Sequencing issues

[Martin Naef]

On 03.02.2011 05:55, Tony Scharf wrote:
> Which DAW can do this: Route MIDI to an external device while recording
> the MIDI from multiple sources, AND have a soft VST (specifically
> Maschine) play back in sync with that MIDI without needing to go all
> crazy trying to get everything to sync?  Can Sonar do this?  Reaper,
> Live and Renoise all fail this test at various points.

I'm doing very similar things with Sonar 7. Mixing external MIDI and 
VSTi is not a problem as long as the audio interface latency is small 
(obviously, in a live scenario, latency compensation can't possibly work 
unless everything is delayed to the point of becoming unplayable...). 
Where things tend to sound out of sync is when I want to mix some audio 
from external synths in the box - there the total latencies just add up 
too far.

Recording and routing a bunch of MIDI channels is not a problem at all. 
I have a pretty large default project set up that routes all my 
controller keyboards to the various sources - probably some 30 channels 
or so that I mute/enable on demand.

One detail, though: Sonar is the timing master. I never tried syncing 
Sonar to an external drum machine.

Martin