1: Select or create an audio track.
2: Choose your input channel for that track.
3: Connect your instrument or microphone to the interface.
4: Arm the track in Sonar.
5: Play something and watch the meter on the armed track.
6: Set the desired level using the interface control panel or gain adjustment on the interface.
7: Hit record on the transport bar in Sonar and record away.
8: Enjoy the fame and fortune from your newly recorded hit.

Mike   

John


For recording in Sonar.

1, Set all faders in Sonar to unity gain.  This also means the trim controls. Unity gain is the 0 position and is not 0 dB.  This can be quickly done by double clicking on any fader.

2, Arm the track/s.

3, Play your instrument. Watch the meters. They should be set to peak. If the meters go into the red lower the input volume on the your audio interface or amp or whatever has control over volume. Do not change the faders in Sonar.

4, When all is set as above hit the record button. Record your audio.

This above is for a 24 bit recording.
 
 
Of course!!!!
 
 I was just coming back to here to say - I sat and thought about what I was doing.  The Monitor mixer is just for that - mixing the monitor outout - Dufus I am!

edentowers


No doubt the V-Studio does what the OP wants in some way or another, but I'm pretty certain it won't be using any Sonar Code to do that.

Phil

Yes and no. SONAR itself can't do it, but you can control the V-Studio levels by opening the Control Panel, which can be accessed via the SONAR Tools menu.

Even better, the input levels can be controlled directly from the Control Surface. The system is extremely flexible.

http://garrigus.com/?VStudio700

Scott

--
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I was just coming back to here to say - I sat and thought about what I was doing. The Monitor mixer is just for that - mixing the monitor outout - Dufus I am!

No no no. You are not. This has bitten more people then anyone will care to admit.  As a matter of fact this has been a recent correction in another thread.  Even long time users have been mistaken on this.  BTW its in the manual. You know what that means? They didn't read about how to record using Sonar. To me that is the real bone head thing.

A new user has a lot to learn and this is just one more thing that is among a huge pile of things that has to be learned. 

I've just had a play with my UA-101's control panel. It IS pretty lame. But it does seem like all that it is capable of doing is providing a monitor mix for the UA-101's inputs and outputs. There is no way to adjust the level of the incoming signal, you just get that three colour LED thingy.

John is absolutely correct in insisting that Sonar is not used to adjust the recording levels. That has to be done on the way in. On the UA-101 the only way you can do that is with the level trims on each side of input 1 and 2 on the front panel. The rest require an outboard device like a mixer, or a DI output from an amp that can be adjusted at source.

I have a mixer with each of its 8 busses hard wired to the UA-101's inputs so level control is easy for me.

Phil

John

I was just coming back to here to say - I sat and thought about what I was doing. The Monitor mixer is just for that - mixing the monitor outout - Dufus I am!

No no no. You are not. This has bitten more people then anyone will care to admit.  As a matter of fact this has been a recent correction in another thread.  Even long time users have been mistaken on this.  BTW its in the manual. You know what that means? They didn't read about how to record using Sonar. To me that is the real bone head thing.

A new user has a lot to learn and this is just one more thing that is among a huge pile of things that has to be learned. 

Well yes I do know what it means, and in fairness, I was doing things correctly, reading this thread made me start to doubt myself, having re-read the UA-101 manual was when I realised my input monitoring mistake.  All the talk of setting the input levels in the mixer software suddenly made me doubt myself.  Still at least this has all confirmed that I need not be concerned with what I am doing.......for now ;-)

I've just moved to a new computer running Win7.  Bought an Alesis IO|2 since my old fireware interface wasn't supported any more.  And had to upgrade to SONAR X1 Producer.

I don't remember having any issue before with input levels but they're my source of pain today.

I'm using the IO|2 in MME driver mode as recommended by Cakewalk.  When I set the input level appropriately on the IO|2 so its built in meter is staying in the high green, I got horribly distorted output in SONAR so I went looking for input trim.

Everytually right clicked on the volume control icon, selected Recording Devices --> IO|2 --> Levels and had to set it to about 1 to get a low distortion input.  But I'm getting a background high pitched sound that's gating with the level of the input which makes me think levels are drastically off and having to 1 out of 100 also makes me think I've got a gain-staging issue.

I read through this whole thread and never got a clear understanding of the digital signal path from the interface to SONAR.

Any tips on using the IO|2 and setting input levels?  The IO|2 also seems prone to drop-outs which I never had before.  CPU usage is super low on a project with just some straight audio tracks.  Just buy a better interface?

Thanks,

CAF

You don't say what you're recording - from a mic? Guitar? Keyboard?

Whatever it is, you select the correct input and adjust your gain using the control on the IO2


Have a track in Sonar with it's input routed from the Alesis. If it's a mono signal you must select one of the appropriate mono channels exposed by the Alesis.

Hit the 'R' button to arm the track and sing/play in order to get an idea of what your input level is doing. Adjust the gain on the Alesis so that you're not peaking above about -6dB. Some people recommend -9dB or even lower. You do not want to record 'hot' in a 24 bit system. (You are recording @ 24 bit yes?)

Note that adjusting either the trim or the fader in Sonar at this point does absolutely nothing to affect the level of your input signal.

These controls are for mixing only

I'm plugging a bass into the Alesis. Yes, I set the levels on the Alesis but then by the time SONAR gets it, it's super clipped square waves. Only by reducing the gain in the Win7 audio mixer to I have something SONAR can handle. I don't recall having to do that before.

P.S. Tried both instrument and line switch settings, same funny high pitched sound.  Still need Win7 input set on 1 too.