I plan on calling support tomorrow but right now they are not open.  This program makes me feel like a total noob and I have been making music for well over a decade.

also why when I try into to import one small midi file does it open like 40 tabs on the side?

Could there be 40 instruments defined in the MIDI file? While you are waiting for tech support you could spend some time looking at the some of the SONAR videos http://www.cakewalk.com/C...ONARU.aspx/Get-Started BTW, you probably should be posting in the X1/X2 forum above this one.

As SONAR < 8.5 hasn't been available for years, I assume you are talking about the SONAR X2-version??
If so, you'll get much more info on the X-forum above.

And being a silver member, you surely realise nobody can answer anything if you don't give any info about what you've done this far and what your system specs are. Basicly, AFAIK, setting up X2 for recording doesn't require any different actions from those of the previous versions of SONAR.

Ya Alex, your in the old forum, The only ones left here are us old dogs that didn't like the new tricks... I too tried the demos and found nothing that was worth the upgrade at this point. Too busy using the old version still. Someday it will have to happen I guess.