It would be immensely helpful to have the ability to easily change the bit depth and sampling rate of audio already recorded in a project.  Currently, I believe the only way to do this is to export each track individually as the desired bit rate and sample rate, then import each of those files, track-by-track into a new project set to the desired format.  This seems like a needlessly difficult procedure for what should be a very simple one.

Nah.
 
If I ever really needed to do this, I'd copy the audio folder for the project then use WaveShop to alter the files to the sample rate and bit depth of my preference. Once all the files in the folder have been altered, Sonar will assume the project is actually at that sample rate and bit depth and that's what it will use.

See this thread for lots of other choices of similar free programs...
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Problem-Importing-Wav-Files-m3079834.aspx
 
http://waveshop.sourceforge.net/
 

But see... that's the point.  One shouldn't need to essentially "trick" Sonar into changing the project's sampling rate.  The fact that you have to use a third-party utility and dig into the audio folder for the project just speaks to a hole in the feature set.  This should be transparent -- the user shouldn't have to worry about HOW it is done, or resort to outside applications to make it happen.  As someone else said about another feature, "it should just work."
 
BTW, thank you for those links... very helpful.

Actually, I think it's a good thing that it's hard to change sample rate / bit depth from within Sonar, because there is nothing good to be gained by doing it.
 
Whatever reason you can come up with for needing to make those changes, nothing changes the basic fact that reducing the bit depth or sample rate deletes information, while increasing either just adds noise.

Karyn,
 
I think it underestimates the user base to say it's a good thing to leave features out of the product. Clearly, there is a valid use case. You record 100 tracks at 96 and start having trouble bouncing due to IO constraints. You just want to copy the whole thing and flip it to 44.1 and keep working. There could be a solution from within Sonar for this.
 
Now, from my perspective, since I rarely need this and can easily do it myself (rarely is an understatement), I don't really want our precious developers working on this. But, that said, if I could have the moon, why not? It could be added to the 'some day when we're really really bored' list of features that might be nice.
 
Respect.

+1 for the built-in sample rate conversion and why not also for the bit depth conversion, too.
 
Scenario: project was started as 44.1 but then it's moved to client who uses Fractal Audio Axe FX and wants to record it in digital domain. However, it's locked in 48k.  New menuitem "Project | Change Sample Rate..." would save the day.