I'm thinking about getting Sonar X2 and let me put it out there that I am a complete newbie.  I've been reading the Sonar X1 Reference Guide to try to prepare me for my first studio project.  Now here's what I planned to do:  All of my instruments are going to be virtual instruments.  I was planning on recording everything to individual tracks and then using alloy 2 to mix down all of the single tracks.  

Now here's my question, so I would need to set up a bus if I wanted a couple of tracks to share one effect as a reverb? Then a send is how the guitar track gets to the bus correct?  

Also, like I said I was planning on using Alloy 2 and I know there are many different components (desser etc.) to alloy 2.  So if I'm using a different component on an individual track I need to directly insert an effect on that track correct?  

Yes and Yes.

I don't think your need for Alloy is going to be as needy as you may think. When dealing with synths whether samplers or more analog you should find the sounds not needing as much processing as one does with recorded audio from mics.

When recording audio you also pick up room acoustics and vairous noises plus the sound of the mics used. With "in the box" music you have a lot of control and no unwanted extras.

EQ and perhaps some light compression will be all that is needed most often. If you have X1 Producer you get all that and a lot more.

I use Ozone which is Alloy's big brother and I don't use it on every track nor use all its modules. In fact I am using it less now with PC than I use to.

I guess what I am saying is don't be to quick in throwing processing at your project until you have a handle on just what it is missing.

In general you are correct about sends and buses.  You can think of a send as a "tap" off the channel to "send" a varying amount of the track's signal out somewhere else.  A good example is your the reverb one, where you can mix several channels into one reverb on a bus while the dry signal continues on a straight path to your master output.  Then you can feed your reverbed portions to the master bus separately.  Another, probably better example is using a send to make a submix for headphones during recording.  The drums get submixed, as well as the bass and guitar so your talent can hear to play.  Each send on the channels allows you to make a mix for the talent to hear the other band members without changing the channel's output - ie. what you are recording to disk.  And as you add sends, you can make differnet outputs (if you have the hardware) so the drummer hears more bass, the bass player can hear more snare and the singer can hear reverb on their vocals which doesn't get recorded.

Buses get used differently, for the most part.  A good example is the drum bus.  By assigning all the drum channels to go to the "drum" bus you can control the overall volume of the drums w/ one fader (the drum bus fader) w/o messing with all your drum fader volumes.  You can also put a reverb on the drum bus channel to meld the drums together (if you recorded the drum dry).  For guitars, you can put a bus-style compressor on the bus track.  If you set everything up right (the guitar volumes and the comp settings) the loudest guitar will poke out of the guitar bus volume while the others seem to duck below and, again, meld together.  You have heard that on a thousand albums, or CDs if you're a whippersnapper.  Backing vocals are another case where bus reverb works really well.  The drum, gutiar and backing vocals buses are then all sent to the master bus.

As to your last question - yes, almost every channel has EQ and compression.  You don't need to use them on every track, tho.  And evern the cheapest Sonar version has eq and compression available on each channel to affect every recorded track.  You don't need Alloy or any 3rd party buy.  If anything, I'd buy Sonar Pro which comes w/ the Prochannel (PC) for tracks and buses.  Some good comps, very good EQ, easy to use (it comes up as part of the Inspector which has just about every setting for one channel available at a glance), some good mastering tools and enough other goodies you wont' be having to take stabs in the dark w/ your money about what is useful.  You can figure that out for yourself w/ the Cakewalk stuff and then make more informed choices for 3rd party stuff w/o going to a forum and asking others' opinion.  And if you are doing your music w/ softsynths it has a bunch of those and others (like Rapture and Z3TA 2) that come cheaper since you will be part of the Cakewalk family.

Have fun.

@

I remember reading in another thread that the full version of Rapture comes with Sonar X2 producer. I think the lite version is still in the studio version

Alloy 2 is a great choice for individual track fx and processing at the recording and mix stage of your production. I use it that way then Ozone 5 Adv for mastering once the mix is done.
Alloy 2 has a lot lower CPU hit than Ozone and has been designed specifically for the way you want to use it.

When it comes to bussing sometimes having a single fader to control the level of a group of instruments can be enough reason to create a send to bus configuration. Example you may have a brass section of different instruments and each may have a different fx or fx level but by sending all of them to a bus you can raise and lower the level of all the brass with one fader. Of course there are other ways by using quick groups and the like to achieve similar results but you've got to start somewhere when you're starting out. All the best

Thanks everyone for your quick and detailed responses!  It's been a while since I asked a question on this forum but I see the community has grown and is full of very helpful information!