Good morning, everyone. Cold snowy day here in Beepsterland. Hope you are all well.

Anyway, as the thread title suggests I'd like to know a little more about MIDI vs Instrument tracks and how/when to use them. I'm trying to find a good way to phrase a question here but I'm at a loss. The only difference I see at the moment is the addition of and audio strip on the Instrument tracks. I've also seen people mention the instrument tracks aren't their favorite way of doing things sooo... what's up with these dealy madoos?

There hasn't really been a good explanation in any of my resource material as of yet so I'm kind of hoping to get a little boost on this subject. 

Thanks.

Many of the VSTi I use have multiple outputs, some are multi timbreal. For example I may have an instance of Superior Drummer with many outputs for the different mikes, driven by a midi track. Or I will have an instance of Kontakt with eight instruments loaded with eight stereo outs, being driven by eight MIDI tracks. Simple Instrument tracks do not make a lot of sense in either of those scenarios.
 
 
It may be because I have always been a Cakewalk but I don't like simple instrument tracks even if I have a single output VSTi. I just find the two track approach easier to follow. Audio is audio and MIDI is MIDI. Apart from saving a bit or screen real estate all a simple instrument track does for me is introduce confusion. Of course YMMV. Use what ever works for you.

Instrument tracks can be helpful when using a control surface because they only take up one channel on the surface, rather than two.

But yeah, they only support one synth output.

Scott

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I never use instrument tracks. They were added in response to a few very vocal users who moaned that SONAR didn't work like Fruity Loops. Wah, wah. I thought they were useless then and I still do. They are, after all, merely an illusion to make two separate tracks appear to be one. They hide important controls and limit your routing options. Their only benefit is to save screen space in track and console views.

IMO MIDI and audio tracks should be separate, because they are very different things. When I am working on a project, I am either focused on MIDI data or audio data, rarely both at once. Instrument tracks force a 1:1 relationship between a MIDI track and one synthesizer, but I often have multiple MIDI tracks feeding a single virtual instrument, or one MIDI track feeding multiple instruments. That is the main benefit of using separate tracks.

I'm old fashioned, but I've stuck with a "simple instrument" track for now, unless I'm using something like BFD Eco or similar multi output VSTi.

If I find I need a separate MIDI track I just split the "simple instrument" track at that time.

hmm... When I toss in say an instance of BFD with all the kit pieces outputted to their own track an extra track that seems to have all the kitpieces routed to it appears. Am I correct in assuming that an instrument track is like having one kitpiece (or all kitpieces on one track) and that extra track mashed together?

Sorry for the crude attempt at wording that but being new to MIDI this stuff confuses me.

Cheers.

I want only MIDI tracks displayed in the Track view and only audio tracks in the Console view (like Studio One). So, when I use multiple-out VSTis like Kontakt or M1, I have to hide all the tracks I don't want displayed. When using single-out VSTis, Instrument tracks seem ideal to me, but the problem is that grouping the Solo/Mute buttons on the instrument tracks doesn't work properly.

bitflipper


I never use instrument tracks. They were added in response to a few very vocal users who moaned that SONAR didn't work like Fruity Loops. Wah, wah. I thought they were useless then and I still do. They are, after all, merely an illusion to make two separate tracks appear to be one. They hide important controls and limit your routing options. Their only benefit is to save screen space in track and console views.

IMO MIDI and audio tracks should be separate, because they are very different things. When I am working on a project, I am either focused on MIDI data or audio data, rarely both at once. Instrument tracks force a 1:1 relationship between a MIDI track and one synthesizer, but I often have multiple MIDI tracks feeding a single virtual instrument, or one MIDI track feeding multiple instruments. That is the main benefit of using separate tracks.

Beeps, the above are my feelings as well. Also, I have NEVER had issues with an independent midi and audio track supporting synths. Meaning, they have always worked perfectly for me in this manner. One day, I decided to try the instrument track because I was told "get with the times dude, it's way better to do it this way". Well, it looked cooler and it was nice to do everything from one track, but I had noticed this weird artifact.
 
My piano would not trigger right unless I reloaded the sound sample. It played like my ASIO buffers were set to 32 or something. All choppy and messed up. Closing and re-opening didn't fix it. I was going nuts. At the time, I didn't know the samples had to be reloaded. Once I did that, the noise went away and stayed away for the remainder of my work in the project.
 
Close and re-open, artifacts were back. I posted a message on here begging for help because I was really going nuts and wondering how and why this was happening. I've been a Sonar user since the floppy disk days and have never experienced anything like this before. Ed (Bapu) comes on here and instantly remedies the problem telling me that instrument tracks have done the same thing to him numerous times.
 
I reloaded the track the old way, and to this day, have never had a problem again. I've tried the instrument track things a few more times...same issue, though at random. Sometimes there are no problems, other times these weird artifacts creep in. I can't even write up a bug report for it because I have no idea what causes it other than....if I stay away from instrument tracks, I NEVER EVER get these artifacts. Hope some of this helps bro. :)
 
-Danny

Right on, guys. Still not sure what they actually are but it does seem the consensus is limited functionality and potential problems so I'll just continue avoiding them. 

Perhaps I need to figure out what that that "extra" track is when I insert a multi timbrel synth. The icon implies a MIDI track and it seems to be the Master of the other tracks... but that then makes me wonder what the other tracks are that have the separate sounds on them. They have a different icon than everything else. I mean I get what they do... kind of... but I just don't see the big picture. It all works but not understanding bugs me. Makes my OCD side twitchy.

Anyway thanks for all the input so far. Hoping to get back to recording soon. The manual is getting tedious and repetitive at this point. 

Danny Danzi

bitflipper


I never use instrument tracks. They were added in response to a few very vocal users who moaned that SONAR didn't work like Fruity Loops. Wah, wah. I thought they were useless then and I still do. They are, after all, merely an illusion to make two separate tracks appear to be one. They hide important controls and limit your routing options. Their only benefit is to save screen space in track and console views.

IMO MIDI and audio tracks should be separate, because they are very different things. When I am working on a project, I am either focused on MIDI data or audio data, rarely both at once. Instrument tracks force a 1:1 relationship between a MIDI track and one synthesizer, but I often have multiple MIDI tracks feeding a single virtual instrument, or one MIDI track feeding multiple instruments. That is the main benefit of using separate tracks.

Beeps, the above are my feelings as well. Also, I have NEVER had issues with an independent midi and audio track supporting synths. Meaning, they have always worked perfectly for me in this manner. One day, I decided to try the instrument track because I was told "get with the times dude, it's way better to do it this way". Well, it looked cooler and it was nice to do everything from one track, but I had noticed this weird artifact.
 
My piano would not trigger right unless I reloaded the sound sample. It played like my ASIO buffers were set to 32 or something. All choppy and messed up. Closing and re-opening didn't fix it. I was going nuts. At the time, I didn't know the samples had to be reloaded. Once I did that, the noise went away and stayed away for the remainder of my work in the project.
 
Close and re-open, artifacts were back. I posted a message on here begging for help because I was really going nuts and wondering how and why this was happening. I've been a Sonar user since the floppy disk days and have never experienced anything like this before. Ed (Bapu) comes on here and instantly remedies the problem telling me that instrument tracks have done the same thing to him numerous times.
 
I reloaded the track the old way, and to this day, have never had a problem again. I've tried the instrument track things a few more times...same issue, though at random. Sometimes there are no problems, other times these weird artifacts creep in. I can't even write up a bug report for it because I have no idea what causes it other than....if I stay away from instrument tracks, I NEVER EVER get these artifacts. Hope some of this helps bro. :)
 
-Danny

All of the above what Bit and Danny said!
 
(It's so cool not to have to type! WOOT!)