After waiting on hold for over 20 min. I was relegated to this means of support. My keyboard controller plays fine thru a MIDI ch., but I can't get ANY of the softsynths to play any sounds from a MIDI ch. I have the Input coming from the Alesis Firewire MIDI, on each specific corresponding MIDI ch., as opposed to MIDI Omni. I have the Output set to whatever s'synth I'm using. That's the way I've always done it before. What's changed?

Also, why don't the Dimension or sfz player have selectable banks and/or patches?

HELP,
KC

When you open up a softsynth, Sonar creates a midi track and an audio track. Do you have the corresponding audio track configured so you can hear it?

Tutorials 2 and 8 should be read
Cj

Sorry you had to come here for help.

I don't understand why you feel that by coming to the user forum you were "relegated". Many folks would come here first before they bothered tech support with this type of question. Its more a case of your understanding or the lack of it of how SONAR processes MIDI through a softsynth to generate Audio.

What's changed you ask?
You've probably forgotten how to insert softsynths. Nothing's changed in SONAR with how softsynths are inserted. Where are your Audio tracks? Got to have them to make sound in SONAR.

You are better off inserting softsynths via the Insert menu then you can ask SONAR to open all the relevant audio tracks as well and make all the necessary connections between MIDI tracks, softsynths and Audio tracks.
BTW: If you are not set to recieve MIDI Omni you need to make sure that your Controller is transmitting on the same channel you have set to receive.

All this is covered in great detail in Tutorial 2 & 8 as cj suggested. Press F1 for help. the links for the tutorials are on the opening page of the help file.

Also, why don't the Dimension or sfz player have selectable banks and/or patches?

I don't understand your question properly.

I installed SONAR X1 first with win 7 Pro 64bit, on 8Gb of ram n Core-2 duo 3Ghz, 6 Mb cache processor, then secondly installed SNAR 7 PE full. These both were working perfectly with SOFT SYNTHS, when i installed a vsti named SWARPLUG, it was running smoothly on SONAR X1 but when i opened SONAR 7 pe it was working v wel with aoudio tracks, but when i added a soft synth it stoped running even the play curser also stoped moving. When i run to scane Plugin Manager, it shows some error missind midi divice settings n dll files not found. Now when i open sonar X1 it also gives the same errors on scanning vsti.
Kindly HELP......

Dimension and Rapture are not multitimbral synths like the TTS-1, which means each instance can only play one sound at a time. So on those types of softsynths, you select the patch from the program browser in the interface. For each different sound, you have to load a new instance of the softsynth. 

While they are not like TTS-1. Both DimPro and Rapture have multi-timbral modes.
 
From the DimPro help file:
Each of the four Elements can function as a separate instrument, if you want to use a single instance of Dimension as a four-part multi-timbral instrument.
 
From the Rapture help file:
Each of the six Elements can function as a separate instrument, if you want to use a single instance of Rapture as a six-part multi-timbral instrument.

scook
While they are not like TTS-1. Both DimPro and Rapture have multi-timbral modes.
 
From the DimPro help file:
Each of the four Elements can function as a separate instrument, if you want to use a single instance of Dimension as a four-part multi-timbral instrument.
 
From the Rapture help file:
Each of the six Elements can function as a separate instrument, if you want to use a single instance of Rapture as a six-part multi-timbral instrument.

True. I was trying to keep it simple. Dimension and Rapture do have multi-timbral capabilities, but it is not like a General MIDI synth and there are limitations on how they can be used, i.e., they have to be assigned to consecutive channels, you have to load each patch individually, etc. Good point though.