Metronome speed

EDIT: I somehow screwed up the format of this post and put the whole thing in a quote which I can't get rid of...I hope it's readable!

Thanks EtherealEntity.  As I said, I did find the tempo setting, but it's just a grid.  There's no way to know that one's supposed to draw a line on the grid to set tempo.   Even from your instruction, what kind of line do I draw?  Horizontal?  Vertical?  Perhaps on a 45 degree slant to show a constant progression?  I have no idea. 

Sure there's a way to know. It seems pretty obvious to me that the tempo view is a line graph with your bar/time in the song across the top and tempo down the side. Sure some people pay not realise this, but this is definately no fault of Sonar. It could not really be more obvious. There's even already the horizontal blue line at the default project tempo going across the bottom there.

And saying to enter a number in the tempo toolbar is nice, but I didn't find a tempo toolbar yet.  I found an icon I could click to bring up a page that has a grid on it.  That is not a toolbar by any definition I understand, but perhaps that is what is meant.  I just don't know.  It's unclear.  So, I remain at a loss as to where and how to enter a BPM number.  

You will want to go to View>Toolbars where you will find a list of toolbars to turn on and off, tempo being one of them. You either have it disabled or simply did not see it yet. I will attatch a screenshot later in my post.

So, now that I know to go to the tempo setting that is nowhere near the metronome icon, I may now have a hint as to things to try to attempt changing the tempo, but I am still at a loss as to how to get the particular tempo I want.  I am still feeling justified in my rant and resent a bit the implication that I ought to know how to use a tool intuitively without guidance or a manual of any sort.  Why?  Bearing all the above in mind, and knowing that it is Cakewalk who has decided to produce and distribute an entry-level program like Sonar LE, the expectation that consumers of the entry level program will have expert knowledge of Cakewalk's more advanced software and their approach to terminology and interface is not a reasonable expectation.  That is clearly something for which I blame Sonar and Cakewalk, and I think reasonably so.   

Here's a screenshot taken from my Sonar 8.5 Producer.


Highlighted in red is the tempo toolbar. Highlighted in green is the metronome toolbar. The fact that you can enable, disable, customize and reposition toolbars exactly as you please pretty much voids your statement that the metronome and tempo icons are not near each other. One could argue that the two things should be put together - which is fair enough. But in my opinion the amount of buttons on each toolbar justifies them being apart from eachother. There are a whole set of options for the metronome there, and quite a few for the tempo. In my opinion they are fairly seperate things. Of course the metronome relies on the tempo - but pretty much every setting in Sonar is going to rely on a ton of other things. This does not mean they should all be placed together.

Note: The toolbars in my screenshot may differ slightly from your LE version, but I remember that these programs were much the same.

I do feel the need to reinforce that I hope I am not coming across as rude. I am just being honest here and trying to help. In my opinion everything mentioned here is set out and designed very simply and incredibly easy to pick up on. When you mentioned the manual - I am not implying that you should know how to do any of this without a manual. I feel that Sonars interface design is wonderful, and personally have not needed a manual for many simple functions. However, that is not to say that other people don't. The manual is available for you to use if you should need it, and has plenty of thorough instructions. A simple search for metronome or tempo would have probably given you exactly what you needed (reference to the tempo toolbar).

Quote from my Sonar manual;

Search - Tempo
Result - Changing Tempos

You can add tempo changes to your project in the following ways:
●
Using the Tempo toolbar.

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Using the Insert > Tempo Change and Insert > Series of Tempos commands.

●
By drawing tempo changes graphically in the Tempo view.

●
Inserting tempo changes in the Tempo view’s Tempo List pane.


And at the bottom of that page are links to detailed pages on the above bullet points.

Once again, I am trying not to be rude here but I really do not think it could have been designed any easier. I hope that you understand the feature now and will continue to learn Sonar, as it is a wonderful program.