Point taken.   I get so frustrated with Sonar's use of full text search that I too seldom go back to the docs.

pwalpwal

williamcopper
Parenthetically, here's a SoundForge Pro 11 bug:   saving a 24bit wav file as a 16bit wav file is NOT the same thing as doing a bit-conversion from 24bit to 16 bit.    The 'save as' must use a worse process -- tracked down some high violin missing notes to this cause.  

prolly just truncates it

I am not familiar with Soundforge but I'd imagine there is a "Dithering" option that needs to be selected before doing any exports/conversions.
 
A straight "Save As" or export from 24bit to 16bit without any dithering applied will... well do not good things.
 
What those "not good" things are or how they manifest themselves... IDK... because I had it hammered into my head very early on that you have to use dither for a proper conversion of that type.
 
Fortunately there are many people much smarter than I in the world who have figured this stuff out and released the info for all to see/study/apply/understand if they so choose.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither
 
You (pwalpwal) of course know this stuff (seemingly) but I figured I would mention it for the benefit of "others" who may be getting tripped up on the subject.

Anderton
 I'm sure that more than 45 seconds of your time and the forum's time has been taken up addressing your query. The forum is my last resort for finding a solution to anything I encounter. My preferred order is 1) SONAR's Help, 2) Google search using site:forum.cakewalk.com as a starting tag, and 3) if I can't find an answer, only then do I go to the forum and call upon the community for assistance. But I do that very rarely, because the first two options generally solve any problems.

I just thought I'd point out that this question could've been answered through inspection (test) as well. If you have a track with a signal - enable PC globally and the Console Emulator and hit play and the meters will dance. Disable PC globally and the meters don't move. It behaves as HW would. If there is a way to verify behavior I usually try that first and then follow Craig's order.

I had gotten to trust Soundforge, but in the 'save as' dialog, as far as I can see, there is no dither option.     Since 16-bit is necessary for CD burning, I had used Save As -- but now I know better.   No help, that I found, in Help, either.

I don't use SoundForge but I was looking at its specs some time ago, and if I recall correctly, it comes with some Izotope mastering tools which includes MBIT+ dithering. Check the SoundForge docs to see how to use those tools, probably as a plugin on the master bus. Hope this helps.
 
Edit: I just checked the SoundForge site and SoundForge 11 Pro does indeed come with Izotope's stuff.

How are Soundforge and Pro Channel related? 

ampfixer
How are Soundforge and Pro Channel related? 

ampfixer
How are Soundforge and Pro Channel related? 

I think SoundForge is married to Pro Channel's brother's sister.

williamcopper
I had gotten to trust Soundforge, but in the 'save as' dialog, as far as I can see, there is no dither option.     Since 16-bit is necessary for CD burning, I had used Save As -- but now I know better.   No help, that I found, in Help, either.

The thing here, I suppose, is that car manuals don't teach you how to drive, if you see what I mean. Sound Forge has two different tools for applying dither when changing bit depth, both of which have various options. And typing "dither" into the help will indeed take you to help topics about how to use both of them.
 
What it doesn't really do is teach you what that is, why you'd do it, or when you'd do it. Sound Forge and Sonar are tools, not teaching aids. Sonar does come with a bunch of tutorial and educational content, but really, the main job of the documentation is "How to use Sonar" not "How to do sound engineering".

kevinwal

ampfixer
How are Soundforge and Pro Channel related? 

I think SoundForge is married to Pro Channel's brother's sister.

 
Yes. And if I recall, it was quite the scandal at the time because it was the first inter-bit marriage. Sound Forge could only go to the 32-bit restaurants, and had to sit at the back of Aux Bus. When ProChannel tried to bring Sound Forge into a 64-bit bar, they were greeted with a "We don't serve your kind here." But the two persevered, to the point where eventually the world came around to accepting 64-bits and even inter-bit marriages. From what I understand, Sound Forge is even integrated in many SONAR Utilities menus. Once again, SONAR was ahead of society at large.