Using MP3's in Sonar X1

I'm new to Sonar, looking to switch to a more full-range DAW, so I'm trying the trial at the moment. I'll be primarily recording rap music, and occasionally the instrumentals I'll be using will be in MP3. It's easy enough to put them into Sonar and map the tempo, but I'm wondering, is there any way to have Sonar NOT create a WAV of the track as well? I try to keep most my projects backed up via cloud and space is important, so if all I have is an MP3, I'd rather just save the space and keep it that way.

I think the OP may be asking for the switch that avoids Sonar re-copying any sample files to the project directory (converting to wavs as it goes).  I think the answer is yes to that question, but I forget exactly where that option is - it'll be in the Preferences section somewhere.

btw - welcome to the forums Zero.  Good bunch of people here who will make your journey to Sonar much easier!

@CJ Thanks for the info, though it's mostly things I knew. The only thing I'm going to mix in MP3 are the handful of instrumentals that I bought from a friend that he only still had in MP3, so no choice. My question was like Wood said, trying to disable the auto-copy, having a redundant 40MB wav is a waste of space. I've gone through the options and haven't found a way yet to change this option. If anyone does please let me know. And thanks for the welcome, Wood.

ZeroContrast


I'm new to Sonar, looking to switch to a more full-range DAW, so I'm trying the trial at the moment. I'll be primarily recording rap music, and occasionally the instrumentals I'll be using will be in MP3. It's easy enough to put them into Sonar and map the tempo, but I'm wondering, is there any way to have Sonar NOT create a WAV of the track as well? I try to keep most my projects backed up via cloud and space is important, so if all I have is an MP3, I'd rather just save the space and keep it that way.

Welcome to Sonar and to the forum.  Is there any way you can pick up either an additional internal hard drive or an external one?  You can get secondary storage dirt cheap these days, and that would eliminate your space problems for both current projects and backups.  A 1 Terabyte internal drive costs about $85, and a 2 Terabyte drive costs $99, from www.microcenter.com, and there are numerous other sites selling them that cheap, as well.  If you picked up an external drive, a 500 GB drive runs about $50-$60, and a 1 TB drive runs about $99.


Bob Bone

MP3's are used for collaboration and they work fine.

You send an mp3 with your mix sans guitar(or whatever) then they record the guitar part and send you the wav of the guitar and you add it to the mix.

Wma's work better though, when you import an mp3 you need to trim the space off the front or it will cause timing problems, wma's you can just drop in.

I think what the OP is after is simply to be able to drop an MP3 file into Sonar and that it remains as an MP3. 
The problem is this would only  be possible if Sonar could be set to work in the MP3 format entirely. In other words, the vocals would now be recorded as an MP3 track. 
 Because it works in the WAVE 32 bit format it HAS to convert the MP3 into that format to function. You cannot use multiple formats within a project. 

As there is zero quality gain in converting an MP3 into a WAVE it would make perfect sense to just keep the original format, unfortunately as far as I know this is not possible with Sonar. Correct me if wrong but I have never seen an option to record audio in MP3 format. 

BUT there might be other software that does. Audacity?  

@Wood - just found 'Always Copy Imported Audio Files' before I read the recent posts. And after some pretty extensive experimenting I've found out a few things:
 
@Cactus - from what I can tell, you're right in that Sonar HAS to have a file in WAV, however it doesn't simply work in 32 bit format, it depends on what render/import settings you choose. And actually even if I told it to import audio files and 32bit AND render 32bit, it still had to make a new copy of it for some reason as well, whereas with 16bit WAV's could be dropped directly in without creating a copy at all (if I unchecked 'Always Copy Imported Audio Files'). So, unless something is strange about my previous 32bit recordings, Sonar seems to prefer, or at least be less picky with 16bit WAV's. The only time it had to make a copy of a 16bit WAV was when I set 'Import' at 32bit.
 
Also @Cactus, it does sound like you're the one that understood best what I was aiming for after all, haha. I do find it funny that a high end program like Sonar can't handle different file formats and bit depths simultaneously while Acid Pro (what I've mostly used previously, and seems less advanced) can. Which speaking of Sony programs:
 
@Musichoo - I usually use Sony's Sound Forge to save my files as MP3. It gives you a chance to do some final touch-ups before you save as well. And there's lots of bit rates and options to chose.