Recording individual midi/audio tracks

Please Help!

I have a Yamaha keyboard that let's me record my playing on separate tracks, without blending everything together. So, if I record, say piano first  and strings second, it will let me hear each one on its own track. Is that possible with Sonar? The reason why I want to be able to do this is because, I want to start recording on top of each sound and be able to hear them each one on there own.

Thanks!

edpdx

Can you please, walk me through?

 I record on the fly, so it is important that I record midi and audio at the same time, with each individual sound and take.

 - Let's say I open a VST plug in and select one sound and record what I play(midi and audio) - Track 1

 - Select another sound and record midi/audio again on - track 2

 But this is where I run into trouble. In order to record the second take, I need to listen, to what I played first, in order to get a feel and record on top of that first idea/sound . When I hit record - on the second track, it blends the old and the new take together on audio track 2.
I want track 1 and track 2 to have there own separate audio data not blended

Thanks

I have an external Sounblaster. How do you change the settings?

Thanks!

I already know how to work the mixer window on Sounblaster. I am thinking that I could route, track 1 to my laptop internal speakers and record the new take on Sounblaster, to keep everything apart  but so far, it won't let me do it.

It really shouldn't be that complicated. It can all go through Sonar and out of one set speakers or headphones or both etc. Unfortunately I've not used a soundblaster card in a long, long time so I'm unfamiliar with its inputs and settings etc. They do however work like normal soundcards and you can record and listen like everyone else.

You need to check the settings associated with the soundblaster and the inputs on each track in Sonar and the general set up. There should be no problem in using Sonar the way we all do.

I don't think you've figured it out, sorry. It seems to me you're totally confused. And remember that ASIO drivers can only use one soundcard at a time unless they're similar ones.

Read the manual (on your Sonar DVD) and do the tutorials to get an idea what Sonar is about.

Also your explanation about recording midi and audio simultaneously from your keyboard using VSTs is odd, to say the least.

The fact that you had to ask if Sonar can do multitracking (!!!!!) indicates you haven't done even one page of your homework.
You have no idea of what kind of a beast you've engaged to

Anyway, don't let me discourage you! We've all been beginners. Enjoy making music, but don't expect the forum to spoonfeed you with the most elementary functions that you're expected to find out yourself.

Edpdx, Kalle is giving you very sound advice. As to recording audio along side MIDI its not that uncommon. On the other hand your response about memorizing all the notes is a little nonsensical. Maybe you really don't know what you have when you record MIDI.

Because you are using a very poor sound card for your recording in Sonar its no wonder you are having trouble doing so. However that card is quite capable of recording both and allowing a previous track to be played back without recording it on the new track.  Here it would greatly benefit you to learn how to do this with that card. You will need to read its manual and learn how to route audio with its software mixer. 

First you will need to turn off "what you hear" in its mixer. Its been so long ago that I used a CL card that it slips my memory as to the steps involved.

I understood this so that you thought you could record the audio of the VST in realtime with the midi, which can not be done.

Actually, it can be done with the "what u hear" input selection on the Soundblaster routing output back to input, but then you run into the issue of re-recording previous takes on each new track as the OP is experiencing.


edpdx, the conventional way of using soft synths is to only record the MIDI. Strictly speaking, soft synth parts can remain as MIDI tracks until you are ready to export the finished mix. If your CPU is getting over-loaded, you can bounce or freeze soft synths to audio, which are "offline" processes that render audio much faster than real-time recording. There are other situations in which you might want to render MIDI to audio before the final mix-down, but I don;t think you've described a workflow that would necessitate that.

So you should use a single soundcard, turn off "What U Hear", and just record MIDI to individual MIDI or Instrument tracks.

And that's exactly it. You don't get to just jump in and start recording with any DAW. Each one has a very steep learning curve. Once you get the basics they all share similarity's and functions.
So it's very much worth you time to do both jump in and try stuff but read, read, read. and a little posting here when you don't understand or get in a jam. Everybody here goes through it.
The most common problems are related to the sound card and signal path.
I didn't know that CL made a USB sound card? At first I though you were talking about an Audigy series which is PCI with a front panel break out box. I have one of those and It actually can make very good 24/48 audio recordings. I used the digital inputs and outputs. It had terrible MIDI latency issues so I bought something else. Unless I used MME for MIDI it was at least 12 MS delay or worse.

If you ask me I don't think this has anything to do with sound card options...

You stated you want to record separate tracks for separate patches or channels (Piano/Strings/etc) and then be able to hear back what you played and record a new track... you stated using a VST plug-in are you reffering to a soft synth or midi or audio effect?

Regardless

So here is what I would do.... Open a 16 channel MIDI session with soft synth(Virtual Synth) preset from the Sonar Preset menu when creating a new session... Now you have 16 tracks of MIDI.

Add your audio tracks.

Select your source (MIDI input via keyboard and patch- 1 is default for piano,etc) Go through all your tracks and tell them what channel and what patch. Assign the inputs to your audio tracks.

Now arm you audio and MIDI tracks that you want to lay down first (say MIDI 1 and 2 so you have Piano and Keys or one track at a time or however you want to do it-you can layer up to certain amount of notes- or whatever)

Then un-arm the first track (or how ever many tracks you just recorded) and arm the next MIDI track you want to record to....

Record while playing back everything... the ONLY thing you will record is what you have armed... if you have 2 tracks running off channel 1 it might re-record the data(MIDI triggering) you have assigned to channel 1.... so make sure you are using another channel.

You should not have any problems blending old with new if you have a separate track and the original MIDI track is not armed.

Then you should have 16 separate tracks of MIDI to mix as you see fit.

Hi, Edpdx - Coming in at the end of this circular argument of a thread - Something that may help in response to your last post here:

"...There is something off, when bouncing to tracks..."

Yes, I see the difference in what you've circled there.  Yes - there's something off, but not just when bouncing to tracks.  That teeny variance could happen when exporting audio directly also.

The Something which is "off" is MIDI itself, simply speaking.  You will detect small differences in the playback of any synth you can name, every time you play a project.  Who knows what all the reasons are for that?  It doesn't matter, because it's just The Way Things Are.

But here's the good news - It doesn't matter. 

For that first note you've circled to be 1/100th louder in the .wav form than in the MIDI track is something that No Ear On Earth would notice or care about it.  If you as the engineer can't stand how it's not what you intended - then fix it with a volume envelope, or destructively change the amplitude of that note.  But I guarantee you--the work won't be worth it.  You're being too Tight with your grasp on your music.

More good news - You can try several different ways to record your MIDI, and depending on the synth you're using, some will be more accurate than others.  You don't have to try just Fast Bounce or regular speed bounce--You can record in real time with the audio playing.  With that option (available in the bounce dialogue) you can sit with your ears glued to the speakers/headphones and you'll notice right away if something isn't being played right.  Odds are it Will be played right in real time.  But if you do notice something you don't like, just push Escape - answer the pop up and say Yes you want to keep how much is recorded that far - And then simply start a bounce again, from the point where you stopped, or logical place close by.

---There's some stuff to help you out.

Randy B.

Well I think its not so random as Randy is saying. It really matters what synth one using to show this discrepancy. For example if its a drum sampler such as Battery then its very possible for two takes from the same MIDI data giving slightly different results simply due to it being able to have a random function for velocity. 

MIDI is very reliable when it comes to playback of the very same notes played the very same way depending on the sophistication or not of the synth used for the sounds. The less sophisticated the synth the more likely the sound will be the same on repeated playback. Then it also depends on what is being used with in a synth. If a sound is being modulated via tempo and the ilke. There are a lot of reasons for MIDI data to not produce the same sound on repeated play but not due to any inherent instability in MIDI. 

There are a lot of reasons for MIDI data to not produce the same sound on repeated play but not due to any inherent instability in MIDI.

 
I would agree if the OP were comparing one offline rendering to another, but he's not. He's comparing a real-time recording (albeit presumably a digital loop-back, not analog) of a soft synth driven by live MIDI input with an offline rendering from recorded MIDI.  Even with soft synths, there is some delay and jitter in the real-time transmission of MIDI and the synth's response to it that you won't have with offline rendering. This can cause small phase differences in a synths's built-in effects processing and in the interaction between signals from overlapping notes that would easily account for small variations in amplitude peaks.
 
Also, although it may not be a factor here, it should be kept in mind that what you see is not necessarily what you get in SONAR; the waveform display is a very rough approximation of the sample values in the audio file, and will vary from one zoom level to the next, and maybe even with things like track color. The visual representation of audio is useful for some things, but I wouldn't put too much stock in such a tiny difference in the displayed peaks, especially at such a low zoom level.
 
 
 

If you look up reviews on that sound card it is seems to get mostly good and better comments from people using it with DAWS. ( better than my Audigy). So just a follow up on that point. It seemingly should function just fine, no different than any other entry level device. It's design was for giving surround sound for Gamers with laptops. MIDI should be 100%. Digital in/out means it could be all you needed if you use a digital mixer.