hi everyone, I need some help with this. ok, this is what I've got. 2 guitar tracks going to a bus with compression, 2 vocal tracks going to a bus with compression, one bass track, EZDrummer 8 tracks going to a bus with effects on each drum then in the bus I have Pro Channel with a pre set. my question is this, I want to mix down to a MP3. do I select ALL the tracks or just select JUST the bus's?? i'm sorry for being dense.  

 
Hi Joey
 
First off, make sure that all your instrument/vocal busses (and any tracks that aren't being sent to a bus) are sent to a single 'master' bus; this bus should be set as the only bus (or track) outputting to your soundcard.
 
Next, click on an empty spot in the Track View and hit Ctrl+A to select everything in your project.
 
In the File > Export > Audio options window, select mp3 as the File Type, and Entire Mix from the Source Category options.
 
If you select Busses as the Source Category, SONAR will create a separate audio file from the output of each and every bus. Which is not what you're after by the sound of it.
 
 
 
 

Steve is correct.  What I personally do:
 
1.  Mute any tracks I don't want in the mix
2.  Got to Edit | Select | All
3.  Then I put the cursor where I want the mix to start (to get rid of blank measures) and go to Edit | Select | From = Now.  (Similar procedure for the end if you have blank measures on the end.)
4.  Then in Export, I check Include Live Input so everything I hear will go to the mix.

Yup - the above posts nail it.
 
Bob Bone
 

thank you all very much. I really appreciate your help. 

Make sure you click in the Tracks pane before Edit |Select| All.  If you're in the buses pane when you go to export Audio you'll get a No Audio Selected error.  (Yes, that's the voice of experience from doing that repeatedly.)

I usually ensure that i have at least one measure of silence before the song begins because sonar tends to have some weird audio sound placed in the beginning of the final mixdown. Then i import the mixdown into soundforge and delete the one measure. If your sonar doesn't have the issue mine does then use Konradh's steps.

What you're talking about is the data held in the buffers which hasn't been purged properly, usually by not letting a project play/export for it's entire length - including reverb/delay tails and suchlike which might extend for several seconds beyond the notional 'end-point'
 
You can overcome this by ensuring that the exported range continues until you reach a point of absolute digital silence
I like to extend a clip - any clip - by slip editing it to the right so that when I 'select all' there is NOTHING left in the buffers.
 
There is also a setting in Preferences which lets you toggle on/off what to do with effects tails.

Bristol_Jonesey
What you're talking about is the data held in the buffers which hasn't been purged properly, usually by not letting a project play/export for it's entire length - including reverb/delay tails and suchlike which might extend for several seconds beyond the notional 'end-point'
 
You can overcome this by ensuring that the exported range continues until you reach a point of absolute digital silence
I like to extend a clip - any clip - by slip editing it to the right so that when I 'select all' there is NOTHING left in the buffers.
 
There is also a setting in Preferences which lets you toggle on/off what to do with effects tails.

+1 to this
 
The usual tell-tale sign is a song that starts with a cymbal crash fading out.

My habit is to have 2 measures for count in on every project.
 
To export, I double click on an audio track and it changes color to dark.... double click again and it selects all the tracks.
 
Now in the export window, I choose WHAT YOU HEAR as the preset. Some of the cake DAW's no longer have this so selecting all the tracks gets the same thing.
 
Export to a WAVE file. Then use a converter like Wavepad or Audacity to convert it to a high quality MP3. The converter is also an editor (in the case of Wavepad) so it's in the editor where I trim the starting count in clicks and the ending silence.