No MIDI devices shown

[quattj]

I've just installed Sonar for the first time after my Cakewalk activation finally expired.

I use Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth for my MIDI playback.  It worked fine in Cakewalk.  No MIDI devices are showing in Sonar preferences, and it defaults to using (I assume) the horrible Microsoft GS Synthesis. 

Editing MIDI files it literally the only thing I use(d) Cakewalk for because of the CAL script and file trimming functionality.  Without proper MIDI playback my long-term project will suffer.

How can I make it cooperate?

Edited 16 hours ago by quattj

[Bass Guitar]

Yes they removed the access to MSWavetable and it would seem the Virtual Midi Synth as well. 
I can understand the MS Wavetable as it is no longer supported but the Virtual Midi Synth is supported by the developers. 

It’s still available in a number of different Daw’s. 

The work around is the VST SynthFont which even has a VST3 version. It’s only $14 euros. 
it uses almost all the same sound fonts. 

[quattj]

I've submitted a bug report.  I hope they fix it.  I used Cakewalk solely for features I could not find elsewhere for editing my MIDI files.  I've tried many other MIDI editors and DAWs and none are sufficient for what I need to do.

I need the exact configuration I use on my machine, so VST SynthFont will not work as a complete substitution.  I have tons of stacked soundfonts that I change and modify regularly, depending on the soundtrack I am working on at the time.

Edited 15 hours ago by quattj

[Xoo]

I think that changing the MIDI mode (from MME to UWP?) can make this work too.

[Jonathan Sasor]

1 hour ago, Bass Guitar said:

Yes they removed the access to MSWavetable and it would seem the Virtual Midi Synth as well. 
I can understand the MS Wavetable as it is no longer supported but the Virtual Midi Synth is supported by the developers. 

It’s still available in a number of different Daw’s. 

The work around is the VST SynthFont which even has a VST3 version. It’s only $14 euros. 
it uses almost all the same sound fonts. 

We didn't remove anything. It's dependent on what Windows is exposing as a MIDI port. We default to using WASAPI for integrated audio cards these days as it has much better performance in general, but you may see the Wavetable synth if you change the audio driver mode to MME. 

[quattj]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Sasor said:

We didn't remove anything. It's dependent on what Windows is exposing as a MIDI port. We default to using WASAPI for integrated audio cards these days as it has much better performance in general, but you may see the Wavetable synth if you change the audio driver mode to MME. 

Even if nothing was removed, something is not working the same in Sonar as it did in Cakewalk for MIDI playback devices.

With MME selected as the MIDI driver mode, no inputs or outputs are shown.  If I switch the MIDI driver mode to UWP, I can then see Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth as an output.  However, either way it completely ignores/bypasses any of my system MIDI settings to use Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth as the playback device, and playback sounds like garbage.  I believe VirtualMIDISynth showed up as a separate device in Cakewalk, but now I have no way of checking.  I do know that it played back properly as expected in Cakewalk, as no matter which app I played back with, it was and still is correct except for in Sonar.

Changing the driver mode in the audio section has no effect on the MIDI section.

Nothing has changed on my system (Windows 10 Home 22H2) since the last time I successfully used Cakewalk to edit my MIDI files on September 24th, except that I have now had to install Sonar.

Edited 12 hours ago by quattj

[quattj]

I did a recording of creating one of my soundtracks, and luckily I had an issue where I ran through all of the settings to check them, so I was able to pull screenshots of Cakewalk settings from the video to compare with Sonar.

Both programs have "WASAPI Shared" selected under Audio->Playback and Recording

I've attached screenshots of the comparison of Cakewalk vs Sonar for the MIDI preferences for ->Playback and Recording and ->Devices.  Cakewalk on the left, Sonar on the right.  All setting are identical, except that all devices are missing in Sonar.