cseybert
Thank you all!
I really appreciate all the help, And I will really try to exhaust all googling before I come here. I'm thinking the "white play bar" that goes across the channel that's playing is tied to the Metronome somehow, whenever I change the tempo, the whole track time changes, which shortens or lengthens my audio recording.
I really wish I would have listened to the Amazon reviews that said "DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU ARE NEW TO RECORDING" LOL, I am not THAT new to recording, but what I was using before (freeware like Audacity) is like playhouse compared to this.... however, I have a lot of work to do.
Thanks again!
It is not shortening or lengthining the actual recorded audio. The audio you recorded is "fixed"... as in it is a set duration of time (so if you recorded 2 minutes that audio "clip" will always be 2 minutes unless you do some fancy alterations to it that allow it to be time "stretched/warped").
So that clip will (if unaltered) will have it's own tempo. That would be whatever tempo you, yourself, play it on your instrument as. So if I record a guitar clip at 120bpm... that clip is 120bpm (unless I manipulate it using fancy audio stretching tools).
What happens is if you change the tempo in Sonar then the PROJECT tempo changes but your audio clip does not. So it may look like the your clip is getting longer/shorter but what is actually happening is that the "Timeline" in Sonar is stretching or contracting thus making the audio clip take up more or less measures on the timeline.
Soooooo... you should be deciding on a tempo for your song BEFORE recording your audio tracks then using the Metronome feature in Sonar to record to. Stick with that tempo throughout the project.
You CAN use some of the more advanced feature in Sonar to make it so that audio clips will follow tempo changes (this would normally be done by converting the audio clips into "Groove Clips" or using other time stretching methods) BUT whenever possible you should record live audio at the tempo you want the final product to be in (because stretching digital audio can cause "artifacts" which is essentially audible glitches that are unpleasant and need to be managed/mitigated).
Everything I typed above pertains to "audio" clips. Now if you are recording "MIDI" clips that are feeding "Virtual Instruments" then the MIDI clips WILL expand and contract to your tempo changes and then trigger the synths their feeding at the new tempo. That is because that is all done inside the computer and MIDI clips are merely instructions that are much more felxible than real world audio (like a guitar or vocal track recorded with a mic or live input).
As for learning the program... Star by opening Sonar and pressing F1. This will open the Help files/Reference Guide. Navigate to the very beginning of these files and look for the "Tutorials". There are a series of tutorials that will walk you through all the common functions in Sonar using content Cakewalk provided with your download/install (if you installed everything correctly).
Once you have completed those then you will have a better understanding of how things work. Then I also highly recommend taking a look at the Youtube vids posted above by JonD as well as taking a good long look at the CakeTV section of this site.
Good luck and don't feel weird about asking questions here. The only thing is you'll get a lot further if you do these tuts and learn the basic concepts and terminology first (as best you can). That makes it easier to ask questions and have us understand what you are asking.
Good luck... and welcome.