Grundberg
Wow, this became a hot topic! Thank you for the variety of responses.
 
I've been using Cakewalk software for almost a year and I guess it was finally a few days ago I realized why I need a Master Bus. Based on 90% of these responses, a Master Bus is crucial to monitor and control the audio output of my projects.
 
I have ensured that my custom template contains a Master Bus, as this will be an important element in every new project. If I hadn't addressed this to the Forum, I probably wouldn't have thought of doing it myself.
 
As of the past few days, I've been going through all my projects in progress and routing the tracks to the Master Bus as needed. I haven't put much consideration on additional Buses because my skill/experience level doesn't quite call for that requirement yet. (Frankly, I find the use of extra Buses quite complex and intimidating.)
 
I guess I learn something new all the time! Thanks for all of your input on this.

It is really a pleasure to read posts like this. In a way its why we are here. Listen to Beepster in the above post he is giving you excellent advice.   

FYI, When I first went to X1 from a very old version of Sonar, everything was defaulted to Mains/Speakers because old Sonar versions did not have Master, so I learned by troubleshooting.  I now routinely pull down Master to make sure it is the default nothing is getting past it.  :-)
 
One extra benefit: if you ever go do a project in a studio with a large traditional board, or really with any kind of hardware console, it will all make more sense and you will be right at home.

Thanks, John. I try when I can. :-)

Wow--thanks jm24--I've printed out your instructions and am going to give it a try right now.  This is exactly what I was looking for!

I'm not sure it's possible to render (export) a fade without going to Master.  I seldom do what you ould call fade-out endings, but I do fade Master after the last note or else during the last note sustain so the end doesn't sound weird.