I have a sonar5 producer I'm using on a windows xp(home) computer. The Sonar5 book doesn't explain anything about dmx, because it had not hit the market yet. So does anyone know how I assign the dmx lights so they trigger the scenes when I hit a key on my piano roll? Confusion is setting in.

Very little direct experience with DMX controllers myself, but I can't imagine why it wouldn't be compatible, as long as the controller accepts MIDI input. That feature is not universal, so it's possible you'd need a MIDI-to-DMX bridge. But if you can currently control the lights with a MIDI controller, then you'll be able to control them from SONAR 5 as well.

I've been reading a little on it, and I'm thinking my edirol UA-20 might be a little out dated for starters. Now the 'usb' cable runs to a 'usb' in for the edirol. The edirol has a midi 'in' & 'out'. So I'm thinking I need to run a 'usb/midi' cable from the computer straight to the midi 'in' on the edirol. Then run midi 'out' to the dmx. I'm assuming the usb/midi will supply the power to the edirol? If so, the they only run about $40, which is not a problem to make this work. Thanks for the reply BitFlipper!

That does not sound right. In addition to sending audio to the PC, the edirol sends and receives MIDI via the USB connection. The MIDI in and out are for your MIDI devices. No need for a USB/MIDI cable.

What I was thinking was because the 'usb' cable from the computer to the edirol is a standard 'usb' cable, the interface is conerting the midi data coming from the computer into an audio, but not allowing it to continue as a midi signal anymore, therefore not allowing any Sysx data through etc.. So what I'm thinking is if it's a mid cable coming in, it's sending the midi in through the 5-pins, allowing all signals of midi through to the 5-pin 'midi in' on the dmx board. This is just my guess at it of course.

Refer to page 50 of the the UA-20 owners manual. It has a diagram on how to connect MIDI devices to the interface. The owner's manual is available here. The edirol to PC connection is a standard USB cable that handles all audio and MIDI. The MIDI connections, just like the audio connections on the edirol are for your devices.

My setup is the same exact way, but instead of the 'midi out' going to a sound device, it's going to the dmx board. My other big problem is 'Cakewalk' does not have any guide on how to setup in the 'Sysx' area an assign a channel for the midi to send to dmx.

I think you've got it right. USB from computer to the interface, then a 5-pin DIN cable from the interface to the DMX controller (or MIDI-DMX bridge). The same way you'd connect any external MIDI device, such as a synthesizer, through the UA-20.
 
It's been a long time since I've saved or restored sysex blocks via SONAR, and I no longer have the SONAR 5 help file on hand, but I did check the SONAR 6 help and there is a 10-page section there on sysex. I'm pretty sure it'll also be in your S5 documentation, since decent support for sysex loading and dumping has been around in Cakewalk products since Cakewalk 1.0 for DOS.

You cannot normally directly control DMX with MIDI    you need a convertor box. Read this
 
http://response-box.com/g...irGen7oCFUOe4AodJzMA5A
 
But if your Dimmer board has a MIDI input then possibly that has the converter built in. You answers are all in the manual for the dimmer board, not Sonar. You first have to learn which MIDI events trigger which lights and parameters. The older systems simply used a MIDI channel or even notes for each light. Note on/ off turned the lights on and off.
Then basic level commands like cc10 for fader level etc. But each brand implemented it differently.
 
There's no need for Sonars manual to explain DMX as the commands are going to be different from brand to brand I'm afraid there seems to be no GM - DMX ha ha. . And you need to understand that the USB connection to your computer handles both MIDI and Audio in/ out from your interface. The MIDI output of your interface will send all MIDI data onward to any device.
 
Try hooking a MIDI keyboard to the controller and see which notes or channels run the lights.