Midi in Sonar 6/XL

Use this forum to discuss Midi Issues as they relate to Cakewalk.
Percival333
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:52 pm
Location: montreal

Post by Percival333 » Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:04 pm

How are you? To be brief I just bought Cakewalk Sonar 6/XL and I find the Midi instruments not too sound too good. Any suggestions...Also on my other computer i have cakewalk pro audio 9 and a friend if mine created this file that when incorporated to the sound card improved the midi instruments 100%. On the new computer my sound card is Creative Audigy. Any help will be greatly appreciated.


HDB
Posts: 46
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2004 12:19 am

Post by HDB » Tue May 01, 2007 10:36 am

I'm not sure what "File" could have been incorporated to make MIDI "sound better". Sonar does not make bad MIDI sounds. Sonar does not make MIDI sounds at all...it just triggers and controls sounds. It just instructs a soundcard/module to play this note on this instrument for this long at this volume with these settings on this track.

With Sonar, you can play the basic cheezoid MIDI set in Audigy. You can assign SoundFonts. You can play Virtual Instruments.

You can do a combo of all of the above.

If you are running some kind of software synth like the Creative S/W Synth...then...yeah it probably sounds bad.

Learn how to use Soundfonts, get on the internet and download hundreds of them free. Some are actually pretty good, some are bad, some are middlin'. You can tweak them in Vienna Soundfont Editor.

Google up the KVR Database for all this. Google SoundFonts.

Maybe you need to adjust the your soundcrard properties? The Audigy will let you tweak bass and treble.

You need to learn how to insert a GM Reset Sysex message at the beginning of each MIDI file to reset everything to start fresh. Then, you need to learn how to insert MIDI bank/patch/controller changes in your Event List Editor to get everything to do what you want.

Once you have all that under control, then you need to acquire and learn how to use Virtual Instruments.

A MIDI file WILL sound different from one computer to the next, unless they are both set up EXACTLY the same. It's the soundsets that make things sound different....not the program. When you have something set to Port 1 in this computer, and this computer has, say, a Yamaha soundcard, and you take that MIDI file with all it's settings to a computer that has, say, a SoundBlaster...it's going to sound different.

On that Audigy, make sure you have all that EAX, Environmetal audio stuff under control. You can actually get in there and set your stuff like reverb and chorus for MIDI to 100%. What may happen is that a file that was created with something else's reverb and chorus may have had it's "strength" turned down, and then the tracks' set high. Well, when you put in another computer, and it's strengt is turned up, you may get WAY too much.

Check all this stuff. It's not Sonar's fault. Sonar is just doing what it's told.

HDB

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