Please help setup Sonar with Focusrite Scarlett 8i6...only one issue I have

Get rid of your XFi card! your Focusrite is your sound card now. Why use a game card when you have an audio card?

Just enable the focusrite in SONAR.  If you use ASIO you can only choose one driver - other modes can use more than one driver.  You don't want SONAr to use teh Xfi - if you are using WDM etc. simply uncheck it.  Use it for gaming and system sounds and that way your music card won't get confused switching between some of the on-board 8-bit sounds etc.

CJaysMusic

One more thing, do you guys normally record vocals in mono?

A mic is a mono source, so it has to be mono. 99% of the time all instruments are recorded in mono. The exception are synths and overheads for drums. Other than that, everything else is recorded in mono
Cj

Well, it's very common to record a vocal with one mic, and that's mono... but I (and others also) often record other sounds with more than one mic- guitars, percussion, pianos, etc. Each mic is a mono source and should be recorded to a mono track- then, when mixing, it's common to pan those mono sources in various ways around the stereo image- which creates a kind of a imitation-stereo recording of that instrument. I USUALLY use multi-mic set-ups for acoustic instruments- can often give you a more interesting stereo image than just one mic. There's lots of times only one mic is best too- just depends on what you want.  


When multi-miking be sure to check that your mic diaphragms are close enough so that the sound waves don't arrive at them out-of-phase- that can cause weirdness when combining them in stereo later- sometimes if you pan them wide enough though, that little bit of out-of-phase-ness CAN sound good! And if you're recording a drum- conga- whatever- from Over AND Under, you just flip the phase of one mic to keep them in phase. In everything, you just have to use your ears and monitor on enough playbacks to know if it sounds right. We used to have a "check it in mono" switch in the olden days, but that's not so necessary anymore. 


Each mono mic would usually be recorded on a mono track- but not EVERYTHING is always recorded in mono... gee CJ... let the young 'uns live a little!

Thanks guys and CJ, yes I know it is a mono source, what I meant is that some users seem to record it to both left and right, like I was doing with my SM58 and the Tapco mixer sending L and R to my sound card because some claim certain plugins like reverb workout better that way.
So I was trying to find a way ti have Sonar do this automatically but it seems it is not really needed.
BTW the Scarlett 8i6 with my new Blue Spark Mic are such an amazing improvement over my previous setup , I almost cried LOL

So, currently what I am doing is this, I have to select the Playback device to either my x-fi or the Scarlett depending on what I want to do and switch my receiver to the 7 channel input for the x-fi or the 2 channel input I am using for the Scarlett. Sounds correct?

One last thing, is it possible to set a default for the Input for my audio channel in Sonar 8.5? It defaults to the Scarlett Stereo which gives me only left channel audio from the mic of course and I want it to default to Left Mono so that it records correctly in Mono.
Thanks guys!

Funny, this is such a simple approach that I should have done a template like this years ago..I feel quite stupid right now LOL
Thanks man