Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (NoKey)

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:18:45 GMT

Hi bread,

I just would like to point out that Sonar does not remember the patch changes you make unless you save the project.

I believe that when you say "Sonar remembers", what does actually "remember" is the piano's synth, because synths (hardware or software) work so the each channel retains the voice untill changed or untill the synth is turne off.

So, if you want the patches to be really "remembered" you would have to do a Save or a Save-as in Sonar.

And to verify the save, when you open the project again, look at each track and it should contain the patch number you last assigned to each track..That, in fact, is independent of your external piano.

I hope all resolves, and good you are on your way.

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (bread)

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:47:47 GMT

Hi Nokey,

I don't save the voices changes but sonar can remember which voices i'm using for each track. It just doesn't remember after i open and close the program.

I do have the parch/controller setback to have the yes checkmark and the zero controllers when play stops unmarked.

I wasn't using patch changes from sonar as I couldn't get a list of voices from sonar to show up properly. The bank and patch lists were all screwed up and not named properly. A lot of blanks. However I posted on another thread and another member suggested to just right click on the patch list and sonar pops up with another window showing a complete list of all the voices coming out of my piano alphabetically.

So I'm good, now that I can set a proper patch!

Thanks Nokey for all the help with a newbie!

Bread

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (NoKey)

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:36:06 GMT

Hi again, Bread.

So you do Save or Save-As the patch (voice changes) for the tracks, but the Piano does not respond to the patch changes?

Check the settings under Project Options/MIDI.

See that you have for Patch/Controller Setback Before Play Starts to have a [Yes] checkmark.

Also, I believe you would want []Zero controllers When Play Stops unmarked, but see what fits your piano.

Make sure your patch changes are indeed saved in the project that you open. You inspect each MIDI track properties and see what patch-instrument-number it contains.

If they contain Piano, when you reopen a project, then it suggests that the Saving is not quite taking place.

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (bread)

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:01:59 GMT

Hi Nokey,

I am playing the MIDI tracks back to the piano after recording. I am not using any soft synths.
I am using the sounds directly from the piano.

Sonar is able to detect the different sound settings that I want from each track. Eg. Track 1 is grand piano midi and track 2 are strings midi. When I switch between the two tracks and play the keys on my keyboard the the sounds correspond. Eg. Hilighting track 2 and playing the keys will give me string sounds. Hitting track 1 and playing the keys will give me grand piano notes.

I can also change the tone/sound of a certain track. Like changing track 2 from strings to clarinets. I do this by highlighting the track 2 in sonar, then setting the sound fx on my piano and "hitting a key on my piano" By doing this I assign the clarient tone to the 2nd track.

That all works great!

However, once I turn my digital piano off and restart the saved music file .cwp file in sonar the tracks in the music file all default to piano sounds. The 2nd track no longer sounds like clarinets. All the midi tracks default to a grand piano sound instead of what I had set before.

To fix this i go through each track and re-assign the tones I want in each track. I hi-light each track individually and set the tones manually from the digital piano buttons. For sonar to change track 2 back to clarinets i have to set my piano to the clarinet settings with the buttons on my digital piano and press a key on the piano keyboard. Sonar and my piano will then recognize the I want track 2 midi to play back from my digital piano as clarinets.

Is this re-assigning of different tones to a midi track normal if I'm not using soft synths?

Thanks again Nokey

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (NoKey)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:56:16 GMT

Hi bread,

I can't say that I understand this: "once i turn the piano on and off and reopen the .cwp file i have to reassign the tones again by going through each track and hitting a piano key."

Also, now that you have MIDI track(s) recorded, what is the Sound Module that plays them? ..Are you playing those MIDI tracks back to the piano, or are you playing them into a soft-synth in the pc?

So, if you can describe what it is that happens and what you mean by having to reassign and hit a key in the piano, in the above, it can help in solving the issue.

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (bread)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:11:00 GMT

Hi Nokey,

Using the buttons on the fp-7 to change the toones/patches do get recorded in sonar in a specific track as long as I set a different channel. I just load up the different tone on the piano and sonar will change that track. I can go back and forth between tracks and the piano will adjust to the different tones i've set from the piano. I've already read the manual on midi a few times and I've already set it so the tone data gets sent. The only thing that annoys me is that once i turn the piano on and off and reopen the .cwp file i have to reassign the tones again by going through each track and hitting a piano key.

Is this normal in sonar with synths? Or just weirdness with my piano?

I also had a problem with recording the midi to audio, but that fixed itself after I upgraded to sonar LE 8.5.
I can't thank you enough with all the help!

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (NoKey)

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:30:15 GMT

Hi bread,

Remember that MIDI is ALL data.

So, patch changes are also DATA...And when Sonar is recording MIDI it will record all data that is sent to it, including patch changes.

There may be settings either in Sonar or in the Piano itself, that block certain things from being sent, or other ways to block data in transit, but I don't believe that should be a starting concern. So, likely no special settings are required.

Try, then when you are hearing the notes you play, send a few different patch changes by buttons in your piano. If the softsynth responds to voice changes, then you know they will record. You may need to use the EchoOn button on the Sonar MIDI track to hear sounds.

Also remember that when you send just notes to a MIDI device, it will play whatever voice patch is there currently in the channel.

Also, I'd say MIDI does take some learning curve, so finding out things can take time...Exploring and keep an open mind, grasp the fundamentals, is the basis.

Once you get into more specific questions it will be easier for you getting better guidance from this forum, would say.

One thing about keyboards with sound is that they use panel voices, which are often not numbered by the usual GM patch numbers. So, read your Piano's manual to see if they explain how to trigger GeneralMIDI only patch changes, to start with.

But just push some voice buttons first and see if the software sound module responds to the buttons.

Check your PIANO manual on things that relate to MIDI, also.

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (bread)

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:09:55 GMT

Hi Nokey,

Thank you for the explanation. That helps in clarifying things.

What kind of set up or what would I need to do to make my piano send out patch changes in the record itself?

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (NoKey)

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:49:26 GMT

Hi again,

When a MIDI recording only contains notes, then the recording itself has no control of what instrument (patch) will be played.

That is OK if one wants to change to different instruments, by hand, be it mouse, or push-buttons from a MIDI controller, or such ways.
------------------

So, if you want the MIDI file to include what instrument to play. It needs to contain the patch-change in the recording itself..Sonar will record the patch change itself, as long as first you hit the Sonar Record button, and then somehow you send the patch-change. That somehow is usually done from the MIDI-keyboard that also sends the notes...Most likely, your Piano has pushbuttons to change voices..So you push those and see if they are getting recorded..That can be tricky and need a setup, as keyboards with sound modules are usually made to play their own internal sound-engine..But since you are indeed sending notes out from it, I'd say it also is enabled to send patch changes.
.....

As to getting the total number of voices your piano has, they will record in your midi file as said, with buttons and so forth..BUT only when you play back the MIDI file into your piano, will you get the right and same instruments, banks, and voices.

----

When you play something else, meaning say a soft-synth inside the pc, then THAT soft-synth (sound-module) has its very own set of bank and patch numbers, and you can almost bet that they will not be at all like what your piano has..That's because the GM (general MIDI standard) is OK only for the basic 128 voices (0...127)...But, of course there can be all kind of modules, and some could match your piano).

So, as long as you don't play banks, and only patch changes 0-128, you are mostly OK. And to do bank changes, effects, and other things, you really need to study the specs of the sound-module that you are hitting with the data.

Software modules that contain the entire set of 128 instruments usually will not implement all of the MIDI standards effects, that's due to the need to have all 128 voices in memory (huge data), or some stream it with their special technology from a hard-disk, but even so, they are still struggling...The better the quality of the sounds, the higher the demand for quality, so that's why we don't find many GREAT sound modules with the full 128 midi set..Once you go into banks, it starts getting even more demanding...But there are some that do a good decent job.

I think that's why composers and musicians load only high-quality sound patches that they are going to use in a music piece...Or they record one track at a time, again with life-like, sample based instruments.

Those are some of the things to mention off-hand. Hope they mean something to what you are after.

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (bread)

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:25:54 GMT

Thanks people for replying. All i needed to do was set a different out put channel under the instruments window and link it to the roland fp-7 for each separate track.

Now if anyone could give me some simple instructions on how to fix the bank patch list that would be awesome.

Thanks again!!

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (johnnyV)

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:33:43 GMT

It sound like what you might be doing is not assigning your MIDI in and out to use your keyboards sounds. The patches from your sound card will be different. So what is happening is you are using your Roland as a controller to trigger on board sounds. It would be best if you read the tutorial on MIDI I believe it will help you understand how to set it up.

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (bread)

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:12:10 GMT

Hi NoKey,

Thank you for your response. I played with sonar LE version 4.0.1 some more last night.
I have to "ARM" the track before I record. I usually make that omni-mode because if I don't i can't hear anything played from the piano keys.

After I record a midi, and change the tones on the keyboard it changes the track. And so I
manually set the patch to a desired effect in the patch list. That fixes it until I save and open the file again. Than I have to go through each individual track to refresh the patch to make it play properly. At the same time it seems that some of the patch names don't correspond to the same sounds as from the piano. eg. rain fx setting in the patch in sonar plays chimes.

I tried downloading a patch .ins list from a forum here for the roland fp-7. Once I imported that to the instrument list the patch list looked even worse. The list was pretty much blank.

Does sonar LE only display 127 patches? My keyboard has about 278 different tones.
How can i get sonar to detect all of these? I tried reading up on the bank LSB MSB but found it super confusing.

I think the piano is sending notes only. But the patch is screwing up.
I don't want to continually have to re-select the patch everytime i change tones on my piano.

Is there a way I can get sonar to automatically detect the tone that i want from the piano with the notes at the same time. Some how freeze that track so buttons on my piano won't change the patch settings automatically?

Hope this makes sense...please tell me if this doesn't...

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (NoKey)

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:30:30 GMT

bread

Hi,

I'm new to recording and new to Sonar. I've recently purchased the rolan fp-7 digital piano. I've done some music recording with just the piano itself and layered in 2 tracks. Everything works fine there. I found that limiting so I installed the software and hooked everything up to my computer to layer more tracks. Recording works, however when I try to record different sound fx (example cello) with sonar and start hitting the hitting the keys on the roland will default to the grand piano sound or sometimes to strings. I have to constantly delete and re-record when the sound resets and the piano doesn't play the sound effects it's suppose to.

Has anyone ever encountered this problem? Is there a setting I'm missing?

Thanks

Bread

If you are playing a sound source, other than the internal sound engine of the Piano, then what you say maybe is caused by the piano sending a patch (not just the notes).

The patch, if so, instructs the sound module to play say piano, or violin.

Or, this could relate also to your sound source being in th OMNI-mode, Poly-mode, or whatever the sound-module calls it, and/or how it implements those modes.

In MIDI they are called mode-1, mode-2, and mode-3, but the name and the way they do it is not entirely respected by software/hardware sound modules.

It is important to know what is the playing-source (sound module), and what does the data contain that you send to that sound source.

Re:Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (johnnyV)

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:31:01 GMT

please read the MIDI section of cakewalks help first and get back to us, to explain it to you is like writing a book and im lazy

Recording Problem with SONAR LE and ROLAND FP-7 (bread)

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:20:40 GMT

Hi,

I'm new to recording and new to Sonar. I've recently purchased the rolan fp-7 digital piano. I've done some music recording with just the piano itself and layered in 2 tracks. Everything works fine there. I found that limiting so I installed the software and hooked everything up to my computer to layer more tracks. Recording works, however when I try to record different sound fx (example cello) with sonar and start hitting the hitting the keys on the roland will default to the grand piano sound or sometimes to strings. I have to constantly delete and re-record when the sound resets and the piano doesn't play the sound effects it's suppose to.

Has anyone ever encountered this problem? Is there a setting I'm missing?

Thanks

Bread