4 Questions on v-vocal, gain and volume envelopes

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1. When you turn down the gain knob, will it affect when you record?

Gain knob where? On your preamp? On the track view (the old trim)?
 
2. How come when I use v-vocal and then record on a different track, that v-vocaled clip will not sound?

Not sure what you mean. The V-vocal effect is for a particular clip. It's not a track effect and should have no bearing on any other tracks you are using.
 
3. How come I tend to push the volume fader to the max(6db) to hear it in the mix? I have a feeling I am doing something wrong here. I use SPS-66 FireWire and the sens knob is 3/4 way already when recording.

You're monitoring too softly. Turn your master volume up louder and mix everything at a lower digital level. During mixing I try to peak at no more than -6 dB. By the end of my mix, I'm usually hitting -3 dB regularly and peaking at -1dB, but I do try to keep it lower. You'll be happier if you do. If you find yourself having everything being too loud, start over. Push all the faders down and re-pull them all. It only takes a minute and it'll rebalance your project. Unless you're already at the end stage of the mix. Then you can just pull the master fader down. Since Sonar internally mixes using a floating int, you won't lose quality this way.
 
4. I want to use for example the volume envelope and want to draw a line so that the volume in the part I want louder will be the same level, but the line tool won't work. I have seen a few threads, but did not get any real answers. 

Not sure what you mean. You mean you want to draw a line at -3dB and have your vocal track be -3dB? It doesn't work that way. If your fader is at -3dB the level will be dropped by 1/2 (3dB) of it's original volume it was recorded at. If you want to push your volume up to hit a certain level, you need a compressor / peak limiter, but if you don't know what you're doing, you'll destroy the quality in the process.

straight line so the part I want to make louder is at a constant db level not like when I use free hand it goes up and down.

sharpdion23


1. On track view

2. I will try to explain it better. I recorded say a vocal track and edited a clip on that track with v-vocal and did not bounce it and left it as a v-vocaled clip. Now I create another track and say I am going to record a violin. I start recording and when it reaches the v-vocaled clip on my vocal track, that v-vocaled clip does not sound. It will sound if I play it but not when I am recording.

3. If I start over on my mixing and put all track faders down and balance the mix, I get a good mix at lower levels, but when I do that and export the project, I find that my song is softer than other songs on professionally recoded CDs.

4. I will try to explain this one better too. I have a recoded strings section and at one part of the clip I want to make it louder than the rest. So I take my volume envelope and want to draw the volume change in. I want to draw a straight line so the part I want to make louder is at a constant db level not like when I use free hand it goes up and down.

1. The gain control is pre-FX bin volume. It won't effect the signal you record, only the volume of the feed before it goes through your FX bin and eventually onto your fader volume.

2. Not sure why this is happening. It sounds like the track is armed and the DAW isn't playing back a track that is armed. I have seen this as default behavior on hardware mixer recorders, but never on Sonar. Not sure. Mine does not do this.

3. This is how mixes are done. You need to master your track if you want it to compete in volume with a mastered track. This could be to simply bring the overall volume up until it naturally peaks, but you really need to learn how to properly master the track.

Mastering is an art in itself. I can recommend Ozone for relatively simple volume peaking and mastering, but you'll still have to learn it well. I also encourage you to not master too hot. Fight the loudness war.

4. You can double click to add nodes to your envelope and then just adjust the ones you want up or down. Or I believe there is a modifier key to the the draw tool that will make a straight line. It's probably control or alt or both. Not sure off the top of my head.