abacab

davdud101

abacab
Here's another cool deal for just $1.
 
SONiVOX Orchestral Companion Strings
https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/virtual-instruments/sonivox-orchestral-companion-strings
 All sections are fully represented, including 1st violins, 2nd violins, violas, cellos and contra basses. Up and down bow bowing, sustain, staccato, and spiccato notes, plus instrument pizzicato and tremolo articulations provide the depth of content needed for convincing ensemble string parts and tracks.
 

Couldn't help it - at that cost, I bought two licenses for my two machines.
 
Up and down bowing is SUPER important to me with strings synths. It's taking a minute to download, so I'll go ahead and ask- and I didn't look crazy-hard into it before purchasing (but like I said, no loss whatsoever at $1), but are you able to, for example, route one MIDI channel to one set of instruments? (I probably said it wrong as I don't have SONAR in front of me right now, but I mean like in Xpand where you have four separate MIDI channels, each of which can have it's own separate instrument and MIDI track)?
 
The last thing that would've made Xpand!2 a KILLER piece of software was if each of the four channels could further be individually routed out to other audio tracks/busses for processing without the whole thing having only one output. Still amazing software!!
 
Yikes! Hopefully my bank acct doesn't start looking a bit thin from all these $1 deals. Gotta save a little for the expensive stuff too! 

Just to let know, you should get two activations with each license.  Perfect for a desktop and laptop combo.
 
The SONiVOX instruments are not multi-timbral, so you would need to insert multiple instances into your project, one for each MIDI channel/sound.  But is is light enough so that should not be an issue unless you are running an old computer.
 
For Xpand!2, say for example if you insert 4 instances of the VST and group related instruments into the 4 Xpand!2 VSTs, you have 16 total channels of MIDI and four audio ports.  So you can manage and process the audio out from each group of 4 sounds separately in the DAW.  For example, this may be most useful for processing the percussion separate from the other instruments, by placing the percussion in one instance of the VST.
 
Yup, big bang for the buck!!! 

I bought it too.  It's good, and for a dollar, jeez.  I almost didn't install it because of the iLok license mgr. (no mention there about that), but it does sort of fit a niche between the various inexpensive string/orchestral things I have.   Very cool.

declan
 
I bought it too.  It's good, and for a dollar, jeez.  I almost didn't install it because of the iLok license mgr. (no mention there about that)

Same here. I was stressin' out HARD-core cuz I couldn't get it to start up in X3 when I wanted it to. I still have a couple "bugs" when trying to run it, like how it switched/defaults the patches on startup of the program/stopping playback (usually because of the settings on the MIDI track... any clue how to fix this?), as well as that it sometimes just doesn't load.
 
But those problems can be overlooked 

Sorry you're having problems davdud.  It works fine here in SPLAT & in Reaper. 

Same here davdud.  The OC Strings is one that I never have any problems with.  Starts up here every time in X3 and Splat.  Do you have issues with any other plugins?
 
The selected instrument patches are always recalled when opening a saved project.  Are you working with the factory presets or are you saving custom patches?  Are you trying to assign patch changes in the MIDI file?
 
The fact that you mention patches switching when stopping/starting MIDI file playback leads me to believe you have a bank/patch change in the event list.  Other than that I'm out of ideas.  I don't use the patch/change method much with soft synths, just set the instrument for one sound per track and leave it at that.  If I need another sound, I use a different track.  But I have seen some strange patch changes with imported GM MIDI files.
 
Bank/patch change: https://www.cakewalk.com/...;help=Playback.24.html
 
Event list: https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=EditingMIDI.44.html#1085014
 

OC Strings is always fine for me - loads up every time, no problem. Even loading 4 of 5 instances at once, it's surprisingly lightweight given that you get 7 or 8 gbs of content. I can't think of any other VSTi's just NOT loading or having trouble loading besides Xpand.
I've got a sort of orchestral template with no fewer than 4 instances of Xpand - takes FOREVER to load, sometimes DOESN'T load, etc. But that's a combination of poor planning and low-level system. Xpand isn't the most lightweight thing out there, but it does so darned well that it's worth keeping around.
 
With Xpand, I generally don't do any patch changes at all, one patch per MIDI track, four MIDI tracks per instance of the plugin.
But like you mentioned, abacab, I use Xpand a *lot* with imported MIDI files and often times I end up with {many MIDI tracks that already have a patch or bank setting on the MIDI track's properties.

I'll look into maybe some leftover patch changes from Sibelius - but often times, if I try to set the bank or patch afterwards (to sort of default them to blank settings in the MIDI tracks), the patches resetting in Xpand becomes a bit of a problem.
But I've so far had BIGGER problems when I had stuff where I was saving custom patches inside Xpand. I was working on a rock tune where I had an organ, two guitars and a bass in Xpand, and because it defaulted all four patches twice, I saved the patch in Xpand and just loaded it up every time, saving right after I made changes every time.

I looked back through the MIDI tracks and there were no traces of patches changes in the MIDI clips, so I chalk it up to messing around too mucch with patch/bank controls on the tracks' individual controls. Not sure how to set them so that they don't "move" or do anything weird, but also don't look like they'll randomly change to something else because they're not all "defaulted".
 
that was a lot :3

davdud101
OC Strings is always fine for me - loads up every time, no problem. Even loading 4 of 5 instances at once, it's surprisingly lightweight given that you get 7 or 8 gbs of content. I can't think of any other VSTi's just NOT loading or having trouble loading besides Xpand.
I've got a sort of orchestral template with no fewer than 4 instances of Xpand - takes FOREVER to load, sometimes DOESN'T load, etc. But that's a combination of poor planning and low-level system. Xpand isn't the most lightweight thing out there, but it does so darned well that it's worth keeping around.
 
With Xpand, I generally don't do any patch changes at all, one patch per MIDI track, four MIDI tracks per instance of the plugin.
But like you mentioned, abacab, I use Xpand a *lot* with imported MIDI files and often times I end up with {many MIDI tracks that already have a patch or bank setting on the MIDI track's properties.

I'll look into maybe some leftover patch changes from Sibelius - but often times, if I try to set the bank or patch afterwards (to sort of default them to blank settings in the MIDI tracks), the patches resetting in Xpand becomes a bit of a problem.
But I've so far had BIGGER problems when I had stuff where I was saving custom patches inside Xpand. I was working on a rock tune where I had an organ, two guitars and a bass in Xpand, and because it defaulted all four patches twice, I saved the patch in Xpand and just loaded it up every time, saving right after I made changes every time.

I looked back through the MIDI tracks and there were no traces of patches changes in the MIDI clips, so I chalk it up to messing around too mucch with patch/bank controls on the tracks' individual controls. Not sure how to set them so that they don't "move" or do anything weird, but also don't look like they'll randomly change to something else because they're not all "defaulted".
 
that was a lot :3

OK, I thought we were talking about OC Strings.  But no problem!  The same applies to Xpand!2.  Have never seen issues loading Xpand!2. If I create a project with 4 instances of Xpand!2 with all 4 parts stacked up, it loads in a few seconds, and typically Sonar + the project uses less than 0.5GB of memory.  The whole sample library is in a compressed format that takes up a total of 1.5GB on disk.  As far as I can tell. it's actually pretty light.
 
Like I said, I don't mess around with bank/program changes.  So if I save a project with a preset selected manually in most any VST, Sonar it opens up with that preset still selected.  The only time I have seen an exception with this is with some VST3's that were not fully standard compliant.
 
Out of curiousity, I poked around in the Sonar synth rack and the MIDI track inspector's view, and it occurred to me that the Patch Browser there did not show any patch changes available for Xpand!2, however if I loaded Cakewalk TTS-1 up as an instrument, all of the GM patches were listed and could be selected from there, if you first select a specific MIDI channel in the track view.
 
Maybe somebody with experience using the bank/patch selection with soft synths can chime in here, or you could post a new thread asking this question. 

Friends , just a question of curiosity , is halion security system allows like 2,computer like ilok or they still with their unique licence to put on the elicencer stick to move from comp to comp ?

davdud101

I looked back through the MIDI tracks and there were no traces of patches changes in the MIDI clips, so I chalk it up to messing around too mucch with patch/bank controls on the tracks' individual controls. Not sure how to set them so that they don't "move" or do anything weird, but also don't look like they'll randomly change to something else because they're not all "defaulted".

I played around a bit with the Event List on one track with Xpand!2.  I added one patch change event on MIDI channel 1 to a random patch number (no patch names are view-able in the event List). It seems that if there is a patch change event, it can switch the active preset to something else.  There is apparently only one bank of 127 patch numbers to work with, so there is no way to map all of the presets in the VST.  This might work with something that has a GM sound bank, such as TTS-1, but otherwise not so much.
 
The best plan would probably be to ensure that no patch change events exist in the MIDI clip, as you say you have done.  Depending on the source of the MIDI file, there also may be something buried in the MIDI data that Sonar is not exposing.  Maybe running the file through an alternate MIDI editor may turn up some clues?
 
Bottom line is that this, and maybe other VST instruments can be susceptible to rogue patch change events.  I have seen a few weird things regarding VSTs using imported MIDI song files, especially those that load sysx data on launch.

Zo
Friends , just a question of curiosity , is halion security system allows like 2,computer like ilok or they still with their unique licence to put on the elicencer stick to move from comp to comp ?

According to a fellow from Steinberg, he wrote (on the Steinberg forum):
 
Last, but still worth mentioning: HALion and HALion Sonic no longer require the USB-eLicenser. If you already have an USB-eLicenser with a HALion license you can, of course, keep your license management on the USB.
 
To me that implies there's a software equivalent of the eLicenser mechanism, but it's not clear from this particular post.  As stated, the eLicenser dongle will still get the job done as well for those who want easy movement between computers.

abacab
 
I played around a bit with the Event List on one track with Xpand!2.  I added one patch change event on MIDI channel 1 to a random patch number (no patch names are view-able in the event List). It seems that if there is a patch change event, it can switch the active preset to something else.  There is apparently only one bank of 127 patch numbers to work with, so there is no way to map all of the presets in the VST.  This might work with something that has a GM sound bank, such as TTS-1, but otherwise not so much.
 
The best plan would probably be to ensure that no patch change events exist in the MIDI clip, as you say you have done.  Depending on the source of the MIDI file, there also may be something buried in the MIDI data that Sonar is not exposing.  Maybe running the file through an alternate MIDI editor may turn up some clues?
 

I suspect it's this. It would've been REALLY cool if the Patch Menu on the MIDI track could list all the available patches in Xpand!2, dividing up the categories as banks.
Could certainly be something inside the MIDI files that's not viewable in the Event Editor. I'll check that out and see what I dig up!