I must be a dummy, because this should be a simple thing and I can't find it anywhere in the documentation...
 
All I want to do is to "silence" (not cut, I don't want the lengths changed) a portion of all tracks. I know how to select multiple tracks at once in the area I want silenced, but what comes next to accomplish this?
 
Thanks in advance!

The easiest approach would be to use Volume automation on the Master bus. If you have some other track(s) that you don't want silenced at that point, route all the tracks/buses that you do want silenced to an intermediate bus ahead of Master, and automate the volume on that bus. You'll need to take a different approach if you want to preserve FX tails on tracks/buses in the "silenced" section.

Hi. Or you could select all (Ctrl+A), drag across the timeline as long as needed, and press "K".
I think that should work.
All the best.

I've tried adding an automation envelope to have the master bus output volume shoot immediately from INF to the current master slider level (-7.0). The problem with that is, if I choose to move the master slider up or down later, I need to go back and also change the automation envelope to match the new master bus volume setting, correct?
 
Man, what a hassle for what should be such a simple thing. Even my recorder can easily accomplish this in a few seconds by setting start/end points and selecting "Silence" in its track editor. It's hard to believe that SONAR can't perform such a basic editing function without having to resort to using automation envelopes.
 
Anyway, thanks for the advice, I do appreciate it.

 
Switch to Offset mode using the Envelope/Offset button in the Mix module to set a base level on top of which the envelope will 'ride'. You can alter that level at any time in Offset mode without having to mess with the envelope.
 
You can use Process > Apply Effect > Gain to silence sections of audio tracks, but it's destructive, and isn't applicable to MIDI. Volume/Mute automation is generally preferred for making non-destructive edits to levels.
 
You could also Split all tracks 'At Selection', and mute the split out sections. This is basically what Ken is suggesting with the 'K' shortcut, but you can't mute part of a clip by that method; the section to be muted has to be a separate clip.

CraigG58;
How many tracks does your recorder have that you silence a section all once with two clicks?

Unless I'm missing something, I've found an even simpler way to accomplish this.
 
I never noticed the "Mute" and "Erase" tools before. To mute:
 
- Enter track view.
- Press F10 to toggle Mute or Erase in the tools module (for my purposes, Mute).
- Starting in the lower half of the top track, left click and drag down to select the area you want to mute. When you release, mute displays small dots above each waveform to indicate where the muting begins and ends.
- That's it!
 
Mute tool:
https://www.cakewalk.com/...amp;help=Tools.16.html
Erase tool:
https://www.cakewalk.com/...amp;help=Tools.15.html
 
P.S. Forgot to mention, erase is destructive, and mute is not. So, two nice choices there as well.

Joe_A
CraigG58;
How many tracks does your recorder have that you silence a section all once with two clicks?

Not sure what you're referring to, Zargg's post maybe? For whatever reason, I couldn't get that to work. Maybe he's using custom key mapping.
 
If you're referring to my recorder, it's a Tascam DP32-SD which has 8 mono tracks and 12 tracks that can be switched between mono and stereo, thus the "32". It's rare that I have something which needs to be recorded in stereo, so I normally run all of them in mono and perform my panning in Cakewalk during mix-down.
 
On this recorder, it's not two "clicks", but still very simple. You just set in/out points, enter the track editor and select "Silence", then the tracks you want affected between those two points. All done.
 

Another way to make a portion of the project silent would be to select all the clips within that portion and mute them. It may be necessary to split the clips at the beginning and end of the required portion.

To mute selected clips, press K. To split selected clips, press S.

CraigG58
Unless I'm missing something, I've found an even simpler way to accomplish this.
 
I never noticed the "Mute" and "Erase" tools before. To mute:
 
- Enter track view.
- Press F10 to toggle Mute or Erase in the tools module (for my purposes, Mute).
- Starting in the lower half of the top track, left click and drag down to select the area you want to mute. When you release, mute displays small dots above each waveform to indicate where the muting begins and ends.
- That's it!

 
Given you felt putting an automation envleope on the Master bus was too much work, I didn't think you would want have to region-mute every clip individually. 
 
Personally I think either bus automation or splitting and clip-muting are easier and more easily undone/redone, but glad to hear you got it figured in any case.