Sonar Home Studio 6XL

Hi, and welcome to the forums

Frustration is understandable, but to help you we really need some more info from you,; PC specs and soundcard model for instance.

When I bought the program, I was told that I would be able to record each channel individually when playing and singing at the same time. I cannot do this - it all records together on one channel.

This will more than likely be soundcard setting problem, but again, we need to know what soundcard you have to be able to help.

Have a look at this thread for starters;

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1370491

I am a musician, not a sound engineer and do not have time to waste on this.

Well, to a large extent you'll need to put on a sound engineers hat on to use recording software successfully; there's a big learning curve, and it will take time. Stick with it though, the results are definitely worth it, you have a great program there!

ORIGINAL: dp80
When I bought the program, I was told that I would be able to record each channel individually when playing and singing at the same time. I cannot do this - it all records together on one channel.

Your salesperson did not do a good job explaining to you what is required in order to actually do these things. Sometimes it can be difficult or impossible to get things working on a particular system. Not ALL computers are made for music production.

I am a musician, not a sound engineer and do not have time to waste on this.

With all due respect, this was probably not the tool for you to buy then. If I were your salesperson and you made this statement to me I would have steered you more in the direction of a digital audio recorder (TASCAM, KORG... that type of thing). Those units are literally as simple to use as plug in, press record, and do your thing. There is ZERO configuration or headache on your part.

My intent here is not to anger you... just to maybe reveal an option that you might not have been aware of.

For what it's worth, did you uncheck the "what-u-hear" option in your PC's mixer window? If this is checked on your PC, all audio that is sounding will be channeled back into your chain and be recorded... again!

Well Tutorial1 is a horrible start for anyone and shame on Cakewalk for not updating it.

Tutorial1 was written when most users had real synths and keyboards. Now most people use softsynths and so they need to update the tutorial. Here's my version of it:

Sonar Home Studio comes with the Roland TTS-1 and a few other softsynths. Load Tutorial1.cwp and follow these instructions:
1) View-Synth Rack
2) Click the Insert DXi button (looks like an asterisk)
3) Click on TTS-1 - Check First Synth Output and Synth Property Page checkboxes
4) Edit Select All (to select all tracks)
5) Track-Property-Output
6) Select TTS-1 from the MIDI Outputs pulldown (that makes the TTS-1 the output for all MIDI tracks)
7) Hit play