Setting up control surfaces

If you are not using a Roland A-PRO controller, use the following procedures to connect or disconnect your controller/surface:

To enable MIDI Input and Output drivers

1.	Go to Edit > Preferences > MIDI - Devices.

2.	In the Inputs list, make sure that the MIDI Input driver or drivers that your controller/surface uses are selected.

3.	If you have a bi-directional controller/surface (one that both sends and receives data in order to control a software application), also make sure that the MIDI Output driver or drivers that the controller/surface uses are enabled in the Outputs pane on the right side of the dialog box.

4.

Click OK.

To connect a controller/surface to SONAR

1.	Follow your controller/surface’s instructions for physically connecting your controller/surface to your computer (you may need to close SONAR first).

2.	In SONAR, go to Edit > Preferences > MIDI - Control Surfaces.

3.	Click the Add Controller/Surface button , which opens the Controller/Surface Settings dialog box.

4.

In the Controller/Surface field of the Controller/Surface Settings dialog box, find the name of your controller/surface, and select it. However, if you want to use Active Controller Technology, or if your controller/surface is not listed, select either the Cakewalk Generic Surface or the ACT MIDI Controller.

Note: The Cakewalk Generic Surface plug-in is not bi-directional.

5.	In the Input Port and Output Port fields, select which MIDI input and output ports the controller/surface uses.

Note 1: You may need to read the documentation for your controller/surface to find out which MIDI input driver your controller/surface uses to control software applications. If your controller/surface includes a MIDI keyboard, your controller/surface might use one MIDI input driver for the controller/surface functions, and a different MIDI input driver to send MIDI notes and pitch bend data to the application (the piano keyboard functions).

Note 2: Control surfaces retain their current MIDI port assignments even if you add or remove MIDI devices. If any assigned MIDI port is missing when you load a project, SONAR will let you remap each missing port to an available port. For more information, see Changing MIDI Output devices.

6.	Click OK to close the Controller/Surface Settings dialog box.

7.	In the Preferences dialog box, make sure that both the ACT and WAI check boxes are enabled, and click Close.

Important: If your controller/surface needs to be in a certain mode, or have a certain memory preset loaded in order to control a software application, put your controller/surface in the proper mode or load the required memory preset now.

Now that your controller/surface is connected, you can see which tracks and/or buses are being controlled by it by looking at the colored markings (the WAI display; see The WAI display for more information) in SONAR’s interface.

If you selected the ACT MIDI Controller plug-in or the Cakewalk Generic Surface plug-in for your controller/surface, you can load a default set of mappings by opening the property page for either plug-in, and selecting the name of your controller/surface from the Presets window in the property page.

Synchronizing channel strips between SONAR and control surfaces

SONAR allows control surfaces to display all channel strips in a project, or only the channel strips that are visible in the Track view or Console view.

1.	Go to Edit > Preferences > MIDI - Control Surfaces.

2.	Under Control Strips Visible in, click one of the following:

Track View. The controller/surface matches the channel strips that are visible in the Track view.

Console View. The controller/surface matches the channel strips that are visible in the Console view.

All Strips. The controller/surface shows all channel strips in the project.

The controller/surface immediately refreshes and displays the specified channel strips.

Figure 361. The Control Surfaces section.

 

See also:

To use ACT with the ACT MIDI Controller plug-in

To disconnect a controller/surface from SONAR

1.	Go to Edit > Preferences > MIDI - Control Surfaces.

2.	In the Controller/Surface column, click the name of the controller/surface that you want to disconnect.

3.	Click the Delete button , which deletes the name of the controller/surface that you selected.

4.	Click Close.

Control surface refresh rate

Control surfaces are refreshed by posting a windows message every 75 milliseconds.

CtrlSurfaceRefreshMS=<50 - 5000> (default=75)

You may want to increase the value of this Cakewalk.ini variable if you are experiencing sluggish UI responsiveness when using a control surface and playing back high CPU projects.

Also, if you are using a control surface that is not bi-directional, the surface does not need to be refreshed at all and you can safely increase the value.

This variable should be set in the [Wincake] section. For example:

[Wincake]

CtrlSurfaceRefreshMS=75

 

See:

ACT MIDI Controller plug-in

Cakewalk Generic Surface plug-in

The WAI display

ACT