Dear Anyone. OK, stupid noob question. Yes, it's obviously answered in the manual - but I'm too much of a noob to know where to look for the answer - and believe me I have tried. You've got your audio in an audio track. You've ALT-2ed to bring up the Multidock channel strip for the track. You've chosen an effect from the Audio Effects and dragged it into the little black square. You can now see its name in the little black square. What do you then click on in order to open it so you can actually edit/use it? I've tried double-clicking on the name in the little black window - nothing happened. Right-clicking, nothing happened. Read the manual again and it just says 'once the effect has been opened...' it doesn't tell you how to actually open it anywhere that I can find! Please, bear with a noob and tell me how to open it once you've dragged it into place. Yours respectfully Chris.

When you drag an effect in from the browser is should automatically pop up. It should also pop up from double clicking on the effect in the FX bin. It has probably appeared, but hiding behind another window somewhere. Get looking cause it should be there!! They can be docked in the Multidock too under a tab, so make sure it's not hiding there. Try adding some different effects and you'll get some others to pop up..

That splains it purdy good.  

It should come up and start working on a default.  For example, the Studioverb 2 comes in to my bins and has way to much verb..... about a 50% rate. 

You can also click on the default box ... actually the down arrow..... and a drop down list of existing presets will open. So once you insert the FX and dial it in the way you like it, you can save it as a new preset.... say... "Main Vocal Verb Shine" ... so the next time, you can load that preset. 

...and when you've found the user interface, you need to switch on the tracks input echo in order to hear the FX at work.

Hmmmm.... sounds to me like you have a problem actually. When double clicking the name in the FXbin it should pop to the front no mather where it is hidden. The fact that you don't even get anything when right clicking it makes me wonder if something is not happening behind the curtains. 

Does this happen to all VST's or just the one? If just the one, try re-install it. Have you tried to do a new VST scan? Sonar might be doing this when you launch the program but you never know;) If this happens to all VST's on your system, and scaning the VST's doesn't work, perhas you should try to just uninstall and reinstall Sonar again. 

You've chosen an effect from the Audio Effects and dragged it into the little black square

I assume you're dragging them from the Browser into the Fx Bin?


Try it a different way, rule out any Browser problems.


Right click in the Fx Bin and select Audio Fx

Dear Everyone. Thank you all very much for your great ideas, all of which have proven most helpful. I discovered what my main problem was - and I don't know if it's a bug, a quirk or what. I've only had Sonar a little while. When I set it to scan my hard drive for usable plug-ins - as in ones Sonar could use - somehow, I don't know how, it had picked up on some plug-in names, but not the plug-ins themselves. So I was dragging names in from its plug-in browser, but the names weren't attached to anything (don't ask me how.) When I did a re-scan, suddenly all the names BECAME attached to reality and all the effects popped up like they were supposed to! Why did this happen? No idea. Thanks again for all your help - things seem to be working as they should for now! But I'll know where to come the next time Sonar springs a leak. Yours respectfully Chris.