Cakewalk - SONAR X3 Documentation - Instrument definitions

Instrument definitions

Instrument definitions

Instrument definitions are a powerful feature of SONAR that makes it easier for you to find the banks, patches, and controllers of your MIDI instruments. An instrument definition is a file that contains the names of the banks, patches, note names, bank select method, and controllers of an instrument. Instrument definitions for many popular MIDI instruments are included with SONAR or are available on the Cakewalk web site (www.cakewalk.com). If an instrument definition is not available for your instrument, and you are familiar with MIDI and how it works, you can use SONAR to create your own instrument definition.

Most MIDI instruments available today are General MIDI (GM) compatible, which means that they come with the standard set of sounds or patches defined by the GM standard. SONAR initially assumes that your MIDI instruments are GM compatible. The names of patches and controllers that you initially see displayed throughout SONAR are drawn from the GM specification.

At the same time, many MIDI instruments provide additional sounds and controllers beyond those required by the GM standard. In addition, some older MIDI instruments are not GM compatible. If you are using one of these instruments with SONAR, you can use instrument definitions to make sure that the names of banks, patches, and controllers that you see in SONAR are the same ones you see on the display screens of your MIDI keyboards and modules.

See:

Assigning instruments

Importing instrument definitions

Creating instrument definitions

To import instrument definitions

To create a new instrument

To rename an instrument

To add a bank or change the patch names for a bank

To create and edit name lists

Creating and editing patch name and other lists

Copying name lists

Assigning the Bank Select method

Assigning patch names

Assigning note names

Assigning controller, RPN, and NRPN names

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