Hi all
Sonar newb here, be gentle with me....
 
I'm currently recording an acoustic act I play with.  Four guys in a room, playing live together with no click track.  I've recorded a few takes of each song, so I can pick the best one to work on.  Obviously I'm not wanting to comp these takes at all - I just want to listen to them, and decide which one to keep.
I was a bit surprised to find there is no overall control to switch all tracks to a specific take, but after a bit of searching it seems like I should be grouping the clips, and then soloing the take I want to listen to.  Is that correct?  I've managed to open up the take lanes and create a selection group, but when I solo a lane in one track, nothing happens in the other tracks.  I can see the group number next to each clip name, so I know that part has worked.
 
Can anyone give me some pointers here?  

Hey Keef! (if that IS your real name...)
 
I've been using various versions of Sonar (now Cakewalk by Bandlab) to record for more than ten years at this point, almost always starting exactly how you're describing, basically treating the DAW like analogue tape. Recording full takes (occasionally disconnected sections) at a time of as many instruments simultaneously as I can and then editing them together after for a full take, which I then overdub on.
 
An example from my band's most recent album. "Acorn Armies". 
 
https://summerjanuaries.bandcamp.com/track/acorn-armies
 
We recorded four full takes of the song, playing drums, bass, guitar, and fiddle simultaneously. Then I assembled a master take after the fact from the two best takes, and then we overdubbed additional fiddle, vocals, banjo, guitars on to that master take.
 
The key to starting this kind of editing is to do the takes consecutively, as if it really were analogue tape. Just record a take, then whomever's running your session hits the spacebar to stop things, then hit CTRL-S to save. Then advance the session just a bit and then record your second take, after the first. No overlap, no problems with selecting all the files, no problems PERIOD. Just the takes all laid out in a row. Makes it easy to drop markers too to mark any of your thoughts and identify sections that are good etc. Once I've selected my "master" main take, I usually copy it over to the end of the session (past the whole takes) then chop out any bits I don't like and go fishing for replacements for those sections. If your tempos are consistent, and you edit along the entire take (every instrument) this can be a really smooth, even fun process. Usually totally painless for me.
 
Happy to help with any other questions you might have about this process! I find that people usually get distracted by all the bells and whistles and tend to forget a DAW can just be a tape recorder, you know? Just the most consistent, best maintained multitrack that ever existed!

If anyone's interested, here's a walkthrough video from the song linked to above, that shows where everything was situated during the take (literally walking from station to station while we tracked the first or second take of the song!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrRYKR5yHnY


 

Thanks Sean!
 
Yeah, your method makes a lot of sense and I would probably have done things the same way if I wasn't aware of the take lane feature.  Maybe I'll do it that way next time.
 
Still seems bizarre that there isn't a built-in way to do what I'm after though.  I'm sure I've seen this approach working in other DAWs in the past, but can't quite remember now.
 
I know what you mean about the bells and whistles.  I make pretty old-school music for the most part, and I'm finding it pretty hard to work out what I need to do just to get a basic project under way.  No doubt further questions will arise... :)
 
(BTW, Keef Pilchards isn't my real name, though it is a real stage name, if that counts!!)

Well, even if this feature were easily accessible, it would still put undue strain on your hard drive (as the program streams all currently active tracks and lanes simultaneously in order to be able to access them on demand). After you did four or five takes of a large live session--say, 16 simultaneous tracks-- you'd soon be out of hard drive power.
 
That being said, I certainly do overlapping takes on overdubs, and once I've comped them, I duplicate the track with all the takes, "Archive" it so it's not part of the hard drive access anymore, then send it to a special folder so it's not visible anymore either.
 
 

I would bounce/move/copy all the takes to separate tracks then set each take to their own buses. Then it's just a matter of soloing each bus to hear the take you want to hear.

First, to simplify, let's assume that each person is a track (like guitar, vocal, bass, piano). Wouldn't the result be similar to working with a mtitrack drum recording where you would be "comping" a while performance, not the I dividual kit parts? (with the latter as an option if wanted).

Certainly you wouldn't have to do THAT as sequential takes instead of multiple takes on multiple tracks, right?

I haven't messed with comping much since forever ago when there were take layers, UT it seems like this case would fit into the expected use, wouldn't it?

By the way, here's the directions for what you're actually asking about/trying to do here. But
 
a. I still don't think it's a good idea for the reasons listed above.
b. it never behaved as expected the few times I've tried it.
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=Arranging.23.html
 

seanmichaelrobinson
By the way, here's the directions for what you're actually asking about/trying to do here. But
 
a. I still don't think it's a good idea for the reasons listed above.
b. it never behaved as expected the few times I've tried it.
 

 

Yep, that's what I did.  I did manage to group all the clips from one take across all my tracks.  But then the take's solo button failed to synchronise across the tracks, so it didn't help me.
 
It's not the end of the world, because I can just do this the long way (by individually soloing the same take in each track).  I'm only dealing with five tracks per song at this stage of the project.  I just find it frustrating when such a simple task is harder to do than it should be.

Click one of the grouped takes in the lower half of the clip in a take lane where the Comp tool is displayed. This will automatically mute all clips in other groups, and unmute all clips in the same group. You won't actually be 'comping' if you don't drag the tool to create splits; you'll just be auditioning the different takes as you 'promote' different clip groups with the Comp tool.
 
Another way to do this is to select one of the clips and hit Shift+Spacebar to start 'Speed-comping'. This automatically loops the take, and you can use Up/Down cursor keys to switch between takes.
 
As you probably read, in the future you can enable automatic grouping of multitrack takes in Record preferences.