I can't get any sounds out of Sonar. What am I doing wrong?

1. Okay, sorry to state the obvious, but make sure your computer has a sound card and speakers.
2. Next, you have to check your Windows settings before you do anything in Sonar.
   
   Start > Settings > Control Panel and open Sounds and Audio Devices (this is what it's called in Windows XP, it may be just Sounds or something in Windows 98 or Windows 2000)
   
   Click on the Audio tab
   
   

   This is what it looks like in Windows XP. The first option, Sound Playback is the only one you need to be concerned with at this point. The Sound Playback option is where the sound from Sonar is going to go when Sonar plays it back. It must pass through your computer's sound card if you want to listen to it played back through your computer's speakers. You will probably only have this one option available in this box. Unless someone has done some work on your computer, all of three of the setting boxes (Sound Playback, Sound Recording, and MIDI music playback) will be set to the name of your sound card.
   
   The second setting, Sound Recording, isn't too important to you right now. If you ever need to play something back on your computer and have Sonar record it while it plays (Say a CD or a streaming radio broadcast), then you will need this. For now, it's not impotent.
   
   The third setting, MIDI music playback should also be set to your sound card, although at this point this isn't important either. If you just double-click on a midi file and it begins to play (without Sonar, this is just your normal PC behavior) this setting tells the midi file where to find the bank of 128 general midi instruments to play.
   
   You don't need to change anything here, just make a note of the setting in the Sound Playback section. Cancel the dialog bo x.

3. In Sonar, from the menu choose Options> MIDI Devices. The resulting dialog box will look like this:
   
   You're only interested in the Outputs side of the box for now. Later when you hook your keyboard or sound module up to the PC the Inputs will be of concern. For now, make sure that the name of your sound card is listed there and move it to the top of the Output list if necessary (note: you will not have the same options in your dialog box as listed here...what you see here is my hardware). Click on it to select it (as the two items are selected in my example) and click OK. This box tells Sonar what outputs are available to use for all of the tracks in your project. You'll see these again in step 5 below. Click OK.
   
4. Load up a midi file in Sonar (File > Open, then navigate to any mid file you choose).

   When the file is loaded you should see many of the tracks now contain stuff. (Screen shots are from Sonar 2)
   
   Expand one of the tracks so that you can see all of the options. Place your mouse pointer over the edge of the silver band for the track title of the track directly below the one you want to expand. Your mouse pointer will change to a double-pointing arrow. Just drag down to reposition the lower track band and reveal the hidden settings of the upper track
   

5. The four things of interest here are Out, Ch (Channel), Bnk (Bank) and Pch (Patch).

   The channel will already be assigned by whoever created the midi file in the first place. You shouldn't have to change this. If, however, you examine all the tracks you'll probably see that every one of them is assigned to a different channel (numbered 1-16). Click the drop down arrow next to Out. You should see your sound card listed there. The options available here are the same options you selected in step 3 above. In this case, your sound card should be the only choice. If for some reason there are others, just make sure your sound card is the one selected. If you don't see your sound card listed there, something went wrong in step 3. Go back to step three and make sure your sound card is highlighted and at the top of the dialog box before you close it.

6. The Bank and Patch options can be left alone. The patch is the actual instrument you can expect to hear when this track plays. The Bank is where that patch lives with 127 of his brothers and sisters. Your sound card will only have one bank available and if you click the drop down arrow next to patch, you'll see a list of 128 general midi instruments for that particular bank. The highlighted instrument (or patch) is the one assigned to this track.

7. Just hit the space bar on your keyboard to begin playing the file. You should hear music.
   
   The process works like this:
   
   Each track in the file contains raw midi events, but these events have no instruments assigned to them. By choosing a bank and a patch, you assign the instruments to the raw events. After assigning the instruments, Sonar has to know where to send the notes to be amplified and packaged for delivery to the speakers. This is where the OUT option comes in. Imagine having three separate stereo systems set up in your living room and one radio broadcast coming in to the house. By means of a switch in the center of your living room, you could send that radio signal to any one of the three sound systems you chose. After you direct the signal, when it gets to the sound system, the signal would be amplified and passed on to the speakers.
   
   The OUT option in Sonar is sort of like a switch you might find on a home stereo system, where you could direct your stereo sounds to different rooms or speakers. If you wanted to you could actually hook up several other full blown sound systems to your computer and then use the OUT option to tell Sonar which system should receive the signals it produces. It just so happens that you only have one sound system (your sound card) so this time that's where the OUT goes. In Step 3 above, we make Sonar aware of all the possible sound systems it could use. In Step 5 we actually assign one of those sound systems to that particular track.