Setting up a percussion track

Before you use the percussion capabilities of the Staff view, your percussion track should be set up correctly. This will allow you to hear the proper sounds when placing notes and during playback, and will allow you to see the correct percussion instrument names rather than generic note names in the Piano Roll view, Event List view, and Percussion Notation dialog box.

To set up a percussion track

1.	Select the track so it appears in the Track Inspector.

2.	In the Track Inspector, assign the Output and Channel for your percussion instrument. For example, if the output is assigned to a sound card that supports General MIDI, use channel 10.

3.	Go to Edit > Preferences > MIDI - Instruments.

4.	Make sure that the output/channel combination used by your track is assigned to a percussion instrument definition. For example, channel 10 of a General MIDI output should be assigned to the General MIDI Drums instrument definition.

5.	Click OK in both dialog boxes.

Sonar shows the new track output and channel in the Track view, and will use the proper percussion instrument names in the Piano Roll view, Event List view, and Percussion Notation dialog box.

For more information about instrument definitions, see Instrument definitions.