Multi-track MIDI input question...

Hey everybody,

I've got some multi-track MIDI files that I've recorded on my hardware synth.  They're now on my computer.  When I open one in Sonar (8.5 PE), I'd like to find a quick way to change the inputs of the existing MIDI tracks to 1 thru 16 sequentially (like, Track 1 = Channel 1, Track 2 = Channel 2, etc.), without having to set each track one at a time.  The multi-track choices shown in Track>Properties>Input are basically just "set all to OMNI" or "set all to the same channel".  Now, I know I could manually set each track's input channel and then save it as a Project Template, but I'm going to be doing this with literally hundreds of different multi-track MIDI files that I want to actually OPEN in Sonar, each of which has all its MIDI clips labeled nicely (acoustic bass, clean guitar #253, whatever).  If I could just highlight all the tracks and make them listen to channels 1 - 16, sequentially, I could then record more MIDI from my hardware synth into these nicely-labelled tracks.  Whereas with a Project Template, I would be importing the MIDI file, which means I would lose all the nice clip labels and the pre-routed bank and patch settings for my hardware synth, which are absolutely essential for my purposes.

Thanks for any insights and/or suggestions. (btw, I Googled and checked the Help and several Power! books before posting, so if I missed it, I missed it, but it's not for lack of trying.)

- Huffy

Well, I did find a brief forum discussion about this from last year:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2095119&mpage=1&print=true

I was going to try lorneyb2's "16-track MIDI" Project Template suggestion, which, according to the thread, will give you 16 sequential MIDI tracks, (albeit new ones, as opposed to making existing tracks change to 1-16 sequential, which would be even better, at least for my present purposes).  But - get this - when I open a new project, I apparently have fewer than 20 Project Templates to choose from, none of which is "16-track MIDI".  Meanwhile, in my old Sonar 7 folder, there are 52, one of which IS 16-track MIDI!  Did 8.5 really come with less than half the Project Templates of version 7?  Or do I perhaps have a bad 8.5 install?

Also, lorneyb2 mentions Insert>Insert From Track Template, but I only see the following choices:  "Empty Audio" and "Empty MIDI" (each of which only inserts one track), and some folders called "Instrument" and "Virtual", and some audio instrument templates (bass, piano, strings, etc.).  I don't see any 16-track MIDI option, even though the discussion seemed to imply that it should be available there.

<Confused>

- Huffy

I think you can make a CAL script that does this in one go.

If I would make one it would start with a starting track no and no of tracks question and then just do it.

I don't know where the CAL forum went, there were a bunch of very helpful people there that gladly made things for you on demand.

It seems that Cake is trying to phase CAL out rather than expand it's capabilities which is a pity. It's really one thing that makes Sonar stand out.