Routing Tutorial?
Where would be the best place to start reading (or watching video tutorial) about the basic routing? I need to know the basic building blocks of this so I can control what is going on with my midi files. An example of a problem I have had: I learned to insert a soft synth on a track/channel and then copy midi to that track to hear it. But I have this one file where it doesn't work.
The soft synth is SI Bass guitar -- and I have checked to make sure that the midi is playing within an octave that the synth will voice (I had some other tracks where certain notes were dropping out and it was because the notes were too low). But that doesn't seem to be the problem here.
So I don't even know that many things to look for that I might have routed wrong. Also the midi files that I use come from all over the place, some I made from scratch and some came from various places on the internet and I have edited them to suit my purposes. And they are all saved in midi formats 0 and 1 -- so I guess not surprisingly they open with different window layouts and views open and so forth and I am not necessarily in command of how to call up the views I would like to see.
For example, I would often like to see a stereo master volume or master bus or whatever you would call it, and it is there for some of my files and not for others and I don't know how to call it up. I use some of these tracks live and it helps to pan the drums to one side and the rest of the music to the other as it gives me more flexibility when the live performance is going on as I can run it through a little mixer and have separate control for drums and the other music. So the stereo bus at the end is great as I can adjust the relative volume of the two sides without having to go to the individual tracks, or turn one side off without having to mute the individual tracks.
And I know I am going on too long but one more example of trouble -- effects routing -- I have always kept things pretty dry -- but now with my new purchases I have access to some better sounds and effects. So I am open to try to use some effects. But in the meantime I have been using the standard kit right there in the default soft synth that comes up with Artist. And the snare sounds good but it is fairly wet, and I believe the reverb is bleeding across both sides of the stereo mix (remember I am drums one side and all else the other side so I don't want snare reverb in my tones mix)
But I kind of think the reverb I am speaking of is part of the snare sound because most of my midis have commands in them to set the reverb parameter to zero. So is this possible?, if snare is panned hard left and the reverb for it is bleeding across into the right channel? Could the reverb be part of the snare sound if it is bleeding to the other side? That doesn't seem like that would happen now that I am typing it out. Maybe the reverb is some non midi reverb that is somehow inserted in the mix, but I don't see how as the file was just a midi file that I opened with Sonar Artist so why would it have stuff in it beyond midi?
So anyway, if you are still reading LOL you have an idea I hope of the sorts of things I need to learn. I need to know how to set up my workspace so it has the windows that I need consistently when I change from song to song. And I need to know the basics of how to configure the busses and so on. Is that the only way to use a soft synth? Insert it on a track and then put midi on the track to play it? Or can midi from somewhere else be routed to the soft synth?
I am not expecting someone to sit here and answer all of these questions, none of them are absolutely urgent, but rather I have laid all this out to give ya'll an idea of what I need to learn in the hope that someone can direct me to a good source for learning this. Thanks!!