Stupid Question, I'm sure

Hello:
 
I've been off the grid for a very long time.  I recently upgraded to Sonar X3 Producer and am enjoying getting back into recording again.  I am very impressed with the stability of X3 so far.  
 
I have mainly just produced music using vsti's and midi editing but am now interested in mixing it down to audio so I can create some CD's. 
 
There is something I am very confused about and can't seem to get any clarification on.  I'm sure I'm just being "dense" and this is obvious.  I've read Sonar X3 power and am still confused.  Audio recording is very new to me - so forgive me if this is obvious. 
 
First:  I can lay down a midi track with a softsynth just fine.  I see the midi data and can edit it. I also hear the audio on playback.   I then try to take the audio output of that midi track and record it to an audio file.  I insert an audio track, select the input from the vsti but can't get it to record the audio.  If I click on the audio waveform preview I see the audio waveforms are there.  Was the audio really recorded?   If I try to play back or solo just the audio track I don't hear anything.  Is the Midi and audio track automatically joined together and I don't realize it?   I guess I was thinking that the two tracks were independent and I would have a midi track and audio track separate and I could edit either. 
 
Here are my stupid questions. 
 
When laying down a midi track is the audio already being recorded?  If not, how do I record the output from that softsynth onto an audio track?  If I insert an audio track and select the input from the vsti is the audio automatically being recorded?  I notice that there isn't any "arm" button on the audio track when I do this.  Is the audio automatically recorded when I play back the midi track?  If so, I don't see any audio waveform being recorded unless I hit the waveform preview button. 
 
I currently am using a Focusrite 2i4 audio interface and only have two outputs running directly to my active monitors. I'm not running an external mixer at the moment.   I wasn't sure if I needed to route outputs from the audio interface to the inputs of the audio interface.  I didn't think this was necessary since the audio should be looping back to the software through the computer. 
 
If anyone could straigten me out on this I would greatly appreciate it.  I'm sure this is simple and obvious but I am confused as to how this works within sonar.  If I can get past this lack of understanding, I should be good to go. 
 
Thanks in advance for anyone's help. 
 
 

I use freeze for converting MIDI to audio. I freeze the synth. You can not record the audio of a soft synth within Sonar and you don't need to. 

Thanks very much for everyone's replies.  I did notice when I froze the Midi Track that it converted it to audio.  I will try the bounce technique.  I am now learning how this works.  I understand that in order to mix down to a CD all of the tracks need to be in audio form.  I can then mix the audio tracks with busses from there. 
 
This is starting to make sense to me now.  I was just confused about how to get the midi tracks converted to audio so I could mix the audio tracks. 
 
Once again, I appreciate everyone's help here.  Great forum! 

I feel this way as well John.  But, I think one should do their research first before asking.  Especially if the answer is out there and you only need to look it up.  I was having problems finding this information. 
 
Most of my work has been in MIDI and I'm just starting to dip my toe into the Audio arena.  I'm a keyboardist by nature so all of my work is done with MIDI and softsynths.  I now want to start learning how to mix with Audio tracks. 
 
I had a mental block on how this was supposed to work.  Previously I had an external 32 channel mixer and I was routing all of the MIDI track output back into the sound cards input from the mixer onto an audio track.  I now do now have the mixer so I was confused as to how to convert the midi tracks to audio within Sonar. 
 
I appreciate everyone here helping me past this. 
 
Thanks again to all. 

Since the question has been answered, I will go on a tangent..... Has Sonar X3 Power been released?  I noticed you mentioned that and assumed it was typo, but figured I would ask.

John
There are NO such things as stupid questions

++

CakeAlexS
One of these days we might even get the book in Kindle format in the UK.  Then again fairy's do exist.

fairy's what?

Thanks

is she dead now, I can't think of her name, nannette Newman?

You are not recording audio when you lay down the MIDI.  In the case of an external synth, the MIDI triggers the keyboard or module to play the sound which then comes back into your audio interface as audio to be recorded.  In the case of a soft synth, it is similar, except the MIDI is triggering the software in your computer to generate the sound on the fly.
 
In either case, you can make a CD or MP3 without recording the audio, freezing, or bouncing, if you check the option to Include Live Input when you are exporting the audio.  I like to record all the audio at some point, though, to relieve CPU strain but mainly to ensure I still have the music if the hardware or software synth breaks.
 

> is she dead now, I can't think of her name, nannette Newman?
 
Oh she is very alive !

So - just another bit of info.  If you have a number of midi tracks that are assigned to VST Instruments, it can be a bit of a pain to bounce or freeze each to get the audio and if you decide to change anything after that process, you will have to go back to the original midi/vst, make your changes, then go through the process of bouncing/freezing again. 
 
If your system is able to keep up with all of them running at once, you can get your mix right and then just do an Export audio, making sure to select that you want a stereo output (what you hear) and selecting all of the tracks you want to have in the mix (probably all of them).  This effectively does the same thing without the interim step of having to bounce or freeze each track independently.  There are plenty of reasons to bounce or freeze, but if all you are trying to do is get a stereo audio wav that you can burn to disk/mp3 and you like the way it all sounds within Sonar, then just export the mix and you should have the result you are wanting.
 
Hope that helps.

Thanks Blades and Bristol.  Bristol, I think you meant "if/when you decid to do an export to CD"  I get what you mean.  This is all very useful information that I didn't find anywhere all in one place.   
 
Thanks again. 

Shambler
For hassle free export, create a master bus if it doesn't already exist.
 
Route every track to a bus and every bus to the master.
 
When you export, only export 'buses' and select just the master...works every time.

Its the way I do it.