Hi Clint, thanks for coming back.
 
I followed the official instructions that scook point to in one of his posts in the Sonar forum, and although I had problems early on, I eventually got both SF10 and Au3 working.
 
I'm a long time user of SF and when I used to do MIDI only, and Cakewalk didn't do audio at all, I would use SF for recording my MIDI synths. It was crude, but worked okay.
 
Eventually, I started using Sonar and things changed. I still used SF for final tweaking of my wave file though, as I had already invested a considerable sum of money in it.
 
What I'm not that enthused over now, though, is having to run Sonar in admin mode. I don't like having to click an extra yes button to get into my software. I know it's only minor but it bugs the backside off me.
 
I grabbed Audition 3 a couple of weeks ago when it was being talked about around these parts. I've not yet used it in anger, but I'm going to give it a serious look at now... I am able to run Au3, within Sonar, without running either of them in admin mode, and you don't get that error when first opening a wave file inside SF.
 
At the end of the day, all I am looking to do is to normalise a take, if I feel it needs it. And I've sussed out how to carry out that simple task in Au3 now... So all is well 
 
thanks
 
andy

You can normalize in Sonar. I wanted to Normalize using average RMS which Sound Forge does. Being able to edit peaks (highlight and reduce gain) in the wav form quickly is where Au3 shines. The pencil tool in Sound Forge is cool, but it would be slow to edit an entire song that way. I can't help but thinking I'm missing something in Sound Forge...this should be very quick and easy. At least I now have all of the tools within the Sonar program.

There's an alternative which may fit into your workflow and provide some some more tricks ...
 
Hornet Plugins AutoGain Pro
 
- It has RMS
- It's a plugin
- It can work with automation
- It can do do it for you and/or you  can tweak it
- It's reasonably priced ~US$25
- There are frequent sales (monthly(?) 40-50% off)
- There a (limited) Demo version to try
 

ShellstaX
There's an alternative which may fit into your workflow and provide some some more tricks ...
 
Hornet Plugins AutoGain Pro
 
- It has RMS
- It's a plugin
- It can work with automation
- It can do do it for you and/or you  can tweak it
- It's reasonably priced ~US$25
- There are frequent sales (monthly(?) 40-50% off)
- There a (limited) Demo version to try
 

I have this plugin and I use it a lot, but it's not well suited for mastering IMO. I use this with the bass guitar sometimes to balance uneven dynamics with the drums. Great plugin! Huge value!

True. Even got that one when Hornet did 70% off :)

ok... newbie questions now..
 
Why normalise?
 
  also normalise rms or peak - what's the difference?

As a rule I don't think normalizing is a great idea as it raises the noise floor, but...
I think it saves time when trying to level volumes on finished songs. A limiter can quickly level the peaks, but RMS is percieved volume or how loud it sounds. For example you may have two songs which both peak at 0.1 db, but the ave RMS may differ by 3 or 4 db (or much more). Chances are one of the songs has more dynamic range than the other. It takes me a long time to smooth out 10 or 12 songs as a mastered project. I started the thread because I wanted a tool to quickly normalize all of my finished mixes to an average of -14 RMS. Keep in mind my songs are already within a db or two of this so the negatives of normalizing are minimized. This will only get me closer to where I want to be. There is more to it than that, but it saves me time to at least get the levels narrowed down a little.
I'm not a pro enginner. Some people on this forum are and may have a better way or better tools, but for now I'm happy to record and mix in Sonar, edit peaks in Adobe Audition and normalize the ave RMS with Sound Forge.

clintmartin
I'm not a pro enginner ...

I'm no audiophile ... but have listened to a lot of music and am likely more aware and attentive to production quality than most. Your stuff sounds great Clint.

Thanks ShellstaX. I appreciate it, your being very (too) kind. I'm trying to learn and I'm loving the process. I'm truly having more fun with my music than ever. This forum amazes me. So many people willing to spend so much time helping people like me out. Life is good.

clintmartin
 Being able to edit peaks (highlight and reduce gain) in the wav form quickly is where Au3 shines. The pencil tool in Sound Forge is cool, but it would be slow to edit an entire song that way.

It may be faster in Audition, IDK, I would use a volume envelop in SF in the plug-in chainer which is effectively the same as the FX bin in SONAR