Cakewalk Sonar 4 User's Guide

™

Cakewalk SONAR User’s Guide

Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement or nondisclosure agreement. The software may be used or copied only in accordance of the terms of the agreement. It is against the law to copy this software on any medium except as specifically allowed in the agreement. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose without the express written permission of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc.

ACID is a trademark of Sonic Foundry, Inc.

Cakewalk is a registered trademark of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. SONAR and the Cakewalk logo are trademarks of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. Other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

Visit Cakewalk on the World Wide Web at www.cakewalk.com.

Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Registering SONAR Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xix

Conventions Used in this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx

Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

About SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Music Composition and Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Remixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Game Sound Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Sound Production and Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Web Authoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Film and Video Scoring and Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Computers, Sound, and Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Installation and Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Installing SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Starting SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

SONAR Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

SONAR File Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Opening a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Working on a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Windows Taskbar Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Screen Colors and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Starting to Use SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2 Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Tutorial 1—The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Opening a Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Setting Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Playing the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Restarting the Project Automatically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Changing the Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Muting and Soloing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Changing a Track's Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Playing Music on a Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Tutorial 2—Recording MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Recording a MIDI Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Loop Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Punch-In Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Tutorial 3—Recording Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Setting the Sampling Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Setting the Audio Driver Bit Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

Setting the File Bit Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Open a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Setting Up an Audio Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Checking the Input Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Recording Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Listening to the Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Recording Another Take . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Input Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Loop and Punch-In Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Recording Multiple Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Transposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74

Copying Clips with Drag and Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

Editing Notes in the Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

Slip Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

Drawing MIDI Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Converting MIDI to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Tutorial 5—Editing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81

Opening the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Importing a Wave File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81

Moving and Looping the Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82

Slip Editing a Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Automatic Crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

Bouncing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84

Tutorial 6—Using Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Adding Groove Clips to a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Looping Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Changing the Pitch of Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Changing the Tempo of Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Creating Your Own Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Tutorial 7—Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Adding Real-time Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Automating an Individual Effect’s Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Grouping Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Automating Your Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Exporting an MP3 File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Tutorial 8—Using Soft Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Inserting Cakewalk TTS-1 into a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Playing MIDI Tracks through a DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Converting Your DXi Tracks to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Tutorial 9—Drum Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Create a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Creating a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Create a Drum Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Map Drum Notes to Different Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Tutorial 10—Cyclone DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Cyclone Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Adding Files to a Pad Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Setting a Pad’s Volume and Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Playing Cyclone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Editing Loops in the Loop Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

3 Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

The Now Time and How to Use It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

The Now Time Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Displaying the Now Time in Large Print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Other Ways to Set the Now Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

The Time Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Handling Stuck Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Looping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Track-by-Track Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

The Playback State Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Silencing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Soloing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Inverting the Phase of a Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Changing Tracks’ Mono/Stereo Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Changing Track Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Setting Up Output Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Assigning Tracks to Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Choosing the Instrument Sound (Bank and Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Adding Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139

Adjusting Volume and Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Configurable Panning Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Adjusting Volume Trim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Assigning a MIDI Channel (Chn) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Adjusting the Key/Transposing a Track (Key+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Adjusting the Note Velocity (Vel+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142

Adjusting the Time Alignment of a MIDI Track (Time+) . . . . . . . . 143

Other MIDI Playback Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Controlling Live MIDI Playback—MIDI Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144

Local Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Playing Files in Batch Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148

The Play List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Video Playback, Import, and Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Inserting and Playing Back Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Exporting Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153

Optimizing Video Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154

Using the Video Thumbnails Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Locating Missing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

The Find Missing Audio File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Restoring Missing Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Managing Shared and External Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

4 Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Using Per-Project Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Creating a New Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Setting the Meter and Key Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Setting the Metronome and Tempo Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Setting the Audio Sampling Rate and Bit Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Setting the MIDI Timing Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Preparing to Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Recording Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170

Choosing an Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Arming Tracks for Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174

Auto Arming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174

Recording Music from a MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

Recording Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

Tuning an Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177

Confidence Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Input Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

The Audio Engine Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Loop Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Punch Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Step Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Step Pattern Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Recording Specific Ports and Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Input Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Importing Music and Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Importing Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Importing Material from Another SONAR Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Importing MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Labeling Your Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

File Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

5 Arranging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Arranging Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Changing the Order of Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Configuring the Display of Tracks in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . 207

Copying Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Erasing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Arranging Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Displaying Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Using the Navigator View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Double-clicking Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Selecting Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Moving and Copying Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Nudge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Nudge Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Working with Partial Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Markers and the Snap Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Showing Gridlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Defining and Using the Snap Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Snap Offsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Creating and Using Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Working with Linked Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Splitting and Combining Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Take Management and Comping Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

vii

Clip Muting and Isolating (Clip Soloing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Clip Muting with the Default Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Clip Muting with the Alternate Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .236

Audition (Selection Playback) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Isolating (Clip Soloing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Track Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238

Adding Effects in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Changing Tempos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241

Using the Tempo Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Using the Tempo Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Using the Tempo View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Undo, Redo, and the Undo History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

6 Using Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

The Loop Construction View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Loop Construction Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

The Loop Explorer View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Folders Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Contents List Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .258

Working with Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259

Working with Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .260

How Groove Clips Work in SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Using Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Creating and Editing Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Editing Slices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265

Saving Groove Clips as Wave Files/ACIDized Wave Files . . . . . . .266

Using Pitch Markers in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

MIDI Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Exporting, and Importing MIDI Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Importing Project5 Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

viii

7 Editing MIDI Events and Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Event Inspector Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

The Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Note Map Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Note Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Controllers Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .276

Track List Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Opening the View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Selecting and Editing Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Working with Multiple Tracks in the Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . 282

Note Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Selecting and Editing Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Transposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Shifting Events in Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Inserting Time or Measures into a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Stretching and Shrinking Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Reversing Notes in a Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Adding Crescendos and Decrescendos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Slip Editing MIDI (Non-destructive Editing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Slip Editing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Using Slip Editing for MIDI Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Slip-editing Multiple MIDI Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Changing the Timing of a Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Fit Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Searching for Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Event Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Controllers, RPNs, NRPNs, and Automation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Using the Controllers Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

The Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Event List Buttons and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Selecting Events in the Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Event List Display Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Editing Events and Event Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Additional Event Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

MIDI Effects (MIDI Plug-ins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Adding Echo/Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Filtering Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Adding Arpeggio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Analyzing Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Changing Velocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Transposing MIDI Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

8 Drum Maps and the Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .335

The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Creating and Editing a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

The Drum Map Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Working in the Drum Map Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

The Map Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Saving a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Using Drum Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Assigning a MIDI Track to a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Opening a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .340

Displaying Tracks in the Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Velocity Tails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Editing Note Velocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Previewing a Mapped Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

The Note Map Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .342

Changing Mapped-note Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

The Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .344

Grid Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

The Pattern Brush Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .345

How the Pattern Brush Tool Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Creating Custom Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347

9 Editing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Digital Audio Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .350

Basic Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .350

Example—A Guitar String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .352

Recording a Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

The Decibel Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .355

Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Managing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Basic Audio Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Editing Clip Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Moving, Copying, Pasting and Deleting Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Audio Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .359

Splitting Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .363

Bouncing to Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .364

Scrubbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Basic Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .365

Increasing or Decreasing Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Reversing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Equalizing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .368

Advanced Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Removing Silence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .369

Extracting Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Parametric Equalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .374

Slip-editing Audio (Non-destructive Editing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Slip-editing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Using Slip-editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Slip-editing Multiple Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .379

Fades and Crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Using Fades and Crossfades in Real Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Applying Fades and Crossfades Offline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Audio Effects (Audio Plug-ins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Applying Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Mixing Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Adding Parametric Equalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Adding Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Applying Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Adding Flanging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Applying Reverb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Shifting Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Stretching Time and Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

10 Working with Software Synthesizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .399

Kinds of Soft Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Synth Rack View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

DX Instruments (DXi’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Multi-port DXi’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Inserting a DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Opening a DXi’s Property Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

Playing a DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Muting and Soloing DXi Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Converting Your DXi Tracks to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Automating a DXi’s Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Inserting a ReWire Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

Mixing Down ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Automating ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

ReWire Troubleshooting Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Stand-alone Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Playing a Stand-alone Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Recording a Stand-alone Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Using VST Synths and Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

11 Mixing and Effects Patching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .419

Preparing to Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Configuring the Console and Track Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

Mixing MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Mixing a MIDI Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Converting MIDI to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Routing and Mixing Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Audio Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

Stereo Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Surround Buses (Producer Edition Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Main Outs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

What the Meters Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Hiding and Showing Meters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Changing the Meters’ Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Changing the Meters’ Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

Freeze Tracks and Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Using Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .444

Effects Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

How to Use Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Using the Per-track EQ (Producer Edition Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Applying Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Applying MIDI Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .448

Using Control Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .449

Using Remote Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .454

Using the Learn Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Bouncing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Preparing to Create an Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Preparing Audio for Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .459

Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

xii

12 Surround Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Surround Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .472

Configuring SONAR for Surround Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .473

Using Surround Format Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .473

Choosing a Surround Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Surround Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

Routing in Surround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .477

Downmixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .478

Panning in Surround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

Controlling Surround Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .480

Automating Surround Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .485

Joystick Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .485

Surround Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Bass Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Surround Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

The SurroundBridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Effect Property Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Effect Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

How to Patch and Configure Surround Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Importing Surround Mixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Exporting Surround Mixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

13 Using Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .493

Quick Automation Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

The Automation Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Automation Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Recording Individual Fader or Knob Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

Drawing Audio Envelopes in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Drawing MIDI Envelopes in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Dotted Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Drawing Envelopes on Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Showing or Hiding Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Deleting Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Copying and Pasting Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503

Resetting Envelopes and Nodes to Current or Neutral Values . . . 504

Envelope Mode and Offset Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

Automating Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Automating Individual Effects Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508

Recording Groups of Faders and/or Knobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Recording Automation Data from an External Controller . . . . . . . 510

Reassigning Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

The Envelope Editing and Node Editing Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

Automated Muting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512

14 Layouts, Templates and Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .513

Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

Floating Views and Dual Monitor Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517

Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517

Template Example: Three MIDI Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520

Importing Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Exporting Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

xiii

15 Working with Notation and Lyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525

The Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Opening the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

Staff Pane Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

The Staff Pane Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .528

The Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .529

Fretboard Popup Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

Basic Musical Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .531

Inserting Notes on the Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

Inserting Notes with the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .532

Selecting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Moving, Copying, and Deleting Notes on the Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . .533

Moving Notes from within the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

Auditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

Changing Note Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .536

Deglitch Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Working with Triplets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .538

Beaming of Rests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .538

Changing the Way Notes Are Displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539

Using Enharmonic Spellings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

MIDI Channels and the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542

Chords and Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .543

Adding Chord Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

Adding Expression Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

Adding Hairpin Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548

Adding Pedal Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .549

Tablature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .550

Tablature Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550

Changing Fretboard Texture and Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Quick TAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .552

Regenerate TAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

Entering Notes from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

Single Note Editing from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

Editing Chords or Groups of Notes from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . . 554

Editing Notes and Chords from the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Working with Percussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .556

Setting Up a Percussion Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

Setting Up a Percussion Staff or Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557

Ghost Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .559

Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559

The Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

What Is Meter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

What Is Key? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

xiv

Opening the Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Adding and Editing Meter/Key Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Music Notation for Non-concert-key Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

Working with Lyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Opening the Lyrics View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Lyrics View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

16 Using Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .569

Assigning Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

Importing Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

Creating Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Creating and Editing Patch Name and Other Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

Copying Name Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Assigning the Bank Select Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Assigning Patch Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578

Assigning Note Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580

Assigning Controller, RPN, and NRPN Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Instrument Definition Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582

Why Use Instrument Definitions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

What Can They Do and Not Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Where Do Instrument Definitions Come From? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Start of Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

17 Using System Exclusive Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .587

What Is System Exclusive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Sysx Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Using the System Exclusive View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Sending Sysx Banks at Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

Importing, Creating, and Dumping Sysx Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590

More about Dump Request Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592

Editing Sysx Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Sysx View Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Send . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Send All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Receive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Clear Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Edit Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Load Bank and Save Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Transmitting Banks During Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

Real-time Recording of System Exclusive Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Sysx Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .596

Sysx .

INI File Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598

18 Synchronizing Your Gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

Synchronization Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .602

Choosing Clock Sources When SONAR is the Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . .603

MIDI Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604

SONAR as the Slave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605

SONAR as the Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .606

Using MIDI Sync with Drum Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Troubleshooting MIDI Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608

SMPTE/MIDI Time Code Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608

Playing Digital Audio under SMPTE/MTC Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612

SMPTE/MTC Sync and Full Chase Lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

Troubleshooting SMPTE/MTC Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .614

MIDI Machine Control (MMC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615

19 Audio File Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

The Project Files Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .618

Project Files and Bundle Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .619

Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620

Global Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .620

Per-project Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .621

Imported Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623

Backing Up Projects with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .624

Deleting Unused Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .625

xvi

20 Improving Audio Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627

System Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628

The Wave Profiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628

Enabling and Disabling Audio Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .630

Configuring SONAR for 18 bit-, 20-bit, and 24-bit Operation . . . . . 630

Converting Sample Rates and Bit Depths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632

Improving Performance with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634

Getting the Most Out of Your PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635

Mixing Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637

WDM vs. MME Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638

ASIO Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638

Queue Buffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638

Status Bar/CPU Meter/Disk Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639

Appendix A: Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .641

When I Play a File, I Don’t Hear Anything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641

I Can’t Record from My MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

When I Play a File Containing Audio, the Audio Portion Doesn’t

Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

I Can’t Record Any Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645

My Track or Bus Fader is Maximized, But There’s No

Sound or Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645

The Music Is Playing Back with the Wrong Instrument Sounds . . . . . 646

How Do I Use SONAR to Access All the Sounds on My

MIDI Instrument? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

My Keyboard Doubles Every Note I Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647

I Don’t See the Clips Pane in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647

Why Can’t SONAR Find My Audio Files? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648

I Get an a Error Message When I Change a Project to 24-bit Audio . . 648

Bouncing Tracks Takes a Long Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648

Why Do I Get Errors from the Wave Profiler? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

I Hear an Echo When I Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

Audio Distorts at Greater than 16 Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650

No Sound from My DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650

My Pro Audio 9 Files Sound Louder/Softer When I Open

Them in SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

I Can’t Open My Project 651

SONAR Can’t Find the Wavetable Synth or MPU401 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652

Appendix B: Hardware Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .653

Connect Your MIDI Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653

Set Up to Record Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

xvii

Appendix C: Cyclone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661

Cyclone DXi Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662

Pad Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .662

Pad Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .663

Loop Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665

Loop View and Key Map View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .665

Pad Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .666

Slice Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .666

Using Cyclone DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

Controlling Individual Pads—Volume, Pan, Mute, Solo, Sync,

Looping, and Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .670

Mixing Down Cyclone DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671

Loop Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .671

Keyboard Shortcuts in Cyclone DXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .672

Undo and Redo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672

Appendix D: New Features in SONAR 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

Surround Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

SurroundBridge (Surround Effects Linker) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .673

Track Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .673

Slip-editing Multiple Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

Freeze Synths or Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .674

Loop Construction View Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Audio Metronome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Clip Muting and Isolating (Clip Soloing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Video Thumbnails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .674

Enhanced Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Enhanced Import/Export/Bounce Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Navigator Pane in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .675

Take Management and Comping Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .675

Audition (Selection Playback) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Nudge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .675

Configurable Panning Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .675

Joystick Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .676

PoW-r Dither . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Meter Ballistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Surround Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Cakewalk TTS-1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

xviii

Preface

The SONAR User’s Guide is designed to help you learn and use SONAR. This Guide explains how SONAR works and how to use it to create, edit, produce, and

perform. The SONAR User’s Guide is task-oriented, with lots of cross-references, so that you can find the information you need. The User’s Guide also includes a comprehensive index that you can use to find information on any specific topic.

About This Book

The SONAR User’s Guide is organized as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction, provides an overview of SONAR, installation instructions and basic equipment setup options.

Chapter 2, Getting Started, contains tutorials that cover many of the features of SONAR.

The remaining chapters cover all the basic and advanced skills you need to use SONAR to play, record, edit, arrange, and mix your projects.

The appendices contain additional information you can use for troubleshooting, setting up SONAR for use with audio hardware, and SONAR’s new features.

Registering SONAR Today

Please be sure to register your product on our Web site (www.cakewalk.com). If you do not register, we cannot provide you with technical support, or inform you when free updates and upgrades become available. By registering with Cakewalk, you also become eligible for discounts on other great software products.

You can also register by phone. Call toll-free at 888-Cakewalk (617-423-9004 outside the U.S.).

Conventions Used in this Book

The following table describes the text conventions in this book:

Convention... Meaning...

Bold Italics Text that appears in bold italics is a command in SONAR.

hyphen (File-Open) A hyphen represents a level in the menu hierarchy. For

SMALL CAPS Small caps are used for file extensions (.MID) and file names

example, File-Open means to click on the File menu and select the Open command.

AUD.INI).

(

Getting Help

In addition to this User’s Guide, SONAR includes online help that can provide you with quick reference information whenever you need it. Simply press F1 or click the Help button in any dialog box to find the information you need. If you are new to recording and editing music on your PC, see the online help topic “Beginner’s Guide to Cakewalk Software” for an introduction.

If you need more information than you can find in the User’s Guide or the online help, here are two great places to look:

• Check the Support page of our Web site (www.cakewalk.com) for updated technical information and answers to frequently asked questions.

• Post messages to the SONAR user community using one of the Cakewalk newsgroups. For more information about the newsgroups, visit www.cakewalk.com.

You can also get technical support directly from Cakewalk. In order to obtain technical support, you must register your product. You can obtain technical support for this product in the following ways:

• Visit http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/SONAR/SR4.asp.

• Call Cakewalk Technical Support at (617) 423-9021 on weekdays, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Eastern time. Be sure to have your serial number ready when you call.

Technical support hours, policies, and procedures are subject to change at any time. Check our Web site for the latest support information.

Introduction

SONAR is a professional tool for authoring sound and music on your personal computer. It’s designed for musicians, composers, arrangers, audio and production engineers, multimedia and game developers, and recording engineers. SONAR supports Wave, MP3, ACIDized waves, WMA, AIFF and other popular formats, providing all the tools you need to do professional-quality work rapidly and efficiently.

SONAR is more than an integrated MIDI and digital audio authoring software package—it’s an expandable platform that can function as the central nervous system of your recording studio. With drivers for common high-end audio hardware, full support for DirectX and VST audio plug-ins, DXi software synthesizers, MFX MIDI plug-ins, and MIDI Machine Control (MMC) of external MIDI gear, SONAR can handle your most demanding projects.

In This Chapter

About SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Computers, Sound, and Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Installation and Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Starting SONAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

SONAR Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Windows Taskbar Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Screen Colors and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Starting to Use SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

About SONAR

SONAR is the flagship product of the Cakewalk line of integrated MIDI and digital audio sequencers for the Windows platform. SONAR has a comprehensive feature set that makes it the single most productive tool for sound and music authoring. Here are some of the ways you can use SONAR.

Music Composition and Exploration

SONAR is a powerful music-composition application, providing tools to record your own musical performances; enhance or improve the quality of those performances; and edit, arrange, and experiment with the music. With a few simple clicks of the mouse, you can arrange, orchestrate, and audition your composition. Fully integrated sequencing allows you to combine the convenience and flexibility of MIDI composition with the high-quality sound and subtlety of digital audio sound recording and reproduction. Change the feel of a piece by locking it to a musical groove, or add delicate delays, anticipations, or echoes that add richness to the music.

SONAR displays and lets you edit your music using standard musical notation and guitar tablature, so you can adjust individual notes, add performance markings, and print individual parts or full scores. You can graphically draw tempo and volume changes, or add lyrics to display on-screen or to include with printed scores.

Remixing

SONAR’s Groove clips allow you to import, create, export and edit loops, making it possible to quickly change tempos and keys for an entire project. The Loop Explorer view lets you preview loops in the project’s tempo and key before dragging and dropping them onto a track.

Game Sound Development

There’s no better tool than SONAR for composing music for electronic games. Clipbased sequencing lets you create and reuse musical themes freely, so you can associate musical sections with game characters, locations, objects, and actions. Your creations can be saved and replayed using the compact MIDI file format, which adapts its sound automatically to the target hardware for the best possible sound reproduction.

Sound Production and Engineering

If you want to produce music CDs or master tapes, SONAR has virtually everything you need from recording to mixing and mastering. Multichannel recording lets you capture studio or live performances track by track. Reconfigurable buses provide full control over your mix. Real-time stereo effects like chorus, flange, reverb, parametric EQ, and delay/echo can be applied as track

inserts, in effects loops, or to the master mix. SONAR supports 44.1 KHz sampling for CD-quality sound and lets you choose from lower or higher sample rates as well. All audio effects are 32-bit floating point for faster processing and highquality sound reproduction.

Web A uthoring

SONAR is the ideal tool for developing and producing music and sound for the World Wide Web, because it lets you save your work in the formats that are most commonly used on web sites: MIDI, RealAudio, MP3, and Windows Media Advanced Streaming Format. Any SONAR project—musical composition, audio clip, commercial spot, jingle with voice-over—can be stored in a web-compatible format with a few simple mouse clicks.

Film and Video Scoring and Production

SONAR has many of the tools you need to execute audio post-production projects quickly and efficiently. SONAR provides chase lock sync to time code for frame-byframe accuracy when synchronizing audio or MIDI to film or video. Or, you can turn chase lock off to conserve CPU power. SONAR provides high-quality time stretching and sample-accurate editing with zero-crossing detection so you can make the fine adjustments you need in record time. In addition, SONAR’s support for video files gives you convenient synchronized access to digitized video, making film and video scoring easier than ever.

Flexibility

SONAR works the way you want to work—you can customize screen layouts, toolbars, and audio and MIDI system configurations to make your work more efficient. SONAR integrates with other sound editing tools so you can access them in an instant without leaving SONAR.

Computers, Sound, and Music

This section provides some background on the different ways that computers store and play sound and music. Computers work with sound and music in two different forms: MIDI and digital audio.

MIDI

MIDI (short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is the way computers communicate with most sound cards, keyboards, and other electronic instruments. MIDI refers to both the type of cables and plugs used to connect the computers and instruments, and to the language those computers and instruments use to talk to each other. The MIDI standard is accepted and used worldwide. Almost any electronic instrument you buy today will have MIDI connectors and can be used with other MIDI instruments and with your computer’s MIDI interface.

The MIDI language conveys information and instructions, both from the computer to the instrument and from the instrument to the computer. For example, if your computer wants your keyboard to play a note, it sends a MIDI “Note On” message and tells the keyboard which note to play. When your computer wants the keyboard to stop playing that note, it sends another message that stops the note from playing.

The MIDI language has many other instructions, such as messages to change the sound that is used to play the notes (the bank and patch), messages used to work the sustain pedal and the pitch-bend wheel, and others. By sending the right messages at the right times, your computer can control your electronic instrument and make it play music.

MIDI information can be sent on 16 different channels. You can set up your MIDI equipment to listen for messages on all channels or on only a few.

MIDI files contain all the MIDI messages and timing information that are needed to play a song. MIDI files can be read and played by many different programs, including SONAR, and can even be played by programs on other types of computers. MIDI files have the extension .

There are several important advantages of the MIDI format:

• Large amounts of music can be stored in a very compact form

• Different parts of a piece can easily be assigned to any instrument you can imagine

MID.

• The music contains information on notes, tempos, and key signatures that makes it possible to display and edit the piece using standard musical notation

The primary disadvantage of MIDI is that the quality of the music a listener hears will vary depending on the MIDI equipment the listener is using. For example, MIDI usually sounds much better on an expensive synthesizer than it does on an inexpensive sound card.

Digital Audio

Digital audio is a simple way to record and play sounds of any type. It works like a tape recorder—you record something, then later play it back. Digital audio stores the sound as a long series of numbers.

Sound Waves

Sound waves are vibrations in the air. Sound waves are generated by anything that vibrates; a vibrating object causes the air next to it to vibrate, and the vibration is passed through the air in all directions. When the vibrating air enters your ear, it makes your eardrum vibrate, and you hear a sound. Likewise, if the vibrating air hits a microphone, it causes the microphone to vibrate and send electrical signals to whatever it's connected to.

These vibrations are very fast. The slowest vibration frequency you can hear is about 20 vibrations per second, and the fastest is around 16,000 to 20,000 vibrations per second.

Recording Digital Audio

To record digital audio, your computer monitors the electrical signal generated by a microphone, an electric guitar, or another source. At equal intervals of time (for CD-quality sound, this means 44,100 times a second), the computer measures and saves the strength of the electrical signal from the microphone, on a scale from 0 to 65,535.

That's it. Digital audio data is just a long series of numbers. The computer sends these numbers, in the form of electrical signals, to a speaker. The speaker then vibrates and generates the same sound that was recorded.

The primary advantage of digital audio is the quality of the sound. Unlike MIDI, a digital audio recording is very rich, capturing all the nuances, overtones, and other characteristics of the sound exactly as performed. The main drawback of digital audio is that it takes up a lot of disk space. To record a 1-minute segment of stereo, CD-quality digital audio, you need about 10 megabytes of disk space.

On the PC, digital audio is usually stored in Wave files (extension .wav). There are many programs available that let you create, play, and edit these files. SONAR reads, writes, and lets you edit Wave files.

More information about digital audio can be found in Chapter 9, Editing Audio.

Installation and Setup

You can install SONAR on any computer that runs Windows 2000 or XP and has a sound card or built-in sound module. If you want to hook up other devices, like a MIDI keyboard, an electric guitar, or a microphone, you need the right cables, and you need to find the right connectors on your computer.

Before you install SONAR, take a minute to register the software so we can let you know when updates become available and provide you with technical support. To register your copy of SONAR, fill in the registration card in your product package and mail it back to us. Or, register at our Web site: www.cakewalk.com.

To connect a MIDI keyboard to your computer, you need standard MIDI cables or a MIDI adapter cable, such as the one available in Cakewalk’s PC Music Pack. One end of the adapter cable should have two 5-pin DIN connectors that connect to your keyboard or other MIDI device. At the other end, you need a 15-pin connector to connect to a sound card through its MIDI/joystick port.

If you have a dedicated MIDI interface, lots of electronic music gear, or work with many different music software packages, see Appendix B: Hardware Setup.

Before you attach or detach any cables from your computer, you should shut down your computer and turn off the power to all your equipment. This greatly reduces the chance of electrical damage to your equipment while plugging and unplugging cables.

To Connect a MIDI Keyboard to Your Computer

1. One of the 5-pin connectors on the MIDI cable is labeled Out. Plug this connector into the MIDI In jack on your electronic keyboard.

2. The other 5-pin connector on the MIDI cable is labeled In. Plug this connector into the MIDI Out jack on your electronic keyboard.

3. If you are using a MIDI adaptor cable, plug the 15-pin connector on the MIDI cable into the MIDI/joystick port on your sound card. If you have a joystick, unplug it, plug in the MIDI cable, and plug the joystick into the pass-through connector on the MIDI cable.

If you are using standard MIDI cables, plug the cable connected to the MIDI Out on your MIDI instrument into the MIDI In of your sound card or MIDI interface. Plug the cable connected to the MIDI In on your MIDI instrument into the MIDI Out of your sound card or MIDI interface.

To Connect an Electric Guitar to Your Computer

1. Plug your 1/4” mono guitar cable into a 1/8” stereo adapter.

2. Plug the 1/8” adapter into the microphone input or line input jack on your computer sound card.

To Connect a Microphone to Your Computer

1. If your microphone does not have a 1/8” mono or stereo plug, plug the microphone into a 1/8” adapter.

2. Plug the 1/8” adapter into the microphone input jack on your computer sound card.

That's it! Now that your instruments are all set to go, you can restart your computer and turn on your keyboard, guitar, and microphone.

Installing SONAR

SONAR is easy to install. All you need to do is choose the folder where the program and sample project files should be stored.Before you start, make sure you have your serial number handy. Your serial number is located on the back of your CD case.

Installation note: If you choose to not install the Sample files, you will not have the necessary content to use the tutorials in Chapter 2.

To Install SON AR

1. Start your computer.

2. Close any open programs you have running.

3. Place the SONAR CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive.

If you have autorun enabled, the SONAR AutoRun menu opens automatically, showing you a dialog box with several buttons. If autorun is not enabled, you can open the SONAR AutoRun menu by selecting Start-Run and entering d:\AutoRun.exe (where d:\ is your CD-ROM drive).

4. Click the Install SONAR button.

Note:

If you exit Setup without completing the installation, choose Start-Run, type D:\AutoRun.exe (where D:\ is your CD-ROM drive), and click OK. This will reopen the AutoRun window, and you can click Install SONAR to start installation again.

5. Follow the installation instructions on the screen.

You can also install SONAR by choosing Start-Run and running the application named

SETUP.EXE from the CD.

Uninstalling SONAR 4

When you installed SONAR, the setup program placed an Uninstall icon in the Start menu. To uninstall SONAR, click the Start button and choose Programs-

Cakewalk-SONAR 4 (Studio Edition or Producer Edition)-Uninstall SONAR 4 (Studio Edition or Producer Edition).

Starting SONAR

There are many different ways to start SONAR. Here are a few:

• Click on the SONAR icon on your desktop.

• Click on the Start button, and choose Programs-Cakewalk-SONAR 4

(Studio Edition or Producer Edition)-SONAR 4 (Studio Edition or Producer Edition).

• Click the Start button, point to Documents, and choose a SONAR project from the menu.

• Double-click the SONAR program or any SONAR document from the Windows Explorer or the Find menu.

When you start SONAR, you see the Quick Start dialog box.

The Quick Start dialog box has several options:

Option… How to use it…

Open a Project Choose a project from the Open File dialog

Open a Recent Project Select a project from the list, and click this

Create a New Project Click here to create a new project.

Getting Started Click here to view the Getting Started topic

If you don’t want to see the Quick Start dialog box in the future, uncheck the box at the bottom of the dialog box, and click Close. You can see the Quick Start dialog box later by choosing Help-Quick Start.

Migratin g Preferences

If you have a previous version of Cakewalk installed, SONAR will detect it and give you the option of migrating certain preferences from a single earlier version.

box to open it

button to open it

in the help file. This topic has links to a glossary of terms, as well as some basic procedures.

When you choose to migrate preferences, SONAR migrates the following settings from an earlier Cakewalk version:

Setting… Description

Global Options Settings in the Global Options dialog. Open

by selecting Options-Global.

Key Bindings Your customized key bindings for

controlling SONAR using your MIDI keyboard or computer keyboard.

Instrument Definitions Files used to control specific MIDI

Audio data directory (WaveData folder) and Picture Cache directory locations

instruments. See Chapter 16, Using Instrument Definitions.

SONAR uses the Data directory and Picture Cache directories from the previous Cakewalk version for storing project wave files and their waveform image files.

Running Wave Profiler

The first time you start SONAR, it automatically runs the Wave Profiler utility. Wave Profiler determines the proper MIDI and Audio timings for your sound card and writes them to a file that SONAR refers to when using the card. Wave Profiler does not change the sound card’s DMA, IRQ, or port address settings.

Wave Profiler detects the make and model of your sound card, which determine the card’s audio characteristics. If Wave Profiler finds a card that has a WDM driver, it only profiles that card. If you want to use more than one sound card at a time, and they don’t both have WDM drivers, you must force the one with the WDM driver to use that driver as an older, MME driver. It is not necessary to run the Wave Profiler for a sound card using an ASIO driver. For more information about Wave Profiler, WDM, and MME, see “The Wave Profiler” on page 628. When Wave Profiler determines the kind of card you have, always accept the default settings.

Note:

You can run the Wave Profiler again at a later time (for example, if you install a new sound card or driver) by choosing the Options- Audio General tab command and clicking Wave Profiler.

Setting Up the MIDI In and MIDI Out Devices

When you start SONAR for the first time, it checks your computer to find all the MIDI input and output devices you have installed (such as sound cards and MIDI interfaces). However, sometimes you need to tell SONAR exactly which devices you want it to use. If you’re not getting sound from your sound card or MIDI keyboard, or if you just want to change the MIDI outputs and devices that you are using, follow the steps in this section.

Choose Options-MIDI Devices to open a dialog box in which you select the MIDI In and MIDI Out devices that SONAR will use. Each item in the list is a MIDI Input or MIDI Output from drivers installed using the Windows Control Panel.

1. Select Options-MIDI Devices. You will see the MIDI Devices dialog box, which lets you choose instruments on MIDI inputs and outputs.

Device selected for MIDI input

2. Look at the left window. Notice that it shows devices on MIDI Inputs; make sure that all devices in this window are highlighted. If a device isn’t highlighted, click on it once to select it for MIDI Input.

3. Look at the window on the right. Notice that it shows devices on MIDI Outputs. SONAR numbers its MIDI Outputs by the order of the devices in this window. The device on top is on Output 1, the one below it is on Output 2, and so on.

4. Highlight one device at a time in the Outputs window and click Move Selected Devices to Top to change its order. Then highlight all the devices that appear

in the window to select them for output.

Devices selected for MIDI output

Device not selected for MIDI output

Click here to change order of MIDI devices

Tip!

Be sure to choose MIDI output devices from Options-MIDI Devices. If you don’t do this, you won’t hear any of your MIDI instruments when you play songs in SONAR.

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Cakewalk Sonar 4 User's Guide

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual