No way Beepster. We can have differing opinions and still respect each other. Everyone on this  thread is worthy of respect. 

I was just being silly.

;-p

 
Hmm ... there's been a few mentions of difficulty in automating a synth in an instrument track. When I go into the track envelopes,  I see this. I agree it can be a challenge trying to find the parameter you're looking for. But I don't understand why you would need to split the track -- unless of course, I'm talking about something completely different. Not trying to be difficult here, just trying to understand ... I would appreciate it if somebody explained.
 

Thanks,
 

You can automate synth parameters. You just can't automate standard midi controller parameters like volume, pan, pedal, etc., without splitting and working directly on the midi track. They give priority to audio envelopes when the instrument is combined.

I think some of the limitations mentioned have been addressed since simple instruments tracks were introduced, which may account for some of the differences in opinion on the limitations.  I still don't like them and find them confusing. I like all my multi out and single out VSTi set up the same.

Danny - I really appreciate the experience that you relayed here. I'm in accord with what BitFlipper noted, but I had not suspected there were issues like you had mentioned. I simply prefer working with Midi as needed and then the audio tracks separately. I also Hide tracks I'm not presently using. If I'm already onto working with the audio tracks I hide the source Midi tracks until I need to go back to them for an edit.

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

I have to agree with my learned friends here.

When SIT's were first introduced, I started using them for a while, seemingly without issue.

Until such time as I deleted a synth from the synth rack and found out that Sonar had completely screwed up the track numbering scheme, complete with what I can only describe as "placeholders" for certain tracks which were supposedly deleted but were still being referenced by the project.

This was an absolute pig to sort out - reverting to split Midi/Audio cured the problem and I haven't used SIT's since

Ouch, that's mean. Pretty sure it would count as a bug. Does it still happen in X2?

What I was up to in my previous post was that restrictions, problems and issues are not inherent to the concept of one-track MIDI instruments. Provided they are used for monotimbral instruments when only a single output is needed (which is what the concept is all about). If there are some, it's an issue with how the feature is realized. I just don't agree with the notion in Bit's post that the people who were requesting it were just whining Fruity heads with some weird idea and that the concept as such is inherently inferior. I rather assume they were just hoping Cakewalk would do it right.


Apparently, if the problem reports are referring to X2, there seem to be enough reasons to not use them in Sonar, as things stand. IMO (as always) that would be a motive to request bringing them up to snuff, not dismiss the concept right away. Done right they could be a very intuitive, straightforward way to deal with that family of instruments. Easy to use, less screen space and you'd be able to do everything you can do with a single channel of a multitimbral, just the overhead that only multitimbral instruments need being taken away.