Hi
Just starting to get to grips with Sonar ;   As I record individual tracks, say guitar, bass piano etc. all is well and I keep the levels to just below the red on the console.  However once I have added lots of tracks and then finally put down the vocals I end up with a distorted song, with the total of the track in the red, but individual tracks all see ok. Any ideas what this newbie is doing wrong?
 
Richie2

Welcome to the forum.
When mixing, it's a good idea to have all your audio tracks sent to a Master bus, then that bus output to the sound card/interface. That's so you can control the summed audio and lower the volume of the Master bus if it's distorting.
How are you routing your tracks?

It's just the basic math, really. The levels are cumulative, so if the individual tracks are at max, the total is going to be over the top. What you are hearing is clipping.
Generally speaking, your individual tracks should top out around -12db.
Your master bus (you are using a master bus, right?) should be set to 0.0, and will reveal any cumulative overages.
 I see you joined quite some time ago. Which version of Sonar are you working with?
What sound card/ interface do you have?
Without knowing where you are starting from, it is difficult to offer more detailed suggestions.

Thanks for that; okay, I'm using an old version, 4.0.1 of Sonar and I havent been on the forum for ages as I did a lot of stuff in the studio over the last few years.  I actually dont like tech stuff I'm very impatient, but I know thats a bit of a Luddite attitude! So I really dont know what a master bus is! I looked in the help section but its as clear as mud. I am really looking just for a decent enough demo nothing stunning.

The Master buss / EFX buss and Metronome are inserted automatically with some templates. 
If you started fresh or opened just a MIDI file they won't be there. They exist at the very bottom of your track view window and you might have to drag it up to see. It's like a second track view window at the bottom. If they are not there, Right click on the pane and select "insert stereo buss" 
Re name it "master" 
Now point the output of the "master" to your audio interface ( normally 1/2 output) 
Now Point all your audio tracks "outputs" to the Master.  Also point the audio track of your soft synths to the master. 
 
You can do the same thing to create any buss including the metronome. 
Just create the buss. Point it's output to where you want it sent which includes, your audio interface outputs, other busses and the metronome. 
Example once you have a Master buss, you can create sub group busses. 
Point those at the Master and point your tracks to the appropriate sub buss. 
 
 

Thanks guys, very helpful, and its much better now I've tried those things. Here is the result!

Or even here;

I don't think you can post a link until you have something like 25 posts.
 
Anyway, depending on what template you start off with, if starting off with none, you may not have a Master  Bus, a normal template will make one. In my version (7) I still can not find how to add a master bus, other buses are fine.
But then  if you have a Master Bus, the output of each track goes to the Master Bus, and the Master Bus goes to the output of your audio/interface that you are using to playback the audio.
 
But if you do not have a Master Bus to begin with, all that needs to be done, is adjust the volume of each track down until the total mix (listening to it) is out of the red on the ouput meters probably up on top (the two meters - left and right there) which is how it is in my version.
 
You may have recorded each track fine and not in the red, but totally it is like what was said - cumulative so adjust the volume on each track down a certain amount until the total mix is out of the red.
 
Computers are not analog and usually over a 100% wrecks the recording. I suppose there is much better equipment in the respect if you pay thousands of dollars for it, but for home recording that is not going to be so, and going into the red overdrives the computer chips and thus the wrecking of the recording.
 

Yeah, you can't insert links yet.
It's a bit of a pain for new users, but it keeps the spam down.
Try typing it out, such as:
Soundclick(dash)artists(dash)richie2uk,etc.
We can figure it out.
As to Sonar 4, it's a bit dated, but capable, and stable on an XP machine.
Depending on which version of Sonar 4 you have(LE, Home Studio, Studio, Producer), you will have varying degrees of built-in capabilities.
It's not laid out quite the same as later versions, but the fundamentals are the same.
We'll help you where we can.
Work on the patience thing. Initially, this stuff is very challenging, but as you get your legs under you,it gets to be a lot more fun.

Spacealf 
Just insert a stereo buss and name it MASTER, that's it. Point it's outputs to your interfaces main outputs. That's all a master buss is. Right click and you can assign it as the default for all new tracks. 
 
Because a lot of my songs sometimes start life as one of my old MIDI files, they open with absolutely nothing going on. SO I had to figure out some quick ways to flesh them out into a working project with all the bells and whistles.