth stuff and the synth routing is still solid.
 
Also check out youtube for the SWA videos titled "Sonar X2 Complete" (or whatever it's listed as). It's done by Karl Rose who's a forum meber here. It's a HUGE volume of material but is very useful. In this case he does a chapter on Synths and covers the Insert Synth Dialog options quite thoroughly.
 
Have fun.

This a an old video from Toontrack but  much the same  setup today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttAPxp7Jv3g

Thanks FitzJ...  Routing hasn't really changed much with EZDrummer2, except now there are 16 outs instead of 8...
Salud!

Sorted and satisfied(until my next inquiry lol ) ...

 Freq