Well I'm starting to have some fun now. I've got two DP tracks going. One with a synthy bell type patch and the track arpeggiator going and the second to the dull fingered bass. Just that is making some very cool things happen. Neato. :-)

MIDI is very powerful because you can edit every note, sound, rhythm, patch, meter, etc. without any artifacts.

Couple of things Beep - you said earlier your Project is set to 44.1KHz @ 16 bit. Change it to 24 bit.

Second, if you haven't already got it, I highly recommend you grab a copy of Scott's Sonar POWER X1 book. There's a great tutorial in there regarding setting up a multitimbral performance using the TTS-1 synth. (There's a new book for X2 out in Feb of this year if you want to wait a bit)

It looks like you are in good hands here Beep so I won't bother adding to anything here, I'd only be repeating the other threads.

But I will welcome you to the world of MIDI, something I've been doing for many, many years. MIDI is still my bread and butter, so to speak, as you have already heard :-)

Beepster...you and I need to go to MIDI class together...you are probably a bit more advanced than me, but I have been diving into MIDI as well lately. I spent several hours the other night trying to get my 2 controllers to control separate synths...I was a good bit frustrated for a bit but finally figured it out...all I have done is audio as I am 95% guitarist with NO formal training and know NOTHING about reading music, notes, time sigature,etc...I picked it up by ear 25 years ago and never backed it up with a solid idea of what music is REALLY built on....this IMHO has it's pro's...but does come with con's. I know only to hit keys on my keyboard and figure out by ear what fits. It makes things difficult for me with MIDI because some can just open up a PRV and then add notes and WALLLLLA...they have a song without having to have even heard it yet! Anyways...I will be following a few of you  and eaves dropping to gather what little nuggets I can get and try to learn how this stuff works and how to incorpoate it in to my music!

Best of luck to you all!

David

@Dave... I guess I'm probably overstating my lack of knowledge. I've got a good handle of what it is and how it works... I'm just getting tripped up by some of the more advanced settings I guess. I'm going to have to do what I did last summer/fall with using audio in Sonar. Stop reading and actually put something together. Usually I come out the other end with a better foundation and the manuals start making more sense. Cheers.

@Jonesey... I actually usually record at 96khz/24bit but the sample projects had switched the default settings on me. Thanks for reminding me about the X1 TTS tut (I do have X1 Power). I had read through it at one point but forget it was there so I'll take another look. Cheers.

@synkro... Hiya. I'm gonna try to get something put together in the next couple weeks so you'll have to stop in the songs forum to critique it. I think I'm in love with the in channel arpeggiator. :-)

@Frostysnake... I went for about 17 years the same way. I avoided all theory because I didn't want to "taint" my style/creativity. I came up with some crazy stuff over that time. Then I started getting asked to play more traditional stuff professionally and a lot of it was picking stuff up live on the fly. I had a hard time keeping up as I had always learned stuff on my own before taking any material live. I had noticed a lot of scales I thought I had come up with on my own were very similar to scales in my various scale books. I had always seen a bit of a pattern in my stuff that kind of locked together on the fretboard so pulled out some chart paper and mapped out what I knew then extrapolated the patterns. Lo and behold when I cross referenced it with some theory books I had duplicated diatonic modal theory exactly. lol

From that point forward I dug in and applied it to all 12 keys, learned all the basic chords and hammered out a practice regimen. At first it did actually stifle my gonzo creativity a bit and my stuff started sounding rather generic but after I got more comfortable with it all I had a lot more power over my stuff and I was able to move back into my old style... it was just easier to play and sounded better. My improvisational skills went through the roof. 

After all that translating it to a piano keyboard was very simple. In terms of theory the guitar is much much harder IMO.

Anyway, the point is if you ever want some tips let me know. It's good practice for me and I've been neglecting that stuff because of all the studio cramming I'm doing. Cheers.

You seem to have an understanding now but I'll explain how I personally use channels and stuff for a rather interesting setup.... About 40 orchestral instrument staves set up in Sibelius. Several instances of Eastwest PLAY set up in Sonar. I have LoopBe30 Virtual MIDI cables installed. My mixer in Sibelius looks like this Violin>LoopBe1, Channel 1.... Double Bass>LoopBe1, Channel 16..... Trumpet>LoopBe2, Channel 1 ....Tuba>LoopBe2, Channel 16 etc etc...16 channels per MIDI port, as in real life, and as many cables as I need. Then in Sonar, 40 MIDI tracks all input echod, with the inputs set to match. Violin track in sonar: Input: LoopBe1, Channel 1 Output: Eastwest Play strings instance, channel 1 .... Tuba track in sonar: Input: LoopBe2, Channel 16 Output: Eastwest Play brass instance, channel 16 So on and so forth. Works very well for me.

Yeah, after this thread and sleeping on it I think my only real problem is figuring out the routing like you've described. That and Drum Maps. I think I might have an easier time with the Drum Maps and it's something I'll probably need very soon. I'll keep poking at the routing stuff to see what clicks. As I said I can probably work around most of it for now but not knowing bothers me and considering I'd like to be at a pro level one day a massive knowledge gap on something so crucial in modern production is... well... not very professional. 

I'll get it though. I have to remind myself that before last spring MIDI might as well have been quantum physics to me. Now it seems I'm just getting tripped up on the finer points.

Cheers and thanks again, guys. You always get my brain moving in the right direction.

Again, there is a great tutorial in Sonar Power on creating & editing drum maps - that's how I got my head around them

One thing to be aware of is that currently, without a drum map, soloing or muting the Midi track also does the same to the audio track.

When you use a drum map this connectivity is lost so you have to do your solo/mute on the Midi track AND the audio track(s)

I did do a quick read through of that section a while back but again it was kind of messing me up so I moved on. That was back when I was tearing down my rig every night so I probably wasn't poking through it like I'm doing with things now. It is very nice having all my gear set up and ready to go. I also don't have people bugging me all the time anymore either. Getting far more learning done now. I just hope it all leads to a massive pile of music. I'd like to be able to put together at least a few albums a year once I get going.

Cheers.