Earwax

mudgel
It's not hard to do, that is to record your VSTi in real time, you just have to be prepared to deal with the issues that it brings up. Send your monitor source out of your audio device and loop it back onto another track making sure that that track is out of your monitor path. Voila, you have a live recoding of your performance. If you are going to add further material you'll have to nudge the recorded VSTi audio tracks.

No one is saying what you describe hasn't been tried. Those who like to record "live" have been doing it (or some variant) for years. A substantially more direct method is what is being suggested. Some get the concept, and some don't. Some prefer the methodology, and some don't. I'm okay with that. People work differently. But to suggest (and I'm not saying you are), that one method is superior to the other, or that people who prefer one method over the other are somehow brain-damaged, is ludicrous. 

mudgel

Earwax

mudgel
It's not hard to do, that is to record your VSTi in real time, you just have to be prepared to deal with the issues that it brings up. Send your monitor source out of your audio device and loop it back onto another track making sure that that track is out of your monitor path. Voila, you have a live recoding of your performance. If you are going to add further material you'll have to nudge the recorded VSTi audio tracks.

No one is saying what you describe hasn't been tried. Those who like to record "live" have been doing it (or some variant) for years. A substantially more direct method is what is being suggested. Some get the concept, and some don't. Some prefer the methodology, and some don't. I'm okay with that. People work differently. But to suggest (and I'm not saying you are), that one method is superior to the other, or that people who prefer one method over the other are somehow brain-damaged, is ludicrous. 

I merely suggested a way to do what you want. I certainly didn't equate the desire for your way of wanting to do it with anything of a derogatory nature neither do I say one way was superior. At this time there just isn't a way except for fairly unacceptable work arounds. I get what you want to do. I've been doing this (recording)one way or another for over 45 years.
Remember if your sound source is a VSTi then the MIDI you play either live or recorded can't possibly play different audio.
So while the guitarist is playing audio you're not. You're playing a MIDI performance. Now if that MIDI performance can create the subtleties and nuances of your live playing of it then the recording of it can't be any different. The only way you might be able to do that is to record the audio itself, and seeing it's MIDI triggered in what way could it be different whether recorded live or bounced or frozen.

gunboatdiplomacy

timg11

The Grumbleweed
bounce out the synth to your desktop (or wherever) and drag it back in Sonar.

I'm not sure what you mean by "bounce to desktop", but I played around with the bounce to tracks method more and finally got it to work. I discovered these facts:
 
1) You have to uncheck Fast Bounce (checked by default), and check Audible Bounce.  This is not mentioned in the 9-step procedure in the help file.
2) Presets don't fully "preset". They save some settings but not others. Notably, the Destination track and the Source Buses/Tracks are not part of the preset, and your settings are not remembered, even between sequential uses in the same project. They have to be manually set every time.
 
I still don't understand why the direct recording of the synth is not allowed.
 

... in DP, this action wasn't considered a bounce; you were just recording the output of your instrument to a track, thus you could also record vocals or tamborine or whatever while the other tracks were recording output from your synth.

Anderton

Earwax
Because the guitarists in the bands cited in my examples are not recording gestures. They are recording sounds. They are recording sounds at the same time as the keyboardist and drummer are recording their sounds and some (depending on the VSTi and what performance tweaks they are using) of their gestures.  The live performance breaks down even in duo or trio recording without the ability to record VST/VSTi directly into Sonar. 

SONAR is recording the sound of the guitar.

jatoth
If you assign CCs to physically manipulate the parameters, "live input" should work.
 
Does it not?
 

Anderton

Earwax
 
Not if the final audio from the guitar is the output of an amp sim and VST effects in Sonar. If Sonar could playback and record output from VST/VSTi at the same time, from multiple sources, there would be no issue. It can't. In my examples, more than one person wants to record VST/VSTi audio at the same time. No way can Sonar do that.   

I'm really trying not to be dense here, but this doesn't make sense to me. SONAR can play the output from a VST and VSTi in real time (plus any latency, of course) and record the input to them at the same time, so it can reproduce the sound heard during the real time performance at a later time. Sure, it won't physically record the output onto a track, but why would that matter? The object of recording the real-time output would be so you can play it back at some point, right? But you can play it back now, with the same results as the real-time performance (with the exception of stochastic devices that produce variable outputs even with the same input). 
 
With non-stochastic devices, I'm just not seeing how there would be any difference in functionality or sound between hearing something in real-time and recording its output so you can play it back, and hearing something in real-time and recording its input so you can hear the same output you heard originally when playing it back. 
 
I'm really not trying to be argumentative or anything, I just don't understand how there's any practical difference between the two yet people here seem to believe sincerely there would be, so I want to know what I'm missing. However if this relates only to stochastic devices, then I do understand the difference.

Earwax
I would absolutely love for someone to tell me how to achieve the results I want. I've had enough people tell me I shouldn't need to.

tlw

Earwax
I would absolutely love for someone to tell me how to achieve the results I want. I've had enough people tell me I shouldn't need to.

OK, a serious suggestion. Maybe you ought to consider moving away from VSTis and towards hardware synths. It's a different, "old fashioned" way of working that's often much slower and comes with its' own frustrations, such as trying to get voltage-controlled gear to make the same sound twice. It does have a very different feel to it than working entirely "in the box".

Hardware brings it's own set of compromises, not least in terms of space and cost, but having started with (MIDI-less) hardware synths because that was the only kind of synth there was at the time, then tried software and never been really happy with the results, I took a decision to move back to hardware the day I picked up a DSI Mopho out of interest and tracked it against a couple of VSTis and the Mopho trampled all over them.

I just wish synths like that had been around 30 years ago at today's prices. Now is perhaps the best time there's ever been to be into analogue.

Despite being primarily a guitarist, I've never used digital/vst guitar amp/fx "emulators" much either as it happens, perhaps because I grew up with the real thing.

tlw
Exactly. If a VSTi is MIDI controlled no function on it (if we disregard the rarely used NRPN side of MIDI) can have any value other than a fixed number between 0-127 (or 1-128). There are no nuances that a live performance contains that "fit between the numbers" because even if the VSTi can do it, the controller can't.

There may be VSTis that don't work internally within the restrictions of MIDI (I don't use enough software synths to know), but if the MIDI controller they are operated by can only send 128 fixed values that is all the synth is going to receive no matter whether the MIDI is recorded and the track then bounced/frozen or the synth's output is recorded during the performance as audio. The result will be the same.

swamptooth

tlw
Exactly. If a VSTi is MIDI controlled no function on it (if we disregard the rarely used NRPN side of MIDI) can have any value other than a fixed number between 0-127 (or 1-128). There are no nuances that a live performance contains that "fit between the numbers" because even if the VSTi can do it, the controller can't.

There may be VSTis that don't work internally within the restrictions of MIDI (I don't use enough software synths to know), but if the MIDI controller they are operated by can only send 128 fixed values that is all the synth is going to receive no matter whether the MIDI is recorded and the track then bounced/frozen or the synth's output is recorded during the performance as audio. The result will be the same.

Unless you're dealing with a synth that accepts OSC(Open Sound Control) http://opensoundcontrol.o...tion-osc messages via non-traditional user interfaces.  MIDI isn't the only game in town.  Sonar can't record OSC messages (neither can most daws).  
And good luck recording any midi from a synth that has randomization functions - here's a pretty extreme example using Dimension pro and its built-in randomizers.   http://youtu.be/umWuQfwMnKk
Honestly, though, no skin off my nose because I have 3 other daws I can do this in, it would just be nice to have Sonar do it so I can get closer to a 100% complete solution.
This functionality is ideal for live resampling into other synths and tools.  Something I don't do a lot. but enough to justify shelling out 500 bucks for alternatives.