midi with sonar producer 8 & tascam 1641

[jimimoore]

Just got the tascam us-1641. Took me a few hours to get audio working but all is good now. What I can't do is hear midi playback after I have recorded it.
I'm using a Yamaha QY70 sound module running thru the us-1641. I don't know if it's the tascam or sonar. Please help!

jimi

[michaelrb]

It would help if we knew what operating system and flavor of Sonar you are using. Midi is not audio. Unless you tell sonar where to find the sound module, you will hear nothing. Of coarse this is a guess because you didn't provide enough info to help you fully. ie...
are the midi drivers installed? If you are using a 64 bit op system, then the tascam won't work according to Tascam. How are things plugged in. etc...

[jimimoore]

Ok here is the additional info. Vista home premium 32 bit & sonar producer 8.
The latest drivers and firmware for the tascam. I have the midi cords plugged in this way. Sound module out to tascam in, tascam out to sound module in.
I have the midi track in sonar set to the tascam in and outs. I can hear the midi track if I plug headphones into the sound module.
I do know the difference between audio and midi, just having trouble with this new setup.

thanks,
jimi

[Danny Danzi]

Ok Jimi, so Sonar IS sending midi to your sound module, it's just not coming out of your monitors? You know you have to hook up audio cables from your keyboard also, right? If you didn't do that, that's what you problem is. You didn't mention that in your last post, so I'm assuming you didn't run your audio cables out of your board. You'll need to do that because midi is not a sound....it's just data that triggers a sound. The sound module then must be routed to your soundcard or a mixing board...and in this case, your sound module is what is getting pulses sent to it.

In case I've lost you, let me explain a bit more. I'll talk about my setup here with one keyboard to keep it simple. I have a Korg Triton. I hook up the midi ins and outs just like you have. I set up all my midi stuff in the midi menu in Sonar.

I insert a midi track in Sonar and set up my in to control the Korg, and my out so it will play the Korg sounds. I record my track. When I press play to hear playback, I have no sound. If I plug my headphones into my Korg, I'll hear it. If I hook up 2 audio cables (for stereo) and run out of my Korg into my mixing console, which then runs into my soundcards, I'll have sound. Or, if I decide to bypass my mixing console and go direct into my soundcards, I can do that also. BUT, the keyboard audio cables MUST be hooked up and sent to hear the module and this must be done with every external synth or module you use. Hope this helps...get back to use and let us know how you fair.

[jimimoore]

Hey Danny thanks so much. You were right about not hooking up the audio out from the sound module. DUH! I feel stupid now. It's been ten years since I 've used it and now my whole setup is different. Somehow I thought all the audio would come out off the Tascam. Aww crap i'm just a guitar player. What do I know about midi! lol

jimi

[Danny Danzi]

Quite alright Jimi....you know how I knew that right bro? LMAO! You guessed it....I did the same exact freakin' thing about 15yrs ago!!! And I too...was just a guitar player! Hahahahaha! It's all good man, I'm just glad it was a simple problem like that and not something major. Enjoy your rig!

[jimimoore]

Thanks again Danny. I guess it takes one to know one. LMAO! it's guys like you that make these forums work.

jimi

[Danny Danzi]

Ah you're too kind...I'm just doing my part. Just consider yourself lucky you didn't have a major problem and I typed you 3 pages on how to fix it. I'm such a wordy baystid, but I'm thorough! You're welcome....looking forward to hearing some of your stuff when you get things all situated.

One other thing I wanted to mention to you Jimi...you know you have Softsyths inside Sonar that will also trigger sounds, right? Some really incredible ones to be honest....to where you won't need to even use your keyboard to trigger off of. Dimension Pro is pretty sick as well as the other ones inside Sonar. As a matter of fact, the only thing I use my keyboard for these days is for physically playing parts. Once the parts are played, I wind up using a sonftsynth/VSTi instead of the Triton. The sounds in these things just blow the hardware synth away. Check them out if you get a chance....you'll be totally impressed.

[jimimoore]

Hey thanks again Danny. Wow that is great info. I'm just into audio & midi recording at the same time. I will check out the Softsyths. LOL I know it sounds silly but I haven't gotten into anything else,

jimi

[Danny Danzi]

A few ways to run them Jimi, I'll give you both.

In Sonar, create your midi track like you always do. Make sure there is created midi data...or just load up a midi you already have on that track if you want.

Then, do an insert audio track. It will be blank.

From there, right click on the black effects bin on the audio track which will bring up another menu. You'll see audio effects and under it, soft synths. Those are the ones you want for this example. Pick one and it will load up in your audio track.

Once it's loaded, go back to the midi track you had created and click the output dropdown box on the midi track. You'll see your original synth out as well as a new one that will be the name of whatever softsynth you loaded up. Select that one. Then, hit play and you should hear sound. Try a few of them out and see what you think.

What's you've done is, you've taken the output of the midi file and have sent it to another sound module internally within Sonar. Pretty bad ass ain't it?

Now, here's method 2 and it's a bit more intensive because we can now create several outputs for instrumentation instead of just the one stereo audio track we used last time. This is for instrument layers or for using drum modules and allowing them to have their own individual channels created etc.

Go to view/synthrack in Sonar. Once the synthrack opens, you'll see a few things...

Click the + sign, select softsynths and then choose the one you want.

The next box that comes up gives you more powerful options than the other way we inserted the synth. This one allows you to do what we did before (just another way to do it) if you select "first synth audio output". That would be what we did before, but this time we're not doing that. This method will give us several outs now so if there are multiple sounds and samples goin on, you can NOW send them to different outputs which is a Godsend.

So you alread have a midi track, so you don't need to put the check in the box for midi source. Just click all synth audio outputs mono or stereo...whichever you prefer and Sonar will create a bunch of output tracks that you can custom assign wherever you want them to go so you have full control over everthing without one, single track like before. Just experiment...you'll get the hang of it.

I'll explain a little more in depth why you may want to use all these outputs. Most times for a piano or string sound, you will only need one stereo out. Other times, you may want 2 outputs so you have control over the stereo signal instead of 1 stereo track that is controlling a dual feed, understand? Like maybe you want pan control over both of the outputs instead of sending it to one stereo track.

Or, if you get into drum modules that are also softsynths (which you have in Sonar...Session Drummer is a decent one) you can literally set these outputs that you create in synthrack, to be a channel for each individual drum that is in the sonftsynth module. This is where this is a necessity in my opinion.

If I've confused you, allow me to explain a bit more in depth. Let's say we have a drum kit inside a softsynth like Session Drummer. Session Drummer will load up 8 drums in the kit. If you created the stereo audio track like I made you do before when we inserted our first softsynth, you would only have one stereo track controlling this entire drum kit and you would have to control the levels and the pans of the drums, inside the drum module itself. This is what most people do. However, you are very limited in his manner.

If we have a stereo track of drums, we can't process them correctly as whatever we do will effect the entire kit. If we create multiple outputs from the softsynth drum module to Sonar's tracks, you now can treat those drum sounds as imaginary wave files. You will not see any waves being dranw when you press play (unless you bounce to track) but what Sonar will do is act like a big mixing console in real time so you can now eq just a kick drum, just a snare, put some compression on the kick alone....where as before, anything you did would effect the entire kit. The use of these extra outputs gives you full control over everything, understand?

You'll be able to find this in the Sonar help files right inside the program. Just look up what it tells you for Softsynths...and now that I've briefed you somewhat, when you read it, you'll understand it. The version of Sonar that you have is jam packed full of goodies man. If you're married or have a girlfriend...I warn you, you may get beat up for neglecting them because you're gonna have so much fun with this stuff! LOL!! Enjoy it Jimi...and best of luck. Hope some of this helped you and didn't cornfuse the hell out of you.

Remember, and I'm sure you know this, but I'm just making sure. If you load up any midi's with drums in them, you'll need to set the midi channel to 10. The default channel for drums and percussion is always 10. But for regular sounds inside the softsynths, you can leave it on 1-16 as far as channels go....excluding 10 of course.