I don't use this feature often but I remember a few years ago when I used it once or twice, I had this same issue. I might just be doing something wrong so any advice would help...
 
In the piano roll view, if you right-click on the notes on the left, you get a "Select Names" dialog. If I click on the "Use these Note Names Instead" and then select one of the set of note names and click OK, they are displayed on the left. However when you close and restart SONAR and then open the same project again, the notes in the piano roll have reverted back to the original key images and the selected note names are no longer displayed.
 
Is there a way to persist the note names in the piano roll for a MIDI track? According to the Help here, one can use patches etc to configure note names, which I suppose might work but it seems overly complicated if all I want to do is keep the selection I made in the "Note Names" dialog for a specific MIDI track.
 
Thanks in advance for any insights.

Regarding instrument definitions (and note names etc.), from http://www.cakewalk.com/D...strument_Defs.04.html, I see:

"If you want your changes to be remembered the next time you run SONAR, make sure the Save Changes For Next Session option in the Assign Instruments dialog box is checked before clicking OK. Otherwise, to make only temporary changes, be sure to remove the check from that option."

Perhaps this is what will help?

Or would a drum map be more appropriate?

PeteL
Regarding instrument definitions (and note names etc.), from http://www.cakewalk.com/D...strument_Defs.04.html, I see:

"If you want your changes to be remembered the next time you run SONAR, make sure the Save Changes For Next Session option in the Assign Instruments dialog box is checked before clicking OK. Otherwise, to make only temporary changes, be sure to remove the check from that option."

Perhaps this is what will help?

Or would a drum map be more appropriate?

I took a look at the "Save Changes For Next Session" option you mention but it was already checked, so it doesn't solve the problem in my case
 
I will look into a drum map, but this is specifically for an imported *.ins file so I don't know how that relates to a drum map (not too familiar with this part of SONAR). It seems strange that SONAR won't persist the option to select a specific set of note names for a track. I have many tracks that use this imported *.ins file and each time I restart I need to re-select them for each track when start working on that track.

Are you using a Lens ?
I believe a Lens has the ability to make global changes like this. If you are using one, change it to "None" and see if that fixes your issue.

For Note Names to persist there must be an assignment made in Preferences > MIDI > Instruments between an Output/Channel and the instrument. Once that is made, SONAR will automatically use the appropriate note names set up in the ins file for the Output selected. Manually assigning Note Names using the Note Names dialog does not persist.

chuckebaby
Are you using a Lens ?
I believe a Lens has the ability to make global changes like this. If you are using one, change it to "None" and see if that fixes your issue.

No I'm not using Lens. I'm writing my own plugin which maps keys to commands. So I'm also writing the *.ins file.
 

scook
For Note Names to persist there must be an assignment made in Preferences > MIDI > Instruments between an Output/Channel and the instrument. Once that is made, SONAR will automatically use the appropriate note names set up in the ins file for the Output selected. Manually assigning Note Names using the Note Names dialog does not persist.

OK thanks Scook, I'll take a look.
 
I did notice that there is a VST GetMidiKeyName event that a plugin can implement. I'm also going to look into that to see if I can get that to work. If I can, that would be ideal since then I can just pass the desired note names back to SONAR and it will display them in the piano roll view. But DAWs don't implement all VST features so I'll need to experiment to see if it does support it. It would be good if someone from CW can comment on SONAR's support of this feature, but I guess experimenting would also answer this question either way.
 
 

Yeeehaaaa!!
 
Seems the GetMidiKeyName VST event works fine and I can set whatever names I want for each key. So this actually solves my problem perfectly
 
Thanks again for all the help!

Yes, that is the VST opcode used by SessionDrummer and BFD. Few plug-ins implement it but Cakewalk does check. Based on the OP, I did not think to mention it.