NEEDING HELP!

First off, I am uncertain where this NEEDS to be posted. If I am wrong, please let me know and I will repost correctly. I am just getting started in dealing with Virtual Synths. I currently am using Sonar 7 and recently purchased the "CAKEWALK SYNTHESIZERS" book. Unfortunately, I am still struggling with the exact same problem. I want a simple cookbook approach to setting up a V-Synth in Sonar to get sound. When I follow the help, the book, the manual, whatever, I get nothing. Why is this so hard? Please, someone, help! - Tye.dye.gye

There's a tutorial on this also -- Tutorial 8. I would think this is very "cookbook".

Did you work through it?

First off, what audio device does your computer use? Is it built-in? Does it connect to the computer via Firewire? Does it connect to the computer via USB? Can you play an mp3 file with the computer's media player and hear the audio?

ORIGINAL: tye.dye.gye

Thank you Torhan & Kwgm for your replies. In answer to your questions, YES to both of you. I have worked through Tutorial8.cwp as well as just simply inserting a soft synth. I still get no sound. I am using a laptop computer. It has no sound synthesis on its own. Am I wrong is assuming that a Soft Synth should give me that sound synthesis ability? I assume (dangerous word I know) that I should at the very least get something out. This is enough to drive me to give up music production entirely! - DL

No, a softsynth will not work without appropriate hardware support.

At this point, you need to get your computer to make sound in Windows. There's plenty of audio files on your computer, by the way. They're in the system folder somewhere and are there to make noise when you do things like empty the trash, click your mouse, open a menu, that kind of thing. Most people turn this off when they get their computers (it's annoying!), and I suspect that's what's going on in your system. Use the Windows troubleshooter help if you need support with this.

But, you're going to need a professional grade audio device to make music -- the sound chip built in to your computer won't deliver satisfactory performance. Using a laptop complicates matters for a number of reasons, which you can read about laptops and audio in the Sonar forum.

In the meantime, get sound to happen in Windows first. Once you have this configured, you can get Sonar to work with a small plugin synth.

In SONAR soft synths are handled as two tracks: one MIDI track and one Audio/Instrument track (in SONAR 8 there is a new trick for viewing these two as a single instrument track but underneath the two track functions are still separated). The MIDI track's MIDI output is used to drive the Audio/Instrument track which contains the soft synth. The soft synth responds to the MIDI and outputs a a stream of digital audio data to the audio track. The audio track is routed through the SONAR bussing system and eventually is dumped onto the Windows audio device where it is converted from digital to analog and played through your amp/speakers. The MIDI track can use a MIDI input device as a source of MIDI data for real-time control of the soft synth and also this data can be recorded into the MIDI track and played back by the SONAR sequencer.

If you can play an MP3 file in something like Windows Media player then obviously the computer has an audio interface that is working correctly. The next step is to try playing an audio file (either .mp3 or .wav) from a track within SONAR. If that works then your soft synth problem is one of routing MIDI and audio within SONAR. But if you can't get an audio file to play in SONAR then the problem is likely that SONAR is not recognizing the Windows audio interface which in turn means there is probably an audio driver issue between SONAR and Windows and the audio device.

when you first install sonar it should have brought up the wave profiler and done a scan of your pc to see what kinda soundcard you have and what sample rates it supports, when you open sonar is your audio engine light on its wright next to the transport controls (play button stop button etc.) also under the help files included with sonar there are tons of helpful instructions on how to get your audio set up because on the info you have given it sounds like sonar has no idea what or where your sound card is, as far as upgrades there are several cards that will do a much better job than the onboard audio does, aftermarket cards often have way better drivers and play nicer with sonar than onboard cards, being that you have a laptop anything usb 2.0 like m-audio fastrack pro or if you have a firewire port any of the firewire cards will give good results with much better latency which is the amount of time it takes for you to hear the audio.
im sure if you give us all your specs on your system like os and cpu and if you have onboard usb or firewire we can help get the wright soundcard for what you are looking to do. tim

NOS ROCKS, In response to you post, I have a GATEWAY MODEL:MX6448
Board: Gateway MX6448 84.01
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies LTD 84.05 11/01/2006
896 Megabytes Installed Memory
MULTIMEDIA:
SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
USB Audio Device: SOUNDBLASTER 24-bit

When I load SONAR 7 Producer Edition, I get the following error:

The following driver(s) either do not
support the current audio format or are
in use by another application

Please choose whether you want to
disable them or use them anyway

SigmaTel Audio
USB Audio Device 1/2
USB Audio Device 3/4
USB Audio Device 5/6
USB Audio Device 7/8

Then two buttons below
DISABLE or USE ANYWAY. Either button produces no sound

I DO NOT knowingly have any other programs using my sound drivers.

so I got to OPTIONS/AUDIO/WAVE PROFILE on my sound hardware I get the following:
==== SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC (1 in, 1 out) ====
11025 Hz: not available
22050 Hz: not available
44100 Hz: OK
48000 Hz: OK
88200 Hz: OK
96000 Hz: OK
176400 Hz: OK
192000 Hz: OK
==== USB Audio Device (1 in, 4 out) ====
11025 Hz: not available
22050 Hz: not available
44100 Hz: OK
48000 Hz: OK
88200 Hz: not available
96000 Hz: OK
176400 Hz: not available
192000 Hz: not available

I then set my input and output drivers to include the SIGMATEL and the SOUNDBLASTER USB 24-BIT I close Sonar7 and re open it and it opens just fine, But I still get no sound.

The point of all of this (using the laptop) was to edit hymns for worship WITHOUT having to get any other hardware. Seeing as this is becoming an impossibility I am going to give up, move my MOTIF ES keyboard & my Desktop computer to my office, so that I can edit hymns on it. I would assume that cakewalk would not need the lower frequencies. I guess I am wrong. thanks for all the help.

And NICK P, in reference to your post, I have the book as well as "CAKEWALK SYNTHESIZERS" both books do little good, if you get nothing to start with. Thanks anyway

ORIGINAL: tye.dye.gye

I then set my input and output drivers to include the SIGMATEL and the SOUNDBLASTER USB 24-BIT I close Sonar7 and re open it and it opens just fine, But I still get no sound.

The point of all of this (using the laptop) was to edit hymns for worship WITHOUT having to get any other hardware. Seeing as this is becoming an impossibility I am going to give up, move my MOTIF ES keyboard & my Desktop computer to my office, so that I can edit hymns on it. I would assume that cakewalk would not need the lower frequencies. I guess I am wrong. thanks for all the help.

Try using the ASIO drivers from this web site: http://www.asio4all.com/ . Those are general, low-latency ASIO drivers for a lot of different audio devices including many built-in devices for laptops. SONAR is compatible with ASIO and many people use those the ASIO4ALL drivers with SONAR successfully.

It sounds like you know a lot more about this than I do and I'm not sure I understand your whole problem but.... Are your input and output settings on the proper sound card in each track? This killed me for a day! Basic, but as a semi=IT guy, OI find that's what usually ruins my day. Good luck. These guys will get you going if you haven't already.