Having trouble sequencing Sonar5/Edirol FA66/keyboard

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Matt
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 8:38 am
Location: London

Post by Matt » Wed May 10, 2006 6:59 pm

Hi. Please can you help.

We want to start home recording and recently purchased a Carillon laptop (with Sonar 5 installed), an Edirol FA66 soundcard/interface-type thing. As a first step, we want to record some pre-programmed parts (drums; bass; piano) that are on our keyboard (Roland XP-60) onto individual parts on Sonar and then add guitars and vocals on top. We've tried to link up the keyboard to the Edirol, but I think we have set it up wrong because there is no sound coming out of the Edirol. And we can't seem to find the problem - we are presuming that it might have something to do with the sequencing (because the 'sync' light is blinking on the Edirol), but might be wrong.

If I set out the steps we have taken to set up the keyboard/Edirol/Sonar link, it would be great if someone could give us suggestions as to what we are doing wrong and/or what other things we need to do. What we have done so far:
- we have saved the song parts on the keyboard to floppy as a MIDI file (smf.1) and then loaded into into the keyboard so that it is ready to play.
- set the sync mode on the XP-60 to 'slave' (we did this directly by hand, by changing the settings on the keyboard);
- set the sync setting on the XP-60 to 'in' (so taking lead from the external source - ie when 'record' is pressed on Sonar?);
- On Sonar, made the following settings: set the sample rate to 44.1 and the bit depth to 16 (I think the Edirol manual suggests setting it to 24, but when we do this Sonar displays a message saying that it will return to the default setting of 16); set the playback and recording (Driver mode) to 'WDM/KS'; Dithering set to 'Pow-r3'.
- I pressed the Wave Profiler button (not sure what it did);
- linked a MIDI cable from the keyboard MIDI 'out' socket to the Edirol MIDI 'in' socket;
- linked a MIDI cable from the Edirol MIDI 'out' socket to the keyboard MIDI 'in' socket;
- Changed the sync setting on Sonar to 'Trigger and Freewheel (Best when sound card has a word clock inpuit)' because I think the keyboard manual mentions that the keyboard works on a Midi clock setting (as opposed to MTC).
- Attached a standard (ie non-MIDI) lead from the keyboard 'output' to the Edirol 'input2' (on the front of the Edirol).
- Pressed the 'digital' button on the front of the Edirol, but the 'sync' light starts blinking (which, as I understand it, means that the Edirol, keyboard and Sonar are not properly synchronised). Can't hear any sound through the headphones (plugged into the headphones socket on the Edirol) when I press play on the keyboard.

[Someone also mentioned that the keyboard, Sonar and Edirol need to be set to the same channel, but I haven't seen any reference to this in the Sonar manual. Is this true and, if so, what do I need to do to make this setting?]

Any help and top tips will be gratefully received as we don't know how to solve this.

Thanks in advance,
Matt


andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Thu May 11, 2006 4:46 am

All seems a bit confusing and I don't know what you are trying to actually achieve.

If you are trying to record audio from the roland keyboard then I think I would go about it a bit differently.

First forget about all the fancy sync options. Leave Sonar set to audio sync. Forget about dithering set it to none and leave the sync to full chase lock,

Working at 16 bit is fine, you won't need to dither at any point. You have the midi leads connected correctly. Go into Options > Midi devices and make sure the roland is selected as the Midi out.

You need to connect an audio lead from the line out on the roland to a line in on the edirol (I don't know if you have already done that).

Load the SMF midi file into Sonar. When you press play it should trigger the sounds on the roland. If it doesn't make sure the settings are correct on the roland, usually just a case of a local on/off setting that needs to be set to off.

Make sure the correct instruments are being played on each track, this is made easier by having the correct Instrument Definition file imported into Sonar (download from here and follow instructions in manual or help files on how to import).

Once you have all that set up you can record each track seperately into sonar. Unfortunately this has to be done one at a time. Select the track you want to record first and solo it. Next insert an audio track. Make sure that it's input is the same input you are using on the edirol. Arm the audio track by pressing the little R button on the track and then you are ready to record.

Press record and the midi track will start playing and the audio track will start recording. When the track is finished play it back and make sure it is OK, all the levels are alright and there is no clipping ets. Once you are satisfied move onto the next midi track and repeat the process . Make sure you only have one midi track solo'd at a time, it's easy to for forget to unsolo them afterwards.

I hope this is what you where trying to achieve and I hope it works for you.

Good luck.

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