Ok, I have a requirement to export my tracks as mp3s. I find out it is licensed technology. Ok, fine. SONAR HS tells me I have to "activate" mp3 encoding. Ok, fine. Go to web, look for activator. Nothing to be found. Lots of conversations about installing LAME or other external encoders and futzing around with that. I would rather pay and get it over with.
 
There is discussion about the activator being on the "Top Downloads" page. That doesn't seem to exist anymore. Ok.
 
I go to the SONAR menu: Utilities->External Encoder Configuration Utility. Click on that. Error: "Tool not found." 
 
Why is this product always so difficult?
 
Where is the magic mp3 encoder activator? Anyone know? 
 
Thanks for listening. Any help is appreciated!

There is no longer a licensing fee. There is an SHS update coming that will include mp3 export. Until that time get the mp3 unlock program here https://www.cakewalk.com/MP3
 
 

"scooks, you did it again." (yes it was a bad pun and I had to change your handle to get there) Thanks for the link. I didn't scroll down far enough in the results when I searched the Cakewalk site. 
 
The encoder dialog now comes up nicely, but after two attempts at exporting multiple tracks, the audio engine drops out and aborts the process. Maybe running out of CPU? I guess I'll try exporting fewer tracks at one time.
 
Thanks again. You're the man.

Does SHS export have a fast bounce option? If so, enable it.

Yes, it does. I'll try that.

Ok, "fast bounce" gets all my tracks exported to the end of the project. Thanks!
 
I have one dangling issue, though.
 
For various reasons, my click track is generated during live playback by the Cakewalk TTS-1 drum kit triggered by a MIDI track. Exporting that TTS-1 track in either fast bounce or regular bounce results in a silent file.
 
Is it possible to get that MIDI triggered TTS-1 audio to be exported? That may be asking too much, I don't know, but I need it to happen like the other tracks to avoid losing click track count-off time and sync with the other tracks.
 
 

Any audio created by a soft synth should export as long as the instrument/MIDI/Audio tracks are selected for export.

In the project, all I have are a MIDI track and an Instrument track. The MIDI track containing note events for the click is set to output to MIDI channel 10, where the TTS-1 drum kit lives. The TTS-1 drum kit was created by inserting an Instrument track and selecting TTS-1 as the instrument . There is no audio track per se. Is that a problem?
 
Thanks.

An instrument track is really a hybrid track containing a MIDI and an audio track. The MIDI data should be in the instrument track or there should be an audio track associated with TTS-1 to play the audio output generated by the MIDI track.

We have success!
 
I just reran the export in "regular" bounce mode with both the MIDI and Instrument tracks selected. 
 
This time I saw level meter activity on both tracks during the bounce. I'm not sure that was present in earlier attempts in either bounce method. So maybe there was something else going on there not related to the export process.
 
Now all I have to do is verify the exported tracks all play in sync when started together in another app.
 
Thanks for the help, scook. :-)