I'm sure this should be simple. I have a new album out and need to splice up the tracks to use as short sample clips for people to listen to on our website. I ripped my audio cd to mp3 and then imported my first track into Sonar. I then split the track and ended up with my 45 second clip. All good but here's the rub so to speak. The audio I imported was an mp3 and now when I export the 45 second clip, it converts the mp3 audio to mp3 again further degrading the sound quality and loudness of the clip. I just want to slice up the track for a short clip and extract that raw file without doing a second conversion. Is this possible or is there another way?
 
Thanks in advance.

What you might want to do is, instead of ripping your audio cd to mp3, rip your audio cd to wave files..

Ya I was wondering why you would choose MP3? 
I 'm pretty sure you can open the CD in Windows explorer and drag and drop the wave files. 
If not for sure you can import the CD using any Wave editor. Not sure if Sonar can but all wave editors do this. Even the freebies.
 
And a Wave editor is a much easier way to crop those files,,, that's why they are called wave editors.  
You can do just about anything, add cross-fades, fade outs, add a bunch BEEPs to a whole song is another trick used to keep people from stealing. 
My favourite (almost a freebie)  is Gold Wave. You can try it for free and a lifetime membership is only $60. 
http://www.goldwave.ca/
 
http://www.wavosaur.com/
 
http://www.audacityteam.org/
 
 
 

Thanks guys. So if I rip the cd to WAV and import the wave file into Sonar and splice up my clip and then export as a WAV file is there any dual conversion going on? The freeware wave editor seems just as simple but just wondering is the process described above is the same thing? 

An audio CD is encoded at 16bit at 44.1khz.   If you do everything at 16bit at 44.1khz, that is ripping to wave, your SONAR project and the final export at 16bit at 44.1khz, then, theoretically, there should be very little degradation of quality.

If your Sonar project has a higher bit depth (24bit for eg) or sample rate (48khz for eg) ,you could enable dithering on export

Certainly doing your initial rip as a wave will help keep the quality up there.....

I wouldn't worry about any loss of quality, especially since your preview clips are probably going to be streamed at 128 kb/s anyway.

I was able to solve the issue by using Audacity to splice up my clip and used LAME to encode it as an mp3 directly in Audacity. Using the same wav file and exporting to an mp3 in Sonar, that mp3 was a 1/4 of the volume of the LAME mp3 from Audacity. I've come to the conclusion that mp3 encoder in Sonar is not very good. Thoughts?

Cakewalks encoder is the LAME encoder as well. Ive never had any issues with it.
Also there is no loss going from MP3 to MP3. once the file is converted, there is no further coding needed.
This is of course as long as the same setting/bit rate, exc is used.
 
My guess is there was some sort of routing issue, or a fader dropped somewhere, either the master bus fader (which should be left at 0db) or a track fader not at 0db.
OR...
You had a different bit rate on on your export.

chuckebaby
Cakewalks encoder is the LAME encoder as well. Ive never had any issues with it.
Also there is no loss going from MP3 to MP3. once the file is converted, there is no further coding needed.
This is of course as long as the same setting/bit rate, exc is used.
 
My guess is there was some sort of routing issue, or a fader dropped somewhere, either the master bus fader (which should be left at 0db) or a track fader not at 0db.
OR...
You had a different bit rate on on your export.

I will check this Chuck but can you clear something up for me on the routing issue. If I'm building a track with guitar, EZ Drummer, EZ Keys, midi bass etc... should all of these be routed to the Master on the output? I have the option of Master or two settings on my Tascam US1800 "1 & 2" and "3 & 4". Sorry for the newb question. I'm still trying to get my routing and set up correct. Thanks in advance. 

It is  recommended to always use a master Buss on your output. 
It gives you the option of adding mastering effects to the mixdown. I use the LP 64 multi band on everything I export. I just tone it down, not heavy handed, so it catches any stray overs and most times it's only showing action on the lowest band so it keeps all my mixes about the same. 
 
As I said Wave editors are designed from the ground up to work with a wave file, for me they do this much better than a DAW will. Sonar is a multi track tape deck with a sequencer. A wave editor is your mastering 2 track system.