Table Of Content5
SONAR
TM
POWER!
T h e
C o m p r e h e n s i v e
G u i d e
Q Q Q
Scott R. Garrigus
© 2006 by Thomson Course Technology PTR. All rights reserved. No part of this Publisher and General
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I would like to dedicate this book to my best friend and companion Figaro, the
best cat in the world. Figaro passed away on July 30th, 2005. He and I had been
together since I was 18 and in my senior year in high school. That was almost 18
and 1/2 years ago. I’m going to miss him so much, I can’t even express it in words.
Towards the end, he was having health problems, so I’m glad that he’s at peace.
And I know that he and my grandfather are together in the next life and will
be watching over me until it’s my time to join them. Thank you, Figaro, for the
experience of having you as a friend and for teaching me so much about love,
caring, and how to live life. I will love you forever!
If you are interested in seeing a picture of Figaro or would like to share your
own pet-related stories, go to http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/
discussdetail.asp?TopicID=8246, where I’ve set up a special topic in the DigiFreq
Discussion area.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to all my music technology friends who take the time to visit my
Web site and to read my ramblings in the DigiFreq newsletter each month.
The DigiFreq family is now over 17,000 strong!
Thanks to all the Cakewalk SONAR users whose dedication and support
helped to make this book possible.
Thanks to all my friends over at Cakewalk (Steve Thomas, Carl Jacobson,
Morten Saether, Jesse Jost, Tom Roussell, Russell Soule, Dave Malaguti,
Ryan Pietras, Alex Westner, and others).
Thanks to Marta Justak, Todd Jensen, Mark Garvey, Mark Hughes, and
the rest of the Thomson Course Technology publishing team.
Thanks to my friends and neighbors Ron, Claire, Ellie, Vinnie, Ron Jr.,
Mandy, and Rita for all your love and support.
And, as ever, thank you to my family (Babci, Dziadzi, Grandma, Grandpa,
Mark, Richard, Diane, Steve) and to God for all the good that has happened
in my life.
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About the Author
Scott R. Garrigus (www.garrigus.com) has been involved with music
and computers since he was 12 years old. He earned a B.A. in music per-
formance with an emphasis in sound recording technology at UMass
Lowell. In 1993, he released his first instrumental album on cassette,
titledPieces of Imagination. In 1995, he began his professional writing
career when his first article appeared in Electronic Musician magazine. In
2000, he authored his first book, Cakewalk Power! This was the first book
to deal exclusively with the Cakewalk Pro Audio, Guitar Studio, and
Home Studio software applications. Since then he has authored a number
of other titles, including Sound Forge Power!,SONAR Power!,SONAR 2
Power!,Sound Forge 6 Power!,SONAR 3 Power!,SONAR 4 Power!,
andSound Forge 8 Power! Today, Garrigus continues to contribute arti-
cles to a number of print and online publications. He also publishes his
own music technology e-zine, called DigiFreq (www.digifreq.com),
which provides free news, reviews, tips, and techniques for music tech-
nology and home recording users.
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Contents
TABLE OF
CHAPTER 1 MIDI and Digital Audio Basics ..........................................................1
What Is MIDI? ..........................................................................................................2
What Is Digital Audio? .............................................................................................3
So What’s Really the Difference? .............................................................................4
CHAPTER 2 Getting Started with SONAR 5 ..........................................................7
What Version of SONAR Do You Have? ................................................................7
Getting the Latest Product Update ............................................................................8
Registering Your Software ........................................................................................9
Taking a Quick Tour of SONAR ............................................................................10
Projects ..............................................................................................................11
Tracks, Clips, and Events ..................................................................................11
Track View ........................................................................................................11
Staff View .........................................................................................................12
Piano Roll View ................................................................................................12
Event List View ................................................................................................13
Loop Construction View ...................................................................................14
Console View ....................................................................................................14
StudioWare and CAL ........................................................................................15
What’s New in SONAR 5? .....................................................................................15
A Basic Studio Setup ..............................................................................................17
Computer ...........................................................................................................17
Sound Card ........................................................................................................19
MIDI Interface ..................................................................................................21
Microphone .......................................................................................................22
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Speakers ............................................................................................................22
Finding Help When You Need It ............................................................................23
CHAPTER 3 Customizing SONAR 5 ....................................................................25
Organizing Files ......................................................................................................25
Changing File Locations ...................................................................................25
Putting Everything in Its Place ..........................................................................28
Customizing Audio Folders ..............................................................................29
The Picture Folder .............................................................................................31
Customizing the Workspace .............................................................................31
Changing Colors ...............................................................................................32
Using Toolbars ..................................................................................................33
Working with Window Layouts ........................................................................34
Using Key Bindings ..........................................................................................36
Customizing MIDI Settings ....................................................................................39
Working with MIDI Devices ............................................................................40
Setting Global MIDI Options ............................................................................41
Understanding Instrument Definitions ..............................................................43
Optimal Audio Settings ...........................................................................................49
Adjusting the Latency Slider .............................................................................50
Setting Driver Mode ..........................................................................................51
Setting Queue Buffers and I/O Buffer Size ......................................................53
Read and Write Caching ...................................................................................54
Understanding DMA and the Wave Profiler .....................................................55
CHAPTER 4 Working with Projects ......................................................................57
Opening Projects .....................................................................................................57
Opening in Safe Mode ......................................................................................59
Finding Missing Audio Files .............................................................................60
Creating a New Project ...........................................................................................62
What’s a Template? ..........................................................................................63
Creating Your Own Template ...........................................................................63
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Saving Your Project ................................................................................................75
Project File Types .............................................................................................76
CHAPTER 5 Getting Around in SONAR 5 ...........................................................81
The Now Time ........................................................................................................81
Show Me the Now Time ...................................................................................82
Setting the Now Time .......................................................................................85
The Go Menu ..........................................................................................................88
Go-Time (F5) ....................................................................................................88
Go-From and Go-Thru (F7 and F8) ..................................................................89
Go-Beginning and Go-End (Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End) ...................................89
Go-Previous Measure and Go-Next Measure (Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn) .....89
Go-Previous Marker and Go-Next Marker (Ctrl+Shift+PgUp and
Ctrl+Shift+PgDn) ........................................................................................89
Markers, Oh My! .....................................................................................................90
Make Your Mark(ers) .......................................................................................90
Editing the Markers ...........................................................................................91
Navigating with Markers ..................................................................................93
Where, Oh Where? ............................................................................................94
The Go-Search Challenge .................................................................................96
CHAPTER 6 Recording and Playback ...................................................................99
Preliminary Parameters ...........................................................................................99
The Track Inspector ........................................................................................100
Metronome ......................................................................................................101
MIDI Echo ......................................................................................................103
Sampling Rate and Bit Depth ..........................................................................106
Input Monitoring .............................................................................................108
Record Mode ...................................................................................................109
MIDI Track Recording and Playback ...................................................................111
Audio Track Recording and Playback ..................................................................114
Multiple Track Recording and Playback ..............................................................118
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Loop Recording .....................................................................................................119
Punch Recording ...................................................................................................122
Step Recording ......................................................................................................123
Importing ...............................................................................................................128
Importing from SONAR Project Files ............................................................128
Importing MIDI Files and Project5 Patterns ...................................................129
Importing Audio Files .....................................................................................129
Synchronization ....................................................................................................131
Synchronization Basics ...................................................................................131
MIDI Sync .......................................................................................................131
SMPTE/MIDI Time Code ...............................................................................133
CHAPTER 7 Editing Basics .................................................................................137
Arranging with the Track View ............................................................................137
Dealing with Tracks ........................................................................................138
Dealing with Clips ..........................................................................................154
Using the Piano Roll View ....................................................................................175
Working with Multiple Tracks ........................................................................177
Dealing with Notes ..........................................................................................179
Dealing with Drum Tracks ..............................................................................186
Dealing with Controllers .................................................................................199
The Inline Piano Roll View ............................................................................205
Using the Event List View ....................................................................................207
Opening the View ...........................................................................................208
Filtering Events ...............................................................................................208
Editing Events .................................................................................................209
Using the Tempo View .........................................................................................212
Opening the View ...........................................................................................213
Editing Tempo Changes ..................................................................................213
Using the Tempo Commands ..........................................................................215
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