Two questions, actually: 1) What is rewire? 2) If I upgrade to Sibelius First 7 (which supports rewire), would I be able to use Sibelius as my notation program and completely bypass Sonar X1 or X2's notation? So, basically - if I'm composing an orchestral part, could I notate it in Sibelius and have it access Dimension Pro instruments within Sonar? I hope this makes sense. Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReWire

Essentially rewire just allows one DAW to pass audio into another DAW. In most cases the slave DAW is used like a vst in the host DAW. For example using Sonar as your host and Reason as a plug in via rewire. The link provided gives an accurate description but I think it was just too complex for the question asked. I don't know anything about your notation software but my guess is that it will work as a host for something like Reason and will send midi data to Reason via rewire to trigger Reason's synths which is what I do not think you want. When using Sonar Sonar will always be the host in the case of this notation software you want I think it will always be the host as well. Look into if works as a rewire slave and a rewire host or if its just a host as I suspect. You want it to be capable of being a rewire slave. 

xabiton, thanks for your reply. I will check into that. twoifbysea, I could have looked that link up myself. In fact, I already did and needed clarification.... hence why I posted this thread. Thanks again, XABITON.

I wrote an article on ReWire that's in Harmony Central's library;  I think you'll find helpful...the screen shots are all based on X1, so it's even somewhat Sonar-centric.

there has been certain posts regarding using  Sibelius and sonar and it being problematic a few months back.

 they were just bought out also, so it might be a pain in that sense..  as 3 companies are involved if there are issues

I'm not a fan of avid / m-audio "wonderful" support  (their new owner), so I don't buy their products now as a result (I have 4 of their things, axiom / soundcards etc) . but also the fact they were new owners , you don't know what their plans are. I would wait for the dust to settle as it were .. I almost got "bitten" like that before, just as emagic sold to apple, I'd have had PC logic for a week and wouldn't have been "happy"

Thanks for all of your help..... but I still don't understand how I can "link" Sibelius and, say, Dimension Pro or Session Drummer 3 or True Piano..... basically, what I want to do is completely bypass Sonar's terrible notation and use a REAL notation program, like Sibelius. I want to notate parts in Sibelius, but have Dimension Pro (or another soft synth) play it. How would I do this?

ok dim pro + SD 3 + true piano are in sonar... but you treat the input from rewire as the trigger / to send the notes..

I've not used Sibelius , but assume it supports VST's ? you can use Dim Pro and SD3 in it, BUT not True pianos perhaps as it checks it's running in a only sonar

there is a usergroup on yahoo and a facebook page for the users of it, I'd say speak to them..

rewire, you have master / slave , where 1 app is the main one and the 2nd syncs to it.. think of it as simon says but for audio / midi.. thats the very easy version I can say

you might wanna speak to folk on "www.sibeliususers.org" or their facebook page


but it's not something I'd buy, due to it not being 100% due to it's future

Hey thanks, Fog, that makes more sense.... and, yeah, I'll try the Facebook page, etc

Oh.... and, one more thing..... which order do I insert everything? All the tutorials say that you need to insert the Rewire device first (Sibelius in my case).... so, where do the soft synths fit into this? How do you choose whether you want to trigger SD3 or Dimension Pro, etc? Do you just insert the soft synth you want to use and change the input to Sibelius?