Attention Newbies DTFT!

I've owned Sonar since 8.5, but, as this is strictly a hobby for me and available time for composing and recording has been too short, I have never mastered much of the program, preferring to just play my keyboards and throw down a few tracks, haphazardly at best. Recently I upgraded to X2 just to keep it current. Over the past few days I have had more time available and decided to devote some hours to actually getting to know the program.  I carefully went through all of the getting started tutorials as well as a bunch of others that were linked inside the getting started pages. All I can say is "Time well spent!" The tutorials are simple, straight forward and they unveil a whole bunch of little things about how the interface works and how the logic of the program flows that will save me hours of frustration in the future (like Instrument tracks - I knew they were there but every time I tried to set them up I got an error about the audio track and midi needing to be assigned to the same instrument - even though I thought they were!- so I just stopped trying and instead set up a midi and audio track for every soft synth, often times getting the I/O assignments mixed up as the projects grew. Tedious! And totally unnecessary!)
 
I know that many will read this and just say "Duh, you're an idiot!", but there are no doubt many newbies and not-so newbies like me that have never done the tutorials and are just jumping into this complex program and getting lost and frustrated. To them I say DTFT (kinda like RTFM, but a lot easier!)
 
Brian

You have begun to take Sonar seriously.  Something I think is lacking in some. They often use this board to get them trough a problem that really isn't one and they would have known that if they had done what you did.

Sonar is cursed by being a very easy program to get to work and do a few things in. What many don't know is that Sonar is a very powerful program with tremendous possibilities. Your advice is highly welcomed and I hope it gets the viewing it should. 

I use to wonder why no one seemed to sit back and read the manual. This wouldn't happen if it was a program that their livelihood relied on. Unfortunately it seems that it really doesn't matter what is the motivation;whether its a hobbyist or whether its used to make money too many people think its a simple program. 

CW has made it as simple as they can but in order to give it the enormous power it has simple can only go so far. Its up to the user to do their own homework and read and view the materials provided. 

This place will help but its really cool to work with a user that has some idea what things are called.

Thanks for posting your experience for others to gain a little insight and good job. 

Marcus Curtis


Now that you have gone through the tutorials maybe you should check out Sonar University.

http://cakewalk.com/CakeTV/SONARU.aspx 

work your way up all the way through to the master classes, but be careful. This Sonar bug bites hard. Symptoms of addiction are
1. the laundry piles up
2. you run out of milk
3. the house gets very messy
4. You run out of food an order Pizza for weeks on end.
5. All you seem to be able to do is record music and play with Sonar.

If you get any of the Sonar addiction symptoms just step away from your computer or join the rest of us on the forum.

 WELL SAID!!!

If you can hold out until February Scott Garrigus' "SONAR X2 Power!" will be out. It is being presold now. The Power series has been a great addition to the CW manuals.

scook


If you can hold out until February Scott Garrigus' "SONAR X2 Power!" will be out. It is being presold now. The Power series has been a great addition to the CW manuals.

I've been reading Scott's X1 book daily for the last two months.  It's a great intro for someone like me who has never used Sonar before but it leaves out a lot of detail (it is 1400 pages shorter than the manual).
 
If I had a tablet pc, I'd probably be happy.
 

Paul P

scook


If you can hold out until February Scott Garrigus' "SONAR X2 Power!" will be out. It is being presold now. The Power series has been a great addition to the CW manuals.

I've been reading Scott's X1 book daily for the last two months.  It's a great intro for someone like me who has never used Sonar before but it leaves out a lot of detail (it is 1400 pages shorter than the manual).
 
If I had a tablet pc, I'd probably be happy.
 

The difference is that unlike that Manual, which is totally sterile & repetitive, Scott's books home in on the real application of the vast majority of the functions & processes inside Sonar. I don't think he misses much out

Remember the days when we used to get the boxed upgrade version along with a full printed user guide. I used leave the manual down on the floor beside the commode. You'd be amazed how much you can learn over a couple of months during your private time on the throne!
 
I've tried taking my laptop in there but I find it to be quite awkward...
 
JTW
 
 

Although I actually did the tuts (mostly) when I first bought X1 and have managed to complete a few projects I am about to go through them again in my new space. In fact I'm going to go through everything in the manual methodically if I can keep focused on it. Taking notes the whole way too.

Currently only at page 82 or something. Only a thousand or so more pages to go. lol

I also worked my way through a good chunk of X1 Power already but I want to be able to pull obscure info out of my bum when need be. 

jtwinpcola

I used leave the manual down on the floor beside the commode.
You'd be amazed how much you can learn over a couple of months during your private time on the throne!   

Beepster

I also worked my way through a good chunk of X1 Power already but I want to be able to pull obscure info out of my bum when need be.  

Paul P

 
I'm new to Sonar and an avid manual reader.  I love reading manuals.  But X2's manual is not really all that accessible.  First off, there's no paper version that I'm aware of.  I'd gladly pay 100$ for a paper version (having a single copy printed would be what, 200$ or so ?). 
 

You could buy a basic Kindle ($89) or Nook ($79) that will work with the PDF file. Even dedicate it just for the Sonar manual if you like although with bookmarks there is no reason to.