Instruction Manual

1136 Menu Reference
Options-Instruments
Devices command opens the MIDI Devices dialog box, which lets you
choose the MIDI outputs you want to use.
For more information about setting up MIDI devices, see To Choose MIDI
Devices and Setting Up Output Devices.
Options-Instruments
This command lets you choose one or more port/channel configurations
and assign an instrument to it or them.
SONAR lets you assign a MIDI instrument definition to each available MIDI
port and channel. The assignments you make determine the MIDI bank
names, patch names, note names, and controller names that you see
during your SONAR session.
Suppose that you have a Roland GS compatible synthesizer attached to
MIDI port 1. By assigning all 16 channels of MIDI port 1 to the Roland GS
instrument definition, you ensure that the bank, patch, note and controller
name lists you see displayed in SONAR are the ones that match your
synthesizer.
Often, you want to assign a different instrument to channel 10, which is
usually used for percussion. For example, you might assign the Roland GS
instrument definition to channels 1 through 9 and 11 through 16, but you
would most likely want to assign the Roland GS Drumsets instrument
definition to channel 10. If you have several MIDI ports, with a different
instrument attached to each one, you would normally assign a different
instrument to each MIDI port.
For convenience, you can assign a block of channels to one instrument,
and then change the assignment of one or more of those channels without
changing the others. For example, you can highlight all 16 channels of the
first MIDI port and assign them to the Roland GS instrument definition.
Then, you can highlight channel 10 of the first MIDI port and assign it to the
Roland GS Drumset instrument definition. Channels 1 through 9 and 11
through 16 on the first MIDI port will stay assigned to Roland GS.
You might also want to split channels to different instruments if you have
several instruments attached to a single MIDI port. For example, you might
have a Roland synth receiving on MIDI channels 1-9, a Roland drum
machine receiving on channel 10, and a basic GM-compatible synth
receiving on channels 11 through 16. In this case, you'd use three different
instrument definitions for your one and only MIDI port.
Assign Instruments dialog