Beginner Questions

Greetings,
 
I am very new to all of this, and just purchased Sonar as my first DAW last month. I have been doing a ton of reading, and recently purchased some of the Groove 3 videos on Sonar and Midi.  I do have a few extreme basic and random questions I hope will answer for me.
 
1). I see there is a lot of freeware out there for grooves, samples, other snippets.  For example, I just bought a Computer Music magazine for the DVD to learn about these these.  Most seem to be in .sfz or .wav files (I know what .wav is, but now idea about .sfz).  Now, I understand that I can manually drag one of these files into a track, but is there a place where one can put all of these where Sonar will read it "natively" (eg. browse to them within the program itself)?  How does one normally use these things?
 
2)  I have a Roland FA08 which is my primary instrument (I am a very ungifted musician, but I like playing around).  I "think" I have a decent understanding of virtual instruments, and have even purchased a few (I've made the mistake of browsing the deals forum and discovering pluginboutique.com).  I can get them installed and working well, but whenever I attempt to control them with my FA-08, I always hear both the VSTi and the sound of the keyboard together.  I am sure I don't have something configured correctly.
 
3)  I understand the "effects" (eq, compression, etc.) can be placed on tracks.  Can these effects be place on only parts of the tracks?
 
4)  I understand in concept the difference between mixing and mastering.  I've read where some people are of the opinion that Sonar is not a good environment for mastering.  I see that there are groups of "mastering plugins" (like Izotop Ozone) - are these plugins that are inported into a DAW to make it a better mastering suite?  Are these plugins substantially different than what is built into Sonar?
 
5)  Finally, are there groups of plugins that seem to be "must have"?  This is way down the road for me (I've spent enough on SPLAT, keyboard, VST, Notion and Groove 3) but I'm curious to see what other people think are the "must haves."  I know that NI seems to be popular, as well as some Waves bundles.
 
Thank you for your patience with a true beginner.
 
 

1 Loops and other content can be put in the Cakewalk Content folder . It has subfolders that you can put various content in under to right category. Use the Browser in Sonar to access this folders.
 
2 Make sure local control is off on the FA.
 
3 Yes On every clip is an FX bin just for that. 
 
4 I totally reject the notion that Sonar is not a good mastering environment. It certainly can be used to master a song. I use Ozone but you can do many of the things it can do with what Sonar is bundled with. However it is meant for this and ultimately easier to use.
 
5 You may get different answers from different people but no there no "must have" plugins.   

When did we become criminals? "The usual suspects", indeed. 

Good answers so far, so I'll just try to fill in a few blanks...
 
1. sfz files contain one or more wave files plus metadata that describes them. Think of them as "smart" wave files. To use them properly you need an sfz player. Fortunately, SONAR comes with more than one. Dimension Pro is a particularly sophisticated sfz player. 
 
2. A keyboard instrument such as the FA08 has two sections, a MIDI controller and a tone generator. Normally, when you play the instrument you're connecting the MIDI controller (keyboard) internally to the tone generator. However, it is possible to disconnect them from one another and use them independently. The MIDI output can drive another keyboard or a virtual instrument in your DAW. The DAW can also control the tone generator separately, independent of the keyboard.
 
The easiest way to use the Roland as just a MIDI controller and not hear its internal sounds is to simply turn the master volume down on the FA08. All you need for the virtual instrument is the MIDI output, not the audio.
 
If you want to use the FAO8's sounds in addition to your computer-based virtual instruments, then you'll want to assign different MIDI channels to each. Internal sounds are typically assigned to channel 1, and the keyboard normally sends MIDI data over channel 1. However, by assigning your virtual instrument to, say, channel 2 and instructing the FA08 to send MIDI data on channel 2, now the MIDI data from the keyboard is ignored by the internal tone generator and only the virtual instrument will respond to what you're playing on the keyboard.
 
3. Yes, effects can be applied to parts of a track or to the whole track. There are two ways to do this: clip effects and automation.
 
A track consists of one or more audio clips, and each one of those clips can have its own effects bin. This method works well when one clip needs special processing the other clips do not need. More common, and more convenient, is effect automation. With automation, you can create a graph that controls any parameter you like (e.g. wet/dry mix). It's a very, very powerful mix tool.
 
4. SONAR provides everything you need for mastering. However, many users prefer third-party tools, with Ozone being perhaps the most popular among them. My advice would be to learn the built-in tools first and then decide whether or not you need to invest in Ozone. 
 
5. "Must-have" is an entirely personal opinion, and depends on your needs. Many of us consider Kontakt a must-have, while others could not care less about it. I'd really hate to lose Ozone, but is it a "must-have"? Not really. In truth, I cannot think of anything that's a literal prerequisite to making records beyond what SONAR gives you.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thank you all for the help.   I have one follow up question - I don't believe the Sonar has a built in Midi Monitor (something where you can see the rolling text of midi messages).  Can someone recommend a good freeware alternative?
 

If you want to add convincing keyboard parts but are more of a guitarist at heart, then EZKeys is a good addition. But really, Sonar has so many great toys to learn before you buy additional stuff.

are you by any chance maybe thinking of the Piano Roll View ?
 

husker

jude77
The "Event List" in SONAR might do what you're looking for.  To access it go to "views" then "event list" or "Alt+8".
 
 

That looks like it might be it, but it does not show any midi data when I play a Vsti.

It will show any events you have already recorded on a track.
 
Be sure you have the correct track selected in the Event View

 

konradh
Are you sure you want local control off?  If you do that, the keyboard will not do anything and you won't be able to send MIDI to Sonar.

I've several MIDI-equipped keyboard synths and when using them with a DAW I always set them to local off.

The keyboards still produce MIDI output and the synth side still responds to MIDI. I set up a MIDI track with the synth as input and output and enable echo on the track. The DAW then receives the MIDI, records it and spits it back out to the synth. Which means I can then edit the MIDI if required or mix "live" playing with sequenced stuff.

If left set to local on then if the MIDI is being recorded in the DAW the synth triggers the note twice. Once when it receives the MIDI from the keyboard and again a few milliseconds later when it receives the MIDI being echoed from the DAW. While turning off MIDI echo while recording can prevent this happening it's just simpler to set the synth to local off. One exception in my setup is the Dark Time sequencer which responds to incoming MIDI in a way that makes letting it's output be echoed backmto it is a non-starter - it changes the sequence pitch when it receives incoming MIDI notes which is great when you want that to happen, but it happening every sixteenth note or whatever the clock speed is set to is generally less than musical.

Which means, as a plus point, the synth's keyboard and wheels can also be used as a controller keyboard for other hardware and software synths. Usefull if you've a mix of hardware, maybe including rack or tabletop modules without dedicated keyboards, and software sound generators.

Seen a mention or 2 about Kontakt in this thread. FWIW, I just saw that Komplete 10, which includes Kontakt and MUCH more, is now selling for $199 since Native Instruments just announced the upcoming release of Komplete 11. Unfortunately, I just paid $399 since I bought it 4 days before the announcement and subsequent price drop. Bummer. :(

Having just promoted Komplete, I'd also suggest not becoming a "collector" of plugins. In other words, really learn and master a few of them, then decide if you need others that do something that the ones you've mastered can't do. I know I have redundant plugins that I didn't need to acquire, as something I already had could have done the same thing had I just taken the time to really learn that plugin. Easier said than done, obviously.