i'm using sonar x3 (thinking about upgrading to x3 studio to get 'audio-to-midi' conversion). i'm looking for a way to create sheet music with both treble & bass staves for a keyboard part and a * third * upper treble staff for a melody line w/lyrics. i've looked at the various options in staff view, but don't see one that matches what i want (tho' being a relative newbie to the staff view i might have looked right at it and not recognized it).
is there a way to do this?
tx for any info. 
 
* 1 jan 15 - added '* third *'

The way to do this is use 2 tracks.  One for your melody (treble)  and one for your keys (treble/bass).  You can open them both together in staff view.  I do this all the time.  I create 2 "dummy" tracks...one with melody and chord changes and one with me improvising on the keys to see rhythms and such...then orchestrate from there.
 
However, you might be disappointed with Sonar's staff view abilities as they are quite basic. And this whole audio-to-midi-to-staff thing has never been great or fun to deal with on any system.
 
Usually you are better off going strait into a notation program.
 
Try downloading the Demo before you buy anything and get frustrated. 
 

aha, i didn't think about staff view doing more than one track. i'll get on that next.
the reason i was looking at the audio-to-midi ability is that i'm not good enough on keys to play the melody line; chords i can do, but was hoping to sing the melody into a midi format.
any recommendations on a good notation program?
 
 

While in Staff view, click Edit>Layout at the top. You'll get many options, including Treble/Bass.

tx for the suggestion. i played a bit with the treble/bass layout option. but what i'm looking for is to have a 2nd treble staff at the top for the melody/lyrics, like
melody staff         ------------------------------------------
lyrics               ------------------------------------------
treble (keys/guitar) ------------------------------------------
bass   (keys/guitar) ------------------------------------------
 

Right. You can display as many tracks as you want in Staff view. The melody and lyrics on one track and the treble and bass on different tracks, all printable as one piece.

MuseScore is a free notation program that's worth checking out.

tx. took a quick look at musescore. this might be the thing ('cuz even now that i've got the right number of staves in staff view, when i print it it is doing 1 measure per line).