Hi, I just stared using Sonar X3 and I have a question about using plugins. Say I'm recording a guitar track, do I have to lay down the guitar track before adding the plugins or is there a way to use the plugins while recording live? Right now I'm plugged into my interface and into my laptop.. guitar is dry but I'd like to hear the plugins with the guitar and tweak them before I hit record. Thanks in advance, I'm looking forward to using this program as it looks really fun. -Troy

Just add a plugin to the track FX bin and you'll hear the result live.
 
Whatever you add,  the guitar will ALWAYS be recorded dry (no plugin sound) so if you don't like the plugin, or just want to change a few settings, you can do that later.

Yup. You just have to toss the plug in into the FX bin and make sure the Input Echo button for the track is turned on. It kind of looks like this:
 
.))
 
However you need to do that to monitor your guitar through Sonar anyway so if you can already hear your guitar but don't have the Echo button enabled you may be using the Direct Monitoring feature on your interface. You don't want that even if you do get the Input Echo working and can hear the sim because a) you will still hear the dry signal through the Direct Monitoring and b) there will likely be a slight delay between the two making a slapback effect which can be distracting.
 
You will have to refer to your interface manual to see how to disable the Direct monitoring if that is the case so you only hear what is coming from the track in Sonar. If you post the interface name I'm sure someone here could help you though.
 
Cheers.

Beepster
Yup. You just have to toss the plug in into the FX bin and make sure the Input Echo button for the track is turned on. It kind of looks like this:
 
.))
 
However you need to do that to monitor your guitar through Sonar anyway so if you can already hear your guitar but don't have the Echo button enabled you may be using the Direct Monitoring feature on your interface. You don't want that even if you do get the Input Echo working and can hear the sim because a) you will still hear the dry signal through the Direct Monitoring and b) there will likely be a slight delay between the two making a slapback effect which can be distracting.
 
You will have to refer to your interface manual to see how to disable the Direct monitoring if that is the case so you only hear what is coming from the track in Sonar. If you post the interface name I'm sure someone here could help you though.
 
Cheers.

Oh, yup.. when I have the input echo button on it crates a delay for me. I'm using a Behringer UM2 interface. I will have to check on my setting when i get home. Thanks

Oh and you have to make sure the little round blue power button beside the effect name in the bin is on but by default it is as soon as you insert the effect. You can then use that to turn the effect on or off.
 
BTW... the reason for direct monitoring is to eliminate any latency while recording caused by effects so you may experience either latency (sound will be delayed after you play it) and/or you might experience crackles/dropouts. If you encounter either of those issues come back and describe your system specs, interface and if possible what settings you are using for recording (driver mode, buffer settings, cahce settings, etc).
 

troydanelke

Beepster
Yup. You just have to toss the plug in into the FX bin and make sure the Input Echo button for the track is turned on. It kind of looks like this:
 
.))
 
However you need to do that to monitor your guitar through Sonar anyway so if you can already hear your guitar but don't have the Echo button enabled you may be using the Direct Monitoring feature on your interface. You don't want that even if you do get the Input Echo working and can hear the sim because a) you will still hear the dry signal through the Direct Monitoring and b) there will likely be a slight delay between the two making a slapback effect which can be distracting.
 
You will have to refer to your interface manual to see how to disable the Direct monitoring if that is the case so you only hear what is coming from the track in Sonar. If you post the interface name I'm sure someone here could help you though.
 
Cheers.

Oh, yup.. when I have the input echo button on it crates a delay for me. I'm using a Behringer UM2 interface. I will have to check on my setting when i get home. Thanks

Okay... find where you change the interface latency buffers (just open the interface software with Sonar closed and look around for the settings). You will want to bring those settings down as much as possible when you record. If you start hearing crackles or other weird stuff starts happening then you've gone too far. It is a balance between low latency and performance/quality. You can "Freeze" tracks or disable uneeded effects on other tracks which will reduce the resource load on your system until you are done recording.
 
Once you are done recording increase your latency buffer settings again for editing and mixing to avoid dropouts, crackles, etc.

Another thing you should do is go into your Windows Power Management settings and make sure EVERYTHING is set to their highest levels (Performance) so that nothing is going to sleep (like your hard drives, CPU, USB ports, everything). This will help avoid problems when recording at low latency (meaning you can get those settings lower before wierd stuff starts happening).
 
Also if your interface has ASIO drivers make sure you have Sonar set to use those because they work far better and it helps reduce latency as well.
 
Cheers.

  I reinstalled the interface driver and now its working as it should with no latency. Thanks for everyones help on this! I'll be back with more questions later. - Troy