This actually started, randomly, while I was on Sonar 8.5, and has now continued over to Sonar X3 (I just upgraded today).
 
If I add an instance of Omnisphere, I can't control it from my keyboard until I select Midi Channel 1. HOWEVER, it appears my problem is worse now in X3 becuase there is no Midi Channel selection on an instrument track...
 
Sure enough I can add a Midi track, set it to Channel 1 and output to the Omnisphere instrument track, but that's a lot of steps. I thought I could maybe do a Track Template, but the Track Template would then point to the first instance of Omnisphere, so no matter what I'd have multiple extra steps...
 
It's not just Omnisphere... Kontakt behaves in a similar way (requires a midi channel to be selected) and others as well. And then some don't need a Midi channel to be selected and just work right away...
 
Any ideas?
 
Thanks so much everyone.

Every multi-timbral synth I have defaults to channel 1. I guess it's so they're ready to host multiple voices on separate channels. Imagine the chaos if you had 16 voices in Kontakt or Omnisphere all set to "omni"!
 
As for the difficulty in setting MIDI channels on Instrument tracks, the solution's easy for that one: don't use them cursed kludges. Use separate MIDI and audio tracks, with track templates to streamline the process. You can even save a MIDI/audio pair as a track template.

Man you're the 3rd person to tell me this! haha. I was SO excited back when the simplified instrument track became a thing (Sonar 5 maybe? I forget) and I've been using them ever since but apparently no one else has haha. It's so weird cause everything USED to default to channel 1, but then at some point they started defaulting to omni which of course is what caused the trouble. The difference is that in Sonar 8.5 I was able to then choose the channel for the instrument track... In X3 you apparently can't choose a channel for them...
 
Anyway, I guess I'm just gonna have to suck it up and start using the 2 separate tracks again. ORRRRR now that I've figured out how to insert an audio and midi again (it's been FOREVER haha)... Maybe I'll just make templates for Omni and Kontakt and any other multitribral synths i have and keep on using the instrument tracks... MWAHAHAHAHA :-)
 
 
 
(I'll probably just suck it up and start using the separate audio and midi tracks)

on the strip is says OMNI and there is a little pull down you can create a preset and set the channel to what you want to 1-16 and Omni.  name the preset Omnisphere 4 or something and select that preset.
 
that should give you multiple instrument instances and allow for different channels.
 
am I seeing something your not?
 
I generally do separate midi/audio tracks of each instance of a synth or omnispehere.  lets ya tweak the midi and record the audio of the synth.  create a template with multiples if ya need to.

For instrument tracks, at the bottom of the Inspector there will be an Audio and a MIDI tab.  Just switch to the MIDI tab (Audio is the default) and you can set the channel, bank, patch, etc.
 
I personally use SITs most of the time and use the traditional split design for multi-timbral instances.  You can, of course, also split a SIT into a MIDI/Audio pair and recombine it afterwards if needed.   Flexibility is a good thing.

Instrument tracks are great for vsts like Diva, Zebra, Synthmaster and Alchemy, all single channel vsts...
Kontakt/Omnisphere and other multi channel beasts are best in a folder with all their midi/audio tracks set up and the whole shebang saved as a template...

Shrink the folder and it's nice and clean! I'm mobile right now but just Google the forum on setting kontakt up...I just figured it out myself thanks to the gurus who give us so much of their wisdom!

Guess what everyone...
 
So this past weekend, I was having an issue where my keys had been transposed and for example when I hit an A on the keyboard, it was really hitting an F# and so on... So I looked up how to totally factory reset my keyboard... Fixed the problem and moved on...
 
Then today, I just randomly without thinking loaded an instance of Omnisphere and started tapping away on the keys without setting Channel 1... It works like it used to!!! YES! I'm so happy haha. I guess it's good to know how to do the track folder with the separate audio/midi tracks, but for most cases I really don't need it and now I can finally go back to doing it how I used to.

As steve says above you can set the channel on an instrument track. It is done via the inspector MIDI track.

polarbear,
 
It's still worth setting up a track template for Omnisphere. You just do it once - set up 8 channels of MIDI, and either different Omnisphere outputs to go with them or (as I do) just have everything come out one set of outputs. The instance of Omnisphere is part of the track template - so if you want another instance of Omnisphere - just use the same track template again ;-)
 
After that - do it once for Kontakt (there are lots of threads about this) - then you're set forever (well, for a while anyway...)

Yea track templates are definitely a good option... It's just so much more fun using the browser though :-)
 
And Noel, I'll check for that, but I did some PRETTY HEAVY searching throughout the interface and never once did I find a place you can change the channel of an instrument track. I mean I searched and searched. Where as on a MIDI track, it's just RIGHT THERE... so I don't know. But if you saw my original problem, it was that multi channel synths USED to not require me to select a channel when I first loaded them and all the sudden they started requiring me to choose a channel before any sound would come out. Apparently after all this time it turns out it wasn't Sonar but it was my keyboard that was the problem, since now after factory resetting my keyboard, I find that it's gone back to working the way it used to. Happy days. :-)