I would do what the OP outlines, but would start with Control A (Select All) then under the Edit menu I would use Select By Time. Enter in the range you want to delete, then use the OP's steps and the exact time range will get cut, regardless of whether there are events or not in any of the tracks.

Jon Bryson
I do believe that this used to work exactly as Michael has outlined.  I used to do it this way and now I can't.  Yes, there are other ways but I do find it annoying that this doesn't work.
 
Jon

Yes, I guess this is a lot like me. It just kind of bothered me that you can't do this. Thanks for understanding Jon. Now to answer some of the rest of you.
Why would I want to do this? Ok, when I am rendering a mix/premaster then of course it doesn't matter. I just choose from the beginning of the recorded area (actually I usually go one measure before to be safe) to the end of the recorded area. Then I take it into SF, trim the beginning and the end, and add a second of silent space at both extremities. 
 
Why doesn't that work this time?
I am sending rough mixes to two people--the client, and outsourcing children's vocal overdubs to another producer. The producer, in order to import the wav into his timeline needs the song to be rendered from the start of my timeline to avoid syncing problems so he gets 15 measures of blank space. (that's the way everyone does it right?) Not a problem, I do this all the time. But to keep from doing two mixes or to have to take the song into SF and trim it I want to send the same mix to the client. But of course I don't want to send him an mp3 with 15 measures of blank space in the beginning. So, I thought to just chop off the blank measures just like I used to do in years gone by.
 
And yes, to shift 62 tracks with various envelopes, multiple tempo changes, etc. there is always a possibility of something going awry.
 
So, if I put some data in those 15 tracks then I can delete space and hole?
Thank you for the suggestions.
Michael

lawajava
I would do what the OP outlines, but would start with Control A (Select All) then under the Edit menu I would use Select By Time. Enter in the range you want to delete, then use the OP's steps and the exact time range will get cut, regardless of whether there are events or not in any of the tracks.

I will give this a try if I ever need to do it again. How come the manual doesn't give you this option?
Thanks

konradh
John, Just curious why you don't select the start and end points before exporting so you don't have to bring the file back in and trim it.
 
I usually do SELECT ALL and then position my cursor at the desired starting point and go to Edit | Select | From=Now.

I answered this in my above post--this isn't what I was needing to do, but yes, this is my standard procedure when rendering a mix. Thanks for chiming in konradh.
Michael

Bristol_Jonesey
What is it you want to delete & why?
 
The answer to this should result in an appropriate solution

I wanted to delete blank measures at the beginning of the song. Sorry if this wasn't clear.
Why? Answered a few posts above

and guess what--I just tried it on another song and it worked without a hitch. Hmmm

I have had more weirdness with copy/cut/paste than any other function in Sonar.  It's just infrequent enough however that I can't say for sure that I didn't make a mistake when selecting or if it's a bug.  Nothing I can reproduce reliably for a bug report though. 

Hey, michael japan.  Yes, my answer didn't really fit your situation and I was sort off going off topic with someone else.   Happens a lot around here.
 
But on the cut/copy/paste thing, I have constant weirdness with that in Sonar.
 
 

I have zero weirdness with Cut Copy Paste in Sonar. It's precision and surgical. I highly recommend it!

But guess what? I always use Select By Time under Edit when I cut, which gives me the precise start and end points, I use Cut Special so I can grab options I need and most importantly I use Paste Special because it allows us to pinpoint where we want to paste the stuff. It never misses. You might miss if you type in something wrong, but it pastes exactly where you tell it to.

Moral of the story: use Paste Special.