jonno58

Great ideas! Thanks again!

Fwiw my original intention was to also use the Transpose plug-in simply for experimenting with a couple of synths playing in parallel sixths or an octave or two apart. Or whatever. Ie just to see how things sound while I'm messing around. (Kind of a nudged-serendipity, so to speak.) And the ability to record MIDI so as to be able to hear it back later. Which is now possible. So thanks for that.

OK... So I agree that Sonar does not intrinsically do what we want it to do. Nevertheless, as per Glenn Stanton's post chordz can make it do what is required. I inserted chordz as a simple instrument track and then inserted SI Piano (also as a simple instrument track) and set the input for the SI Piano to chordz. I inserted SI Strings as a simple instrument track and set the input for that to chordz. Finally made sure the Input Echo button was lit for each track. Result - both SI Piano and SI Strings played the MIDI notes recorded in the chordz track. So it's been a bit of a long haul, but it seems like it delivers exactly what was needed.

Umm... I just did what you did and it works. That is... a) On the first and third tracks you need to click on the Input Echo button to switch it on if it's off. b) the selected track needs to be the first track. So the screen should look like this. ---------------------- Update - In my haste to reply I didn't check whether it would play the recorded MIDI. Which it turns out it doesn't. Apologies for that. (There might be a setting somewhere in SI Piano, but I haven't found it at the moment.) It does definitely play both instruments at once from the keyboard though. (Providing that you play notes that are low enough for the bass guitar, that is. Above a certain range only the piano sounds.) Which is a start, although admittedly a long way short of ideal. (My original post which used Arturia Pigments as the first VSTi is still valid, however. And that does play both instruments using recorded MIDI data. Plus transposition etc)

If you post a screen shot perhaps I or someone else can try and figure out what's happening. Hopefully there will be some easy fix. Cos I agree. Having to copy and paste the MIDI track is just plain nuts. (Which is why I was so delighted to stumble across the answer.)

OK... So I discovered a better method, courtesy of another forum. My original method didn't allow the recorded Midi to trigger the other synths, but this one does. So essentially it's the Holy Grail that allows everything to be done in one Midi track. So any edits affect all the other tracks automatically. The forum is https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/19314-one-midi-track-multiple-soft-synths/ and the important post is by rsinger on Sep 7th 2020, which says 'Add your first VSTi with MIDI out enabled and then add a second VSTi instrument and on the MIDI track that is part of the second VSTi set the MIDI Input to your first VSTi.' So... Track 1 is the first VSTi Track . (Inserted as a Simple Instrument Track, and with Midi Output enabled) Track 2 was inserted as the second VSTi, but this time with the option changed to Midi Source. And then (as per the instructions) with the Midi input changed to the first VSTi. Track 3 is the second VSTi inserted again, but this time as a Simple Instrument Track. And the output of Track 2 changed to point at this VSTi. Happy to answer any questions. (Although I'll not be available much in the next couple of days.)

Very happy to do so. Do you want to give me some idea of what details you need / want? As a start I've attached a screenshot of what I did, albeit that was the first (and so far only) attempt. My impression though is that the original (pre-DAW) Midi was pretty much specifically designed to do exactly that ie play lots of instruments at once using Midi thru. So I'll be disappointed if it only works in a limited number of cases...

I appreciate this is kind of an old topic, but I was trying to do exactly this, and it foxed me for a while until I realised that Cakewalk can already do this. But what stops it happening is that when you click on a Midi track to make that the input track it automatically switches off the audio for all the other Midi tracks. (Which is fair enough because in most cases that is indeed what you want. Eg you don't want the drums sounding when you're adding a piano .) However to make the other Midi tracks sound when you play the keyboard just requires clicking on the loudspeaker icon for each of the other tracks. (This of course assumes each track is set to Omni or at least to the same channel number as the keyboard.) As a refinement if a separate midi track is added for each sound (ie insert a midi track and set the output to the particular sound) the Cakewalk Transpose function (under midi FX) can be used to play the other instrument a third or whatever above or below. And the same principle applies to as many instruments as you like. All in real time. So you can have an instant horn section (say).