Start of tutorial

Let’s say you have a Roland XP-10 and you want SONAR to display all of its patch names from all of its banks, including any self-created sounds you add to it.

Let’s start by importing the names of the built-in banks and patches that the XP-10 has.

To import a Roland instrument definition

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

2.	Click Define to display the Define Instruments and Names dialog box.

3.	Click Import to display the Import Instrument Definitions dialog box.

4.	Choose the file that contains instrument definitions for your manufacturer, which in this case is the Roland.ins file, and click Open. SONAR displays a list of all the instrument definitions in the file.

5.	Scroll down the list, select Roland XP-10, and click OK.

6.	Click Close to close the Define Instruments and Names dialog box.

The instrument definition you imported should now appear in the Uses Instrument list in the Assign Instruments dialog box.

When you import an instrument definition, it is added to the master instrument definition file Master.ins. The contents of this file determines the list of instruments that appear in the Assign Instruments dialog box.

Now let’s assign the XP-10 definition to some channels on a MIDI output:

To assign the Roland XP-10 bank and patch names to a MIDI output

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

2.	Let’s assign all 16 MIDI channels on output 1 to use the XP-10 bank and patch names:

Drag through the first 16 items in the Port/Channel list to select them.

From the Uses Instrument list, click Roland XP-10. A black line connects the two lists.

3.	To save these changes permanently, enable the Save Changes for Next Session option.

4.	Click OK to apply your changes.

From now on, any track that uses any of channels 1 to 16 on output 1 displays bank and patch names from the XP-10.

To check this, assign a MIDI track in a project to Ch 1, assign the Output field to 1-Roland XP-10, and then examine the drop-down lists in the Bank and Patch fields of the track. You should see bank and patch names that are specific to the Roland XP-10.

Let’s check some of our bank and patch lists to see if they match up with what we see on the screen of the XP-10. On the XP-10, let’s look at the Vari 1 bank: if we look at tone (tone means the same as patch) #005 in the Vari 1 bank on the XP-10, we see that it is called Detuned EP1. If we change the bank on a MIDI track to 128-Roland XP-10 Var #01, and look at the menu of patches in the Pch field, we see that there is no name listed for patch #004 (Roland numbers its patches from 1 to 128; SONAR numbers patches from 0 to 127, so patch #004 in SONAR is the same patch number as patch #005 on the Roland). Let’s look at some of the other Roland XP-10 patch name lists in the right window of the Define Instruments and Names dialog box to see if another one has the right patch names in it, and rename it Var #01.

To substitute and rename a patch list

1.	Go to Edit > Preferences > MIDI - Instruments and click the Define button to open the Define Instruments and Names dialog box.

2.	In the Names Tree window on the right, click the + sign on the Patches folder to expand the tree of patch name lists.

3.	Scroll down to the Roland XP-10 Var #08 list and click its + sign to expand it.

4.	Compare the names on the Var #08 list with the patch names of the Vari 1 instruments on the Roland’s display screen. You’ll see they are the same.

5.	Let’s substitute the Var #08 list for the Var #01 list that SONAR currently lists as the XP-10’s second bank, which has a bank change number of 128:

1.	In the Instruments tree in the left window, click the Roland XP-10 entry to expand it, and then expand the Patch Names for Banks list that’s directly under it.

2.	Expand the Patch Names tree in the right window and find the Roland XP-10 Var #01 list (if there is one) and right-click it to display the pop-up menu.

3.	Choose Edit from the pop-up menu, and change the name from Roland XP-10 Var #01 to Roland XP-10 Var #011.

4.	In the same tree find the Roland XP-10 Var #08 list and change the name from Roland XP-10 Var #08 to Roland XP-10 Var #01.

5.	Drag the newly renamed list from the Patch Names tree in the right window to the Patch Names for Banks tree in the left window.

6.	In the Bank Number dialog box, enter 128, and click OK.

6.	Click the Close button to close the Define Instruments and Names dialog box and click OK to close the Assign Instruments and Names dialog box.

Examine the new bank and patch data in a track that uses 1-Roland XP-10 as an output. In the Bnk field, select 128 Roland XP-10 Var #01, then look at the drop-down list of patches in the Pch field. The list should now have the same names that the Roland keyboard uses for its Vari 1 bank.

The Roland XP-10, like most MIDI keyboards, allows you to create your own sounds and store them in one or more User banks. You can create patch name lists in SONAR that are the same as the names you gave to each of your own sounds.

Checking bank numbers

You can calculate bank numbers by using the methods described in Assigning the Bank Select method, but you might find it easier to use the following method:

To check the bank numbers

1.	Set up a MIDI track to record from your MIDI keyboard or module.

2.	Click the Record button to start recording, and change banks on your keyboard.

3.	Stop recording, and open the Event List view.

4.	The bank change you recorded is displayed in the Event List view in this way: in the Data column you’ll see what kind of bank change method your keyboard uses (probably Normal), and in the column to the right of that data is the number of the bank you changed to.

When we changed the Roland XP-10 to the User 1 bank, we recorded a bank number of 8192.

To create a patch name list for your own sounds

1.

You could create a new list by copying and renaming an existing list (right-click a list and choose New Patch Name List from the pop-up menu), but since the instrument definition we imported for the XP-10 includes a list called Roland XP-10 User Tone 1, let’s just edit that one: in the Names Tree window on the right, right-click the Roland XP-10 User Tone 1 list and choose Add Patch Name from the pop-up menu.

A new patch field appears, with the text 0=0 inside.

2.	Replace the first number in the Patch field with the number of a patch you stored in User Bank 1 on the Roland.

3.	Replace the second number in the Patch field with the name you made up for the patch you just gave a number to, and press ENTER.

4.	Assign names to as many patch numbers as you want—the numbers between 0 and 127 that you don’t assign any names to show up in the Track view Patch menu just as patch numbers with no other names.

5.	When you finish assigning names, drag your edited patch list to the Roland XP-10 Patch Names for Banks tree in the left window.

6.	Enter 8192 as the bank number, which we know is the correct bank number from the previous procedure.

7.	Click the Close button to close the Define Instruments and Names dialog box and click OK to close the Assign Instruments and Names dialog box.

Now you can select the 8192-Roland XP-10 User Tone 1 bank in the Bank field of a MIDI track, and then examine the patch list in the Patch menu: you should see the patch list that you just created.