Hi there I just bought Sonar X3 Producer. This question is related to midi loop recording using sound on sound mode. Say I'm recording a drum part using my keyboard. The first-pass is the kick drum the second pass is the snare and the third pass is the hi hats. Despite it being called sound on sound mode I end up with three midi parts stacked on top of each other. Is there a way to automatically merge each pass with the previous one?
Thanks
Marty

No, not automatically. Sound on Sound just means the previous takes are not muted so they'll all playback as one, audibly, though they remain separate. SONAR will not add new data to an existing clip in any recording mode, but you can merge them yourself after the fact by selecting the whole track, and using Bounce to Clips.

Thanks for your help. I feared that was the only solution . I'm somewhat surprised as every other DAW or sequencer I've used since 1989 has had had the option to merge while loop recording. I guess I will have to put in a feature request for automatic merging of midi clips when doing loop recording.

Yes, Cakewalk worked that way in '89, too. 

Huh... I've never thought about it before, but I kind of like that idea.    As an option, of course.
 

There seems to be a bug when doing midi loop overdub recording as well. I'll do a video when I get time and show you.

I too was frustrated by this when I first started using Sonar, having come from Pro Tools which has merge recording. However once I got used to the change in workflow I came to appreciate it. Having a separate clip for each pass is actually quite handy from an editing and arranging perspective. You can keep those clips stashed somewhere and mix and match them to make new beats, for instance. Or let's say you have the kick and the snare down and then you record the hats. You might want to experiment with different quantize settings on the hats. When you have a separate hat clip it's easy to just select it and quantize without worrying about it affecting the kick and snare.
 
So by the end, you should have numerous clips stacked on top of each other. Just lasso them and bounce to clip. Very simple. Of course another way of doing drums is to give each drum its own MIDI track. There is something to be said for building your drum part from separate drum clips like this - you can mix and match the patterns for each drum at will. This kind of flexibility is much harder when all of your drum MIDI is in one track. When you've gotten the arrangement to your liking, just bounce it all down to one track for the sake of tidiness. 

Thanks for your input. It's interesting to hear how others work and I can see the flexibility of working that way. Although I still feel having the option to auto merge would be good as well.
 
One thing I've noticed is that when I've recorded for example the kick drum. When it loops back to the beginning not all the kick are playing back. It's only when I stop record and press playback that I can hear all the recorded  kicks. I made a video showing what I mean .
 
Edit : Looks like I can't past a screencast link..
 
I would be interested to know if you can reproduce this apparent problem .  Or maybe it's a setting I'm missing .
 
 
 

Do you have Record mode set to Sound on Sound?   Or do you mean the first take plays back, just not every note? 
 
 

I've seen some people (in other forums) cite this issue as their first reason why they don't like Sonar and uses their current daw. I think Cakewalk can acquire new users by adding the option to switch the behaviors. So, I think you should submit a feature request (oh, I guess sharke already did ).