I'm going to try another question.  I don't know if I'm close to figuring this out or close to giving up.
 
I inserted the Cakewalk TTS-1 soft synth in my project.  I inserted two MIDI tracks and assigned them to that synth.  I want them to have different voices.  I opened the synth's control panel and it has 16 columns of voices(?)  When I play a key for the first MIDI track it activates voice 2.  When I play the other it activates voice 1. How?  I don't think I ever picked those assignments.  Now to make it more confusing if I change a voice in voice 2 it changes the sound.  But if I change a voice in voice 1 it always stays on Piano 1.  Why?
 
Am I supposed to create one soft synth and then assign different MIDI tracks to it to get different instruments?  Or should I insert the soft synth in the synth rack multiple times and assign different voices to voice 1 in the different synths?  Or should I add each sound as a separate synth as separate MIDI and Audio tracks in the Add Synth dialog box?  I've looked over the help files and I don't find where it explains how to organize MIDI tracks.  Can someone point me to a tutorial that will guide me through the basics?  I want to record instruments from MIDI and use Audio tracks for vocals, then "bounce" the MIDI tracks to Audio tracks for the final mixing.
 
Thanks, Steve
 

You might have a hard coded voice selection in the track that sets piano for the track going to voice 1. You should have a look at the MIDI events for that track and look for a patch change that calls up Piano. I'm not sure why track 1 goes to voice 2 and track to goes to voice 1. They might have MIDI channel assignments built in (I'm guessing TTS is expecting voice 1 to respond to MIDI Channel 1 and voice 2 to MIDI Channel 2). Looking at the MIDI events will show that too.

Thanks John.  I'll try to dig around for a patch change.  Do you have any idea what is the recommended way to work?  Map different tracks to the same soft synth or insert one soft synth for each track?
 
Steve

Either way works OK.
 
The issue some have with the MC series are limits on certain features. The program permits 8 soft synths per project. The audio and MIDI track limits were developed around the capabilities of 8 instances of TTS-1 (16 MIDI inputs and 4 audio outputs per instances). When working with 8 or less synths it does not matter.

scook
 
If I get rolling and do this as a steady hobby I'll upgrade to something better.  I read on here that Cakewalk is out of business.  That's sad news to me.  If I went to a more powerful DAW would you still suggest Sonar or some other product?
 
Thanks, Steve
 

Gibson shutdown Cakewalk operations in Nov. 2017. This included SONAR development, sales and support.
 
Early in 2018 BandLab purchased Cakewalk IP, hired several former Cakewalk employees and released a new DAW based on SONAR Platinum. Cakewalk by BandLab which runs on Win 64bit and newer is free. To get a copy, create an account at BandLab using the same email address as your old Cakewalk account and follow the CbB installation instructions using BandLab Assistant.

Here is a link to a YouTube video demonstrating how to use the TTS-1:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoaEnPsuyas
 
Here is a 2005 Craig Anderton Sound-on-Sound magazine article that explains the TTS-1:  https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/exploring-sonar-4s-tts1-synth
 
 

I'm pretty sure it's the channel assignments.