I've been doing endless research these past few days. I've been running Sonar 8.5 with a m-audio oxygen controller through my firepod with midi using soft synths. I haven't had a problem with it. Recently I got a Yamaha MM6 which is loaded with cool sounds. I want to use those sounds on Sonar through midi. When I plug in the mm6's midi out to my firepod's midi in, all i get are general midi sounds. I loaded the instrument definition but even that hasn't helped me. All I want to do is use my MM6 sounds with Sonar and I wanna record it in midi form.

you need to do midi out and midi in. to & from the interface.

You are an enormous help thank you so much. I gotta pick up another midi cable now, but when I add other synths in time do I just chain them together from their ins and outs?

I hooked up the second midi cable and still no sound played. I had my firepod output linked to the yamaha mm6 instrument defenition, and set the midi tracks output to firepod midi out. Selected an channel bank and voice but nothing. it gets frustrating.

MIDI only sends note data, not audio. You'll have to take some 1/4" cables from your Yamaha to your PC/audio interface for sound.

If that's the case how would I go about recording the sound to a midi track?

You don't record "sound" on a midi track, midi is only DATA...I'm assuming you want to do this:

Write midi notes in your DAW on a midi track, send to MM6, and record the output "audio/sound" the MM6 made...

If so you need to connect the midi-out of your interface to the midi-in of your MM6...this let's the MM6 receive your instructions/midi

Then you need to connect the AUDIO OUTPUT of your MM6 (either stereo or mono) to the AUDIO IN of your interface...

In your DAW set up an audio track that is "listening" to the AUDIO IN channel your MM6 is connected to.

With this config you can send notes to your MM6 from your midi track, and receive the MM6 audio in your audio track. Get it?

So my end result will be a recorded wav file? I would not be able to edit or rearrange any of my finished product of that track like I can with midi, correct? And I was watching a J.R. Rotem video before and he had his Fantom hooked up in a way it recorded the Fantom audio in his midi track.
J.R. Rotem Beats Tutorial - Cambio

If you follow my process, after all is said and done you will have your original midi track with the original midi notes you chose to record, as well as an audiotrack with a .wav of the output of your MM6 which played the notes of your midi-track...you can always chop up/edit/add effects to that audio track or rearrange your midi-track and re-record the .wav...I can't watch the video you posted because I'm at work, but maybe someone else can chime in with regards to that

A single track (not a bus or group) can hold either midi OR audio, not both.

Also you don't have to "record" the audiotrack...you can merely listen to the output of that audio track you set up to make sure your MM6 patch works nicely with the midi arrangement you made...once you are pleased with the sound of the MM6 as well as the arrangement, THEN you can record a .wav.

It makes total sense, it just seems very odd that a process that requires that much are the steps to do something as common as recording an outboard synth. Every major studio uses big name workstations, yet they all have to put forth twice the effort it takes to record soft synths just to use their synth's sounds?

And even as you said a single track can hold either midi or audio, then when I do use my soft synths on one midi track I am able to hear and edit the sounds in real time, all in that one midi track. I just assumed it would be the same way with outboard synths considering I installed the instrument definitions into Sonar, therefore it does recognize the mm6 patches. In other words, if all I need is the midi data to record the patch FROM the mm6, why did I have to install all of the mm6 patches INTO sonar?

I understand what you mean, and while I'm not familiar with Sonar, I believe every DAW works like this...when using external/outboard synths and instruments it's a little different than using a plugin instrument on a midi-track (someone correct me if I'm wrong)...It's not that much work...you only need two tracks (midiout to synth, audioin from synth)...or you can get rid of the midi track and play the MM6 live

Oh I definitely can do that, I'm just not an experienced pianist by any means. And as weak as it is, I do rely on midi for those times where I'm off by just a pinch. It just seems like it's negative productivity for my workflow compared to my last setup of just vsts. I'm going to experiment with it I was just confused on that. But as far as the instrument definitions, you don't really understand why they're required to be installed? Because after what you just taught me, I have no clue on why I needed them.

Wow, I'm getting old when hooking and recording a hardware synth is "new" to someone. heh

You are dealing with midi information and audio information separately. Softsynths inside DAWs are different. Audio does no travel thru midi cables. I still have hardware synths in my setup as well as softsynths. Just set up a template and you will be good. The thing that still kills is the speed in which you can audition sounds with hardware synths. Helps the creative workflow. But... you have to track the audio into your daw. Which can be a good thing if you track thru quality analog pre's.

The concept is simple enough, audio gets sent through audio cable, Midi is data that gets transfered through midi cables. That I understand. Now I'm just wondering why it was necessary for me to install instrument defenitions for my mm6 if I'm not going to be using them.

you got me. i don't even know what instrument definitions are. never heard of it. Just hook up midi cables in and out and audio out into audio in on ur audio interface and bam!! you are working. If the hardware synth is your controller make sure you daw software is turned to that incoming midi port.

Now that's insteresting because every website I read told me I must install instrument definitions which are basically the patches from the MM6, yet on a website where many people are actually recording their synths, the defenitions are unheard of. I'm going to do a little research and get back to you guys with what I found.

No idea what "instrument definitions" are either :(

Edit: http://www.cakewalk.com/support/docs/instrumentdef.asp

Looks like it just lets you operate your MM6 within Sonar, so you don't need to be in front of the synth...whatever.

That would make sense. Then I would still need to record it using the technique you provided. Alright thanks alot for the help guys.