A couple of (possibly stupid) questions

When recording in Sonar X1 Producer, I usually have the metronome set up to go through 2 bars before recording begins but it seems that recording doesn't start on the first tick of the 3rd bar, but just after that. So my recordings always end up starting a split second after I start playing and it doesn't sound very professional. Is there a way around this or will I have to just start on the 4th bar instead?

Also, if I have two inputs in my interface, how can I go about setting up Sonar so that both inputs have their own tracks?

Of course, this issue of the recording not starting on the 1st beat of the 1st measure of a project has been brought up before. The short answer is to let one measure record blank and then start playing the 2nd measure into your recording.

If you really think your sense of timing is very accurate and that this may be a matter of latency, try fine tuning SONAR by using the manual offset method of adjusting for the record latency of your audio interface. If you have to quantize any audio or MIDI you want things to be tightly in sync.

See this post #20 for help in setting up for manual offset adjustment of record latency: http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=1302373

I use the metronome without assigning it to an actual track like I've heard some people do, I don't set a "count in". For example when I'm recording my drummer (a real drummer) say there's drums at the very start of the song (among other instruments) I don't start on the actual first measure, I would use that measure for a "count in". (NOT the one where Sonar starts recording after a certain point, one that we discuss over talk back) the tracks are always "hot" (recording) and depending on the BPM of the part we're recording he will use "x" amount of measure(s) to get into his "comfort zone" for what he's about to record. So for a song that has drums at the very beginning of it, In the track view, the drums don't actually "start" at 1:00:000. They might end up starting on the 2nd measure (always an even number) If he needed 2 measures of clicks to get the tempo in his "Comfort Zone" then so be it and everything else follows suit (since the drum tracks are the "bed tracks" they should be the foundation that everything else is built around). I have tried the metronome the way that you're describing and I do not like it at all, it feels "unnatural" and "forced" If you end up having a great take and later find out that you started a fraction of a second too early the whole thing is ruined because Sonar was told to start recording audio a fraction a second later. There has to be room for "human error" It's almost impossible to start at EXACTLY the right time. That's why guitar track sound so good layered, because of the slight time difference between actual live takes, it makes them sound very "thick" as opposed to an exact replica of a guitar track wouldn't sound good at all...it would in fact sound phased out. Hope this helped, if not then I just wasted 5 minutes of you life. Sorry ;) p.s. how come when I post a message, I use paragraphs and proper spacing but it never shows up when I post it, it just looks like one huge paragraph?