How do you convert the recorded MIDI track in Sonar to an audio track and then use that audio track with other MIDI tracks?

jfied,
You have to use the MIDI data saved in Sonar to play a tone generator such as the Microsoft Wavetable Synth, your sound card’s synthesizer, or pipe the MIDI out to an external synthesizer.

Then you can record the audio from the synth back into Sonar into its own track(s) at the same time.
-Mike

mbunkerusa - 15 December 2009 07:29 PM

jfied,
You have to use the MIDI data saved in Sonar to play a tone generator such as the Microsoft Wavetable Synth, your sound card’s synthesizer, or pipe the MIDI out to an external synthesizer.

Then you can record the audio from the synth back into Sonar into its own track(s) at the same time.
-Mike

You guys may already know about this but I thought i’d share it with whoever is interested......

As you’ve probably found out already, Sonar has no level activation recording in audio track mode, so it can be a painful process dragging and shifting multiple audio tracks to keep them all in sync.

Well, here’s a trick I learnt whilst trying to record separate audio tracks into Sonar from an external synth/sequencer and keeping everything synced perfectly.

Here was my scenario:
PC with Sonar 7 installed,
SY85 with onboard sequencer/sounds (i’m assuming this will work on other synths/external sequencers)
A finished song loaded onto the Sy85 sequencer with 8 midi tracks.
I want to record each track into sonar as a seperate audio track but there’s no ‘trigger level record’ - how can I get around this without them all being out of sync?

Obviously for this to work you’ll need to feed the sound source into the PC’s soundcard to record audio and the MIDI in/out both need to be connected to PC.

First, on the synth/sequencer/song, insert 1 empty bar on all tracks at the beginning of the song. (so the song starts on bar 2 not bar 1 - I used ‘insert all’ method from an empty bar no. 999) You need to do this otherwise the PC/Sonar midi trigger doesn’t have enough time to sync with the synth and you’ll get a ‘32 triplets’ effect at the beginning of your audio track.

1. Set your Sonar to be master time/clock controller and leave tempo at 120bpm.
2. Set your synth/ext. sequencer’s midi settings to be controlled by the external time clock.
3. In Sonar setup your first audio track and arm ready to record.
4. Select the track you wish to record on your synth/seq and mute all the rest.
4. Hit record on Sonar, it should just sit there but your play button will light up on the synth/seq.
5 Hit play on the syth/Seq, this should queue sonar to start recording and your synth will start playing. Remember to wait for the empty bar to playout.

Repeat the above process for each track and add as you please…

I’m sorry if the setup info is a little scarce but it’s been a while since I set this up. I use a saved song template since then on so I haven’t had to go back into the settings.
Play around with the settings, it’s great once it works!

Hope this helps someone out there......

PS. I use the Motif XS sequencer now and do a similar kind of thing, OK it’s more time consuming than using the Mlan16e2 firewire card, but it’s also more rewarding and the outcome is much more precise as you spend more time tweaking each track, before and after it’s been recorded. Plus you hear things you wouldn’t normally notice if all the tracks were playing/recording all at once,e.g. bum notes etc…

Good luck