[Solved] Using 'Mute previous takes' in layered track has permanently muted previous takes

I've just used SONAR X1's track layering feature for the first time in an attempt to record multiple takes of a guitar part in the same track, with a view to then cobbling together (comping?) one good take.
 
I set the parameters under Edit > Preferences > Project > Record to what seemed logical for the objective, i.e. 'Sound on sound (Blend)', 'Auto Punch', 'Mute Previous Takes', 'Store Takes in a Single Track' and 'Create New Layer on Overlap'. (I think I also had 'Group Clips Across Tracks' checked, but have changed settings several times since recording in order to try to rectify the problem I'm about to describe, so I can't be sure, but wouldn't have expected it to be an issue.)
 
Although I had 'Auto Punch' selected, I didn't use Loop Recording; it was only set to restrict the recording region, and I returned to the start point after each take by clicking Stop. Having recorded 8 or 9 takes, I've found that wherever the layers overlap the waveform in all but the most recently recorded layer is a 'ghost' (i.e. appears dotted/feathered) and cannot be heard, no matter what I do.
 
Is it the 'Mute Previous Takes' setting which has caused this? I had assumed (yeah, I know!) that this would silence previous takes during recording, not mute them permanently after the fact. I've tried everything I can think of, even down to cloning the track and deleting clips from all but one layer, but to no avail; it is as if the 'mutedness' of the portions of a clip thus affected is an inherent property.
 
Is this a bug? Can I make the affected clips audible? Can anyone specify what I should have done to achieve my objective? All help gratefully received!

The clip mute status should also be visible in the Track Inspector when you click the CLIP tab and set the focus on the clip in question.

jatoth, gswitz and Tom Riggs, thanks for your replies. Either I haven't explained the issue properly, or I've misunderstood the feature I'm trying to use. It's not about muting and unmuting clips per se - I know how to do that. The clips in question are not muted, i.e. do not have the little red mute symbol at the top-left corner. What has happened can be seen in the screen shot here: -
 
https://www.dropbox.com/s...X1%20muted%20clips.png

Wherever the clips from the different takes in the track overlap, the most recent take has muted the previous ones in such a way that I can't unmute the affected portions. See how the waveform in Record 9 has changed from the usual solid colour to a 'ghost' at the point where Record 13 (two lanes above it) kicks in. Up to that point, Record 9 is audible, but from thereon it is not. All that using mute/unmute on Record 9 does is toggle the audibility of the earlier solid portion (and show/hide the little red mute symbol in the process), and has no effect on the later 'ghost' portion. Same goes for Record 8, which has had its ending muted by Record 9, and for Records 4, 5 and 6, which have been muted in their entirety by subsequent takes because they overlap with them completely.

I can't believe that this is what's supposed to happen. I mean, if you wanted to have several goes at recording a part, surely you'd want to keep all the takes and then decide which one to use? I can understand completely that you'd want each previous take muted while recording, so that you only monitored your latest take, but on this evidence SONAR seems to be saying, "Too bad - you shoulda quit after that great ninth take, because by trying to better it you made me mute it permanently". I guess the $64,000 question is, is the 'Mute Previous Takes' setting supposed to permanently mute previous takes, or just during recording so as not to interfere with subsequent takes?

Any more suggestions, or do I have to get my friend to come back and record the part(s) all over again?

Thanks, John, but it hasn't made any difference. I'm increasingly convinced that this is a bug. Just to be absolutely clear and to try to rule out the possibility that I'm still overlooking something, here's what I'm seeing and hearing: -
 
1. If I solo any clip on the track, it automatically mutes the other clips without applying the mute indicator (red circle) to them; their mutedness is evident from the fact that the [M] of their [M¦S] indicators (in the 'pillar' between the Track Inspector and the clip area) turns blue, while the corresponding  indicator of the solo'd clip turns green.
 
2. If I then run the song, I hear sound where there is a solid waveform and silence where it is ghosted. If I un-solo the clip during playback of a silent portion of that clip, I immediately hear the sound of whichever take at that point in the song has a solid waveform in its clip.
 
3. If I split a clip which has a normal and a ghost portion, the normal waveform remains audible and the ghosted waveform remains silent, no matter what I do to it (i.e. solo-ing it or unmuting it). This happens whether I split it at the exact point where they meet, or before (in the audible portion) or after (in the silent portion).
 
Here is a final, nothing-up-my-sleeve screen shot. It shows the affected portion of the entire track, with the layer comprising Record 6 and Record 9 (fifth one down) solo'd.
 
https://www.dropbox.com/s...0muted%20clips%202.png
 
If I run the song from the current Now Time, I hear nothing from Record 2 (topmost layer) because it's muted as a result of Record 6/9 being solo'd. (Record 7 is redundantly muted manually, just to remove any doubt that I know how to use the K key .) When playback reaches the start of Record 9, which has been split into two clips at a point before the change from normal to ghost, I hear sound from the whole of the first clip, then from the beginning of the second clip, then nothing when it turns to a ghost waveform at the overlap point with Record 13. If I unsolo the Record 6/9 layer at that point, in comes Record 13.
 
Anyone? That's gotta be a bug, right? (I'll concede at this point that this is now more about validation of my sanity than fixing the problem; I'm resigned to getting my mate Dave back to record again.)

Thanks for sticking with me, John. I appreciate that you're trying to help, but I don't think we're getting anywhere. Like I said, I've tried splitting 9 before, after and dead on the overlap with 13, to no avail. I couldn't see the point in splitting 13 where 9 ends because the whole of 13 is audible, but I gave it a try anyway. It has no effect on any part of 9, and both parts of 13 remain audible, just as they were before I split it. Hell, I've even tried cloning the entire track and deleting all but one ghost layer (i.e. such that it is the only audio in the whole of that cloned track) to see if it became audible, but still nothing.
 
"I think you have to split wherever an overlap occurs in order to un-mute correctly." Seriously? If you record a bunch of separate takes in layers on the same track, you have to go back and split them all wherever an overlap occurs, otherwise you can't pick what to hear and what not to hear using a quick and simple mute/solo command on each layer? What an unhelpful feature!
 
I think I've just been unlucky and used a combination of settings that the software designers didn't anticipate. I'm going to investigate further using different settings, and maybe try loop recording rather than stopping between takes with auto-punch enabled. If I discover anything worth reporting, I'll come back and provide an update. Thanks to all who contributed.
 
A belated thought: I just took a look at the Help file page on Loop Recording (better late than never ) before clicking 'Submit', and while the 'Mute Previous Tracks' box is checked in the settings shown, the 'Auto Punch' box is not. It has only now occurred to me that there wasn't any actual need for me to use auto punch, as I was recording on a new, clean track with no other audio in danger of being erased; loop recording would have done the job. It's just that immediately prior to this issue arising, I'd been auto-punching my friend in and out on another track to fix a small mistake, so my brain was in auto-punch mode.
 
It would probably be fair for SONAR's developers to say, "Why would you want to do what you were doing, the way you were doing it? There's no need!", but I still don't think any combination of settings should result in what I've had happen. Perhaps there's a way for them to prevent you selecting that particular combination of settings.

If you really honestly think you're on to a bug, phone support and send them your files and work through it with them. They've helped me several times.

We totally care, Patrowles.
 
I'm sorry you got stuck. I'm glad you're unstuck.
 
I don't think I actually grogged your issue before you posted the solution. We all work differently. If you use the fast comping stuff in X3, this muting and unmuting happens so fast and is so integral to the workflow, it's hard to remember what the workflow was like in X1.
 
Check this out...
http://blog.cakewalk.com/comping-the-perfect-take/
 
Watching the video at the foot of the page and reading the blog may help you see what Cakewalk had in mind when they were setting things up in X1. Now that I know what was happening to you, I don't think you were on to a bug. I think that you were bumping into a changing workflow that at the time of X1 was new and not yet complete IMHO. X3s implementation is much more fleshed out.
 
You can make it work in X1, comping together a single take from many by swiping with the mute tool, but if I remember you don't have control of cross fades that way... that sort of thing. It's not easy to compare the same section of different takes. It's not easy to comp a set of drum tracks collectively (so that when you take a measure from take 5 for the kick, you get take 5 for the same measure on all the other grouped tracks). When you see how it works in X3, what's happening in X1 might suddenly make sense.

 
Thanks, gswitz - I did wonder in passing what "the comping tool" was, but Tom's reply was one of three that had arrived together since my last post and, in my eagerness to refute the ongoing suggestion that it was a simple matter of unmuting in the usual fashion (K key/clip mute button),  I forgot to ask.  The important thing is that the problem is solved, and I learned something new - I call that a win!

John, you were instrumental in me resolving the problem - your responses kept me looking at the issue, and resulted in me finding that other thread and coming to understand what the Mute/Comping tool was for. Thanks, mate!
 
Just out of interest, should I mark the thread as solved or answered (or whatever), or does a moderator do that? I'll see what the options are when I've posted this reply...

Sorry, I'm probably being a bit thick, but I can't work out how! From here inside the thread the title is an uneditable black banner with white text, while from the forum itself it is an uneditable hypertext link.
 
I've tried clicking various links inside the thread (e.g. Menu, User Control Panel) but I'm not getting anywhere...
 
Believe it or not (given this, and the subject of the thread itself), I make my living from IT!