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Changing a Track's Instrument
If your sound card is like most, its internal synthesizer is capable of producing at
least 128 different instrument sounds, plus several dozen percussion sounds. Now
you'll find out how to get some of those other instruments into the act. Let’s try
changing the instrument playing the piano line.
Changing the Patch in the Track View
With the project playing, do the following:
1. Solo the Piano track so you can hear the piano part more clearly. To do this,
click the Solo button in the Piano track (track 1).
2. Loop the project, or a part of the project and click Play.
3. In the Piano track in the Track pane, find the Patch control (it’s the field just
after the Bank control). Click the down arrow that is at the end of the patch
name (the patch name should be something like Acoustic Grand Piano).
4. To change the patch, select a new patch from the menu that appears. SONAR
closes the menu and immediately starts playing the piano part with that new
instrument.
5. Have fun trying all the different patches!
6. Click the Solo button in track 1 again to unsolo the Piano track.
You can change the patch at other times in the project besides the beginning by
using the Insert-Bank/Patch Change command:
1. Stop playback.
2. Select the track in which you want to insert a patch change by clicking on its
track number.
3. Move the Now time to the place where you want to insert the patch change.
4. Use the Insert-Bank/Patch Change command.
The Bank/Patch Change dialog box appears.
5. Choose a patch from the Patch field and click OK.
SONAR inserts the patch change that you selected at the Now time.
6. Move the Now time to a place before the patch change and play the project so
that the Now time moves through the place where you put the patch change.
You may want to solo the track to hear it clearly.
7. Listen to the sound change when the Now time reaches the patch change.
You may want to experiment with changing all the instruments used by the
project. One thing you should know: Changing the instrument on a percussion
track (such as the Drum, Shaker, and Triangle tracks in this project) may have no
effect. Percussion instruments are played on MIDI channel 10, which in General
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