Hi - I got a new Focusrite interface & I only hear playback on the left channel. They say to record vox in mono in my DAW but I'm not sure how to make one channel strip mono - just click the interleave button? Will that defeat any stereo vst's it goes through like delay? Thanks. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

If a vst has stereo output it will usually still output stereo even if the input is mono. So yeah, the interleave switch should do it. Preferably before you start recording, or a stereo file with one empty side will be created.

As a side note, it's common to put fx like reverb and delay on stereo bus and use a send from your track to set the amount. This saves processing power and will (in the case of reverb) allow you to use a common space to place your sounds in.

Great! thank you.

C:
I have multiple Focusrite interfaces.  There are a couple of places in your signal flow where the playback is influenced.
 
First things first - are other tracks routing properly?  If so it is probably items 1 or two below - if other tracks are not routing properly - it is probably item #3
 
#1 Obviously the PAN of your Track
#2 The routing of your Channels Output (e.g. The 1st 2nd or 3rd choice in the output list) I suggest the 3rd since it probably is the Stereo setting  of your first hardware output pair of the Focusrite
#3 The Output Routing of the Focusrite itself on the Mix Control Software UI.  (I suspect this is where your routing issue is) Make sure the Output 1 and Output 2  are set to Left and Right - (I can screen capture if you need) and that the sources of those outputs are DAW 1 and DAW 2
 
Let me know if that gets you somewhere if not, I'll screen cap
 
-D

Thanks Don - I'll check it out. I'm new to the focusrite & it's taking me a while to catch onto the mix control settings.

My RME interface has 3 choices for each stereo input. Left, right or stereo.
 
Since my patch bay is setup for my vocal mic to go to the left input of (RME) channel 1, I always choose left in SONAR's input selector.
 
HTH if focusrite does the same thing.

You're right, I'm sorry. My E-MU does this too. Making a channel mono will not change the input setup. Select either just the left or the right side instead of the stereo one as input. Perhaps confusingly, you can't see the input on the track header. If you switch from the custom view (at the top of the track header list) to "all" or "I/O" you can see the input. Most interfaces report their inputs as follows;
1 (Left) (this is input 1)
1 (Right) (this is input 2)
1 (Stereo) (this is a stereo pair of 1 and 2)
3 (Left) (this is input 3)
3 (Right) (this is input 4)
3 (Stereo) (this is a stereo pair of 3 and 4)
etc.

OK thanks

bapu
My RME interface has 3 choices for each stereo input. Left, right or stereo.
 
Since my patch bay is setup for my vocal mic to go to the left input of (RME) channel 1, I always choose left in SONAR's input selector.
 
HTH if focusrite does the same thing.

Yes. I have a FR Scarlett.
 
All you have to do to get a mono input into Sonar from one of the inputs on the interface is to click the input dropdown menu on your track and select the Left or Right input from the list of available inputs.
 
So if your mic is hooked up to the left multi input on the front of the interface you would select 1 Left (the name is longer than that but just look for 1 Left). You should see 1 Left, 1 Right and 1 Stereo. Do not choose stero unless you have TWO signals going in at the same time. For example you have a mic plugged into the left multi in AND the right multi in... then you could select 1 Stereo and it will record both signals into one track. OR you could create two tracks and set the input of the first one to 1 Left and the second to 1 Right. It's the same thing except now you have total control of each channel because they are on their own track.
 
As far as stereo VSTs they are designed to take your mono signal and then output them to stereo to whatever bus the mono track is routed to.
 
Busses are stereo (until you press the Interleave button) so your mono track goes into the VST and then the VST spits out a stereo signal to your stereo bus which then spits it out to your left and right monitors.
 
The interleave button has no effect on your input and if you engage it thinking it does you'll just get confused and likely screw things up later on. How do I know this? Because I did that exact same thing when I first tried to use Sonar. There is even an oooold thread somewhere that one could dig up and laugh at poor young Beepster desperately trying to wrap his puny brain around the whole concept.
 
I'm feeling much better now.
 
PS: I despise the fact that some interfaces and programs use the 1 left/right, 2 left/right instead of just saying 1 2 3 4. It's annoying and unnecessarily confusing especially as a beginner... and especially for a beginner who's old interface used the 1 2 3 4 etc system of i/o labeling.

gd info - thanks