Cakewalk Sonar 8 User's Guide

™

Cakewalk SONAR Reference Guide

Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commit ment on the part of Cakewalk, 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 accor dance 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 Cakewalk, Inc.

ACID is a trademark of Madison Media Software, Inc.

Cakewalk is a registered trademark of Cakewalk, Inc. SONAR and the Cakewalk logo are trade marks of Cakewalk, Inc. Other company and product names are trademarks of their respective own ers.

Visit Cakew alk on the World Wide Web at ww w.cakewalk. com.

Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Registering SONAR Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Conventions Used in this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

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

Publishing Music on the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Burning Audio CDs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Flexibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

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

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

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

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

Audio Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

MIDI Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Starting SONAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

SONAR Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

SONAR File Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Opening a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Working on a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Windows Taskbar Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Screen Colors and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Color Presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Starting to Use SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Installing SONAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

2 Controlling Playback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

The Now Time and How to Use It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

The Now Time Marker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

The Track View Now Time Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Displaying the Now Time in Large Print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Other Ways to Set the Now Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

The Time Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Handling Stuck Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Looping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Using the Large Transport. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Track-by-Track Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

The Playback State Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Silencing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Soloing Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Inverting the Phase of a Track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Changing Tracks’ Mono/Stereo Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Changing Track Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Setting Up Output Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Assigning Tracks to Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Choosing the Instrument Sound (Bank and Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Adding Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

4 Table of Contents

Adjusting Volume and Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Configurable Panning Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

Adjusting Volume Trim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

Assigning a MIDI Channel (Chn) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

Adjusting the Key/Transposing a Track (Key+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

Adjusting the Note Velocity (Vel+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117

Adjusting the Time Alignment of a MIDI Track (Time+) . . . . . . . . .118

Other MIDI Playback Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Controlling Live MIDI Playback—MIDI Echo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Local Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123

Playing Files in Batch Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124

The Play List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124

Video Playback, Import, and Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .126

Inserting and Playing Back Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127

Exporting Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130

Optimizing Video Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131

Using the Video Thumbnails Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132

Video Playback on a FireWire DV Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

Exporting a Project to a FireWire DV Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136

Synchronizing External Video Playback to Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . .137

Locating Missing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138

The Find Missing Audio File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138

Restoring Missing Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138

Managing Shared and External Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139

3 Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Tutorial 1—The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142

Opening a Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142

Preparing for Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143

Playing the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146

Restarting the Project Automatically. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150

Changing the Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152

Muting and Soloing Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154

Changing a Track's Instrument. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156

Playing Music on a Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157

Tutorial 2—Recording MIDI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159

Creating a New Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159

Recording a MIDI Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159

Saving Your Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164

Loop Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164

Punch-In Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167

5Table of Contents

Tutorial 3—Recording Digital Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Setting the Sampling Rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Setting the Audio Driver Bit Depth and Recording Bit Depth. . . . . 169

Open a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Setting Up an Audio Track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Checking the Input Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Recording Digital Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Listening to the Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Recording Another Take . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Input Monitoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Loop and Punch-In Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Recording Multiple Channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Tutorial 4—Editing MIDI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Transposing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Copying Clips with Drag and Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Editing Notes in the Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Slip-editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Drawing MIDI Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Converting MIDI to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Tutorial 5—Editing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Opening the Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Importing a Wave File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Moving and Looping the Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Slip-editing a Clip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Automatic Crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Bouncing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Tutorial 6—Using Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Adding Groove Clips to a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Looping Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Changing the Pitch of Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Changing the Tempo of Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Creating Your Own Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Tutorial 7—Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Adding Real-time Audio Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Automating an Individual Effect’s Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Grouping Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Automating Your Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Exporting an MP3 File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Tutorial 8—Using Soft Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Inserting Cakewalk TTS-1 into a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Playing MIDI Tracks through a Soft Synth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Converting Your Soft Synth Tracks to Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

6 Table of Contents

Tutorial 9—Drum Maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208

Create a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208

Creating a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208

Create a Drum Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209

Map Drum Notes to Different Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .210

4 Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214

Using Per-Project Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214

Creating a New Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214

Setting the Meter and Key Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .216

Setting the Metronome and Tempo Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217

Setting the Audio Sampling Rate and Bit Depth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .220

Setting the MIDI Timing Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221

Preparing to Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221

Recording Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .222

Choosing an Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223

Arming Tracks for Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226

Auto Arming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

Recording Music from a MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

Input Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .228

Recording Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .230

Tuning an Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .232

Confidence Recording and Waveform Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234

Input Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235

The Audio Engine Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239

Loop Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .240

Punch Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .242

Step Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245

Step Record Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .252

Step Pattern Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253

Recording Specific Ports and Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .254

Input Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256

Importing Music and Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257

Importing Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257

Importing Audio CD Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259

Importing Material from Another SONAR Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . .260

Importing OMF Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .261

Importing MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263

Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .264

7Table of Contents

Using File Versioning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Labeling Your Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

File Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

5 Arranging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Arranging Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Changing the Order of Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Inserting Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Configuring the Display of Tracks in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Copying Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Erasing Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Track Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Track Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Configuring Track View Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Arranging Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Displaying Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Using the Navigator View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Opening Views by Double-clicking Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Selecting Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Moving and Copying Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Locking Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Nudge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Nudge Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Working with Partial Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Markers and the snap grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Showing Gridlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Defining and Using the Snap Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Snap Offsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Creating and Using Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Working with Linked Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Splitting and Combining Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Take Management and Comping Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Clip Muting and Isolating (Clip Soloing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Clip Muting with the Default Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Clip Muting with the Alternate Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Audition (Selection Playback) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Isolating (Clip Soloing). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Track Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Adding Effects in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Changing Tempos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

8 Table of Contents

Using the Tempo Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .328

Using the Tempo Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .329

Using the Tempo View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .332

Undo, Redo, and the Undo History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .336

Slip-editing (Non-destructive Editing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .338

Using Slip-editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .338

Slip-editing Multiple Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341

Fades and Crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341

Using Fades and Crossfades in Real Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341

6 AudioSnap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

What is it Exactly?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347

How Does it Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .348

Why Would I Use It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349

Aligning Measure Lines and Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349

Extract Timing Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .355

Fixing Timing Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .358

Synchronizing Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .365

Doubling Sounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .370

Changing a Project’s Tempo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .372

Snapping Edits to Audio Beats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .373

Splitting Beats into Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .376

Fixing Multiple Tracks While Maintaining Phase Relationships . . . . . .380

Algorithms and Rendering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .386

Enabling AudioSnap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .388

The AudioSnap Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .390

Transient Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .393

Displaying Markers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .393

Disabling and Enabling Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .394

Marker Appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .395

Editing Markers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .396

The Pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .399

Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .401

Groove Quantize and Quantize to Pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .402

Copying Audio Rhythms as MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .404

Adding Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .404

The Set Measure/Beat At Now Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .405

9Table of Contents

7 Using Loops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

The Loop Construction View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

Loop Construction Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

The Loop Explorer View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Folders Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Contents List Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Working with Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Working with Groove Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

How Groove Clips Work in SONAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Using Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Creating and Editing Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

Editing Slices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Saving Groove Clips as Wave Files/ACIDized Wave Files . . . . . . 427

Using Pitch Markers in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

MIDI Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Exporting, and Importing MIDI Groove Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Importing Project5 Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

8 Editing MIDI Events and Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Event Inspector Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

The Piano Roll View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Note Map Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Drum Grid Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Notes Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Controller Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Track List Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Opening the View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Working with Multiple Tracks in the Piano Roll View. . . . . . . . . . . 440

Note Names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Displaying Notes and Controllers (Piano Roll View Only) . . . . . . . . . . 443

Adding and Editing Notes in the Piano Roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Selecting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Editing Notes with the Draw Tool and the Select Tool . . . . . . . . . 446

Adding and Editing Controllers in the Piano Roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Adding Controllers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Selecting Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Editing Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

The Inline Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Displaying the Inline Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

The MIDI Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

10 Table of Contents

Displaying Notes and Controllers in the Inline Piano Roll View . . .462

Selecting and Editing Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .463

Copying and Pasting MIDI Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .463

Transposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .464

Inserting Time or Measures into a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .466

Stretching and Shrinking Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .469

Reversing Notes in a Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .472

Adding Crescendos and Decrescendos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .473

Changing the Timing of a Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .474

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .474

Fit Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .485

Snap to Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .486

Searching for Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .491

Event Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .492

Controllers, RPNs, NRPNs, and

Automation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .497

The Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .500

Event List Buttons and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .502

Selecting Events in the Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .505

Event List Display Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .505

Editing Events and Event Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .506

Additional Event Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .508

MIDI Effects (MIDI Plug-ins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .510

MIDI Effects Presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .510

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .511

Adding Echo/Delay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .512

Filtering Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .513

Adding Arpeggio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .514

Analyzing Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .515

Changing Velocities with the Velocity Effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .517

Transposing MIDI Notes with the Transpose MIDI Effect. . . . . . . .518

9 Drum Maps and the Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .522

Creating and Editing a Drum Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .522

The Drum Map Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .522

Working in the Drum Map Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .524

The Map Properties Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .525

Saving a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .525

Using Drum Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .526

11Table of Contents

Assigning a MIDI Track to a Drum Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Opening a Drum Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Displaying Tracks in the Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Velocity Tails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

Editing Note Velocities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

Previewing a Mapped Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528

The Note Map Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

Changing Mapped-note Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

The Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

Grid Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

The Pattern Brush Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

How the Pattern Brush Tool Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

Creating Custom Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

10 Editing Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Digital Audio Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Basic Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Example—A Guitar String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540

Recording a Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542

The Decibel Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544

Managing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545

Basic Audio Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545

Editing Clip Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546

Moving, Copying, Pasting and Deleting Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . 547

Audio Scaling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548

Splitting Audio Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Bouncing to Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

Scrubbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

Basic Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Using the Normalize and Gain Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

Reversing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Advanced Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Removing Silence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Removing DC Offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Applying Fades and Crossfades Offline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Audio Effects (Audio Plug-ins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

Applying Audio Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Directly Applying Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

12 Table of Contents

11 Software Synthesizers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Synth Rack View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .568

Synth Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .569

Inserting Soft Synths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .569

Opening a Soft Synth’s Property Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .573

Synth Rack Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .573

Playing a Soft Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .574

Muting and Soloing Soft Synth Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .577

Multi-port Soft Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .577

Converting Your Soft Synth Tracks to Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .578

Using the Assignable Controls Feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .579

Automating Controls from the Synth Rack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .580

Displaying Synth Rack Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .581

Remote Control of the Synth Rack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .581

Drawing Soft Synth Automation in the Clips Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . .581

Soft Synth MIDI Output Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .582

Recording a Soft Synth’s MIDI Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .582

ReWire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .583

ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .583

Inserting a ReWire Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .585

Routing MIDI Data to ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .587

Mixing Down ReWire Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .587

Automating ReWire Instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .587

ReWire Troubleshooting Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .588

Stand-alone Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .589

Playing a Stand-alone Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .589

Recording a Stand-alone Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .590

12 Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Preparing to Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .594

Configuring the Console and Track Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .597

Mixing MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .600

Mixing a MIDI Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .600

Converting MIDI to Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .601

Signal Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .603

Sidechaining Signal Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .605

Routing and Mixing Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .606

Stereo Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .607

Surround Buses (Producer Edition Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .608

13Table of Contents

Main Outs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610

Metering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610

What the Meters Measure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

Hiding and Showing Meters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

Changing the Meters’ Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612

Segmented and Non-segmented Meters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614

Changing the Meters’ Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615

Peak Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616

Waveform Preview for Buses and Synth Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Freeze Tracks and Synths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619

Using Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622

Effects Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623

How to Use Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624

Presets and Property Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627

Effects on Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629

Organizing Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631

VST Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632

V-Vocal Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634

Using V-Vocal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636

Playing Back V-Vocal Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638

Pitch Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639

Editing Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

Editing Formants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

Editing Dynamics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645

Context Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645

Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Using the Per-track EQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648

Applying Audio Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

Applying MIDI Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652

Using Control Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652

Quick Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

Using Remote Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658

Using the Learn Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660

Bouncing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661

Preparing to Create an Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664

Preparing Audio for Distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665

Exporting OMF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672

Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

14 Table of Contents

13 Surround Mixing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Surround Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .676

Configuring SONAR for Surround Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .676

Using Surround Format Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .676

Choosing a Surround Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .679

Surround Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .681

Routing in Surround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .681

Downmixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .682

Panning in Surround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .684

Controlling Surround Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .686

Automating Surround Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .691

Joystick Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .691

Surround Metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .692

Bass Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .693

Surround Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .694

The SurroundBridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .694

Effect Property Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .694

Effect Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .695

How to Patch and Configure Surround Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .695

Importing Surround Mixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .697

Exporting Surround Mixes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .698

14 Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701

Quick Automation Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .702

The Automation Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .703

Automation Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .703

Automation Read and Automation Write Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . .704

Recording Individual Fader or Knob Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . .705

Creating and Editing Audio Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .706

Creating and Editing MIDI Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .708

Dotted Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .711

Using the Envelope Draw Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .711

Drawing Envelopes on Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .713

Showing or Hiding Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .714

Deleting Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .714

Copying and Pasting Envelopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .715

Resetting Envelopes and Nodes to Current or Neutral Values . . .716

Envelope Mode and Offset Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .716

Converting MIDI Envelopes to Shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .719

Snapshots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .720

15Table of Contents

Adding Nodes at a Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721

Automating Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722

Automating Individual Effects Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722

Recording Automation Data from an External Controller . . . . . . . 723

Reassigning Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724

The Envelope Editing and Node Editing Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724

Automated Muting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

15 Layouts, Templates and Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729

Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

Floating Views and Dual Monitor Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734

Template Example: Three MIDI Instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735

Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736

Importing Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 739

Exporting Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740

16 Notation and Lyrics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741

The Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742

Opening the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743

Staff Pane Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

The Staff Pane Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

The Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

Fretboard Popup Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

Basic Musical Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748

Inserting Notes on the Staff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748

Inserting Notes with the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

Selecting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

Moving, Copying, and Deleting Notes on the Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Moving Notes from within the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752

Auditioning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

Changing Note Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

Deglitch Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754

Working with Triplets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

Beaming of Rests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756

Changing the Way Notes Are Displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756

Using Enharmonic Spellings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758

MIDI Channels and the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760

Chords and Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761

Adding Chord Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761

16 Table of Contents

Adding Expression Marks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .765

Adding Hairpin Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .767

Adding Pedal Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .768

Tablature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .769

Tablature Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .769

Changing Fretboard Texture and Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .771

Quick TAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .771

Regenerate TAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .772

Entering Notes from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .773

Single Note Editing from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .773

Editing Chords or Groups of Notes from the TAB Staff . . . . . . . . .774

Editing Notes and Chords from the Fretboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .774

Working with Percussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .776

Setting Up a Percussion Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .776

Setting Up a Percussion Staff or Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .777

Ghost Strokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .779

Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .780

The Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .781

What Is Meter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .781

What Is Key? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .782

Opening the Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .783

Adding and Editing Meter/Key Changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .784

Music Notation for Non-concert-key

Instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .785

Working with Lyrics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .786

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .787

Opening the Lyrics View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .788

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Lyrics View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .789

17 Instrument Definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 791

Assigning Instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .792

Importing Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .794

Creating Instrument Definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .795

Creating and Editing Patch Name and Other Lists. . . . . . . . . . . . .799

Copying Name Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .800

Assigning the Bank Select Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .800

Assigning Patch Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .802

Assigning Note Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .803

Assigning Controller, RPN, and NRPN Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .806

Instrument Definition Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .807

Why Use Instrument Definitions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .807

17Table of Contents

What Can They Do and Not Do?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 808

Where Do Instrument Definitions Come From? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 808

Start of Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 808

18 System Exclusive Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813

What Is System Exclusive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814

Sysx Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814

Using the System Exclusive View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814

Sending Sysx Banks at Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 815

Importing, Creating, and Dumping Sysx Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 816

More about Dump Request Macros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

Editing Sysx Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819

Sysx View Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Send . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Send All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Receive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Clear Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821

Edit Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821

Load Bank and Save Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821

Transmitting Banks During Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822

Real-time Recording of System Exclusive Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Sysx Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Sysx .

INI File Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825

19 Synchronizing Your Gear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827

Synchronization Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 828

Choosing Clock Sources: SONAR as Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829

MIDI Synchronization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831

SONAR as the Slave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 832

SONAR as the Master. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 833

Using MIDI Sync with Drum Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 834

Troubleshooting MIDI Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 835

SMPTE/MIDI Time Code Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 835

Playing Digital Audio under SMPTE/MTC Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 840

SMPTE/MTC Sync and Full Chase Lock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841

18 Table of Contents

Troubleshooting SMPTE/MTC Sync. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .842

MIDI Machine Control (MMC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .843

20 Audio File Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845

The Project Files Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .846

Project Files and Bundle Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .847

Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .849

Global Audio Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .849

Per-project Audio Folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .850

Imported Audio Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .852

Backing Up Projects with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .853

Deleting Unused Audio Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .855

21 Improving Audio Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857

System Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .858

The Wave Profiler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .858

Enabling and Disabling Audio Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .859

Sampling Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .860

Bit Depths, and Float Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .861

Bit Depths for Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .862

Bit Depths for Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .863

Bit Depths for Importing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .864

Bit Depths for Exporting Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .864

Bit Depths for Rendering Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .865

Preparing Higher-quality Audio for CD Burning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .865

SONAR Project File Compatibility Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .866

Improving Performance with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .867

Getting the Most Out of Your PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .867

Mixing Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .870

ASIO Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .871

Queue Buffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .871

Status Bar/CPU Meter/Disk Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .872

24-bit Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .873

Dropouts and Other Audio Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .875

Optimized Picture Cache Redrawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .885

22 External Devices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887

Edirol PCR Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .888

Connecting and Disconnecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .890

ACT MIDI Controller Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .892

19Table of Contents

Using the ACT MIDI Controller Property Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893

Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894

Assigning Controls on Your Controller/Surface to Cells in the

ACT MIDI Property Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894

Cakewalk Generic Surface Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 895

Loading Presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 895

Assigning Faders and Knobs to Control SONAR Parameters . . . 896

Controlling Different Tracks or Groups of Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900

The Cakewalk Generic Surface Property Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901

The WAI Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907

ACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909

OPT Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 911

Working with StudioWare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 912

StudioWare Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 912

Using Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914

Grouping Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 916

Recording Control Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919

Control Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922

StudioWare Panel Drawing Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 923

23 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925

Audio dropouts or crash when playing back large files at

maximum latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 926

When I Play a File, I Don’t Hear Anything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 926

I Can’t Record from My MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928

When I Play a File Containing Audio, the Audio Portion Doesn’t Play. 929

I Can’t Record Any Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930

The Music Is Playing Back with the Wrong Instrument Sounds. . . . . . 931

My Keyboard Doubles Every Note I Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 931

I Don’t See the Clips Pane in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932

Why Can’t SONAR Find My Audio Files? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932

Why Do I Get Errors from the Wave Profiler? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932

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

Sound or Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933

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

MIDI Instrument? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933

I Hear an Echo When I Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934

Dropouts Happen in High Bit-depth or High Sample Rate Audio. . . . . 935

Patching an Effect into SONAR Causes a Dropout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935

20 Table of Contents

I Can’t Open My Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .936

Audio Distorts at Greater than 16 Bits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .936

No Sound from My Soft Synth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .936

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

in SONAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .937

SONAR Can’t Find the Wavetable Synth or MPU401. . . . . . . . . . . . . .938

I Get an Error Message When I Change a Project to 24-bit Audio . . . .938

Bouncing Tracks Takes a Long Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .939

The GUI is not Smooth During Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .939

24 Hardware Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 941

Connect Your MIDI Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .941

Set Up to Record Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .944

25 View Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 949

Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .949

SONAR Empty View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .958

Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .958

Piano Roll View Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .959

Note Map Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .961

Drum Grid Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .962

Notes Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .962

Controller pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .962

Track List pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .962

Step Sequencer View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .962

Step Sequencer Interface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .963

Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .969

Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .970

The Staff View Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .971

Synth Rack View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .974

Lyrics view. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .976

Console View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .976

Video View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .981

Tempo View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .982

Meter/Key View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .984

Markers View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .984

SYSX View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .985

Loop Construction view. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .985

21Table of Contents

Loop Explorer View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 990

Tree View Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991

Contents List Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991

Navigator View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991

Play List View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992

Surround Panner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 993

26 New features in SONAR 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995

TS-64 Transient Shaper plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 999

TL-64 Tube Leveler plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000

Beatscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001

Dimension Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1002

Channel Tools plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003

Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 LE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1004

TruePianos Amber Module VSTi plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1004

Digital Sound Factory Volume 2 Classic Keys for Dimension Pro . . . 1005

Hollywood Edge FX for Dimension Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005

Dimension Pro expansion packs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1006

Assign tracks to mono hardware outputs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007

Enhanced CPU performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1008

Audio driver changes without restart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1008

Minimize driver state changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009

Vista audio enhancements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010

WASAPI support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010

MMCSS task profile support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011

WaveRT updates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012

Instrument track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013

Loop Explorer enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1017

Auditioning audio files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019

Auditioning MIDI files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1020

Arm tracks during playback/recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022

Insert Send Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022

Exclusive Solo mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1027

Solo Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1028

Live input bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1028

Clip selection groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1029

Editing clips in a group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1032

Enhanced editing with keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034

22 Table of Contents

Navigating with a keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1036

Selecting with a keyboard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1038

Editing with a keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1040

Aim Assist line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1042

Free Edit Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1043

Quick Group enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1044

Edit tools enhancements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1044

Transport enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1044

Pause button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1044

True Rewind and Fast Forward buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1045

Audition button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1045

Control surface enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1046

Synchronizing channel strips between SONAR and

control surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1046

Control surfaces keep MIDI port assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1047

Display logical VST parameter values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1047

MIDI out port assignments are retained when adding/removing

MIDI devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1047

Audio Option configuration settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1049

Limit number of plug-in sidechain inputs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1050

Select all AudioSnap/SlipStretched clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1051

SurCode Dolby Surround encoders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1051

QuickTime 7 import/export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1051

Updated ACT mappings and presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1051

Step Sequencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1052

Step Sequencer Interface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1052

Flexible Piano Roll Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1072

The PRV Tool Configuration Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1072

Default PRV Tool Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1080

Piano Roll View Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1083

Multiple Automation Controller Lanes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1083

Piano Roll Microscope Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1087

Note Event Colors Based on Velocity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1091

Hiding Events in Muted Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1091

Adjust Velocity without Changing the Display Type . . . . . . . . . . .1092

Select Controllers within Note Duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1093

Show Velocity on Selected Notes (Optional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1094

Selection Sensitive Velocity Drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1095

Note/Controller Painting (freehand) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1096

Note/Controller Painting (linear) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1096

23Table of Contents

Controller/Velocity Painting (freehand) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1096

Controller/Velocity Painting (linear) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1097

Note Split. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1097

Note Glue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1098

Drag-Quantize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1098

MIDI Event Mute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100

New Erase Tool Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101

Note Hit Testing Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101

Velocity Audition Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102

V-Vocal Pitch-to-MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103

MIDI Activity Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104

Dimension LE Synth with Garritan Pocket Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104

Rapture LE Synth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1105

DropZone Synth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106

Z3TA+ Synth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106

Rename Synths in the Synth Rack View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1107

Delete Synth Safeguards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1107

Reload Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1107

Sidechaining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108

Sidechainable Sonitus Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1109

Sidechainable Vintage Channel VC-64 Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1110

Audio I/O Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1111

LP-64 EQ Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114

LP-64 Multiband Compressor Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114

External Insert Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1115

Copying EQ Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1119

Dim Solo Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1120

Allow Playback with No Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1122

Reduce GUI Updates to Improve Playback Performance . . . . . . . . . 1122

Auto Fade when Starting/Stopping Playback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1123

Real-time Bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1124

Modification to Track Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1126

64-bit timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1127

Sony Wave-64 Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1128

New Audio File Formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1130

New Import Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1130

New Export Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1131

Encoding Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1132

24 Table of Contents

Preview Bus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1135

Integrated Audio CD Ripping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1136

Cakewalk Publisher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1136

Burning Audio CDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1137

Revert Clip(s) to Original Time Stamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1138

Import Audio / MIDI Files from Clips Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1139

Enable Input Monitoring when Arming Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1139

Euphonix EuCon Control Surface Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1140

Patch Browser Keyboard Shortcut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1140

File Recovery Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1141

User Account Control (UAC) Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1143

Status Bar Indicators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1144

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1145

LICENSE AGREEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1179

25Table of Contents

26 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 task-oriented, 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 888-CAKEWALK (U.S.) or +1 (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) 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.

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

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/SR7.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.

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

28 Preface

Conventions Used in this Book

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

SONAR Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Windows Taskbar Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Screen Colors and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Installing SONAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

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 very quickly and easily. In addition, SONAR’s support for video files gives you convenient synchronized access to digitized video, making film and video scoring easier than ever.

Publishing Music on the Internet

Cakewalk Publisher allows you to easily present and share your music online. With Cakewalk Publisher, you can create a customized streaming music player with a playlist of your music, upload it to your personal or band's website, and embed it in any other website. You can also update your playlist with album art, links (URLs), and artist, track, & album information.

Introduction

About SONAR

Burning Audio CDs

SONAR has integrated Audio CD burning, which allows you to write your audio tracks to an audio CD that can be played in any standard CD player.

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. There are custom software modules to support specialized audio devices from Roland and Yamaha. SONAR’s unique StudioWare technology provides software interfaces for common studio hardware.

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 make sure that you 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),

32 Introduction

Computers, Sound, and Music

messages that enable working with the sustain pedal and the pitch-bend wheel, and others. By sending the right messages at the right times, your computer can control your electronic instrument and make it play music.

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

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

There are several important advantages of the MIDI format:

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

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

• 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.

MID.

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.

Introduction

Computers, Sound, and Music

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

Recording Digital Audio

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

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

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

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

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.

34 Introduction

Setup

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.

User Accounts

Previous versions of SONAR required a user to have Windows Administrator status. This is no longer the case. Any level of user can now install and run SONAR. Only one copy of SONAR per machine is necessary for multiple users to run SONAR with each user’s personal settings.

There is now also a new folder structure for personal settings (presets, .ini files, etc.). Each user account gets its own Application Data folder (this folder is called App Data in Vista). The first time SONAR is launched under a new user account, a new application data folder is created for that account, and all the data in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Cakewalk folder is copied to the new user account’s application data folder—C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Cakewalk. For Vista users the folders are C:\Progarm Data\Cakewalk and C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Cakewalk.

Data in the Program FIles folder will be common to all users.

Introduction

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 Line 6 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... Description…

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:

36 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.

Introduction

Setup

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 “Hardware Setup.”

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 also very common. 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

38 Introduction

Setup

the MIDI IN jack on your stand-alone MIDI interface or sound card, and

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

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

one to 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.

• 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.

A. Insert this MIIDI IN plug into the MIDI OUT port on your MIDI instrument B. Insert this MIIDI OUT plug into the MIDI IN port on your MIDI instrument C. Insert this plug into the joystick port on your sound card

Introduction

Setup

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 8

(Studio Edition or Producer Edition)-SONAR 8 (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 starting SONAR, you will see the Quick Start dialog box.

The Quick Start dialog box has several options:

Option... How to use it…

Open a Project Choose a project from the Open File dialog

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

40 Introduction

Starting SONAR

box to open it

button to open it

Option... How to use it…

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 controlling

SONAR using your MIDI keyboard or computer keyboard.

Instrument Definitions Files used to control specific MIDI instruments.

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

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

Introduction

Starting SONAR

Running Wave Profiler

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

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

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

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

3. Look at the window on the bottom. 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. Check one device at a time in the Outputs window and click Move Selected Devices to Top to change its order. Then check all the devices that appear in the window to select them for output.

Tip: Be sure to enable (check) 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.

Introduction

Starting 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 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

44 Introduction

SONAR Basics

CWP.

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

AKEWALKSTUDIOWARE)

OMF (extension .

OMF) Open Media Framework format files.

TPL) Templates for new files you create

To control external MIDI devices from SONAR

Introduction

SONAR Basics

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, 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

A. The Track Pane B. The Clips Pane C. Clips D. Splitter bars E. Show/hide bus

pane F. Track/Bus Inspector G. Minimized tracks H. Expanded track I. The Video Thumbnails Pane

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 49, for more information).

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:

The Track pane lets you see and change the initial settings for each track.

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SONAR Basics

Key… What it does…

Left/Right Arrow Moves the highlight to the next or previous

control.

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:

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SONAR Basics

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

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.

The following graphic shows most of the Track/Bus Inspector’s controls (there may not be room to display all of a track’s controls on the Track/Bus Inspector, depending on the resolution of your monitor):

Introduction

SONAR Basics

Track/Bus Inspector for an Audio Track Track/Bus Inspector for a MIDI Track

Most controls can be shown or hidden.

G H

B C

A. Audio icon B. Output routing C. Track n a me D. Display menu E. Module menu F. MIDI icon G. Output routing H. Track na m e I. Display menu J. Module menu

You can hide or show any of the Track/Bus Inspector’s controls, and use it to display the controls from any track or bus. The following table shows you how:

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SONAR Basics

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

Hide or show any of the Track/Bus Inspector’s controls

Reassign MIDI controller sliders in a MIDI Track’s Fx bin

Display the parameters of a different automatable effect

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.

Click the Display menu or Module menu, and choose options.

Note: you can not display a MIDI track’s Time + or Key + controls in the Track/Bus Inspector.

Right-click the slider you want to reassign and choose Reassign Control from the popup menu, choose the new parameter, and click OK.

Click the name of the effect you want to select.

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.

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.

Introduction

SONAR Basics

A. Audio module B. MIDI module C. MIDI velocity D. Bus out E. Main out F. Show/

ABC

hide strip controls buttons G. Widen all strips H. Show/hide for tracks, buses, mains

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 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

52 Introduction

SONAR Basics

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; display the Fretboard pane; and print whole scores or individual parts to share with other musicians.

Introduction

SONAR Basics

A. Dynamics and markings B. Time and pitch locator C. Editing tools D. Zoom out

AB CDE FGH

E. Zoom in F. Snap to Grid G. Show/hide track pane H. Fretboard display I. Trac k list pane J. Fretboard 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) or key

signature, or to insert changes in the meter or key signature at specific times in a project.

Big Time To display the Now time in a large, 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.

Introduction

SONAR Basics

View… How you use it…

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 System

Tempo To view and edit the project's tempo changes.

Pan a surround track

Exclusive MIDI messages used to control instruments and other gear that are MIDI capable.

Zoom Controls

Many of the views contain Zoom tools that let you change the horizontal and vertical scale of the view:

A. Zoom Clips pane out vertically B. Vertical Zoom fader for Clips pane C. Zoom Clips pane in vertically D. Zoom Bus pane out vertically E. Vertical Zoom fader for Bus pane F. Zoom in horizontally G. Horizontal zoom fader H. Zoom out horizontally

The Track view toolbar contains the Zoom tool:

The zoom tools are used as described in the following table:

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SONAR Basics

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 Shift

Zoom fader Click and drag to zoom continuously

Zoom tool Click to arm, then click and drag in the view to

Click to zoom out incrementally, or press Shift and click to zoom all the way out

and click to zoom all the way in

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 zooming

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

Introduction

SONAR Basics

Docking Views

AB C

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.

A. Maximize pane B. Scroll left or right to view tabs C. Active view D. Tabs

To do t his … 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 that’s just to the

Restore tabbed view Click the Restore button that’s in the lower left

Close a View that is in Tabbed Format

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SONAR Basics

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.

left of the tabs.

corner of the view that you’re restoring.

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.”

X-Ray Windows

The X-Ray Windows feature eliminates the need to constantly minimize, move, or close windows in order to work in other windows. It works by decreasing the opacity of the current window enough so that you can see and work with the window that’s behind the current window. You activate the feature by pressing a keyboard shortcut (default shortcut is Shift+X) when the mouse cursor is over a window you want to x-ray. You can choose to XRay whichever window is underneath the mouse cursor, or automatically XRay all FX/synth property pages in one step (note: the mouse cursor does not need to be over any plug-in property pages).

The X-Ray Windows feature works on the following windows:

• AudioSnap palette

•Synth Rack

• Piano Roll view (when float-enabled)

• Snap To Grid dialog

• Plug-in effects and synths

• Controller/Surface plug-ins

To Select Key Bindings for X-Ray Windows

Introduction

SONAR Basics

1. Use the Options-Key Bindings command to open the Key Bindings dialog.

2. If you want to use currently unassigned keys or key combinations, scroll through the options in the Key window until the Global Key Assignment field that is just under the window reads Unassigned. It’s a good idea to find two unassigned options that are next to each other or easy to remember.

Note: for best results with X-Ray Windows, avoid using Alt key combinations.

3. Once you’ve decided on two keys or key combinations that you want to use, select Global Bindings in the Bind Context field, and scroll to the bottom of the list of commands that are in the window below that field.

4. In the Key window, highlight the key or key combination that you want to use for the X-Ray command, then highlight X-Ray in the function column of the list of commands, then click the Bind button to bind them together.

5. Now highlight the key or key combination that you want to use for the XRay All FX/Synths command, then Highlight X-Ray All FX/Synths in

the function column of the list of commands, then click the Bind button to bind them together.

6. Click OK to close the dialog.

To Use X-Ray Windows

1. Use the Options-Global command to open the Global Options dialog,

and on the General tab, make sure that the Enable X-Ray checkbox is enabled.

2. Make sure that the view windows you want to X-Ray are in the Floatingenabled state: to check this, click the view or fx icon that’s in the upper left corner of a window, and select Enable Floating from the dropdown menu. If Disable Floating is in the menu, then the Floating option is already enabled.

Note: all FX/Synth/Control surface property pages are float-enabled by default.

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3. To X-Ray or un-X-Ray a single window, move the mouse cursor over the window, and press the keyboard shortcut (default is Shift+X) for the X-Ray command. The window does not need to have focus (does not need to be the highlighted window).

4. To X-Ray or un-X-Ray all plug-in windows at once, press the key binding for the X-Ray All FX/Synths command.

Note: if a window has focus, and the window’s Give All Keystrokes To Plugin button is enabled, X-Ray keyboard commands won’t work.

To Adjust X-Ray Windows Options

1. Use the Options-Global command to open the Global Options dialog.

2. On the General tab, you can adust these options:

• Enable X-Ray—enable or disable this checkbox to turn the X-Ray

Windows feature on or off.

• Opacity—adjust this value by typing in a value, or by clicking and

holding the + or - button to adjust the final opacity percentage value that an X-Rayed window reaches.

• Fade Out Time—adjust this value by typing in a value, or by clicking

and holding the + or - button to adjust the amount of time that an XRayed window takes to reach its final opacity percentage value.

• Fade In Time—adjust this value by clicking and holding the + or -

button to adjust the amount of time that an X-Rayed window takes to restore its original opacity.

3. Click OK to close the dialog and accept your changes.

To Exclude a Plug-in from X-Ray Capablity

Some plug-ins (very few) use DirectDraw to create their windows. These windows appear jittery when X-Rayed.

To exclude a plug-in from X-Ray Capablity, follow these steps:

1. Open the Cakewalk Plug-in Manager: use the Tools-Cakewalk Plug-in Manager command.

2. In the Plug-in Categories window, select the category that the plug-in you want to exclude is in.

3. In the Registered Plug-ins window, select the plug-in that you want to exclude.

Introduction

SONAR Basics

4. If the plug-in is a DirectX effect or an MFX, write down (or select and copy) the CLSID value that’s in the CLSID field at the bottom of the dialog.

5. If the plug-in is a VST or VSTi, write down the VST ID value that’s in the VST ID field at the bottom of the dialog.

6. Close the Plug-in Manager dialog.

7. Open the

XRAYEXCLUDE.INI file that’s in your SONAR program folder

(use Notepad).

8. At the end of the file, find the [EffectProps View] section.

You will see entries such as the following:

; Waves SSL EQ Stereo

XRayExclude11=1397510483

XRayExclude12={E451379E-F7E1-4E82-98D9-BEB87AC45E90}

9. Exclude your plug-in by creating a blank line below the last entry in the [EffectProps View] section, and then typing:

;[name of your plug-in, but withour brackets]

XRayExclude[type the next available number in XRayExclude list, but without brackets]=[VST ID number, with no brackets, or CLSID number, with curly braces at start and finish]

For example, if the last entry in the [EffectProps View] section was:

; Waves SSL EQ Stereo

XRayExclude11=1397510483

XRayExclude12={E451379E-F7E1-4E82-98D9-BEB87AC45E90}

And you wanted to exclude the Cakewalk FxDelay from the X-Ray Windows feature, after creating a blank line you would type:

; Cakewalk FxDelay

XRayExclude13={985DAF67-589F-4B8D-8BBC-D7AD651B9022}

If there was also a VST version of the Cakewalk FxDelay, you would add another line:

XRayExclude14=[some VST ID number, with no brackets]

10. Save and close the implement your changes.

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XRAYEXCLUDE.INI file, and restart SONAR to

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.

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

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.

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To do t his … Do this…

Create a new submenu Right-click an item in the Menu Items 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.

Rename a Menu Item or submenu

Create a new separator bar

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 the menu layout

Load a different menu layout

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.

Right-click a Menu Item and select Insert Separator.

The separator bar will appear above the Menu Item you right-clicked.

Right-click the submenu or separator and select Remove Submenu or Remove Separator.

Enter a 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

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.

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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 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:

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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.

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:

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• To dock a toolbar horizontally, drag it to the top or bottom of the

ECGHFD

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.

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.”

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:

A. Play B. Record C. Click to move ahead one measure D. Auto-punch toggle E. Drag Now Time to any desired position F. Click to jump to the end G. Click to back up one measure H. Click to jump to the beginning

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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.

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.

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Windows Taskbar Indicators

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.

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 Check Default in the Wallpaper list

Not use any wallpaper Check None in the Wallpaper list

Use a custom bitmap Check Custom, choose a bitmap, and click Open

3. Click OK when you are done.

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Screen Colors and Wallpaper

Presets menu

Import and Export buttons

Configure Colors dialog

Color Presets

Once you create a color arrangement that you like, you can save it as a preset, and then load it whenever you want to use that arrangement. You can also load any of the many factory presets, some of which duplicate the colors of earlier versions of SONAR. You can also import and export color arrangements in the form of . layouts. And you can back up or export all of your presets with a single command, and import a group of presets that you or another SONAR user created.

Note: both single color presets, and collections of presets use the file extension .

CLR, so when you export either the current color arrangement, or

all of your presets at once, give the exported file a name that clearly labels it as either a single preset, or as a collection of presets.

CLR files so that SONAR users can share color

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To Load a Color Preset

1. Open the Configure Colors dialog by using the Options-Colors command.

2. Click the dropdown arrow on the Presets menu to display the list of presets, then click the name of the preset you want to load.

To Save a Color Preset

1. Open the Configure Colors dialog by using the Options-Colors command.

2. Adjust the color settings you want to save.

3. Type a name for your preset in the Presets menu.

4. Click the floppy disk icon that’s next to the Presets menu to save

your preset.

To Export the Current Color Arrangement

1. Open the Configure Colors dialog by using the Options-Colors command.

2. Arrange or load the color arrangement you want to export.

3. Click the Export Colors button in the Configure Colors

dialog.

The Export Color Set dialog appears.

4. Navigate to the folder where you want to store your new color set file.

5. Type a name for your color set file in the File Name field.

6. Make sure that the Export Current Color Set checkbox is enabled.

7. Click the Save button.

To Import One or More Color Presets

1. Open the Configure Colors dialog by using the Options-Colors command.

2. Click the Import Colors button in the Configure Colors dialog.

The Import Color Set dialog appears.

3. Navigate to the folder where the color set file you want to import is. Both single presets and groups of presets are stored in color set files, which use the .

CLR file extension.

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Screen Colors and Wallpaper

4. Click the file that you want to import.

5. Click the Open button.

6. If your preset menu in SONAR already contains a preset that is

included in the preset collection file you are importing, SONAR asks you if you want to overwrite the file. This happens for each file that has the same name as a preset in the preset collection you are importing. Click Yes or No for each file in question, or Yes All or No All to either overwrite or protect all of your current preset files.

To Export All Your Color Presets

1. Open the Configure Colors dialog by using the Options-Colors command.

2. Click the Export Colors button in the Configure Colors dialog.

The Export Color Set dialog appears.

3. Navigate to the folder where you want to store your the exported file. This file will contain all or your color presets.

4. Type a name for your file in the File Name field. Use a file name that you will recognize as a collection of presets, rather than as a single color arrangement.

5. Make sure that the Export Color Presets checkbox is enabled.

6. Click the Save button.

Note: a file of color presets can be large, and might take a minute or so to

export.

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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.

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 DVD 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 SONAR

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 DVD 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

SETUP.EXE from the DVD.

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 8 (Studio Edition or Producer Edition)- Uninstall SONAR 8..

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Starting to Use SONAR

74 Introduction

Installing SONAR

Controlling Playback

When you play your SONAR project, you have full control over the tempo or speed of playback, which tracks are played, which sound cards or other devices are used to produce the sound, and what the tracks sound like. You can access most of the playback functions from the Large Transport toolbar.

SONAR’s multi-MIDI enhancements give you the ability to play multiple synths or tracks from a single keyboard or controller, or let multiple performers play the same or different tracks. You have total control over MIDI echo (MIDI echo refers to where MIDI input signals are sent once SONAR receives them).

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.

In This Chapter

The Now Time and How to Use It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Track-by-Track Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Changing Track Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Controlling Live MIDI Playback—MIDI Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Local Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Video Playback, Import, and Export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Locating Missing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

The Now Time and How to Use It

BAC

Every project has a current time, known as the Now time, which keeps track of where you are in a project. The Now time appears as a vertical line in the Track view and is displayed in both the Large Transport toolbar and the Position toolbar, in two formats.

The measure, beat, and tick number (MBT) identifies the Now time in musical time units. Ticks are subdivisions of quarter notes and indicate the timebase of the project. For more information about the timebase, see “Setting the MIDI Timing Resolution” on page 221. The other time format is the SMPTE format, expressed in hours, minutes, seconds, and frames.

A. The current measure, beat, and tick B. The current time in hours, minutes, seconds, and frames C. Meter Key Signature display

Here are some examples of times expressed in measure, beat, and tick (MBT) format:

Time... What it means...

1:01:000 First beat of the first measure

9:04:000 Fourth beat of the ninth measure

4:02:060 The 60

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measure

tick of the second beat of the fourth

The hours-minutes-seconds-frames format is commonly referred to as the SMPTE time. SMPTE is the acronym for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. In this format, time is measured in hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. It’s not necessary for a project to begin at time zero in this format—any time can be used to represent the start of a project. If you are synchronizing SONAR with an external device whose start time is not 0, you must offset SONAR to match the external device’s start time. For more information, see Chapter , Synchronizing Your Gear.

Here are some examples of times expressed in this format (assuming that zero is the start time):

Time... What it means...

00:00:00:00 The beginning of the project

00:05:10:00 Five minutes and ten seconds from the

beginning of the project

01:30:00:00 One hour and thirty minutes into the project

00:00:00:05 Five frames into the project

SONAR provides many ways to set the Now time. Here are just a few:

To Change the Now Time

• Click the desired time on the Time Ruler in the Track view, Piano Roll view, or Staff view

• In the Navigator pane, click anywhere in the view while holding down the Ctrl key to change the Now Time to that location

• Click on the Now time in the Large Transport toolbar, enter the desired time, and press Enter

• Choose Go-Time or press F5, enter the desired time, and click OK

• Click on an event in the Event List view

You can also set the Now time by right-clicking in the Clips pane if you enable the Right Click Sets Now option in the Track View Properties dialog. Right-click a an empty area of the Clips pane, and select View Options from the menu that appears to open the Clip View Properties dialog.

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The Now Time and How to Use It

When entering a time in MBT format, the beat and tick values are optional. You can use a colon, space, decimal point, or vertical bar to separate the parts of the Now time:

You enter… The Now time is set to…

22:01:000

4 2 0 4:02:000

99:01:000

5|1:30 5:01:030

When entering a time in SMPTE format, you can enter a single number (hour), two numbers (hour and minutes), three numbers (hour, minutes, and seconds), or all four numbers.

If you click in the Time Ruler while the snap grid is enabled, the Now time will be snapped to the nearest point in the grid. By setting the grid size to a whole note or quarter note, you can easily set the Now time to a measure or beat boundary.

You can also use the buttons and the scroll bar in either the Transport toolbar or Large Transport toolbar (shown below) to adjust the time.

When playback or recording is stopped, the Now Time either remains at the point where the project stopped or snaps back to the Now Time Marker. This behavior is controlled in the General tab of the Global Options dialog.

The Now Time Marker

In the Track view, the Now time appears as a black vertical line. When you set the Now time in the Track view a green triangle called the Now time marker appears in the Time Ruler. This marker represents the point at which the Now time will snap back to after you stop playback or recording. 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).

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To Change the Now Time Marker Behavior

1. Select Options-Global from the SONAR menu.

The Global Options dialog appears.

2. Click the General tab.

3. Uncheck the On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker option to have the Now

time marker move to follow the current Now time when you stop playback.

Check the On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker option to have the Now time snap back to the Now time marker when you stop playback.

4. Click OK.

The Track View Now Time Display

The Track view displays the Now Time above the track strips in a large and configurable format.

Click the display to display the following time formats:

• M:B:T (Measure:Beat:Tick—example: 8:01:000)

• SMPTE (Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Frames—example: 00:00:21:00)

• Frames (example—629), only available if project contains video

• Milliseconds (Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds—example: 00:00:21:000)

• Samples (example: 926100)

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The Now Time and How to Use It

You can also right-click the display, and choose time formats from the popup menu.

The popup menu also lets you choose the following display options:

•To hide the time display, choose None.

•To show the time display, right-click the empty area and choose one of the available time formats from the popup menu.

• To choose font, size,color, or resizing options, choose Font... from the popup menu to open the Font dialog. Enabling the Automatically Resize to Window option causes the display to automatically shrink the display to fit the available space.

• To choose alignment options, choose Align-Left, Align-Center, or Align-Left from the popup menu.

You can also configure the color from the Configure Colors dialog (Options-Colors; "Track View Header Time Display"). The color is saved with color presets.

The time display settings are global and persist between sessions.

Displaying the Now Time in Large Print

SONAR can display the Now time in large print so that it’s easier to see when you are far from your monitor (for example, when you’re at your keyboard or another instrument) or when several people need to read the Now time from a distance. Here’s how:

To Display the Big Time View

1. Choose Views-Big Time to display the Big Time view.

2. Change the settings according to the table:

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To do this… Do this…

Switch time format Click on the view to toggle between MBT and

SMPTE time

Change font or color Right-click on the view, choose the font and color

you want, and click OK

Change the size of the view Drag any corner of the view to change its size

Note that SONAR ignores font styles and effects such as strikeout and underline.

Other Ways to Set the Now Time

There are a variety of commands and keyboard shortcuts you can use to set the Now time:

Command... Shortcut... What it does...

Go-Time F5 Lets you enter the Now time in the Position

toolbar or in a dialog box

Go-From F7 Sets the Now time to the From time (the start

time of the current time selection)

Go-Thru F8 Sets the Now time to the Thru time (the end

time of the current time selection)

Go-Beginning Ctrl+Home Sets the Now time to the beginning of the

project

Go-End Ctrl+End Sets the Now time to the end of the project

Go-Previous Measure

Go-Next Measure Ctrl+PgDn Sets the Now time to the start of the next

Ctrl+PgUp Sets the Now time to the start of the current

measure if the Now time is not on a barline, or to the start of the previous measure if the Now time is on a barline.

measure

Controlling Playback

The Now Time and How to Use It

If your project has markers, you can use the Marker toolbar to set the Now time:

To do this… Do this…

Skip to the next marker Click on the Markers toolbar (or press

Ctrl+Shift+PgDn).

Skip to the previous marker Click on the Markers toolbar (or press

Ctrl+Shift+PgUp).

Jump to any marker Click on the Markers toolbar to open the

Markers view. Click on the marker you want to jump to in the Markers view.

For more information about markers, see “Creating and Using Markers” on page 305.

The Time Ruler

The Time ruler appears in the Track view, Tempo view, Staff view and Piano Roll view. It has several functions, including:

• Making a time selection—the Time Ruler follows the Snap to Grid settings, if enabled.

• Changing the Now time

• Adding loop, punch, and pitch markers—you can right-click in the Time Ruler to add markers.

In the Track view, the Time Ruler has the following time display options or formats:

• Measures, Beats and Ticks (M:B:T)

• Hours, Minutes, Seconds and Frames (H:M:S:F—also called SMPTE)

• Samples

• Milliseconds

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A. M:B:T B. H:M:S:F C. Samples D. Milleseconds E. Add Musical Snap to transient

snap pool (see AudioSnap) F. Minus and Plus buttons

The M:B:T setting follows your settings in the Meter/Key view. If you project is set to 4/4 time, you have four beats in the Time Ruler for each measure. If your project is set to 6/8 time, you have six beats in the Time Ruler for each measure.

If there is only one format displayed in the Time Ruler, you can switch the format by right-clicking in the Time Ruler and selecting the format you prefer.

To Switch the Time Ruler Format to M:B:T

1. Right-click in the Track view Time Ruler.

2. In the menu that appears, select Time Ruler Format-M:B:T.

To Switch the Time Ruler Format to H:M:S:F (SMPTE)

1. Right-click in the Track view Time Ruler.

2. In the menu that appears, select Time Ruler Format-H:M:S:F.

To Switch the Time Ruler Format to Samples

1. Right-click in the Track view Time Ruler.

2. In the menu that appears, select Time Ruler Format-Samples.

To Switch the Time Ruler Format to Milliseconds

1. Right-click in the Track view Time Ruler.

2. In the menu that appears, select Time Ruler Format-Milliseconds.

Additionally, you can add or remove Time Ruler formats using the plus/ minus buttons located just outside the right edge of the Time Ruler.

Note: If only one Time Ruler format is being used, only the plus button is displayed.

Controlling Playback

The Now Time and How to Use It

To Add or Remove Time Ruler Formats Using the Plus/ Minus Buttons

• Click the Plus button and select a Time Ruler format you would like to add from the popup menu.

• Click the Minus button and select from the popup menu to remove an active Time Ruler format.

• Right-click in the Time Ruler and move the cursor to Time Ruler Format in the popup menu. A list of all Time Ruler formats appears. Active formats are checked, inactive formats are unchecked.

• Click a checked format to move it down one row.

• Click an unchecked format to replace the topmost displayed format.

Controlling Playback

To control playback, you have your choice of tools, menu commands, and shortcut keys for most common operations.

When you start playback, the Now time updates continuously to show the current time. When you stop playback, the Now time rewinds to the Now Time Marker. When you start playback again, it continues from the same point.

If the Now time is advancing but you don’t hear any sound, see Troubleshooting. If you are using MIDI sync or syncing to MIDI time code, SONAR waits to receive external timing data before it begins playing. If the various views are not updating during playback, make sure the Scroll Lock key on your computer keyboard is not enabled. For more information, see Chapter , Synchronizing Your Gear.

Note: If your Windows setup uses any system sounds that are associated with any typical activity, such as minimizing a window, etc., you should disable these sounds. They can sound extremely loud through your monitors, and also interrupt playback and recording, if you open any dialog boxes or do anything that has a system sound attached to it while a project plays. The quickest way to disable all system sounds is to open the Control Panel (Start-Settings-Control Panel), double-click the Sounds icon to open the Sounds Properties dialog box, and in the Schemes field select No Sounds. Click Apply, and then click OK.

84 Controlling Playback

Controlling Playback

To Start and Stop Playback

To do this… Do this…

Start playback Press the Spacebar, click , or choose

Transport-Play, or double-click in the Time Ruler

Stop playback Press the Spacebar, click , or choose

Transport-Stop

Rewind to the start of the project

Skip to the end of the project

Click , press the w key, or choose Transport-

Rewind

Click

Note:The default behavior for the Now time when you click the Stop button is for it to return to the Now time marker where playback began. If you want the Now time to remain where it is when you stop playback, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Spacebar. If you want to change the default behavior, select Options-Global and click the General tab. In the General tab, uncheck the On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker option.

Handling Stuck Notes

Under MIDI, the events that turn notes on are separate from the events that stop notes from playing. Normally, when you stop playback, SONAR attempts to turn off all notes that are still playing. Depending on how your equipment is configured, it’s possible for notes to get stuck in the “on” position. The Transport-Reset command is used to stop all notes from playing. The Transport-Reset command also stops feedback from input monitoring.

Note: You can control the MIDI messages that are sent by the Transport- Reset command by changing the Panic Strength variable in the

cakewalk.ini file.

To Clear Stuck Notes

• Choose Transport-Reset, or click on the Large Transport toolbar.

Controlling Playback

Looping

Sometimes you want to listen to one portion of a project over and over, either so you can play along and rehearse or because you want to edit that section of the project while it is playing and hear the results as you make changes. SONAR has a playback looping feature that makes this simple.

Looping is defined in the Loop/Auto Shuttle toolbar, as shown here:

A. Click to turn looping on or off B. Click to copy the selection (From and Thru) times C. Click to open the Loop/Auto Shuttle dialog box D. Loop End time E. Loop Start time

To set up a loop, you do three things:

• Set the start time of the loop

• Set the end time of the loop

• Enable looping

From then on, SONAR will automatically jump back to the start of the loop when it reaches the end.

When looping is enabled, the loop times are indicated by special markers in the Time Ruler.

A. Loop From B. Loop Thru

To Move a Loop in the Time Ruler

1. Click the yellow bar that connects the two loop markers

The cursor becomes a horizontal double-headed arrow.

2. Drag the loop to the desired location in the Time Ruler.

86 Controlling Playback

Controlling Playback

The Loop/Auto Shuttle dialog box, which appears when you use the Transport-Loop and Auto Shuttle command or click the Loop and Auto Shuttle button in the Loop toolbar, contains two additional settings that affect the details of how looping operates:

Option... How it works...

Stop at the end time Playback does not proceed beyond the end of

the loop

Loop continuously When playback reaches the end of the loop

and rewinds to the start, playback continues automatically (this option is on by default)

With the default option settings, SONAR will play the loop over and over again, continuously.

If you start playback before the loop start time, SONAR will play until the loop end time is reached, then jump back to the loop start time.

Note: If you stop playback while looping is enabled, the Now time jumps to the Now time marker. If you disable the On Stop Rewind to Now Marker option in the General tab of the Global Options dialog, the Now time stays wherever you stopped playback.

The Rewind command operates slightly differently when looping is in effect. The first time you rewind, the Now time is set to the start of the loop. If the Now time is already at the start of the loop, Rewind takes you to the beginning of the project. From then on, Rewind switches back and forth between the loop start time and the start of measure 1.

To Set Up a Playback Loop

1. Set the loop start and end times in one of the following ways:

• Drag the mouse between two points in the Time Ruler of the Track view, Staff, or Piano Roll view to select a range of times, then click

in the Loop/Auto Shuttle toolbar to copy the selection time to the

loop time.

• Click between two markers in the Track, Staff, or Piano Roll view to select a range of times, then click in the Loop/Auto Shuttle toolbar to copy the selection time to the loop time.

Controlling Playback

• Type the loop start and end times directly into the toolbar.

BACDEF

• Select a range of times, then right-click in the Time Ruler and choose Set Loop Points (this method makes the second option unnecessary).

Looping is automatically turned on when you use the Set Loop to Selection command.

To Change the Loop Settings

1. Click , or choose Transport-Loop and Auto Shuttle to display the Loop/Auto Shuttle dialog box.

2. Check the options you want to use.

3. Click OK.

To Cancel a Playback Loop

• Click on the toolbar to disable looping.

Using the Large Transport

The Large Transport consists of six sections, each of which can be shown or hidden according to the needs of your project. Right click anywhere in the Large Transport, and deselect any section from the popup menu that you wish to hide. The six sections are Markers, Record, Transport, Loop, Tempo and System.

A. Markers section B. Punch In/Out section C. Transport section D. Loop section E. Tempo section F. System section G. Click to move ahead one measure H. Auto- punch toggle I. Drag Now Time to any desired position J. Click to jump to the end K. Click to back up one measure L. Click to jump to the beginning

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Controlling Playback

The Large Transport toolbar differs from the Transport toolbar in that it

displays a Markers section (numeric keypad), the Now time (which you can set by entering numbers into the display fields in either MBT or SMPTE time), a CPU and Disk Cache Performance meter, and the Time/Key Signature display. The Time/Key Signature display shows the current meter, key signature, and tempo. You can edit the meter and key signature by clicking the display to open the Time/Key Signature dialog box. You can display the Large Transport toolbar by selecting the Views-Toolbars command to open the Toolbars dialog box, and checking Transport (Large). You can also display and hide the Large Transport toolbar by pressing F4.

Using the Markers Section

You can store up to 12 markers in the Markers section, making it easy to navigate through your project. Assign markers to milestones in your project using the Insert-Marker in the desired location for your marker. When your cursor hovers over a button in the Markers section, the name you assigned to the marker is displayed as a tooltip.

command or by pressing F11 when the now time is

A. Marker buttons B. Record options C. Set punch in time D. Set punch out time E. Set punch points to selection

To Use the Punch In/Out Section

1. Click the Record Options button .

The Record Options dialog box appears.

2. Select between Blending existing data with new data, or Overwriting existing data with new data.

3. Select between storing looped takes in a single track or storing looped takes in individual tracks.

For more information see “Loop Recording” on page 240. You can also set Auto-punch from the Record Options dialog.

Controlling Playback

To Use Auto-punch in the Punch In/Out Section

1. Activate Auto-punch by clicking the Set punch points button .

2. Click the Punch In M:B:T meter and enter the Punch In time using the

spinners or keying in the desired M:B:T.

3. Click the Punch Out M:B:T meter and enter the Punch Out time using the spinners or keying in the desired M:B:T.

4. Set the Now Time far enough ahead of the Punch In point for you to be ready for it.

5. Click the Record button on the Large Transport or press R on your keyboard.

SONAR plays the project, and begins recording on the selected track at the Punch In time you entered, then stops recording at the Punch Out time.

Buttons in the Transport Section

•Rewind

• Stop project

• Play project

• Fast-forward to end of project

• Record .

• Toggle Auto-punch

• Reset MIDI

• Now Time measured inM:B:T, H:M:S:F

• Now Time slider

To Use the Loop Section

1. Clip the Loop On/Off button .

2. Set the Loop Start time in the M:B:T meter either manually or by using

the spinner. Set the Loop End time in the M:B:T meter either manually or by using the spinner.

You can also set a loop from the Large Transport toolbar by highlighting a section of your project in the Time Ruler and then clicking the Set Loop Points to Selection button .

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Controlling Playback

Reading the Key Signature, Time Signature, Tempo and

System Display

The Large Transport displays a variety of information about the project you are working on, including tempo, key, meter, metronome settings, and CPU and disk cache performance.

A. Tem po B. CPU performance meter C. Disk cache performance meter D. Time signature E. Key signature F. Metronome on/off during record G. Metronome on/ off during playback

Track-by-Track Playback

SONAR lets you play back any combination of tracks at one time by changing each track’s status. You can control the status of each track with the individual controls that are on every track, or with the global controls on the Playback State toolbar or the Status bar that’s at the bottom of the SONAR window. For more information about the Status bar, see “Status Bar/CPU Meter/Disk Meter” on page 872. For more information about the Playback State toolbar, see “The Playback State Toolbar” on page 93.

There are several different status settings for each track:

Status... What it means...

Normal The track plays unless one or more of your

other tracks is soloed.

Muted The track is not played, but you can turn it on

while playback is in progress.

Controlling Playback

Track-by-Track Playback

Status... What it means...

Archived The track is not played, and you must stop

playback to re-enable it. Archived tracks do not tax your CPU during playback so they can be used to store alternate takes.

Soloed Only those tracks that are designated as solo

tracks are played; all others are muted.

Armed The track is armed for recording.

Mono/Stereo The track plays back in either mono or stereo,

depending on what the individual track setting is, and whether the Play in Mono button in the Playback State toolbar is depressed.

Phase normal or inverted If a track was accidentally recorded out of

phase with another track, the Phase button lets you reverse the phase of a track.

While playback is in progress, you can mute and unmute tracks in any combination, which means you can hear only the tracks that you want. You can change the status of a track in the Track view, the Console view, the Track menu, or the Playback State toolbar.

If a track is both muted and soloed, it does not play. Mute has precedence.

The track status is saved with the SONAR project file. If you save a SONAR project as a Standard MIDI File, however, all tracks are saved without mute, solo, or archive indicators.

92 Controlling Playback

Track-by-Track Playback

The Playback State Toolbar

C D E F

To display the Playback State toolbar, use the Views-Toolbars command to open the Toolbars dialog box, and make sure Playback State is checked. The Playback State toolbar is a global control that allows you to mute or unmute, solo or unsolo, arm or disarm, and toggle the input echo status of all tracks.

A. Drag to reposition B. Mute C. Solo D. Arm E. Input echo or MIDI echo F. Solo Dim

Silencing Tracks

When a track is muted, SONAR processes the track while playback is in progress so that you can unmute the track without stopping playback. If you have lots of muted tracks, this can place a heavy load on your computer. Archived tracks, on the other hand, don’t place any load on your computer. Therefore, if there are tracks you want to keep but don’t need to play, you should archive them instead. Archived tracks are indicated by the letter A in the Mute button that is displayed in the Track and Console views.

When you mute or unmute a track while playback is in progress, there may be a slight delay before you hear the effect of the change. This is to be expected and does not indicate a hardware or software problem.

To Mute or Unmute Individual Tracks

• To mute or unmute a track, click its M button in the Track or Console view.

• To mute or unmute several tracks at once, select the tracks and choose Tracks-Mute, or select the tracks, right-click, and choose Mute from the popup menu.

To Unmute All Tracks

• Click the M button in the Playback State toolbar or the Mute label in the Status bar.

Controlling Playback

Track-by-Track Playback

To Mute All Tracks

• If no tracks are currently muted, click the M button in the Playback State toolbar.

• Select all tracks, and then use the Tracks-Mute command.

To Archive or Unarchive Tracks

1. Select one or more tracks in the Track view.

2. Choose Tracks-Archive, or right-click and choose Archive from the

menu to toggle the archive status of the selected tracks.

Soloing Tracks

Sometimes you want to hear a single track, or a few tracks at once, without having to mute all the other tracks. You can do this by soloing the tracks you want to hear.

As soon as any track is marked as a solo track, SONAR ignores all mute settings (unless a soloed track is also muted—mute takes precedence over solo) and plays only the track or tracks that are set to solo. Any number of tracks at one time can be marked as solo. All these tracks will play together. As soon as the solo status of the final solo track is turned off, SONAR once again plays back tracks based on their mute settings.

To Solo or Unsolo Individual Tracks

• To solo or unsolo a track, click the Solo button in the Track or Console view

• To solo or unsolo several tracks at once, select the tracks and choose Tracks-Solo, or right-click, and choose Solo from the popup menu.

To Unsolo All Tracks

• Click the S button in the Playback State toolbar or the Solo label in the Status bar.

To Solo All Tracks

• If no tracks are currently soloed, click the S button in the Playback State toolbar.

• Select all tracks, and then use the Tracks-Solo command.

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Track-by-Track Playback

Inverting the Phase of a Track

A waveform’s exact opposite is called an inversion. It is a shift of 180 degrees. A waveform and its inversion cancel each other out completely, so it is usually not desirable to have two track recordings of the same source if one is phase inverted. It can lead to reduced volume, lowered or distorted response in certain frequencies, or even silence in the case of two tracks which are exactly identical (i.e. cloned tracks).

Occasionally, for example when recording a source using two microphones, one of the microphones may be recording an inversion of the other, the resulting tracks may, to some degree, be cancelling each other out. SONAR allows you to invert the phase of a track to match another.

To Invert the Phase of a Track

1. Open the Track view or Console view.

2. In the track you want to invert the phase, click the phase inversion

button .

Changing Tracks’ Mono/Stereo Status

SONAR has a mono/stereo button in each track module in the Track and Console views. The buttons in the track modules force each track to play in either stereo or mono, but preserve the tracks’ pan positions in the stereo mix.

The Mono/Stereo button in each track forces the track’s audio signal to enter any patched plug-ins as either mono or stereo, whether or not the tracks are mono or stereo. This allows you to use either mono effects on a stereo track or stereo effects on a mono track.

Note: You may lose important stereo data by using mono effects with stereo tracks because your stereo tracks are summed to mono in order to pass through the effect. If you never want your stereo data to be summed to mono, select stereo.

To Use a Track’s Stereo/Mono Button

1. Display the Track view or Console view.

2. In the track you want to force to either mono or stereo for processing

effects, click the Stereo/Mono button to the desired position:

• Speaker icon pointing left—This choice means that you manually selected mono for this track.

• Speaker icon pointing left and right (as pictured above)—This choice means that you manually selected stereo for this track.

Controlling Playback

Track-by-Track Playback

Changing Track Settings

An audio track

Each track in a project contains MIDI or audio information and has a variety of settings (also called parameters) that determine how the track sounds. By changing these parameters, you can change the sound of your project. For audio tracks, you control parameters such as volume, stereo panning, and the output device that is used to produce the sound. For MIDI tracks, you control many additional parameters, including the type of instrument sound that is used to play the notes stored in the track. Both kinds of tracks contain an Automation Read button and an Automation Write button, which enable or disable automation playback and recording, respectively.

Note 1: You can control all sliders and knobs in the Console and Track Views by clicking a control, then hover over it with the mouse and manipulate the mouse wheel. If you move the mouse cursor away from the slider or knob while using the mouse wheel, you will lose control of the slider or knob you are adjusting

Note 2:You can hide, reorder, and visually group the controls in tracks and buses. You can also control how the display tabs at the bottom of the Track pane function. See “Configuring Track View Controls” on page 282 for more information.

Audio Track Parameters

The following pictures illustrate the parameters that audio tracks have. The pictures are of an audio track that is located in the Track view, however most of these parameters can also be adjusted in the Console view:

96 Controlling Playback

Changing Track Settings

Audio track header controls

Audio track interior controls

A. Strip selector B. Header icon C. Track name D. Show layers button E. Maximize track F. Minimize track G. Peak value H. Track number

Input echo B. Volume slider C. Send pan D. Send level E. Mono/stereo switch

F. Phase button G. Send enable H. Send destination I. Input trim J. Output K. Automation Read and Write buttons L. Input M. Pan slider

Controlling Playback

Changing Track Settings

A. Currently patched effect B. FX interleave indicator C. Track scale D. FX bin

Audio track FX bin, meter, and track scale

Here is a summary table of the different audio track parameters and how they are used.

Parameter... What it means...

Strip selector Click this to add a track to a Quick Group, which means that

certain controls in tracks that are in the Quick Group are grouped.

Number A sequential track number used for reference

Name A name that you assign the track for easy reference. Note that

if you do not assign a name to a track, the default name is the track number. This track number will change if you change the order of your tracks.

Mute When enabled, mutes the track

Solo When enabled, solos the track

Arm When enabled, arms the track for audio recording.

Input Echo Turns input monitoring on or off.

Automation Read and Write buttons

Peak value Displays the Peak value, which is the amplitude of the latest

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Changing Track Settings

Enable/disable automation playback and recording, respectively

audio peak in the track.

Parameter... What it means...

Show Layers button Hides or shows track layers.

Minimize/restore track button

Maximize/restore track button

Vol (volume) The current volume level for the track, ranging from -INF

Pan The stereo distribution of the output, ranging from 100% left

Trim (volume trim) Volume Trim is a pre-fader control which allows the fine tuning

Collapses track to minimum possible height, or restores it to the size it was before it was minimized.

Expands track to maximum possible height, or restores it to the size it was before it was maximized.

(silent) to +6 dB (maximum volume).

(hard left) to 100% right (hard right); a value of “C” indicates sound that is centered left-to-right. On stereo tracks, pan acts as balance.

of a single track’s volume.

For example, let’s say you have four tracks, three tracks have their volume fader set to 0 dB while the fourth track’s fader is set to +10 dB. You want to group the faders and do a slow fade out, but the slightly higher level of the fourth track causes its volume to be higher in relation to the other tracks towards the end of the fade out. To balance the fader levels, reduce the fader level for the fourth track to 0 dB and raise the Volume Trim value for that track to +10 dB. The resulting volume levels for the project are the same, but now you can group the faders and perform a fade out with no track standing out disproportionately at the end of the fade out.

Input The input source for the track, used in recording

Output The output bus through which the track is played

Send Enable Activates a send module, which sends a copy of the track

signal to a bus.

Send Level Controls volume of audio data sent by this send module.

Send Pan Adjusts the send pan setting.

Send Pre/Post switch Pre (pre-fader) means that the Send signal goes to the bus

prior to the track’s volume fader; post means the Send signal goes to the bus after the volume fader.

Controlling Playback

Changing Track Settings

Parameter... What it means...

A MIDI track

Send destination Displays name of bus that the Send is sending data to.

Mono/Stereo A switch that determines whether a track’s signal enters an

effect or chain of effects as mono or stereo, regardless of the nature of the track.

Phase In/Out A switch that inverts the phase of the track.

Effects bin The patch point for a track’s plug-ins or soft synths.

Meters The recording and playback levels are displayed in the

Playback and Record meters.

MIDI Track Parameters

The following pictures illustrate MIDI track parameters:

A. Output menu B. Channel menu C. Bank menu D. Patch menu E. Dropdown arrow to display menu

100 Controlling Playback

Changing Track Settings

Cakewalk Sonar 8 User's Guide

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual