Combo: you're too kind, thanks for that and the guitar compliment. :) Come out of lurk mode and hang with us...always great to see lurkers taking part as well as making new friends. :)
Chuck: I know, it's a killer little tool. You just have to watch you don't go too nuts with it or can really mess things up too. :)
max: Not a problem bro, I figured the video may be better than typing it out. This way you could see some of it in action.
No, you can have as many templates active as your pc can handle depending on what's included in them. When you saw me switching, both track templates were active...but because I only had one midi track, it could only be sent to one template/module at a time. If I would have cloned the midi track, one midi out could have been sent to Superior, the other midi out could have been sent to Kontakt.
This is why I brought up 64 bit Sonar. In 32 bit where I was, you're limited with the amount of modules, plugs and templates you can bring in. (again, depending on what's in them) In 64, the limit is your ram and cpu/computer. I can still bring in quite a few modules in 32 bit Sonar, but not like I can with 64. I just wish I liked 64 more...but I have issues with it sometimes, so I stay in 32 and only use 64 when I absolutely have to.
Track Templates can be anything you want. You don't have to just make them with drum modules. They could be guitar track settings with effects and eq's from another project that don't contain any drum modules or transient plugs etc. You could also save an entire project template so that each time you open Sonar, everything is already set up to go on every track. Drivers set on each track, midi channels set on each track...anything you want really. I have a video on my site that talks about them. I'll share a link to it in a sec.
Before you do, keep in mind that Project Templates and Track Templates are sort of different. Not much different, but I'll explain as both do pretty much the same things.
In a project template, we can set up an entire project and literally "save as project template" which is what you'll see in the video. That means...the entire project. It can be drum modules, synths, effects, midi settings, audio settings, pans all ready to go....it's limitless. Perfect example for you.
Say you just finished a project. To you, this project was the best song you had ever done mix wise. Say you would like to use everything you used in this project on another song...which is what you SHOULD do when you are recording an album to keep things consistent. So you want to use everything in this project in the next project, but you know it would take you days to copy it all. So here's how you'd do it.
Delete all audio and midi data from each track. All automation as well. From there, save as, give it a name and in the drop-down box that pops up, select template. Once this is done, this template will appear in your Sonar menu in "quick start" project menu and when you load it, everything will be exactly as you left it only all the audio and midi data will be gone and you can just start recording your new song now and your sounds will be similar as long as you use the same instruments and approach. See the vid here:
http://dannydanzi.com/dannydanziPHP/recles/files/SampleVidTemplates.wmv Now track template, though similar, allow us to create tracks instead of an entire project. You may like the drum sound you came up with...so you save just the drums and call it "max drums". So when you click it, it opens like what you saw on my screen in the recent video I showed you with the two drum track templates. You may want guitar tracks saved because you did a 6-guitar layer and loved the outcome. So you could save a "max layer guitar" track template that would have all the tracks, effects, pans, fader and any other setting in there and it could be recalled any time. It can even be loaded into any project you work on.
The key though, is to NOT save project or track templates with audio or midi data. All you want is the shell of the project if you are saving a project template, and for tracks, all you want are the tracks per instrument that you want to save, understand? Not to make this confusing...but they both almost do the same thing, but your save location for track templates would be different than project templates.
But you COULD save an entire project of tracks and make it a track template. No one does that though...so don't let it confuse you. I'm just telling you this because they are really similar. Read up on them a little and you'll see what I mean. And check out that video on my site and you'll see what I do for project templates as opposed to last vid you saw on track templates.
Hope I didn't totally cornfuse you. :) Thanks for the kind words brother and tell your son I said thanks. Still a long way to go on my stuff. That was a pre-pro test thing just for us to lock in on the arrangment. Pre-pro to us means "ok, we got the arrangement and like what we did...now it's time to retrack it." LOL! I have a whole log of instrument settings I keep so I know what I want to use.
We got nearly the entire album done...but will be re-recording it from the ground up. The test run to go through it all and make changes is very important. Sometimes I do 2 (or even 4 uggh) complete test runs before I settle on going for the full recording. Tedious and a bit painful for my guys, but it's how I like to work things. So it may wind up sounding quite different once we get to the full print. It really works well though. I'll give you a little sample of what I mean.
I recorded this demo in 1999:
http://www.dannydanzi.com/downloads/Eternity.mp3 (painful I know...but it served its purpose lol)
After 4 total redo's of the album lol, it turned into this by 2004:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/Eternity.mp3 (ok, a little less painful but much better to my ears lol)
A bit more modern without being as effected, real drums...total make-over of the same idea. So this is why pre-pro is so important to me. Just figured I'd share that because well....I don't share much of my music on here and it's nice once in a while despite the bashings I'll probably get. :) Anyway, keep me posted on how you make out with this stuff brother.
-Danny