Cakewalk Sonar 6 User's Guide

™

Cakewalk SONAR Reference 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Registering SONAR Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Conventions Used in this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

About SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Music Composition and Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Remixing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Game Sound Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Sound Production and Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Web Authoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Film and Video Scoring and Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Computers, Sound, and Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Audio Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

MIDI Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Starting SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

SONAR Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

SONAR File Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Opening a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Working on a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Windows Taskbar Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Screen Colors and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Starting to Use SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Installing SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

2 Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Tutorial 1—The Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Opening a Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Preparing for Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Playing the Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Restarting the Project Automatically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Changing the Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Muting and Soloing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Changing a Track's Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Playing Music on a Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Tutorial 2—Recording MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Recording a MIDI Track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Loop Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Punch-In Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Tutorial 3—Recording Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Setting the Sampling Rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Setting the Audio Driver Bit Depth and Recording Bit Depth. . . . . . 91

Open a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Setting Up an Audio Track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Checking the Input Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Recording Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Listening to the Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Recording Another Take . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Input Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Loop and Punch-In Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

6 Table of Contents

Recording Multiple Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95

Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

Transposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

Copying Clips with Drag and Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

Editing Notes in the Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98

Slip-editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

Drawing MIDI Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

Converting MIDI to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102

Tutorial 5—Editing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104

Opening the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104

Importing a Wave File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104

Moving and Looping the Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105

Slip-editing a Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106

Automatic Crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

Bouncing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

Tutorial 6—Using Groove Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108

Adding Groove Clips to a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109

Looping Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111

Changing the Pitch of Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Changing the Tempo of Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

Creating Your Own Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

Tutorial 7—Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118

Adding Real-time Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Automating an Individual Effect’s Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Grouping Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120

Automating Your Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121

Exporting an MP3 File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122

Tutorial 8—Using Soft Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124

Inserting Cakewalk TTS-1 into a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124

Playing MIDI Tracks through a Soft Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125

Converting Your Soft Synth Tracks to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .126

Tutorial 9—Drum Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128

Create a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128

Creating a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128

Create a Drum Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129

Map Drum Notes to Different Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130

3 Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

The Now Time and How to Use It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134

The Now Time Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136

Displaying the Now Time in Large Print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137

7Table of Contents

Other Ways to Set the Now Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

The Time Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Handling Stuck Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Looping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Using the Large Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Track-by-Track Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

The Playback State Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Silencing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Soloing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Inverting the Phase of a Track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Changing Tracks’ Mono/Stereo Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Changing Track Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Setting Up Output Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Assigning Tracks to Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Choosing the Instrument Sound (Bank and Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Adding Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Adjusting Volume and Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Configurable Panning Laws. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Adjusting Volume Trim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Assigning a MIDI Channel (Chn) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Adjusting the Key/Transposing a Track (Key+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Adjusting the Note Velocity (Vel+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Adjusting the Time Alignment of a MIDI Track (Time+). . . . . . . . . 172

Other MIDI Playback Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Controlling Live MIDI Playback—MIDI Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Local Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Playing Files in Batch Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

The Play List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Video Playback, Import, and Export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Inserting and Playing Back Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Exporting Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Optimizing Video Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Using the Video Thumbnails Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Video Playback on a FireWire DV Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Exporting a Project to a FireWire DV Device. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Synchronizing External Video Playback to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Locating Missing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

The Find Missing Audio File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Restoring Missing Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Managing Shared and External Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

8 Table of Contents

4 Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196

Using Per-Project Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196

Creating a New Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196

Setting the Meter and Key Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198

Setting the Metronome and Tempo Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199

Setting the Audio Sampling Rate and Bit Depth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202

Setting the MIDI Timing Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Preparing to Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .204

Recording Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .204

Choosing an Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205

Arming Tracks for Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208

Auto Arming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209

Recording Music from a MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209

Recording Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .210

Tuning an Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211

Confidence Recording and Waveform Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .213

Input Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214

The Audio Engine Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .218

Loop Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .219

Punch Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221

Step Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223

Step Record Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .230

Step Pattern Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231

Recording Specific Ports and Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .232

Input Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235

Importing Music and Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235

Importing Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235

Importing Material from Another SONAR Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . .237

Importing OMF Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238

Importing MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .240

Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241

Using File Versioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .242

Labeling Your Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .243

File Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245

9Table of Contents

5 Arranging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Arranging Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Changing the Order of Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Inserting Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Configuring the Display of Tracks in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Copying Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Erasing Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Track Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Track Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Configuring Track View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Arranging Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Displaying Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Using the Navigator View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Opening Views by Double-clicking Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Selecting Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Moving and Copying Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Locking Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Nudge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Nudge Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Working with Partial Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Markers and the snap grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Showing Gridlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Defining and Using the Snap Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Snap Offsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Creating and Using Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Working with Linked Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Splitting and Combining Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Take Management and Comping Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Clip Muting and Isolating (Clip Soloing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Clip Muting with the Default Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Clip Muting with the Alternate Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Audition (Selection Playback) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Isolating (Clip Soloing). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Track Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Adding Effects in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Changing Tempos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Using the Tempo Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Using the Tempo Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Using the Tempo View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Undo, Redo, and the Undo History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

10 Table of Contents

Slip-editing (Non-destructive Editing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .312

Using Slip-editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .312

Slip-editing Multiple Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .314

Fades and Crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315

Using Fades and Crossfades in Real Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315

6 Using Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

The Loop Construction View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .322

Loop Construction Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .322

The Loop Explorer View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .327

Folders Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .328

Contents List Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .328

Working with Loops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .329

Working with Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .330

How Groove Clips Work in SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .330

Using Groove Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331

Creating and Editing Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .332

Editing Slices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .335

Saving Groove Clips as Wave Files/ACIDized Wave Files . . . . . .336

Using Pitch Markers in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .337

MIDI Groove Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .338

Exporting, and Importing MIDI Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .340

Importing Project5 Patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .342

7 AudioSnap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Enabling AudioSnap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .344

The AudioSnap Palette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .346

Transient Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349

Displaying Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349

Disabling and Enabling Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349

Marker Appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .350

Editing Markers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .352

The Pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .354

Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .355

Aligning Clips to New Tempo Changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .355

Aligning Project Tempo to a Clip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .357

Extract Timing Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .358

Quantizing Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361

Groove Quantize and Quantize to Pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .364

11Table of Contents

Aligning MIDI with Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Copying Audio Rhythms as MIDI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Slip-stretching Audio Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Adding Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

8 Editing MIDI Events and Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Event Inspector Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

The Piano Roll View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Note Map Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Drum Grid Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Notes Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Controller Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Track List Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Opening the View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Working with Multiple Tracks in the Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Note Names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Displaying Notes and Controllers (Piano Roll View Only) . . . . . . . . . . 378

Adding and Editing Notes in the Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Selecting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Editing Notes with the Draw Tool and the Select Tool . . . . . . . . . 382

Adding and Editing Controllers in the Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Adding Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Selecting Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Editing Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

The Inline Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Displaying the Inline Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

The MIDI Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Displaying Notes and Controllers in the Inline Piano Roll View. . . 395

Selecting and Editing Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Copying and Pasting MIDI Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Transposing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Shifting Events in Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Inserting Time or Measures into a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Stretching and Shrinking Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Reversing Notes in a Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Adding Crescendos and Decrescendos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Changing the Timing of a Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Fit Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Snap to Scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

12 Table of Contents

Searching for Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423

Event Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423

Controllers, RPNs, NRPNs, and

Automation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .429

The Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .431

Event List Buttons and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .432

Selecting Events in the Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .435

Event List Display Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .436

Editing Events and Event Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .436

Additional Event Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .438

MIDI Effects (MIDI Plug-ins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .440

MIDI Effects Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .440

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .441

Adding Echo/Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .442

Filtering Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .443

Adding Arpeggio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .444

Analyzing Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .445

Changing Velocities with the Velocity Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .446

Transposing MIDI Notes with the Transpose MIDI Effect. . . . . . . .447

9 Drum Maps and the Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .452

Creating and Editing a Drum Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .452

The Drum Map Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .452

Working in the Drum Map Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .454

The Map Properties Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .454

Saving a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .455

Using Drum Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .456

Assigning a MIDI Track to a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .456

Opening a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .456

Displaying Tracks in the Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .456

Velocity Tails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .457

Editing Note Velocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .457

Previewing a Mapped Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .458

The Note Map Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .458

Changing Mapped-note Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .459

The Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .460

Grid Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .460

The Pattern Brush Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .461

How the Pattern Brush Tool Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .461

Creating Custom Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .463

13Table of Contents

10 Editing Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Digital Audio Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Basic Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Example—A Guitar String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Recording a Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

The Decibel Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

Managing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

Basic Audio Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

Editing Clip Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Moving, Copying, Pasting and Deleting Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Audio Scaling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Splitting Audio Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

Bouncing to Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Scrubbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Basic Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Using the Normalize and Gain Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Reversing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

Advanced Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Removing Silence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Removing DC Offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Applying Fades and Crossfades Offline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Audio Effects (Audio Plug-ins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Applying Audio Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Directly Applying Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Shifting Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Stretching Time and Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

11 Software Synthesizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Synth Rack View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

Synth Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

Inserting Soft Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Opening a Soft Synth’s Property Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

Synth Rack Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Playing a Soft Synth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Muting and Soloing Soft Synth Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Multi-port Soft Synths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505

Converting Your Soft Synth Tracks to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505

14 Table of Contents

Using the Assignable Controls Feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .507

Automating Controls from the Synth Rack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .508

Displaying Synth Rack Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .508

Remote Control of the Synth Rack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .508

Drawing Soft Synth Automation in the Clips Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . .509

Soft Synth MIDI Output Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .509

Recording a Soft Synth’s MIDI Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .509

ReWire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .511

ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .511

Inserting a ReWire Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .512

Routing MIDI Data to ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .514

Mixing Down ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .515

Automating ReWire Instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .515

ReWire Troubleshooting Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .515

Stand-alone Synths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .516

Playing a Stand-alone Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .516

Recording a Stand-alone Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .516

12 Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Preparing to Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .520

Configuring the Console and Track Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .522

Mixing MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .526

Mixing a MIDI Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .526

Converting MIDI to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .527

Signal Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .529

Routing and Mixing Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .531

Stereo Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .532

Surround Buses (Producer Edition Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .533

Main Outs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .534

Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .535

What the Meters Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .535

Hiding and Showing Meters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .536

Changing the Meters’ Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .537

Segmented and Non-segmented Meters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .539

Changing the Meters’ Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .539

Peak Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .540

Waveform Preview for Buses and Synth Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .542

Freeze Tracks and Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .543

Using Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .546

Effects Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .547

15Table of Contents

How to Use Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548

Presets and Property Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550

Effects on Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Organizing Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

VST Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

V-Vocal Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

Using V-Vocal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Playing Back V-Vocal Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Pitch Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Editing Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Editing Formants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Editing Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

Using the Per-track EQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

Applying Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

Applying MIDI Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Using Control Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Quick Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Using Remote Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

Using the Learn Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Bouncing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Preparing to Create an Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584

Preparing Audio for Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585

Exporting OMF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591

Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

13 Surround Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

Surround Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Configuring SONAR for Surround Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Using Surround Format Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Choosing a Surround Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599

Surround Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600

Routing in Surround. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

Downmixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602

Panning in Surround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

Controlling Surround Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605

Automating Surround Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610

Joystick Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610

16 Table of Contents

Surround Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .612

Bass Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .612

Surround Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .613

The SurroundBridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .613

Effect Property Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .614

Effect Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .614

How to Patch and Configure Surround Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .614

Importing Surround Mixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .617

Exporting Surround Mixes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .618

14 Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619

Quick Automation Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .620

The Automation Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .621

Automation Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .621

Automation Read and Automation Write Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . .622

Recording Individual Fader or Knob Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . .623

Creating and Editing Audio Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .624

Creating and Editing MIDI Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .626

Dotted Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .629

Using the Envelope Draw Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .629

Drawing Envelopes on Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .631

Showing or Hiding Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .631

Deleting Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .632

Copying and Pasting Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .632

Resetting Envelopes and Nodes to Current or Neutral Values . . .633

Envelope Mode and Offset Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .634

Converting MIDI Envelopes to Shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .636

Snapshots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .637

Adding Nodes at a Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .639

Automating Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .639

Automating Individual Effects Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .639

Recording Automation Data from an External Controller . . . . . . . .640

Reassigning Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .641

The Envelope Editing and Node Editing Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .642

Automated Muting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .643

17Table of Contents

15 Layouts, Templates

and Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645

Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Floating Views and Dual Monitor Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650

Template Example: Three MIDI Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652

Importing Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

Exporting Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

16 Notation and Lyrics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657

The Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658

Opening the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659

Staff Pane Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659

The Staff Pane Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660

The Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662

Fretboard Popup Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663

Basic Musical Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664

Inserting Notes on the Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664

Inserting Notes with the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665

Selecting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666

Moving, Copying, and Deleting Notes on the Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . 666

Moving Notes from within the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668

Auditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668

Changing Note Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669

Deglitch Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670

Working with Triplets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671

Beaming of Rests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671

Changing the Way Notes Are Displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672

Using Enharmonic Spellings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

MIDI Channels and the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Chords and Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677

Adding Chord Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677

Adding Expression Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680

Adding Hairpin Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682

Adding Pedal Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683

Tablature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685

Tablature Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685

Changing Fretboard Texture and Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686

Quick TAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687

18 Table of Contents

Regenerate TAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .687

Entering Notes from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .688

Single Note Editing from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .689

Editing Chords or Groups of Notes from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . .689

Editing Notes and Chords from the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .690

Working with Percussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .691

Setting Up a Percussion Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .692

Setting Up a Percussion Staff or Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .692

Ghost Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .694

Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .694

The Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .695

What Is Meter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .695

What Is Key? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .696

Opening the Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .697

Adding and Editing Meter/Key Changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .698

Music Notation for Non-concert-key

Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .699

Working with Lyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .700

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .701

Opening the Lyrics View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .702

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Lyrics View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .703

17 Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705

Assigning Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .706

Importing Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .708

Creating Instrument Definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .709

Creating and Editing Patch Name and Other Lists. . . . . . . . . . . . .712

Copying Name Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .713

Assigning the Bank Select Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .714

Assigning Patch Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .715

Assigning Note Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .716

Assigning Controller, RPN, and NRPN Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .718

Instrument Definition Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .720

Why Use Instrument Definitions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .720

What Can They Do and Not Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .720

Where Do Instrument Definitions Come From? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .720

Start of Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .721

19Table of Contents

18 System Exclusive Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

What Is System Exclusive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

Sysx Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

Using the System Exclusive View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

Sending Sysx Banks at Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727

Importing, Creating, and Dumping Sysx Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728

More about Dump Request Macros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

Editing Sysx Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731

Sysx View Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731

Send . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Send All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Receive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Clear Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732

Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

Edit Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

Load Bank and Save Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

Transmitting Banks During Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734

Real-time Recording of System Exclusive Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734

Sysx Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735

Sysx .

INI File Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736

19 Synchronizing Your Gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 739

Synchronization Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740

Choosing Clock Sources When SONAR is the Master . . . . . . . . . . . . 741

MIDI Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742

SONAR as the Slave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743

SONAR as the Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

Using MIDI Sync with Drum Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745

Troubleshooting MIDI Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

SMPTE/MIDI Time Code Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

Playing Digital Audio under SMPTE/MTC Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

SMPTE/MTC Sync and Full Chase Lock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Troubleshooting SMPTE/MTC Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752

MIDI Machine Control (MMC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

20 Table of Contents

20 Audio File Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

The Project Files Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .756

Project Files and Bundle Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .757

Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .759

Global Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .759

Per-project Audio Folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .759

Imported Audio Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .762

Backing Up Projects with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .762

Deleting Unused Audio Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .764

21 Improving Audio Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

System Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .768

The Wave Profiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .768

Enabling and Disabling Audio Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .769

Sampling Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .770

Bit Depths, and Float Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .771

Bit Depths for Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .772

Bit Depths for Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .773

Bit Depths for Importing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .773

Bit Depths for Exporting Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .774

Bit Depths for Rendering Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .774

Preparing Higher-quality Audio for CD Burning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .775

SONAR Project File Compatibility Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .776

Improving Performance with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .776

Getting the Most Out of Your PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .777

Mixing Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .780

ASIO Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .780

Queue Buffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .781

Status Bar/CPU Meter/Disk Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .781

22 External Devices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783

Edirol PCR Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .784

Connecting and Disconnecting Controllers/Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . .786

The WAI Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .788

Changing or Creating Mappings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .790

ACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .790

ACT MIDI Controller Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .792

Assigning Faders and Knobs to Control SONAR Parameters . . . .794

Controlling Different Tracks or Groups of Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . .797

21Table of Contents

The ACT MIDI Controller Property Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 798

Saving and Creating Presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804

Sample Controller/Surface Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805

Final Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807

Appendix A: Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809

Audio dropouts or crash when playing back large files

at maximum latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809

When I Play a File, I Don’t Hear Anything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 810

I Can’t Record from My MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811

When I Play a File Containing Audio, the Audio Portion Doesn’t Play. 813

I Can’t Record Any Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814

My Track or Bus Fader is Maximized, But There’s No Sound or Level 815

The Music Is Playing Back with the Wrong Instrument Sounds. . . . . . 815

How Do I Use SONAR to Access

All the Sounds on My MIDI Instrument? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 816

My Keyboard Doubles Every Note I Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 816

I Don’t See the Clips Pane in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817

Why Can’t SONAR Find My Audio Files? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817

I Get an a Error Message When I Change a Project to 24-bit Audio . . 818

Bouncing Tracks Takes a Long Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

Why Do I Get Errors from the Wave Profiler? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

I Hear an Echo When I Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819

Dropouts Happen in High Bit-depth or High Sample Rate Audio. . . . . 820

Audio Distorts at Greater than 16 Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

No Sound from My Soft Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

My Pro Audio 9 Files Sound Louder/Softer

When I Open Them in SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821

I Can’t Open My Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822

SONAR Can’t Find the Wavetable Synth or MPU401 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822

Appendix B: Hardware Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Connect Your MIDI Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Set Up to Record Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 826

Appendix C: View Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831

22 Table of Contents

Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .831

SONAR Empty View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .840

Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .840

Piano Roll View Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .841

Note Map Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .843

Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .843

Notes Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .843

Controller pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .843

Track List pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .843

Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .844

Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .844

The Staff View Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .845

Synth Rack View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .847

Console View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .850

Video View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .855

Tempo View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .857

Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .858

Markers View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .859

SYSX View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .859

Loop Construction view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .859

Navigator View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .864

Play List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .864

Surround Panner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .865

Appendix D: New Features in SONAR 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867

AudioSnap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .867

MIDI Controller and Control Surface Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . .867

New Synth Automation and Synth Rack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .868

Soft Synth MIDI Output Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .868

Enhanced ReWire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .868

VST 64-bit Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .868

Preset Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .869

Organizing Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .869

Enhanced Plug-in Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .869

Customizable Menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .869

Customizable Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .870

New Console View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .870

23Table of Contents

Streamlined and Configurable Track View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 870

Redesigned Large Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 870

Clip Handles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871

Clip Lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871

Absolute-Time-Based Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871

Enhanced Time Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871

Automation Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871

Enhanced Mouse Wheel Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872

Enhanced Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872

File Versioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872

Import 64-bit Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872

Friendly Driver Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872

Lasso Selects Touched Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873

Default Settings Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873

New Export/Bounce Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873

V-Vocal Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873

New Snap to Grid Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 874

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 875

LICENSE AGREEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 905

24 Table of Contents

Preface

The SONAR Reference 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 Reference Guide is both taskoriented, and reference-oriented, providing information for basic procedures, and descriptions of the various parts of the interface. The Reference Guide also includes a comprehensive index that you can use to find information on any specific topic.

Registering SONAR Today

New Cakewalk products will require product registration. When you register your product, you provide some information including your name and email address, as well as the serial number for your product.

Product registration can be done quickly on the internet or by phone.

To register anytime log onto http://www.cakewalk.com/register, or call 888CAKEWALK (U.S.) or +(617)-423-9004 (outside the U.S.) between 9 AM and 8 PM Eastern Standard Time. If you live outside of North America, please visit our distributor’s page at www.cakewalk.com/Dealers/International.asp to get the telephone number of your local distributor.

You’ll need to supply your serial number, your name, and a valid email address. In return for this information, we’ll email you a registration code that will allow you to keep using the software forever. We recommend you write this registration code on the serial number sticker for safekeeping.

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)

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

A hyphen represents a level in the menu hierarchy. For example, File-Open means to click on the File menu and select the Open command.

names (

AUD.INI).

Getting Help

In addition to this Reference 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 SONAR Reference 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 forums. 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/SR6.asp.

• Call Cakewalk Technical Support at +1 (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.

26 Preface

Conventions Used in this Book

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

Preface

Getting Help

28 Preface

Getting Help

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 audio plug-ins, 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Computers, Sound, and Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Starting SONAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

SONAR Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Windows Taskbar Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Screen Colors and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Installing SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

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 highquality 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 onscreen 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. Clip-based 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.

30 Introduction

About SONAR

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, 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, 24-bit/96 kHz sound for DVD-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 high-quality sound reproduction. Many effects now support 64-bit processing for pristine quality.

Web Authoring

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, 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 webcompatible 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-by-frame 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 zerocrossing 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.

Introduction

About 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. To record MIDI in SONAR, you have to have a MIDI cable connecting the MIDI OUT port on your MIDI instrument to a MIDI IN port on either your sound card or your MIDI interface. You must also have installed the software MIDI driver that came with your sound card or 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

32 Introduction

Computers, Sound, and Music

MID.

can imagine

• 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 sound 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 (frequently referred to here as just “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. To record audio in SONAR, you have to have an audio cable connecting the audio output of your electronic instrument to the audio input on your sound card or audio hardware. If you’re recording vocals or an acoustic instrument, you need to connect a microphone to the audio input on your sound card or audio hardware.

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.

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Computers, Sound, and Music

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.

Setup

You can install SONAR on any computer that runs Windows XP or x64 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 anytime log onto http://www.cakewalk.com/ register, or call 888-CAKEWALK (U.S.) or +(617)-423-9004 (outside the U.S.) between 9 AM and 8 PM Eastern Standard Time. If you live outside of North America, please visit our distributor’s page at www.cakewalk.com/ Dealers/International.asp to get the telephone number of your local distributor. You’ll need to supply your serial number, your name, and a valid email address.

To connect a MIDI keyboard to your computer, you need standard MIDI cables or a MIDI adapter cable (joystick connector), 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 see the online help topic “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.

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Setup

Audio Connections

There are several types of audio interfaces (soundcards). CardBus (PCI), USB/USB2 and FireWire are the most common. Laptops can use an audio PCMCIA card. Many audio interfaces also have MIDI inputs and some have built in MIDI synthesizers as well. This section covers the various audio connection options.

Analog and Digital Inputs

There are two basic types of audio inputs, analog and digital. Analog inputs allow you to connect a guitar, mic or other instrument to your computer directly. The audio interface converts the analog input to digital. Digital inputs allow other digital devices to connect directly to your computer. Common digital inputs include external analog to digital converters, popular guitar processors like the Line6 Pod, and other digital recording systems like the ADAT decks. Analog inputs are very common, and are standard in virtually all consumer sound cards (the ones that come with your PC). Digital inputs are becoming more popular and are very common on professional and mid-level, “prosumer” interfaces. Analog inputs allow you to record a mono or stereo signal (assuming you have a stereo input) while digital inputs allow you to record 1 to 8 signals depending on the type of digital connection.

The following table describes the various analog inputs and outputs:

Type of analog input/ output...

Balanced (XLR, phono or RCA) a mono input/output

Unbalanced (TRS) a stereo or mono input/output

The following table describes the various digital inputs and outputs:

Description…

Introduction

Setup

Type of digital input/

Description…

output...

S/PDIF Sony/Philips Digital Interface—capable

of carrying a stereo signal, S/PDIF is transmitted via RCA, Toslink or more rarely BNC jacks (single-pin cable-TV connections)

ADAT Lightpipe Up to 8 channels of simultaneous

transfer. If you want to import your old ADAT material without any signal degradation, this is the connection you should use.

TDIF Tascam Digital Interface—up to 8

channels of simultaneous transfer.

AES/EBU Often referred to as simply AES, this

type of digital connection uses a modified XLR cable to transfer a stereo signal.

Read your hardware documentation carefully to determine what kind of digital connections, if any, you have on your audio interface.

To Connect an Electric Guitar or Keyboard to Your Computer

• If your sound card has a 1/8 inch input jack (built-in sound cards that come with your PC usually do), plug your 1/4” mono guitar or audio cable into a 1/8” stereo adapter, and then plug the 1/8” adapter into the microphone input or line input jack on your computer sound card. If you are connecting a keyboard, the audio cable must go from the keyboard’s audio out or line out jack to the sound card input jack. 1/8” stereo adapters are available at consumer electronic supply stores.

• If you use a professional or “prosumer” sound card, there is probably a 1/4 inch input jack on your sound card or audio hardware interface that you can plug your guitar cable or audio cable into.

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To Connect a Microphone to Your Computer

• If your sound card has a 1/8 inch input jack (built-in sound cards that come with your PC usually do), and your microphone cable has a 1/4” plug on the end, plug the mic cable into a 1/8” stereo adapter, and then plug the 1/8” adapter into the microphone input jack on your computer sound card. 1/8” stereo adapters are available at consumer electronic supply stores.

• If you use a professional or “prosumer” sound card, there is probably a 1/4 inch input jack on your sound card or audio hardware interface that you can plug your mic cable into.

• If your mic has a cable with an XLR plug on the end, and your sound card or audio hardware interface has a 1/4 inch input jack, plug the mic cable into an XLR-to-quarter inch adapter, and then plug your mic cable into your audio hardware. If your audio hardware has an XLR input, of course it’s better to use that.

• You can also plug your mic into a mixer or pre-amp, and connect the mixer or pre-amp to an input jack on your audio hardware. This is usually the best method.

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.

For a complete description of audio input options, see the online help topic

MIDI Connections

There are three types of MIDI cables in common use. Here’s how to connect each of the three types:

• USB cable—this is extremely common. Many electronic keyboards and stand-alone MIDI interfaces use this type of connection. To use this type of connection, simply plug one end of the USB cable into the USB jack on your MDI keyboard or stand-alone MIDI interface, and plug the other end into your computer. If you are using a stand-alone USB MIDI interface, you then need to connect standard MIDI cables between your MIDI keyboard and your stand-alone MIDI interface (see the next procedure, below). If you haven’t already installed the software MIDI driver that came with your keyboard or interface, make sure you do so.

• Standard MIDI cable—this is extremely common, also. MIDI keyboards usually have jacks for these cables even if they have a USB connection. You need two of these cables. To use this type of cable, use one cable to connect the MIDI OUT jack on your MIDI instrument to the MIDI IN jack on your stand-alone MIDI interface or sound card, and one to

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Setup

connect the MIDI IN jack on your MIDI instrument to the MIDI OUT jack on your stand-alone MIDI interface or sound card. Many stand-alone MIDI interfaces and audio interfaces use this type of connector.

Standard MIDI cable—use this if your MIDI interface has standard 5-pin input and output ports

• Joystick connector—this is becoming less common. This is the type of connection seen on older SoundBlaster type sound cards. To use this type of connection, find the end of one of the MIDI cables that is labeled OUT. Plug this connector into the MIDI IN jack on your electronic keyboard. The other 5-pin connector on the MIDI cable is labeled IN. Plug this connector into the MIDI OUT jack on your electronic keyboard. 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.

Joystick connector—use this if your MIDI interface is the joystick port on your sound card.

Insert this MIIDI IN plug into the MIDI OUT port on your MIDI instrument

Insert this MIIDI OUT plug into the MIDI IN port on your MIDI instrument

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Setup

Insert this plug into the joystick port on your sound card

Starting SONAR

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

• Double-click the SONAR icon on your desktop.

• Click the Start button, and choose Programs-Cakewalk-SONAR 6

(Studio Edition or Producer Edition)-SONAR 6 (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 box to open it

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

this button to open it

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

Getting Started Click here to view the Getting Started

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

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.

Migrating 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.

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

Instrument Definitions Files used to control specific MIDI

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

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

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controlling SONAR using your MIDI keyboard or computer keyboard.

instruments.

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

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 online help topic “The Wave Profiler.” 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.

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

Devices selected for MIDI input

Devices selected for MIDI output

Device not selected for MIDI output

Click here to change order of MIDI devices

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.

Tip!

Be sure to enable (highlight) MIDI output devices in the MIDI Devices dialog (use the Options-MIDI Devices command). If you don’t do this, you won’t hear any of your MIDI instruments when you play songs in SONAR.

Using MIDI Devices After Making Driver Changes

If you later add or remove drivers using the Drivers icon of the Windows Control Panel, SONAR reacts in the following way:

• If you remove a Control Panel driver, SONAR will not use the device it belongs to the next time you run the program. Any other devices you had selected using the Options-MIDI Devices command will remain

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Starting SONAR

selected.

• If you add a driver through the Control Panel, SONAR does not automatically use it. You must use the Options-MIDI Devices command to enable the new driver in SONAR’s list.

Note:

After you add or remove a driver with the Drivers icon in the Windows Control Panel, you must restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Defining Your MIDI Instrument or Sound Card

Once you have selected your MIDI Input and Output devices, SONAR, by default, plays back MIDI sequences using a General MIDI instrument definition. If you are using a synthesizer or sound card that does not adhere to the General MIDI standard, you may want to define that instrument. See the online help topic: Instrument Definitions for more information.

SONAR Basics

SONAR’s menus and toolbars give you quick access to all the features of SONAR. Some menu choices and tools display dialog boxes that let you choose among various options, or type in the values you want. If you click in most views, in time rulers, or on certain other items with the right mouse button, you see a popup menu that provides quick access to many common operations.

The project is the center of your work in SONAR. If you’re a musician, a project might contain a song, a jingle, or a movement of a symphony. If you’re a post-production engineer, a project might contain a 30-second radio commercial or a lengthy soundtrack for a film or videotape production. By default, every project is stored in a file (known as a project file). The normal file extension for a SONAR work file is .

SONAR organizes the sound and music in your project into tracks, clips, and events.

Tracks are used to store the sound or music made by each instrument or voice in a project. For example, a song that is arranged for four instruments and one vocalist may have 5 tracks—one for each instrument and one for the vocals. Each project can have an unlimited number of tracks. Some of

CWP.

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SONAR Basics

these tracks may be used in your finished project, while others can hold alternate takes, backup tracks, and variations that you might want to keep for future use. Each track can be made up of one or many clips.

Clips are the pieces of sound and music that make up your tracks. A clip might contain a horn solo, a drum break, a bass or guitar riff, a voice-over, a sound effect like the hoot of an owl, or an entire keyboard performance. A track can contain a single clip or dozens of different clips, and you can easily move clips from one track to another.

Groove clips are audio clips which have tempo and pitch information embedded within them, allowing them to follow changes to the project tempo or project pitch. You can click on either edge of a Groove clip and drag out repetitions in the track.

Events are MIDI data (in MIDI tracks) or automation data.

SONAR File Types

Projects in SONAR can be saved as a project file with the extension .CWP or as a Bundle file with the extension .

For a complete description of the differences between project files and bundle files, see the online help topic Project Files and Bundle Files.

Other Types of Files

SONAR lets you create and work with several other types of files, in addition to project (.

CWP) and bundle (.CWB) files that store your projects:

CWB.

File type… Description…

MIDI files (extension .MID) Standard MIDI files.

Template files (extension .

StudioWare (extension .C

AKEWALKSTUDIOWARE)

OMF (extension .

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SONAR Basics

TPL) Templates for new files you create

To control external MIDI devices from SONAR

OMF) Open Media Framework format files.

Opening a File

Use the following procedure to open a file.

To Open a File in SONAR

1. If you haven't already done so, start SONAR.

2. Choose File-Open.

3. In the Open dialog box, navigate to the directory where the project you want to open is located and select it.

4. Click the Open button.

5. If you are opening an OMF file, the Unpack OMF dialog appears. Set the initial tempo and specify the directory where you want to save the file and its audio. For more information about opening OMF files, see Unpack OMF dialog in the online help.

SONAR loads the project.

Views

SONAR displays your project in windows on the screen that are known as views. You can have many views open at once, all showing the same project. When you edit a project in one view, the other related views are updated automatically.

The Track View

The Track view is the main window that you use to create, display, and work with a project. When you open a project file, SONAR displays the Track view for the project. When you close the Track view for a project, SONAR closes the file.

The Track view is divided into several sections: toolbars (at the top), the

Navigator pane, the Video Thumbnails pane (Producer Edition only), the Track pane, the Track/Bus Inspector, the Clips pane, and the Bus pane.

You can change the size of the panes by dragging the vertical or horizontal splitter bars that separate them.

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SONAR Basics

Expanded track

Minimized tracks

The Track pane

The Clips pane

Clips

Track/Bus Inspector

Show/hide bus pane

Splitter bars

All of the current track’s controls, plus a few that are only available in the Console view, are contained in the Track/Bus Inspector which is an expanded version of the current track’s controls located on the far left side of the Track view. You can hide or show the Track/Bus Inspector by pressing i on your keyboard (see “Track/Bus Inspector” on page 48, for more information).

The Track pane lets you see and change the initial settings for each track. By default, the current track is displayed in gold. To change the current track, move the highlight using the mouse or the keyboard as follows:

Key… What it does…

Left/Right Arrow Moves the highlight to the next or

previous control.

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Up/Down Arrow Moves to the same control in the

adjacent track, or the next track of the same type if the control only applies to a specific track type (for example, the Patch control only applies to MIDI tracks).

Page Down Displays the next page of tracks.

Page Up Displays the previous page of tracks.

Home Moves the focus to the first track.

End Moves the focus to the last track.

The current track’s controls are contained in the Track/Bus Inspector.

The Clips pane shows the clips in your project on a horizontal timeline called the Time Ruler that helps you visualize how your project is organized. Clips contain markings that indicate their contents. The Clips pane lets you select, move, cut and copy clips from place to place to change the arrangement of music and sound in your project.

The Bus pane shows the buses in the project, and also shows any editing views that are in tabbed (docked) format. The Show/Hide Bus pane button

allows you to show or hide the Bus pane at the bottom of the Track view.

The Navigator pane displays a large part of your project so you can see an overview of your song. The Navigator pane displays all of your project’s tracks.

The Track view makes it easy to select tracks, clips, and ranges of time in a project. These are the most common selection methods:

To… Do this…

Select tracks Click on the track number, or drag over

several track numbers

Select clips Click on the clip, or drag a rectangle

around several clips

Select time ranges Drag in the Time Ruler, or click

between two markers

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Select partial clips Hold down the Alt key while dragging

over a clip

As with most other Windows programs, you can also use the Shift-click and Ctrl-click combinations when selecting tracks and clips. Holding the Shift key while you click adds tracks or clips to the current selection. Holding the Ctrl key while you click lets you toggle the selection status of tracks or clips.

Track/Bus Inspector

The Track/Bus Inspector makes it easy to adjust the current track’s (or bus’s) controls, because it’s a greatly expanded version of the current track’s controls that is located on the left side of the Track pane.

In addition to the controls that a track or bus displays in the Track view, the Track/Bus Inspector also contains a built-in 4-band EQ. See the online help topic “Using the Per-track EQ” for more information.

To do this… Do this…

Hide or show the Track/Bus Inspector

Display a certain track’s or bus’s controls in the Track/Bus Inspector

Assign a control to a group, arm it for automation, take an automation snapshot, or set up remote control

Bypass the FX bin Right-click the FX bin and choose Bypass

Press i on your keyboard.

Click the track or bus to make it current, or choose the track or bus in the track/bus dropdown menu that’s at the bottom of the Track/Bus Inspector.

Right-click the control and choose options from the popup menu.

Bin from the popup menu.

The Console View

The Console view is where you can mix the sounds on all the different tracks to create the final mix of your project. While the Track view provides most of the same controls, you may want to use the more familiar interface of the Console view for mixing.

You use the Console view to adjust the levels of sound for the different tracks in your project, to change the stereo panning, and to apply real-time effects to an individual track, combinations of tracks, or the final mix.

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The Console view contains several groups of controls. There is one module for each track in your project, and one module for each bus. You can use bus sends to direct certain tracks to special modules that are known as buses.

Audio module MIDI module Bus out

Show/hide for tracks, buses, mains

Widen all strips

Show/hide strip controls buttons

MIDI velocity

Main out

As in the Track view, you can change track settings or record new music or sound in the Console view. You may choose to use one view or the other, or the choice you make may depend on which project you are working on.

Other Views

SONAR has a number of other views you can use to display and work on your project. To display these views, select one or more tracks, by Ctrlclicking their track numbers and:

• Click the icon for the view in the Views toolbar

• Choose the view you want from the View menu

The Piano Roll view : shows the notes from a MIDI track or tracks as they would appear on a player-piano roll. You can move the notes around, make them longer or shorter, and change their pitches by just dragging

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SONAR Basics

them with the mouse. You can also use the Piano Roll view to display and edit MIDI velocity, controllers, and other types of information. The Piano Roll view also contains the Drum Editor, which allows you to “paint” drum patterns using the Pattern Brush tool and play different drum modules from a single track.

The Staff view : displays the notes from one or more MIDI tracks using standard music notation, similar to the way the notation would appear on a printed page. You can add, edit, or delete notes; create percussion parts; add guitar chords and other notation markings; display guitar tablature;

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display the Fretboard pane; and print whole scores or individual parts to

share with other musicians.

Dynamics and markings Time and

pitch locator

Fretboard pane

Editing tools Zoom Snap grid Fretboard displa

Show/hide track pane

Trac k list pane

The Loop Construction view : allows you to create and edit Groove clips (SONAR loops that “know” the tempo and key in which they were recorded), and export these clips as ACIDized files.

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SONAR Basics

The Loop Explorer view : allows you to preview ACIDized files and other Wave files; and drag and drop them into your project.

The Event List view : displays the events in a project individually, so that you can make changes at a very detailed level.

SONAR has several other views that are used for very specific purposes:

View… How you use it…

Meter/Key To change the meter (time signature)

Big Time To display the Now time in a large,

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or key signature, or to insert changes in the meter or key signature at specific times in a project.

resizable font that you can read more easily.

Markers To add, move, rename, or delete labels

for parts of your project that make it easier to move from one point to another.

Lyrics To add and display lyrics for a track.

Video To display a loaded video file.

Synth Rack Manage your soft synths

Navigator Manage the Now Time in a project

Surround Panner (Producer version only)

Sysx To create, display, store, and edit

Tempo To view and edit the project's tempo

Pan a surround track

System Exclusive MIDI messages used to control instruments and other gear that are MIDI capable.

changes.

Zoom Controls

Many of the views contain Zoom tools that let you change the horizontal and vertical scale of the view:

Zoom Clips pane out vertically

Vertical Zoom fader for Clips pane

Zoom Clips pane in vertically

Zoom Bus pane out vertically

Vertical Zoom fader for Bus pane

Zoom out horizontally

Horizontal zoom fader

The Track view toolbar contains the Zoom tool:

Zoom in horizontally

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SONAR Basics

The zoom tools are used as described in the following table:

Tool… How you use it…

Zoom out (Clips pane or Bus pane)

Zoom in (Clips pane or Bus pane) Click to zoom in incrementally, or press

Zoom fader Click and drag to zoom continuously

Zoom tool Click to arm, then click and drag in the

Click to zoom out incrementally, or press Shift and click to zoom all the way out

Shift and click to zoom all the way in

view to select the zoom area. Click the dropdown arrow to display a menu of zoom and view options.

You can also zoom with the keyboard:

Key… What it does…

Ctrl+up arrow Zoom out vertically

Ctrl+down arrow Zoom in vertically

Ctrl+right arrow Zoom in horizontally

Ctrl+left arrow Zoom out horizontally

G Go to (center) the Now time, without

Hold down Z Arm the Zoom tool

U Undo the current zoom

F Fit tracks to window

A Show all tracks

Shift+F Fit project to window

Shift+Double Click a clip Maximize track height

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zooming

Docking Views

You can dock any view other than the Console view in the lower-right corner of the Track view by enabling a view’s Enable Tabbed option. You can have as many views open in tabbed format as you want. You can toggle through the different views by clicking the tab of the view you want to see (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right Arrow shortcut). You can also maximize the pane to do detailed work in a view, or drag the splitter bar at the top of the view to enlarge the tabbed view area. For step-by-step instructions, see the procedures below.

Scroll left or right to view tabs

Maximize pane

Active view

Tabs

To do this… Do this…

Display a view in tabbed format

Disable tabbed format for a view

Enable or disable tabbed format for all open views

Maximize a tabbed view Click the Maximize/Restore button

Restore tabbed view Click the Restore button that’s in

Click the upper left corner of a view, and choose Enable Tabbed from the popup menu

Right-click the view’s tab, and choose Disable Tabbed from the popup menu.

Use the View-Enable Tabbing for Open Views command.

that’s just to the left of the tabs.

the lower left corner of the view that you’re restoring.

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SONAR Basics

Close a View that is in Tabbed Format

Right-click the view’s tab, and choose Close from the popup menu

Locking Views

By default SONAR allows only one instance of each view, but you can lock the contents of most views, preserving the current view by forcing a new instance of the view to appear if necessary. Locking views is the only way you can have multiple instances of the same view open. Only the Track and Console views cannot be locked.

To lock a view, just click the lock button at the top right of the view. An unlocked view looks like this , and a locked view looks like this . A view can be locked automatically by pressing the Ctrl key when opening the view.

Floating Views

When a view is float enabled, you can move it outside of the confines of SONAR. This is particularly useful if you take advantage of SONAR’s dual monitor support. Using dual monitor support, you can keep the Track or Console view on one monitor and “float” other views to the other monitor by dragging them to the second screen.

For more information, see the online help topic “Floating Views and Dual Monitor Support.”

Customizable Menus

All main menus and context menus are customizable. You can fine-tune your workflow by hiding menu items that are rarely used and reordering commands that you use frequently. You can even design and save menu layouts specific to different tasks.

Caution: you can move commands completely out of their default menus. For example, you can move commands out of the Edit menu into the Process menu. Keep in mind that this manual describes commands by their original menu locations, so if you’re looking for help about the Process- Nudge command, and you’ve moved the Nudge command to the Edit menu, the documentation for this command will still refer to the command as Process-Nudge. You can always load the default menu layout to restore the original command structure.

• To open the Menu Editor dialog, choose Options-Menu Editor.

• In the Menu Editor dialog, to choose a menu to edit, select one from the Menu dropdown list.

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To do this… Do this…

Hide items in a menu Click a Menu Item (Ctrl-click to select

multiple items) and press the Hide button.

The hidden command(s) will only be visible in the submenu that is automatically created at the bottom of the menu. You can display the submenu by clicking one of the arrows at the bottom of the menu.

Show items in a menu Click a Menu Item (Ctrl-click to select

multiple items) and press the Show button.

The command(s) will reappear in its original location.

Reorder items in a menu

Create a new submenu Right-click an item in the Menu Items

Rename a Menu Item or submenu

Click and drag Menu Items up or down to change their position in the menu order.

Note that you can click and drag Menu Items in and out of submenus as well.

list and select Create Submenu. That item will now appear in its own new submenu.

Select one or more items from the list and press the Create New button in the Submenus section of the dialog.

Right-click a Menu Item or submenu and select Rename, then enter a new name.

Select a Menu Item and press F2, then enter a new name.

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SONAR Basics

Create a new separator bar

Right-click a Menu Item and select Insert Separator.

The separator bar will appear above the Menu Item you right-clicked.

Remove a submenu or separator bar

Save a new menu layout

Delete an existing menu layout

Edit a menu layout Launch the Menu Editor and choose

Load a different menu layout

Right-click the a submenu or separator and select Remove Submenu or Remove Separator.

Enter an new name into the Menu Layout field and press the Save button.

Select the menu layout you wish to delete and press the Delete button

the menu layout you wish to edit from the dropdown menu, then make your changes.

Launch the Menu Editor and choose a different Menu Layout from the dropdown menu, then close the dialog.

Use the Options-Menu Layouts command, and select a layout from the available options.

Note 1: Keep in mind that the factory default menu layout cannot be overwritten. If you want to change this layout, save your changes under a new layout name.

Note 2: If you change your menu layout so much that you can’t find some commands, you can always load the factory default menu layout.

Altering your menus may affect your menus’ hotkeys, which allow you to navigate through the application’s menus without using a mouse. You can view the hotkeys in your menus by pressing Alt and observing the underlined letters. Pressing the underlined letter on your keyboard will launch that menu command. In order to ensure you have no duplicates hotkeys in your customized menu, do the following.

1. Launch the Menu Editor and select the menu or submenu you wish to check for duplicate hotkeys. Right-click the Menu Item and select

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Check Hotkeys. The Menu Editor will then report back if duplicate hotkeys are found, or if a command has no hotkey at all. Note: the Check Hotkeys command examines only commands on the menu that you right-clicked, at the menu level that you right-clicked. It does not examine submenus of that menu.

2. If missing or duplicate hotkeys are found, right-click again and select Generate Hotkeys. New non-duplicate hotkeys will be assigned for each item in that menu or submenu (but only on the menu level where you right-clicked, not on any submenus of the menu or submenu that you right-clicked).

Note: Hotkeys are indicated within the Menu Editor by ampersands (“&”) in each menu item’s name. The ampersand is placed directly before the letter that represents the menu item’s hotkey. If you wish to assign hotkeys manually, you can do so by when you rename a hotkey by placing the ampersand before your preferred hotkey letter for that command or submenu.

3. If necessary, re-save your layout to preserve these changes.

Customizable Toolbars

You can customize each toolbar in SONAR. You can hide or reorder each component of a toolbar, or add buttons to a toolbar from other toolbars. You can create up to three new toolbars from components of other toolbars. You can also hide or show all toolbars with a single command, and dock toolbars vertically if you want.

• To choose what toolbars you want to see, use the View-Toolbars command, and check the toolbars that you want to see in the dialog box.

• To hide or show all toolbars, use the View-Show Toolbars command. This command is available in the Key Bindings dialog (Options-Key Bindings command).

To customize a toolbar:

1. Right-click the toolbar that you want to customize, and choose Customize from the popup menu to open the Customize Toolbar dialog.

2. In the Available Toolbar Buttons field, select a component that you want to see in the toolbar, and click the Add button to move the component to the Current Toolbar Buttons field.

3. Repeat step 2 for any additional components you would like to display.

Introduction

SONAR Basics

4. In the Current Toolbar Buttons field, select a component that you do not want to see in the toolbar, and click the Remove button to move the component to the Available Toolbar Buttons field.

5. Repeat step 4 for any additional components you would like to remove.

6. If you would like to move a toolbar component to a different location in the toolbar, select the component in the Current Toolbar Buttons field, and click the Move Up button or the Move Down button to change the button’s location in the toolbar.

7. Repeat step 7 for any additional components.

8. If you want to restore the toolbar to its default appearance, click the Reset button.

9. Click Close when you want to close the dialog.

To create a toolbar:

1. Use the View-Toolbars command, and check one of the User “n” options.

A toolbar appears, with a default set of controls.

2. Right-click the toolbar, and choose Customize from the popup menu to open the Customize Toolbar dialog.

3. Customize the toolbar the in the same way as the previous procedure.

To rename a toolbar:

1. Right-click the toolbar, and choose Rename from the popup menu to open the Rename Toolbar dialog

2. Fill in the New Name field, and click OK.

Now when you open the Toolbars dialog, the name you chose is listed in the dialog.

To dock or undock a toolbar:

• To dock a toolbar horizontally, drag it to the top or bottom of the interface.

• To dock a toolbar vertically, drag it to the left or right side of the interface.

• To undock a toolbar, drag it to the part of the interface where you want it, or entirely away from the interface.

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Layouts

You may spend a lot of time making sure that all the views are laid out on the screen just the way you want. When you save your work, you can save the screen layout along with it. You can also save the layout by itself and then use the layout with other projects. For more information, see the online help topic “Layouts.”Key Bindings 652

Working on a Project

Much of your time in SONAR is spent recording and listening to your project as it develops. The Transport toolbar, shown below, contains the most important tools and other pieces of information you’ll need to record and play back your project.

Every project has a current time, known as the Now time. As you record or play back a project, the Now time shows your current location in the project. When you create a project, the Now time is set to the beginning of the project. The current Now time is saved with your project.

You control recording and playback using tools on the Large Transport toolbar (press F4 to show or hide), which work a lot like the ones on your tape deck or CD player:

RecordPlay

Click to move ahead one measur

Click to jump to the beginning

Click to back up one measure

Click to jump to the end

Auto-punch toggle

Drag Now Time to any desired position

As you work with a project, you can use SONAR’s mute and solo features to choose which tracks are played, or you can create loops to play a particular section over and over again. You can also create markers, which are named time points you add to your project to make it easy to jump to a particular location.

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Windows Taskbar Indicators

When SONAR is running, you’ll normally see two indicators in your Windows Taskbar, right next to the clock.

The MIDI activity monitor contains two lights that indicate MIDI input and output. When you play your MIDI keyboard, the first light flashes when each note is pressed, and it flashes again when each note is released. When you play back a project that contains MIDI, the second indicator lights up.

The volume control is used to control the playback and record volumes on your sound card. Double-click on this indicator to open a dialog box that lets you control the levels for audio, MIDI, CD playback, and record.

The volume control is available only if your sound card is using a native Windows driver. If your sound card does not use a native Windows driver, no volume control will be displayed in the taskbar. In this case, your sound card probably came with a separate program to control input and output levels. See your sound card documentation for more information.

Screen Colors and Wallpaper

SONAR lets you customize the colors that are used for virtually all parts of the program using the Options-Colors command. This command also lets you change the background bitmap that is displayed in the SONAR window.

For any SONAR screen element, you can assign a color in two ways:

• Choose one of the colors that is part of your Windows color scheme.

• Assign a custom color.

To Assign Custom Colors

1. Choose Options-Colors to display the Configure Colors dialog box.

2. Choose the screen element whose color you want to change from the Screen Element list.

3. Assign a color to the screen element in one of two ways:

• To use a color from the Windows color scheme, choose one of the

options in the Follow System Color list

• To use a custom color, check Use Specific Color, click the Choose

Color button, and select the color you want

4. To save these changes from session to session, check the Save Changes for Next Session box.

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5. Click OK when you are done.

SONAR uses the colors you have chosen.

To Restore the Default Colors

1. Choose Options-Colors to display the Configure Colors dialog box.

2. In the Screen Elements window, select the elements that you want to restore; you can Ctrl-click or Shift-click to select multiple elements.

3. Click the Defaults button.

4. Click OK.

SONAR uses the default colors for all selected screen elements.

To Change the Wallpaper

1. Choose Options-Colors to display the Configure Colors dialog box.

2. Choose the desired wallpaper according to the table:

To do this… Do this…

Use the default wallpaper

Not use any wallpaper Check None in the Wallpaper list

Use a custom bitmap Check Custom, choose a bitmap, and

3. Click OK when you are done.

Check Default in the Wallpaper list

click Open

Starting to Use SONAR

This chapter has provided you with an overview of SONAR and basic information on how to install the software and configure your system. To get started with SONAR, try the Tutorials in Chapter 2.

Introduction

Starting to Use SONAR

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 S O NAR

1. Start your computer.

2. Close any open programs you have running.

3. Place the SONAR installation disc in your disc 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 disc drive).

4. Click the Install SONAR button.

Note:

If you exit Setup without completing the installation, choose StartRun, 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 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

Uninstalling SONAR

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 6 (Studio Edition or Producer Edition)Uninstall SONAR 6.

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Installing SONAR

SETUP.EXE from the CD.

Tutorials

Now that you’ve learned some of the basics, it’s time to put that knowledge to work. These tutorials will give you some hands-on practice in playing, recording, and mixing your projects.

Note:

If, during installation, you chose in the Select Components dialog not to install the Tutorials folder (part of the Sample files), you will not have access to the sample tutorial files needed to follow the tutorials in this chapter. If you didn’t install these files, insert your product CD and copy the files to your hard drive.

In This Chapter

Tutorial 1—The Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Tutorial 2—Recording MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Tutorial 3—Recording Digital Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Tutorial 5—Editing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Tutorial 6—Using Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Tutorial 7—Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Tutorial 8—Using Soft Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Tutorial 9—Drum Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Tutorial 1—The Basics

The first tutorial teaches you the basics of SONAR. You'll learn how to:

• Open and play a project file

• Make the project repeat automatically

•Use markers

• Speed or slow the tempo

• Mute a track and play a track solo

• Change a track's instrument

• Play a track on a MIDI instrument

If you have not already done so, please read at the very least “MIDI” on page 32, “Digital Audio” on page 33“Digital Audio” on page 33, and “Setup” on page 34 in the Introduction chapter. If you have little or no experience with music software, read the Beginner’s Guide to Cakewalk Software in the online help. If you have time, also read the Introduction chapter for basic background information about projects, tracks, clips, the Track view, and the Console view.

Opening a Project File

As you learned in Chapter 1, SONAR stores MIDI and digital audio data in project files. The first thing you need to do is load a project file.

To Open a Project File

1. If you haven't already done so, start SONAR.

2. Choose File-Open.

3. In the Open dialog box, navigate to the directory in which you installed SONAR, double-click the Tutorial folder to open it and select the file

TUTORIAL1.CWP.

4. Click the Open button.

SONAR loads the project and opens the Track view. Feel free to move and resize the Track view to better fit your screen.

Preparing for Playback

Before you can play a project, you must choose the outputs for both MIDI sounds and audio sounds. By choosing the outputs, you are telling SONAR from which outputs you want to hear the sounds.

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You may have a sound card with a built-in synthesizer, or a MIDI keyboard that produces sounds. We will discuss using these with a project later on in the tutorial. First we will explore using a software synthesizer to hear a project’s MIDI tracks. A software synthesizer is a software program that produces various sounds through your audio interface or sound card when the soft synth program receives MIDI data from a MIDI controller or sequencer program. When you insert a software synth, you need to assign the output of the MIDI track to that software synth.

The software synthesizer itself must be routed to one of your audio outputs in order for you to hear it. Your project might also contain audio data, perhaps vocals, that you have recorded. To hear the audio data playing back, you need to choose an output for the audio track that contains the audio data. The output you choose for both the software synthesizer and the audio data will be the one on your sound card that you have connected to an amplifier and speakers, or to headphones.

Let’s insert a software synthesizer, Cakewalk TTS-1, to the tutorial project file.

To Insert Cakewalk TTS-1 into a Project

1. Use the Insert-Soft Synths command and click Cakewalk TTS-1 on the popup menu.

The Insert Soft Synth Options dialog appears.

2. In the Create These Tracks fields, deselect MIDI Source, because we want to patch the pre-existing MIDI tracks into Cakewalk TTS-1.

3. Verify that the First Synth Audio Output option is checked. We’ll need this track to route Cakewalk TTS-1 to our chosen audio output. The new synth track will have Cakewalk TTS-1 already patched as an audio input.

4. In the Open These Windows fields, select only the Synth Property Page. This option opens Cakewalk TTS-1’s property page (interface).

5. Click OK.

SONAR opens the TTS-1 interface, and inserts a synth track that has the Cakewalk TTS-1’s output 1 as an input. Feel free to look over the Cakewalk TTS-1’s interface, but we will not be making any adjustments here in this tutorial. Close the TTS-1 property page (interface) by clicking X in the upper-right corner of the window.

Now that you have a software synthesizer available for use, you can continue preparing the project for playback. We now need to direct our MIDI tracks to the Cakewalk TTS-1.

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To Choose MIDI Outputs for Your Project’s Tracks

1. In the Track view, click the dropdown arrow in the Output dropdown menu in a MIDI track to display the track’s Output menu. MIDI tracks display a MIDI icon just to the right of the track number:

MIDI icon

Restore Strip Size button

You may need to enlarge the track to show the Output control: In Track 1, click the Restore Strip Size button to expand the track. Also, you may have to click the All tab control that’s at the bottom of the Track pane to display all the controls in the track.

After you click the dropdown arrow in a track’s Output menu, a dropdown menu appears, containing a list of enabled MIDI outputs.

Output menu

Dropdown arrow to display menu

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All tab control—click this to display all the track controls. Click the other tabs to display smaller groups of controls.

2. Select the output you want to use for that track—select “Cakewalk TTS1 1 Output 1.”

3. For all the other MIDI tracks, you’ll also want to choose the “Cakewalk TTS-1 1 Output 1” option: press the down arrow on your computer keyboard to move the “focus rectangle” to the Output field for the next track, press Enter to display the track’s Output menu, and choose the Cakewalk TTS-1 again.

4. Repeat step 3 for each track.

Each MIDI track is now routed to the Cakewalk TTS-1. Next we need to enable the audio output we’ll use to hear the sounds the software synthesizer produces.

To Enable Audio Outputs

1. Select Options-Audio from the menu.

The Audio Options dialog box appears.

2. Click the Drivers tab in the Audio Options dialog box.

3. In the Output Drivers field, check the drivers you want enabled. All enabled drivers appear with a checkbox filled in. Be sure to enable the driver of the audio device connected to your speakers or headphones.

4. Click OK.

Your desired audio output will now be available for selection in your synth track’s Output menu.

To Choose an Audio Output for your Synth Track

1. In the Track view, click the Output dropdown arrow in the Cakewalk TTS-1 synth track. Synth tracks are distinguished by the synth icon to the right of the track number.

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Synth icon

Output dropdown arrow

2. From the Output dropdown menu, select the audio output that is connected to your speakers or headphones.

Let's play the project!

Playing the Project

Buttons in the Large Transport toolbar, shown in the following picture, can control most of SONAR’s basic playback functions.

If you don’t see the Large Transport toolbar, then choose Views-Toolbars and check Transport (Large), or press F4.

RecordPlay

Click to jump to the beginning

Click to back up one measure

Click to jump to the end

To Start Playback

• To play the project, click the Play button , or press the Spacebar.

Do you hear music? If you don't hear anything, see the online help topic called Troubleshooting for some troubleshooting tips.

The next several topics describe some playback options to give you a lot more control over how you want to play back your project. If you want to see a slightly more advanced tutorial about using software synthesizers, see “Tutorial 8—Using Soft Synths” on page 124. This tutorial also shows

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Auto-punch toggle

Click to move ahead one measur

Drag Now Time to any desired position

how to convert soft synth tracks to audio tracks, and then export your project as a wave file. Exporting each project as a stereo wave file is how you create audio CDs. After your projects are exported as stereo wave files, you can use your favorite CD-burning software to make an audio CD from the collection of wave files.

The Now Time

The Now time is the current time in the project—the time where playback is occurring, or where playback will start up again if playback is stopped. The Now time is indicated in the Clips pane by a vertical black line, which moves as your project plays to indicate what part of your project is playing. When playback is stopped, at the top of the black line you will see a green triangle. This triangle, known as the Now time marker, represents the point at which the Now time will snap back to after you stop playback or recording (you can change this behavior in the Global Options dialog—select Options- Global, click the General tab in the Global Options dialog, and uncheck the On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker option).

Now time marker

Now time

The Now time is also shown in the Transport toolbar, both in MBT (measure/beat/tick) format and in time code format (hour/minute/second/ frame). During playback, the Now time increases in accordance with the progress of the project.

You can set the Now time of the project by clicking in the Time Ruler in the Clips pane, or (when playback is stopped) by dragging the Now time slider in the Large Transport toolbar.

While you are playing the project, you may want to keep an eye on the Now time. The Big Time view displays the Now time in a large font so you can more easily see it from a distance. To open this view, choose Views-Big Time. You can change the time format displayed in the Big Time window by clicking on it. You can change its font by right-clicking on it.

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To Restart the Project

When SONAR gets to the end of the project, it stops. By default SONAR will rewind to the Now Time marker after you stop playback or recording. To play the project again, do the following:

1. If the Now time marker is at a measure other than the first, click the

Rewind button , or press w to go back to the first measure.

2. Click the Play button, or press the Spacebar.

To Pause Playback

• To temporarily pause playback, hit Ctrl-Spacebar. By default, hitting just the Spacebar or Stop or Play will rewind the project to the Now time marker rather than pausing at the current Now time. However, you can change the Now time marker behavior so that the marker moves to the current Now time when playback or recording is stopped (use the Options-Global command; on the General tab uncheck On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker).

Certain SONAR functions can only be used when the project is paused. If a function or command does not seem to work, try pausing the project

For more information on the Now time and Now Time marker, see the online help topic “The Now Time and How to Use It”.

Starting from a Marker

Markers make it easier to find certain points within the project. You may want to set markers at the beginning of each section of your project or at times with which some event must be synchronized. The Markers toolbar lets you move the Now time to a marker, add a new marker at the Now time, and edit the marker list. If you don’t see the Markers toolbar, then choose Views-Toolbars and check Markers.

Open Markers view

Markers list

The current project contains several markers. Let’s try starting playback from the marker labeled C:

1. If the project is playing, pause playback by clicking the Stop button .

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Previous marker

Next marker

Insert marker

Default Groove clip pitch

2. In the Current Marker dropdown menu in the Markers toolbar (the larger dropdown menu, on the left), select the marker labeled C. The Now time moves to the start of measure 17.

3. Click the Play button .

You can jump to the next or previous marker by pressing Ctrl+Shift+ Page Down or Ctrl+Shift+Page Up.

For more information on markers, see the online help topic “Creating and Using Markers.”

Restarting the Project Automatically

Wouldn’t it be easier to practice your solo if you didn't have to restart the project each time it ended? Rather than manually rewinding and restarting the project, you can make SONAR automatically jump back to the beginning and keep playing.

Looping Over the Entire Project

To control looping, use the tools in the Loop/Auto Shuttle toolbar. If you don’t see this toolbar, choose Views-Toolbars and check Loop.

Loop properties

Loop On/Off

Loop start time

Loop end time

Set loop to selection time

To loop over the entire project, do the following:

1. In the Loop toolbar, click the Loop Start time. The time display changes to an edit box with spin controls.

2. To loop over the entire project, the loop must start at 1:01:000. If the Loop Start time is not already set to 1:01:000, use the keyboard or spin controls to enter this value. To set it to 1:01:000, click the Loop Start time, enter 1 and press Enter.

3. In the Loop toolbar, click the Loop End time.

4. Press F5 to open the Markers dialog box.

5. Select the marker named <End> and click OK. The Loop End time is set to the end of the project.

6. Click the Loop On/Off button to enable looping.

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7. Click Play.

When looping is enabled, the Time Ruler displays special flag markers that indicate the loop start and end times. You can drag these markers to change the loop start and end times.

Loop Start

Loop End

To turn looping off, click the Loop button again.

Looping Over a Section of the Project

Maybe you would like to practice one section of the project over and over. Or, maybe you'd like one section played repeatedly so you can practice an extended solo. In either case, you need to set the start and end times of the loop section. Let's have SONAR loop over the section between markers C and D:

1. In the Loop toolbar, click on the Loop Start time.

2. Press F5 to open the Markers dialog box.

3. In the Markers dialog box, select marker C and click OK. The loop start time is set to the marker time.

4. In the Loop toolbar, click on the Loop End time.

5. Press F5 to open the Markers dialog box.

6. In the Markers dialog box, select marker D and click OK.

7. Click the Loop On/Off button to enable looping.

8. Click Rewind. The project rewinds to the Loop Start time.

9. Click Play.

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A quicker way of selecting the loop times in the preceding example would be to simply click in the area between the markers at the top of the Clips pane, then click to copy the selection start and end times to the Loop/ Auto Shuttle toolbar.

Click here to select the portion of the project between markers C and D

Changing the Tempo

If the project is having trouble keeping up with you (or if you're having trouble keeping up with the project!), you can easily speed up or slow down the project since it contains only MIDI data. There are two ways to do this: you can change the tempo, or you can change the tempo ratio, which determines the tempo by multiplying it by a user-defined amount. The controls for either method are found on the Tempo toolbar. If you don’t see this toolbar, choose Views-Toolbars and check Tempo.

Drag here to move toolbar to new location

Tempo ratio 3

Insert tempo

Tem p o

Temp o r ati o 2

Temp o rat io 1

Setting the Tempo

Let’s pick up the pace a little. Do the following:

1. With the project playing, click on the tempo value in the Tempo toolbar. The tempo will be highlighted and spin controls will appear.

2. Use the spin controls to increase the tempo to 100 beats per minute.

3. Press Enter. The project will play a little faster.

Changing the Tempo with the Tempo Ratio Buttons

By default, the Tempo Ratio buttons let you play the project at half or double tempo. Try this:

1. Click Button 1 . The project slows to half its normal tempo. Note that the displayed project tempo has not changed.

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2. Click Button 3 . The project speeds to twice its normal tempo.

3. Click Button 2 . The project returns to its normal tempo.

Note: The Tempo Ratio buttons do not function in projects containing audio clips. Also, the clock source setting on the Clock tab of the Project Options dialog (Options-Project command) must be set to Internal.

Setting the Tempo Ratios

Tempo ratios can be changed by Shift-clicking on them in the Tempo toolbar and entering a new number in the dialog box. By default, tempo ratios are set to 0.50, 1.00, and 2.00, respectively.

Advanced Tempo Control

This project is a special case in that it has only one tempo for the entire project. If you need to vary the project’s tempo, SONAR lets you insert tempo changes. Tempo changes can be inserted individually so that different sections can be played at different tempos, or they can be inserted graphically in the Tempo view. For more information, see the online help topic 'Changing Tempos.”

Tempo ratios affect the entire project, even if there are tempo changes. SONAR always multiplies the current tempo in the project by the tempo ratio to determine the playback tempo.

Muting and Soloing Tracks

Muting a track causes it not to sound when you play your project. Soloing a track mutes all the tracks except the ones that are soloed.

You can change a track’s mute or solo status while your project is playing.

Muting a Track

Frequently you will want to temporarily turn off one or more instruments in your ensemble. SONAR makes it easy to mute the parts you don’t want to hear.

For example, suppose that you are practicing the piano part for this project and want to hear only the other instruments. Let’s mute the piano part. With the project playing, do the following:

1. In the Track pane, click the Mute button in the Piano track (track 1). The button turns yellow, and the piano part drops out of the project.

2. To turn the piano back on, click the Mute button again.

Note that the yellow MUTE indicator lights up in the Status bar whenever a track is muted (the Status bar is located at the bottom of the SONAR

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window). This can be very helpful if there are muted tracks that aren’t visible.

Let's try using a different method to mute two tracks simultaneously:

1. In the Track pane, click the track number (the left-most column) of the Piano track. The track is selected.

2. While pressing Ctrl, click the track number in the Sax track. The Piano and Sax tracks are selected.

3. Use the Tracks-Mute command. Both tracks are muted.

You can also mute or unmute tracks by using the popup menu:

1. In the Track pane, click the track number of the Piano track.

2. While pressing Ctrl, click the track number of the Sax track. The piano and sax tracks are selected.

3. Right-click on either track to bring up the popup menu.

4. Choose MSR-Mute (which should have a check mark beside it).

SONAR unmutes the tracks. You can also unmute all tracks by clicking the Mute indicator on the Status bar.

Playing a Track Solo

If you want to hear one track by itself, you could mute all other tracks. But there’s a quicker way to do it—the Solo button. For example, to play the drum part by itself, do the following:

1. Click the Solo button in the Drum track (track 5). Voila, a percussion solo!

2. To let the other instruments back into the project, click the Drum track's Solo button again.

Solo is not exclusive—you solo as many instruments as you like. Notice that the green SOLO indicator lights up in the Status bar (located at the bottom of the screen) whenever a track is soloed.

Let’s use a different method to solo all three percussion tracks:

1. In the Track pane, click the track number in the Drums track. The track becomes selected.

2. While pressing Shift, click the track numbers in the Shaker and Triangle tracks. All three percussion tracks become selected.

3. Choose Tracks-Solo.

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When you want to let the entire ensemble back into the project, click the Solo indicator on the Status bar to unsolo all the tracks, or select all soloed tracks and choose Tracks-Solo. As a third option, right-click, bring up the popup menu, and turn off the solo from MSR submenu.

Note that Mute takes priority over Solo. If both buttons are enabled in a track, the track does not play.

Mute and Solo in the Console View

The Console view contains Mute and Solo buttons identical to those in the Track view. The two sets of buttons are synchronized. To see this, do the following:

1. In the Console view, mute the Bass, Sax, and Drums tracks.

2. Solo the Piano track.

3. In the Track view, check that the first track is soloed and that tracks 2, 3, and 5 are muted. Click the enabled Solo and Mute buttons to return the tracks to normal.

Changing a Track's Instrument

If the sound card synthesizer or software synthesizer you are using is like most, it is capable of producing at least 128 different instrument sounds, plus several dozen percussion sounds. Now you'll find out how to get some of those other instruments into the act. Let’s try changing the instrument playing the piano line.

Changing the Patch in the Track View

With the project playing, do the following:

1. Solo the Piano track so you can hear the piano part more clearly. To do this, click the Solo button in the Piano track (track 1).

2. Loop the project, or a part of the project and click Play.

3. In the Piano track in the Track pane, find the Patch control (it’s the field just after the Bank control). Click the down arrow that is at the end of the patch name (the patch name should be something like Acoustic Grand Piano).

4. To change the patch, select a new patch from the menu that appears. SONAR closes the menu and immediately starts playing the piano part with that new instrument.

5. Have fun trying all the different patches!

6. Click the Solo button in track 1 again to unsolo the Piano track.

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You can change the patch at other times in the project besides the beginning by using the Insert-Bank/Patch Change command:

1. Stop playback.

2. Select the track in which you want to insert a patch change by clicking on its track number.

3. Move the Now time to the place where you want to insert the patch change.

4. Use the Insert-Bank/Patch Change command.

The Bank/Patch Change dialog box appears.

5. Choose a patch from the Patch field and click OK.

SONAR inserts the patch change that you selected at the Now time.

6. Move the Now time to a place before the patch change and play the project so that the Now time moves through the place where you put the patch change. You may want to solo the track to hear it clearly.

7. Listen to the sound change when the Now time reaches the patch change.

You may want to experiment with changing all the instruments used by the project. One thing you should know: Changing the instrument on a percussion track (such as the Drum, Shaker, and Triangle tracks in this project) may have no effect. For many synths, percussion instruments are played on MIDI channel 10, which in General MIDI is dedicated to percussion. The note determines the instrument, and the patch is irrelevant.

Changing the Patch in the Track/Bus Inspector

You can also change a track’s patch in the Track/Bus Inspector, which is a vertically expanded version of the current track’s controls at the far left side of the Track view. Click a track to make it the current track. For example, to change the Piano track’s patch, click the Patch button in the Piano track’s Track/Bus Inspector and choose a new patch from the menu. The Patch button is just below the Bank button. You can hide or show the Track/Bus Inspector by pressing i on your computer keyboard.

Playing Music on a Keyboard

If you've connected a MIDI keyboard (or another instrument) to your external MIDI interface or the MIDI interface of your sound card, you can play one or more parts of the project on the keyboard instead of the sound card’s internal synthesizer. For instructions on connecting a keyboard to your computer, see “To Connect an Electric Guitar or Keyboard to Your

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Computer” on page 36. For this section, we assume that you want to connect the keyboard to the MIDI In and MIDI Out of your sound card.

Checking Your MIDI Device Settings

First, let’s make sure that SONAR is set up to send MIDI output to your keyboard.

1. Choose Options-MIDI Devices to open the MIDI Devices dialog box.

2. In the Outputs field, two devices should be selected. The first should be your sound card synthesizer device; the second should be the MIDI output your MIDI device is connected to (it should say something like “SB Live MIDI Out”). The uppermost selected device will correspond to Output 1, the second device to Output 2, and so on. For help with these settings, see the online help topic “Setting Up Output Devices.”

3. Click OK.

Routing MIDI Data to the Keyboard

Let’s play back the Piano track through your MIDI keyboard. First, turn your keyboard on and make sure it is set up to receive MIDI input on channel one. Then, do the following:

1. In the Track view, in the Piano track (track 1), click the Output field to open the menu of outputs.

2. Select the output that your keyboard is attached to.

3. Click the Play button or press the Spacebar to play your project.

SONAR plays the piano part through your keyboard.

Or, if you prefer, the procedure is similar in the Console view:

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1. In the Console view (to display, use the Views-Console command), click the Output button in the Piano module to open the menu of outputs. The Output button is just below the volume fader.

2. Select the output that your keyboard is attached to.

3. Play your project.

Tutorial 2—Recording MIDI

This tutorial teaches you how to record MIDI data with SONAR. You’ll learn how to:

• Set up the metronome

• Record MIDI tracks

• Use loop recording

• Use punch recording

Creating a New Project

If you haven’t already done so, the first thing you need to do is create a project file:

1. Start SONAR.

2. Choose File-New.

3. In the New Project File dialog box, enter Tutorial2 in the Name field.

4. Select the MIDI tracks template from the template list.

5. Click OK.

SONAR opens a new project named Tutorial2, containing only MIDI tracks.

Recording a MIDI Track

Let’s record a new MIDI track in the project.

Setting Up the Metronome

Musicians often use a metronome to keep track of the beat. SONAR’s metronome is more versatile than most real metronomes. You can configure it to sound on playback or recording; it can count off any number of lead-in measures or beats; and it can use audio clips or MIDI notes to produce sounds. It also quickly and accurately follows any tempo changes that happen in the project.

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You can set up the metronome with the Metronome toolbar. If you don’t see the Metronome toolbar, choose Views-Toolbars and select Metronome.

Use Audio Metronome

Metronome settings

Measures

Record count-in

Beats

Metronome during record

Metronome during playback

Use MIDI metronome

Let’s set up the metronome to play audio for two count-in measures when recording. Here's what to do:

1. In the Metronome toolbar, click in the Count-in box.

2. Use the + or - buttons to set the count-in value to 2.

3. Click the Count-in Measures option to select it.

4. Deselect the Metronome During Record option .

5. Select the Use Audio Metronome option .

By disabling the Metronome During Record option, you cause the metronome to turn off after the count-in measures. If you would prefer to hear the metronome during the entire project while recording, enable this option instead.

In this example, the metronome counts in for recording, not for playback.

Setting MIDI Inputs

Let's make sure that SONAR is set up to receive MIDI data from your instrument.

1. Choose Options-MIDI Devices to open the MIDI Devices dialog box.

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2. In the Inputs column, select your sound card's MIDI In device or the MIDI In for your external MIDI interface. For help with these settings, see the online help topic “Setting Up Output Devices.”

3. Click OK.

Setting Up Playback

During recording, SONAR will play the rest of a project as usual. Depending on what instrumental part of the project you are going to record, you may want to mute one or more tracks, or solo certain tracks. For example, if you are going to record a new piano part, you might want to mute the old piano part so that you're not competing with it while recording. To mute any track, click the track's Mute button .

Since this is a new project, there is no need to mute or solo any track.

You can also set other playback options, such as the tempo ratio, to make your recording session easier.

Recording MIDI

Now you'll record a track in the project. Do the following:

1. Make sure your instrument is turned on and set up to transmit MIDI data.

2. If you don’t have an unused MIDI track in the project, create a new MIDI track by right-clicking in the Track pane and selecting Insert MIDI Track from the menu that appears.

3. In a MIDI track, click the Arm button (arming a track automatically sets the Input field to MIDI Omni, meaning that this track will record incoming MIDI data from any channel).

4. On the Transport toolbar, click Record , or press r.

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The metronome counts off two measures, then SONAR starts recording.

5. Play your MIDI instrument.

6. When you finish recording, click the Stop button , or press the Spacebar.

If you've played any notes, a new clip appears in the Clips pane in the track you recorded on. If no new clip appears, see “I Can’t Record from My MIDI Instrument” in the Troubleshooting section of the online help for some troubleshooting hints.

Listening to the Recording

Let’s play back your performance on your sound card. For an added dimension, we’ll open a few other views in the process. Do the following:

1. Display the controls of the track you recorded by clicking its Restore Strip Size button , or by dragging the Vertical Zoom control that’s

located at the lower right corner of the Clips pane. You may need to click the All tab at the bottom of the Track pane to display all the controls.

2. Click the Output dropdown arrow to display the menu of available outputs.

3. Select your sound card’s MIDI synthesizer (if you don’t see the outputs you expect to see, use the Options-MIDI Devices command and enable the correct outputs—see “Preparing for Playback” on page 66).

4. In the Ch field, click the dropdown arrow to select a MIDI channel, and select an unused channel.

5. In the Patch field, select any patch.

6. Choose Views-Piano Roll to open the Piano Roll view.

7. Choose Views-Staff to open the Staff view.

8. Choose Views-Event List to open the Event List view.

9. Choose Window-Tile in Rows to tile the views.

10. To return to the start of the project, click the Rewind button, or press w.

11. Click Play or press the Spacebar.

It’s almost as easy to listen to your performance on your MIDI instrument. For instructions on how to play a track on a MIDI keyboard, refer to Tutorial

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The Piano Roll, Staff, and Event List views all show the same basic information—the notes that you recorded. The Piano Roll view displays the track as a player-piano roll. The Staff view shows notes in traditional music notation. The Event List view lists all MIDI events for the track. When you need to edit a track, you can work in any of these views. On different occasions you may have reason to use different views. More information about the Piano Roll, Staff, and Event List views can be found in later chapters of this manual or in the online help.

When you're ready to continue, close the Piano Roll, Staff, and Event List views.

Recording Another Take

Maybe your first attempt at recording resulted in a perfect performance, but maybe not. If you'd like to remove your first take and try again, do the following:

1. Choose Edit-Undo Recording or press Ctrl+Z to undo your recording.

2. Click Rewind , or press w. The track is still armed for recording, so you don't need to re-arm it.

3. Click Record , or press r.

4. When you finish recording, click the Stop button in the Transport toolbar or press the Spacebar.

Alternatively, you could record your next attempt on a new track. That way you can keep all the takes and select the best one later (or combine the best parts of each!). If you record on a new track, be sure to arm the new track for recording and to disarm the previous track. See “Loop Recording” on page 86 for a convenient way to record multiple takes.

Saving Your Work

When you have something you’d like to keep, you can save the project by doing the following:

1. Choose File-Save As.

2. In the File Name box, type a new file name, such as my project.

3. Click OK.

SONAR saves the project under the new name. From now on, you can click the Save button to save this project.

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Loop Recording

If you'd like to record several takes successively, you can set up SONAR to loop over the entire project, or just some section of it. SONAR will record a new take during each loop, storing that take in a new clip. You can set SONAR to place each clip in a new track or to pile all clips in one track.

Let's try recording a few takes of the first four measures of a project, placing each take in a new track.

Setting Up Looping

First, let's set up SONAR to loop over the first four measures:

1. Click the down arrow in the Snap to Grid combo button to open the Snap to Grid dialog box. If the Snap to Grid button is not visible in the Track view toolbar, use your mouse to drag the vertical splitter between the Track pane and the Clips pane to the right.

2. In the Snap to Grid dialog box, click the Musical Time button and select Measure from the list of durations. In the Mode field, select Move To, and close the dialog box.

Now you can only select exact one-measure blocks of time in the Time Ruler, which is located at the top of the Clips pane.

3. In the Time Ruler, drag through the first four measures to select them.

4. In the Loop/Auto Shuttle toolbar, click the Set Loop to Selection button

to set the Loop Start and Loop End times.

Clicking enables looping automatically.

Setting Up the Tracks

Now let's set up the first of the tracks where the takes will be stored:

1. Arm a MIDI track by making sure its Arm button is red.

2. Click the track’s Output field to set its output to your sound card's MIDI synthesizer.

3. Use the track’s channel field to set its channel to an unused channel.

4. Use the track’s Patch field to select any patch.

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Output menu

Channel menu

Bank menu

Patch menu

Dropdown arrow to display menu

As usual, you could set the tracks to play back on your MIDI keyboard instead by specifying the appropriate output and channel.

Loop Recording

Finally, let's record our takes:

1. Choose Transport-Record Options to display the Record Options dialog box.

2. Choose the Store Takes in Separate Tracks option to store each new take in a separate track. Each time a new take starts, the settings from the first track will be copied to the new track.

3. Click OK.

4. Click Rewind .

5. Click Record .

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SONAR loops over the designated section and records your takes to successive tracks. If you want to erase the most recent take during loop recording, choose Transport-Reject Loop Take.

6. To stop recording, click Stop , or press the Spacebar.

Now you can listen to each take individually by muting the other ones.

Alternatively, you could set your loop recording options to Store Takes in a Single Track and display them all within one track. After you finish recording several takes, press the Track Layers button on the track strip. The track will then expand to show all clips on separate layers that can be muted and soloed individually.

For more information on Track Layers, see the online help topic “ Take Management and Comping Takes.”

Punch-In Recording

Imagine that one of your takes was close to ideal, except for one or two notes in one measure. Rather than recording another full take, you'd prefer to keep the take but replace that measure.

Punch-in recording lets you replace a section of a track. This is how it works: first, you set the start and end times of the punch to the section you want to replace, and turn on punch recording. Then, you arm the track and start recording. You can play along with the original take to get the rhythm and feeling. However, nothing will be recorded until the Now time reaches the punch start time. During the punch, the material already in the track will be replaced with what you record. When the punch ends, the project will continue to play, but recording will stop.

Let's try it. Suppose you want to replace several measures in the recording you made earlier in this tutorial.

1. Display the Record toolbar by choosing Views-Toolbars-Record.

Punch In Time

2. In the Record toolbar, click the Punch In Time.

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Auto-punch on/off

Punch Out Time

Record mode

Click here to set punch times to the selection start and end times

Step record

Click to open the Record Options dialog box

3. Type the number of the measure at which you want to begin punch recording and press Enter.

4. Click the Punch Out Time.

5. Type the number of the measure at which you want to end punch recording and press Enter.

6. Click the Auto-Punch On/Off button to enable punch recording.

7. Select Overwrite from the Record Mode dropdown menu.

8. Arm the track in which you want to punch record.

9. If looping is still on, click the Loop button to turn it off.

10. Click Rewind .

11. Cl ick Re c o rd .

Play along until you are past the punch end time, then click Stop . Replay your take to hear the difference. If it's still not right, try again!

An alternative method is to select measures by dragging in the Time Ruler. Then right-click the Time Ruler and choose Set Punch Points. This automatically enables punch recording.

You can combine loop recording with punch recording; see the online help topic “Punch Recording” for details.

When Auto Punch is enabled, the Time Ruler displays special markers that indicate the punch in and punch out times. You can drag these markers to change the punch in and punch out times.

Punch OutPunch In

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Tutorial 3—Recording Digital Audio

To record digital audio, you need some sort of device hooked up to your sound card's line or mic input—an electric guitar, a preamp, or a mixer, for example. If nothing else, try playing or singing into a microphone!

If you have never connected an instrument to your sound card, see “To Connect an Electric Guitar or Keyboard to Your Computer” on page 36.

This tutorial covers these procedures:

• Setting the sampling rate

• Setting the audio driver bit depth and recording bit depth

• Opening a new project

• Setting up an audio track

• Checking the input levels

• Recording digital audio

• Listening to the recording

• Recording another take

• Input monitoring

• Loop and punch-in recording

• Recording multiple channels

Setting the Sampling Rate

Each SONAR project has a parameter that specifies the sampling resolution for all digital audio data in the project. You should set this rate before recording any digital audio.

To set the sampling rate:

1. Choose Options-Audio to open the Audio Options dialog box.

2. Click the General tab.

3. Under Default Settings for New Projects, select a Sampling Rate. For CD-quality sound, use 44100 Hz.

4. Click OK.

Lower sampling rates will save disk space but will result in lower-quality audio. Before embarking on any major project, consider what media your project will eventually be stored on, and what sampling rate is best for that media.

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Setting the Audio Driver Bit Depth and Recording Bit Depth

The drivers for most sound cards use anywhere from 16 to 24 bits to play back recorded data. CD’s use 16 bits. You can possibly get better sound quality by recording at a higher bit depth and converting to 16 bits when it’s time to master your project, but keep in mind that 24 bit audio takes 50% more memory than 16 bit audio, possibly straining your computer’s storage capability and speed of operation. Your sound card’s documentation could have some advice on choosing an audio driver bit depth.

You can record audio data at 16 or 24 bits. It usually makes sense to record and play back at the same bit depth.

To set the audio driver bit depth:

1. Use the Options-Audio command to open the Audio Options dialog box.

2. On the General tab, find the Audio Driver Bit Depth field and select one of the options.

3. Click OK.

For more information about audio driver bit depth, see the online help topic “Bit Depths for Playback.”

To set the record bit depth:

1. Use the Options-Global command to open the Global Options dialog box.

2. On the Audio Data tab, find the Record Bit Depth field and select one of the options.

3. Click OK.

Open a New Project

Let’s open a new project for this tutorial.

1. Select File-New from the menu.

2. In the New Project File dialog box, enter Tutorial3 in the Name field.

3. Select the Normal template from the template list and click OK.

Note: In the New Project File dialog you can also confirm where your project and project audio will be stored when you save a new project. Do so by adjusting the paths in the Location and Audio Path fields. For the

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purpose of these tutorials, however, the default locations should be acceptable.

Setting Up an Audio Track

Let’s set up a track for digital audio:

1. Insert a new track by doing the following: in the Track pane, right-click below the last track, or wherever you want to insert a track, and choose Insert Audio Track from the popup menu.

SONAR inserts a new audio track.

2. In the track’s Output field, click the dropdown arrow and select an audio output from the menu.

3. In the track’s Input field, choose an audio input. Usually you select the left channel of one of your sound card’s inputs to record a mono track, or the stereo input to record a stereo track.

The Normal template has several audio tracks in it already, which you could use to record with. You don’t have to insert a new audio track to record with if your project already has one or more empty audio tracks.

Checking the Input Levels

Before trying to record, you need to check and adjust the audio input levels. If your audio input is too low, it will be lost in the background noise. If it is too high, it will overload the input channel and be distorted/clipped. Before you check input levels, make sure that the record meters are set to be displayed in the Track view. Click the right arrow next to the Show/Hide Meters button and in the menu that appears, select the Track Record Meters command if it is not already checked.

You may need to drag the splitter bar that separates the Track pane from the Clips pane to the right to see all the buttons in the Track view toolbar.

Note: SONAR has a button called the Audio Engine button in the Transport toolbar, which you click to stop any feedback you may experience if there is a loop somewhere in your mixer setup. Whenever you play a project, SONAR automatically enables the audio engine, which you can tell by watching the Status bar—whenever the audio engine is running, the Audio Running indicator in the Status bar lights up. The Status bar is located at the bottom of the SONAR window.

To check the audio input levels:

1. Click the Arm button in your new audio track. The track’s meter becomes a record meter.

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2. Perform as you would during recording. Watch the meter respond to the sounds you produce. If the meter does not respond, you may need to raise the volume of your plugged-in instrument. Also, make sure that

the Audio Engine button in the Transport toolbar is enabled.

If you still don't see any movement of the audio meters, you may have an audio input problem.

3. If the input level meter never comes even close to the maximum, increase the input level by using the Windows mixer or your sound card’s software mixer (or if you are recording your instrument through an amplifier or mic preamp, turn up the amp or preamp).

4. If the meters overload or clip (indicated by red), decrease the input level.

The idea is to try to get the input level to rise as high as possible, but without ever reaching the maximum. That way, you get the strongest possible signal without distortion.

SONAR’s meters are extremely adjustable for the kind and range of data they display. For more information, see the online help topic “Metering.”

Recording Digital Audio

It's time to record!

1. If you haven’t already set up the metronome, follow the directions in “Setting Up the Metronome” on page 81 to set the metronome for a twomeasure count-in.

2. The track is already armed for recording.

3. In the Transport toolbar, click Record , or press r on your computer keyboard.

You’ll hear two measures counted in by the metronome, then playback and recording begin.

4. Go ahead and perform!

5. When you finish recording, click the Stop button , or press the Spacebar.

A new clip appears in the Clips pane. Also, right-click in the Clips pane and choose Views-Options to open the Track View Options dialog box—make sure Display Clip Names and Display Clip Contents are checked.

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Listening to the Recording

Let's play back your performance. Do the following:

1. In the track’s Output field, click the dropdown arrow to display the menu of available outputs, and select a pair of your sound card’s stereo outputs (if your sound card only has two outputs, just select the name of your sound card).

2. To return to the start of the project, click the Rewind button.

3. Disarm your audio track by clicking its Arm button again—this changes the track’s meter to a playback meter. The track is disarmed when its Arm button is not red.

4. Click Play .

5. Watch the track’s meter. If the level is not what you want, record your track again.

Recording Another Take

If you'd like to delete your performance and try again, do the following:

1. Choose Edit-Undo Recording to undo your recording, or press Ctrl+Z (Undo).

2. If necessary, click Rewind or press w.

3. Make sure the track is still armed for recording.

4. Click Record .

5. When you finish recording, click the Stop button , or press the Spacebar.

Alternatively, you could record your next attempt on a new track, or in the same track. If you enable a track’s Track Layers button , you can display alternate takes in different “lanes” in a single track. To avoid erasing each take, enable Sound on Sound (Blend) mode in the Record Options dialog (Transport-Record Options command), and make sure that Create New Layers On Overlap is enabled in the same dialog.

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Input Monitoring

SONAR has a feature called input monitoring, which allows you to hear any instrument that is plugged into your sound card whether you are currently recording the instrument or not. You can hear your instrument, including any plug-in effects, whenever input monitoring is enabled and the Audio Engine button in the Transport toolbar is depressed. You can enable or disable input monitoring on an individual track by clicking the track’s Input Echo button , and you can enable or disable input monitoring on all tracks at once by clicking the Input Echo button that’s on the Playback State toolbar (to display, use the Views-Toolbars-Playback State command).

Caution: If you have any kind of a loop in your mixer setup that causes the output of your sound card to be fed back into the input, you can get feedback. Input monitoring can make it very intense because both the direct signal and the processed signal are coming out of your sound card. Turn your speakers off whenever you enable input monitoring, and then try turning them up very gradually to try it out. If you hear feedback, click the

Audio Engine button in the Transport toolbar to turn input monitoring off.

For more information on Input Monitoring, see the online help topic “Input Monitoring.”

Loop and Punch-In Recording

Loop and Punch-in work the same for digital audio recording as they did for MIDI recording. For more information, see the online help topics “Loop Recording” or “Punch Recording.”

Recording Multiple Channels

If you can gather the entire band around your computer, and if you have the proper equipment, you can record a full multiple-instrument performance all at once. If you have several MIDI instruments, you can route their input into your sound card through a MIDI merger—data that arrives on different MIDI channels can be routed to different tracks. Likewise, a typical sound card can record audio on both right and left channels—each can be recorded on a different track by choosing the right channel as an input for one track, and the left channel as an input for another. Multiple sound cards and multi-I/O sound cards can expand the number of possible inputs. For more information, see the online help topic “System Configuration.”

Tutorials

Tutorial 3—Recording Digital Audio

That completes the audio recording tutorial. Now you’ve learned the basics of playing and recording material for your projects. In the following tutorials you'll learn about basic editing techniques for both MIDI and audio.

Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI

SONAR has too many powerful MIDI features to look at in one tutorial, so let’s look at some of the most basic features and also cover some exciting new ones, such as slip-editing and MIDI envelopes.

In this tutorial, start by opening the file where SONAR is installed. We will be doing the following tasks:

• Transposing

• Copying Clips with Drag and Drop

• Editing Notes in the Piano Roll View

• Slip-editing

• Drawing MIDI Envelopes

• Converting MIDI to Audio

TUTORIAL4.CWP in the Tutorial folder

Transposing

Here are two ways to transpose MIDI data in SONAR:

• You can apply the Transpose command to selected data (see the procedure below).

• You can use the Key+ control for a specific track—the Key+ control is located with the other track parameter controls in the Track pane. This method causes a track to play higher or lower by the number of half steps you enter in the Key+ control. This is a non-destructive form of editing that leaves the pitch of the original data unchanged, but adds an “offset” when the track plays back.

To Transpose our Tutorial File

1. Select all the notes in the bass track by clicking the bass track’s track number. The track number should appear highlighted when it is selected.

2. Select all the notes in the organ track by Ctrl-clicking (holding down the Ctrl key while you click) the organ track’s track number. Ctrl-clicking allows you to make multiple selections.

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Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI

3. Use the Process-Transpose command to open the Transpose dialog box.

4. Enter -2 (negative 2) in the Amount field and click OK.

5. Ctrl-click both track numbers again to deselect them.

SONAR transposes the selected data down a whole step (2 half steps). Choose MIDI outputs for your tracks and play the project. You can undo the transposition by pressing Ctrl+Z, and redo the transposition by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Z.

Copying Clips with Drag and Drop

The first clip in the bass track is two measures long; we can easily dragcopy it to make it eight measures long. When we drag-copy some of the clips, we can make them into linked clips. When you edit a linked clip, SONAR performs the exact same edits on all other clips that the clip is linked to.

To Copy Clips Using Drag and Drop

1. In the Track view toolbar, click the Snap to Grid button’s down arrow to open the Snap to Grid dialog box.

2. Make sure that the Musical Time radio button is selected, and in the list to the right of it, select Measure.

3. In the Mode field, select Move By and click OK. Now we can only move clips in the Clips pane by distances of an exact measure or measures.

4. While holding down the Ctrl key, drag the first clip in the bass track to the right and release the mouse when the start of the clip is at measure three. The Drag and Drop Options dialog box appears. Click OK— SONAR places a copy of the clip in measures three through four. Ctrldragging a clip copies and moves it, while dragging without holding down any extra keys moves a clip without making a copy of it.

5. Now let’s make a linked clip copy of the new clip in measure three: Ctrldrag the clip from measure three to measure five. When the Drag and Drop Options dialog box appears, click the Copy Entire Clips as Linked Clips checkbox and click OK. SONAR places a linked clip copy into measures five and six. The two linked clips have dotted outlines to show they are linked.

6. Make another linked copy of one of the linked clips and place it in measures seven and eight. Because this copy overlaps the clip that’s in measure 9, make sure that the Blend Old and New option is checked in

Tutorials

Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI

the Drag and Drop dialog box. Because none of the notes in the two clips overlap, blending the two clips does not change any of their data.

Now you have linked clip copies in measures three through eight: when you edit any of these three clips, SONAR performs the exact same edits on the other two.

Editing Notes in the Piano Roll View

SONAR’s Piano Roll view gives you complete control of individual note properties. Let’s edit a couple of notes.

To Edit Notes in the Piano Roll View

1. Open the Piano Roll view of the first bass clip by double-clicking the clip. In the Piano Roll view, you may have to use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys on your computer keyboard to display the note data (the Right and Left Arrow keys scroll the display in the horizontal direction).

2. Drag the Piano Roll’s Horizontal Zoom control in the lower right corner of the Notes pane to make the note data large enough for easy editing (see following picture).

3. In the Piano Roll toolbar, click the dropdown arrow on the Snap to Grid button to open the Snap to Grid dialog box (Snap to Grid settings

in each view are independent of each other).

4. Make sure the Musical Time check box is selected, and in the window to the right of it, select Eighth.

5. In the Mode field, make sure that the Move By radio button is selected and click OK. Now we can only move data in the Piano Roll view by exact distances of one or more eighth notes.

6. In the Piano Roll toolbar, click the Draw tool to activate it.

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Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI

7. Find the note that starts at the beginning of measure three and move the cursor over the beginning of the note so that the cursor becomes a cross. Drag the beginning of the note to the left by a half beat, and release the mouse.

Beat 1 of Measure 3

Drag Horizontal Zoom controlDrag note from here

SONAR moves the note to the left by a half beat and lengthens the note by a half beat, and also performs the same edits on the identical notes that are at the beginnings of the other two linked clips.

8. Close the Piano Roll view when you finish editing.

If you want to unlink clips when you’re through editing them, select the clips you want to unlink (in the Track view), right-click one of them, and choose Unlink from the Clips pane popup menu. Select Independent, Not Linked At All in the Unlink Clips dialog box and click OK.

When you move the Draw tool over a note, it changes into one of 3 different editing tools, depending on what part of the note you move it over:

• If you move the Draw tool over the beginning or end of a note, the Draw tool changes into a cross. When you drag one end of a note with the cross icon, the other end of the note stays put, thereby changing the duration of the note as you move the opposite end.

Tutorials

Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI

• If you move the Draw tool just inside the beginning of a note, the Draw tool changes into a horizontal, double-ended arrow. When you drag the beginning of a note with this icon, the other end of the note moves with the beginning of the note, thereby keeping the duration of the note constant.

• If you move the Draw tool over the middle of a note, the Draw tool changes into a vertical, double-ended arrow. Use this tool to drag the note up or down in pitch.

Slip-editing

Now let’s take advantage of one of the most convenient features of SONAR: slip-editing. Slip-editing lets you drag the beginning or ending borders of a clip to hide the notes or other MIDI data that are in the area that you drag through (slip-editing also works on audio clips). SONAR does not delete these notes or data, but does not play them either. As soon as you drag the clip borders to display the data again, SONAR plays them again. slip-editing is a very fast and convenient way to try out different sounds without destroying any data. You can also leave the clip borders unchanged and only drag the data that’s within the clip. This changes the rhythmic placement of data without changing the clip’s borders.

To Slip-edit TUTORIAL4.CWP

1. Drag the horizontal zoom controls in the Clips pane so that a space of about 2 measures fills up the Clips pane.

2. Click the down arrow in the Snap to Grid combo button to open the Snap to Grid dialog box, change the Musical Time resolution to Eighth, make sure Move By is selected in the Mode field, and close the dialog. Now we can only drag the borders of clips by units of eighth notes.

3. In the organ track in the Clips pane, move the cursor over the right end of the first clip until the blue vertical line (clip handle) appears. Drag the right border to the left until the MIDI data at the end of the clip is hidden.

Now you can’t hear those notes.

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Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI

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