Hi, just upgraded to Sonar X1. I've watched lots of tutorials about SD3 but still am scratching my head. The advanced topics are covered very well, but not the fundamentals. In Sonar 6 I would record a MIDI track for each instrument in the drum kit, then record an audio track for each MIDI track, then mix and bounce to a single audio track. But I can't for the life of me fathom how to do this in SD3. Specifically:

1. I want to write my own drum part, not use MIDI/audio clips. How do I record/edit a MIDI performance?

2. Once it's all recorded, how to I mix down to audio? I've seen posters talk about "freezing the synth," does that result in a audio track being created somewhere? 

Maybe it's just that I'm trying to use SD3 in a way it's not designed for?

Thanks!

first, this is not the X1 forum.  there's a separate forum for X1 & X2.

1) do it with a keyboard, a drum machine or other type of midi controller, OR use the mouse to click notes into the Piano Roll View of the MIDI track.

2) freezing the synth will result in an audio track being created right where the OUTPUT track is for the synth.

if you're trying to record hits by clicking on the kit pieces of SD3, it doesn't work that way.

Thanks for the reply and sorry about the misplaced post!

OK, so it looks like the MIDI Source track is the only one that will record. So if I understand the workflow correctly, I record all the midi parts onto that single MIDI source track. Now if I freeze the synth, will audio clips appear in each track separated by instrument? (I've routed each drum to a separate track in the SD3 mixer.)

yes, in each of the output tracks.

I don't remember how many outputs SD3 allows.  8?

if that's correct, then for example, if you have the MIDI track and 8 output tracks for SD3, then you freeze the synth, you will then have 8 tracks of drum audio, one track for each output track.

That's super helpful thank you!