aaaand just a note on why the Comping mode automatically splits takes like that. It's an integral part of the Comping workflow. Lets say I did a full take of a whole song then did a bunch of overdubs in various points. By having the auto splits there I can automatically audition/promote between the original and the overdubs without having to manual create the splits or messing around with the mute tool, etc. The auto splits mean nothing with a clip (they don't affect the audio or do anything unless you mess with them) so you can just ignore them. They are however handy to have there when you DO want to do something. It just gets annoying when things get auto promoted that you don't want like say I let Sonar record for a few seconds after an overdub that silence will be promoted along with the new take and mute the original part. In that case I'd just move the split (using the correct hotspot which takes some getting used to because there are a TON of different hotspots that do different things) to where it should be.
 
I always used to do my fades/x-fades manually and meticulously because I never liked the way any DAW did that stuff automatically but for some reason the way X3 handles the auot x-fades in comping mode ALWAYS sounds right. It's really weird but man does it save me a ton of time. lol
 
Cheers.
 

Let's do Melodyne first.
 

rinie.huigen@kpnmail.nl
3) Selecting a part of a wavefrom and applying region fx for Melodyne works just fine. A few times I was experimenting and wanted to remove the region fx to start fresh all over again. Removing region fx however leaves a gap in the clip and does not restore the original material as i would expect. You need to do manual work to get that right again. Totally unlogical. Am I doing something wrong here?

 
I can't reproduce the issue of getting a gap, so I need some more information. If I select part of a waveform and select region FX, Melodyne splits the clip at that region and opens. If I then remove the region FX and play through the clip, there is no visual or audible gap, even if I split in the middle of a word. The same is true if I bypass Melodyne. Can you provide the steps needed to create a gap?
 

Also when you select an entire clip and create a region fx it will first bounce the entire clip and disconnect the real Original clip. If you remove the region fx the Original clip stays disconnected and the bounced version is used. I would expect the Original clip to remain as the leading one.

 
The bounced clip should be the same as what it was originally, because it is a digital copy. However, a fine point which you have discovered is that creating a region FX and applying Melodyne are two different operations. This is because a region FX can also be used for other processes, like V-Vocal (and may have other applications in the future). If you want to return to the original clip, instead of removing Melodyne (which still leaves you with the region FX you created), use "Undo" to undo the creation of the region FX. This will return the clip to its state prior to creating the region FX. Note that you don't have to remove Melodyne first if you use Undo.
 

When you clean up your audio files the Original clip will be deleted! This does not feel right to me. Is then the bounced version 100% identical to the Original clip. Does anyone know?

 
If you use undo, the clip will be the original clip. However if you remove Melodyne the clip should be the same because it is a copy of the original clip. So, when you process a clip with Melodyne, the data in the original clip is still intact if you remove the region FX and if you undo, the original clip will return.
 
If you make the change permanent by bouncing the clip to itself (which also removes the region FX), then the original clip is replaced by the processed version. However note that the original clip still lives on your hard drive, so you can use "undo" repeatedly to return to the original clip.
 
If you don't want to commit to a processed clip you have two options:
 
1) Leave Melodyne active on a clip and don't bounce to itself, as bouncing will process the clip and the processed version will replace the original clip.
2) Copy the original clip as a safety/backup.
 
For (2), you can clone a Track as Beepster suggests but I prefer using Take Lanes. Turn on Take Lanes and create a new Take Lane. Ctrl+shift+drag the clip into the new Take Lane. Now you have a copy. Mute the new Take Lane so you don't hear the clip. This "safety" version "lives" with the original track so it's easy to find, and you can turn off Take Lanes to see just a single track. There is one caution: Be careful not to apply region FX to the copy if its Take Lane is muted. As you noted, this will create a bounce, so the mute will be incorporated into the bounce.

Now let's look at comping. I need to do some work so will deal with comping later. But let me offer a few general pieces of advice about comping and you may find you won't need any extra assistance.
 

• Sonar's comping is totally awesome but the tradeoff is there's a learning curve. No other program does comping the same way, so what you've learned in the past about comping won't help you much and can actually be a problem. When I tried to use comping in X3 for the first time, I just assumed it would work similarly to how it worked in X2. The result was crashes and confusion.
• Click on Help > What's New > Take lane and comping enhancements and go through the entire section, then practice doing the speed comping. Speed comping is what makes Sonar's approach so valuable, and you will see why it does the automatic splits across all takes.
• Be aware that the Smart Tool has many different functions when comping. For example what it will do can change if it's located in the top half of the clip or the lower half. It can also do some editing functions, which is convenient when you become an expert but can be confusing at first. When comping, I recommend using the Smart Tool when you want to do comping-oriented functions and the Edit Tool when you want to do editing like change clip length, add fades to takes, etc.
• Two clips cannot overlap in the same take. This is a limitation but a structural part of Sonar's comping and most of the time, it won't matter because you can shift the split point between clips very easily to find the perfect split. However if a crossfade between clips is necessary, you have two options. One is to create a new Take Lane, move one of the clips into it, and create a crossfade manually by fading out one clip while the other fades in. The other is to use the Process > Apply Effect > Crossfade function, but this is more advanced and I recommend getting into it only after you've become more familiar with Sonar.
• At first, comping will seem unintuitive. But after you've done it a few times, it will make sense. For me, comping is the single biggest improvement in X3 compared to earlier versions (and the way other DAWs handle comping). It has saved me hours of work.

 
You'll probably have some remaining questions, but this should help answer some of the ones you already have.

rinie.huigen@kpnmail.nl
For the SI-Bass Guitar...I am only talking about playback here and not about recording.
 
What I actually meant and did do was examine the Original wave files that are used by the Virtual Instrument. These are located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Studio Instruments\SI-Bass Guitar\Multisamples\Bass Samples. When opening the G&L Fingered files or the Picked mute files in a wave editor it clearly shows that some of the samples do not start to realy sound before 50 of 80 ms. This varies from sample to sample. Some will start at 10 or 20 ms and others much later. I think this was done to preserve some real life feel by adding the light plectrum sounds that come before the actual tone. For me it did not feel tight so I edited all the wave files to make it tight with all the samples starting at about 10 to 15 ms. :-)... This for sure was an improvement. Sounds perfect to me now.

This is a GREAT tip!! Thank you.
 

Hi Craig,
 
Wow... what a clearly explained. You are absolutely good at that :-) Thanks very much. I've got enough hints and things to play around with for now and no further questions. I'll get back to the forum if I have more questions. These were the most important things that needed answering.
 
Thanks very very much.
 
 

Thanks for the tip on SI-Bass.
 
I normally use Kontakt for bass sounds, but was planning on checking out some of the SI sounds.  I will at least have an idea ahead of time as to what to expect.  :)
 
Bob Bone
 

rinie.huigen@kpnmail.nl
Hi Craig,
 
Wow... what a clearly explained. You are absolutely good at that :-) Thanks very much. I've got enough hints and things to play around with for now and no further questions. I'll get back to the forum if I have more questions. These were the most important things that needed answering.
 
Thanks very very much.

Glad to be of help. As to your various MIDI issues, we can deal with those if they come up again but for now, choose Edit > Preferences > MIDI > Playback and Recording and under Playback, increase the length of the millisecond buffers to 500 ms if it isn't already set to this value. If that doesn't solve your problem, try 750 but bear in mind the longer the buffer, the longer it will take to begin playback from a stopped transport.