Thanks for the advice, guys. Funnily enough I got Audacity to record the sound very easily without any rewiring, but I'm not too worried specifically about that - I just really wanted to find some very basic level explanation on the Sonar's routing or "plumbing".
 
At my basic level I find Sonar a pleasure to use, (I tried Cubase and we are from different planets) the one area that I find a confusing and a bit less intuitive in Sonar is the input/output/master/sound card ins and outs selection. That stuff in the Inspector. I suppose I'm just looking for some hand-holding diagrams and a gentle voice telling me its actually quite straightforward and this is what you are trying to achieve and here's how to do it.  :)
 
 

An example:
 
(Track Folder - Vocals)
Track 01: Audio track.  Input = 1st interface input - guitar plugged in,  Output = Master.
Track 02: Audio track, Input = 2nd interface input - mic plugged in, Output = Lead Vocal bus.
Track 03: Audio track, Input = 3rd interface input - mic plugged in, Output = Backing Vocals bus.
Track 04: Audio track, Input = 4th interface input - mic plugged in, Output = Backing Vocals bus.
 
(Track Folder - Brass)
Track 05: Audio track, input = Dim Pro stereo output (Trumpet patch), Output = Brass bus
Track 06: Audio track, input = Dim Pro stereo output (Coronet patch), Output = Brass bus
Track 07: Audio track, input = Dim Pro stereo output (Trombone patch), Output = Brass bus
Track 08: Audio track, input = Dim Pro stereo output (French Horn patch), Output = Brass bus
Track 09: Midi track, input = None, Output = 1st Dim Pro instance
Track 10: Midi track, input = None, Output = 2nd Dim Pro instance
Track 11: Midi track, input = None, Output = 3rd Dim Pro instance
Track 12: Midi track, input = None, Output = 4th Dim Pro instance
Track 09: Midi track, input = None, Output = 1st Dim Pro instance
 
For Buses:
 
Lead Vocal bus - Feeds Vocals bus
Backing Vocals bus - Feeds Vocals bus
Vocals Bus - Feeds Master bus
Brass bus - Feeds Master bus
Master Bus - outputs to interface
 
 
The above is purely a made up example of routing choices - you could put things like reverb on the Brass bus, where you might try to simulate the horn section standing a bit to the left and back a ways from the vocalists, etc.  by putting the reverb on the Brass bus, rather than on each of the brass instrument tracks, you save on how much work you are making your computer do, and it is likely that the brass would sound best with a common reverb - since they are likely going to sit in the same place in the mix.
 
You will learn as you go, and it takes reading, watching, trying, and most of all - listening.
 
In the above example, I just wanted to show having different groups of tracks routed differently, so don't read too much into the choices.  :)
 
The one thing you do NOT want to do is to route audio tracks directly to your interface - use one or more buses.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
 
You will learn as you go, and it takes reading, watching, trying, and most of all - listening.

I appreciate that, thanks for your trouble.
 
Fiddling around just now with Sonar, and I was unable to display the on board Realtek sound in Preferences. I appreciate I would not normally want to use it, but now I'm confused as to why it is no longer visible within Sonar.
 
Why is it not visible?
 

If you have your driver mode set to ASIO, it will not show up, because it will only display drivers that support ASIO.
 
If you really want to point to your on-board sound in Sonar (which I don't recommend), then you either have to remove the checks for your audio interface and then change driver mode to WDM, or you have to first change the driver mode to WDM - it has been soooo long since I have specified anything but ASIO I just don't remember which way you do it.  But one of those two ways should do it (although again I don't recommend it).
 
Sorry my brain got as old as the rest of me, 
 
I normally have Sonar and other high-end music applications the only things that access ASIO and the audio interface, and I have my Windows default audio device set to the on-board sound.
 
That way, I can have the best of both worlds.  I don't ever have conflicts between applications trying to get at the ASIO drivers of the audio interface, and I can play songs in Windows Media Player or YouTube at the same time I am working in Sonar.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
 
I normally have Sonar and other high-end music applications the only things that access ASIO and the audio interface, and I have my Windows default audio device set to the on-board sound.
 
That way, I can have the best of both worlds.  I don't ever have conflicts between applications trying to get at the ASIO drivers of the audio interface,

Yes, thanks again, that's what I've been doing too. Its just that in my recent attempt to record sound from a website, Audacity was using the  Audiophile card as input and was monitoring it with the onboard sound (I think) ...this was with me choosing the Audiophile in Windows as the default device I believe. Anyway it all worked, and I was quite impressed. My pathetic fiddlings with the fantastic Sonar's ins and outs were unsuccessful, although I could see the sound on the meters I couldn't record it. I assume this is me being "inexperienced" in these matters.  :)
 
If you'll forgive me, on a side issue, if anybody out there likes the guitarist Peter Green, even as a huge fan, I was quite unaware of how good his life stuff with John Mayall was, before he formed Fleetwood Mac in 1967. He had to replace Clapton, who at the time was "god" and  for my money, Peter showed he was up to the task. I mean, wow.
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqptc-vxXLc
 
 
 

You'll probably find this article very helpful. Actually there's a lot of useful info in the Cakewalk blog, it's just hard to find.

Thanks for the link to the "Know Your Signal Flow in SONAR" Blog entry. It covers missing parts in the signal flow diagram.

Using templates can ease the burden on how to route various signals. I found this a great help.