If you really honestly think you're on to a bug, phone support and send them your files and work through it with them. They've helped me several times.

John - where is this 'mute overlaps' option? I've checked the Help file and cannot find it. I have the 'Mute Previous Tracks' box checked, which should (according to the Help file) have had the effect I was expecting: -
"Mute Previous Takes. Uncheck this option in Sound on Sound (Blend) mode if you want to hear previous takes during Auto Punch."
 
The obvious inference is that the opposite is also true, i.e. you won't hear previous takes during Auto Punch if the box is checked, which is what I wanted. Nowhere does it say that it will turn previous takes into silent, ghost waveforms that cannot be unmuted by toggling the layer's mute button or using the K key on the affected clip.
 
gswitz - good advice; I may well do that.
 
* * * STOP PRESS * * *
 
Eureka! SOLVED!!! By Googling "sonar x1 mute overlaps" in an attempt to find the feature John mentioned, I found the following thread: -
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Layers-Mute-Previous-Takes-is-quotGhostingquot-Waveform-m2417249.aspx
 
This guy had the exact same problem! By reading the thread, I have become aware of the Mute Tool, which I'd never heard of or had a need for up to now. (In case anyone else reading is similarly ignorant, you access it as follows: click on the Erase button in the toolbar's Tools module, so that it turns blue; press F10 to toggle between the default eraser symbol and a capital M - the tool is now in 'mute' mode'; click-and-drag the mouse pointer over any ghost clip, and voilà - the solid waveform is restored and the clip is audible!)
 
As a result, I've been able to use it to unmute all the ghost clips (even though, as the other thread confirms, there was no good or obvious reason for them to have been muted in the first place!)
 
Sincere thanks to all who contributed, especially John/jatoth - it's important, at times like these when you're utterly baffled and tearing out your hair, to feel that someone else gives a crap.

We totally care, Patrowles.
 
I'm sorry you got stuck. I'm glad you're unstuck.
 
I don't think I actually grogged your issue before you posted the solution. We all work differently. If you use the fast comping stuff in X3, this muting and unmuting happens so fast and is so integral to the workflow, it's hard to remember what the workflow was like in X1.
 
Check this out...
http://blog.cakewalk.com/comping-the-perfect-take/
 
Watching the video at the foot of the page and reading the blog may help you see what Cakewalk had in mind when they were setting things up in X1. Now that I know what was happening to you, I don't think you were on to a bug. I think that you were bumping into a changing workflow that at the time of X1 was new and not yet complete IMHO. X3s implementation is much more fleshed out.
 
You can make it work in X1, comping together a single take from many by swiping with the mute tool, but if I remember you don't have control of cross fades that way... that sort of thing. It's not easy to compare the same section of different takes. It's not easy to comp a set of drum tracks collectively (so that when you take a measure from take 5 for the kick, you get take 5 for the same measure on all the other grouped tracks). When you see how it works in X3, what's happening in X1 might suddenly make sense.

Tom had your answer but where he says comping tool, he should have said mute tool since you are in X1.
 

The Great Tom Riggs
you could use the comping tool to hear section of each clip to see which take you like.

 
Thanks, gswitz - I did wonder in passing what "the comping tool" was, but Tom's reply was one of three that had arrived together since my last post and, in my eagerness to refute the ongoing suggestion that it was a simple matter of unmuting in the usual fashion (K key/clip mute button),  I forgot to ask.  The important thing is that the problem is solved, and I learned something new - I call that a win!

Glad you got it sorted out. My bad, I missed the part about you using X1. I was troubleshooting with X3 and couldn't figure out why "K" wasn't working. Must be the half baked "layers" vs. take lanes.

John, you were instrumental in me resolving the problem - your responses kept me looking at the issue, and resulted in me finding that other thread and coming to understand what the Mute/Comping tool was for. Thanks, mate!
 
Just out of interest, should I mark the thread as solved or answered (or whatever), or does a moderator do that? I'll see what the options are when I've posted this reply...

Please mark the thread yourself by modifying the subject line. Thanks

Sorry, I'm probably being a bit thick, but I can't work out how! From here inside the thread the title is an uneditable black banner with white text, while from the forum itself it is an uneditable hypertext link.
 
I've tried clicking various links inside the thread (e.g. Menu, User Control Panel) but I'm not getting anywhere...
 
Believe it or not (given this, and the subject of the thread itself), I make my living from IT!

patrowles
 I make my living from IT!

There's your problem (just kidding BTW, I slaved in IT for decades).
 
It looks like you may have figured it out but to post an answer should someone else need to know. Editing the first post brings up the subject line which can also be edited.