Hey - where did the first batch of tips go?!?  Keep calm, and carry on reading...
 
The "Friday's Tip of the Week" was one of those things that was done on a whim, but took on a life of its own and after 120 tips (far more than the 31 that were planned originally), it started to get unwieldy. It was unorganized, most of the tips needed revising, some were obsolete, screen shots showed a GUI that was no longer in common use, and there were some typos and other issues.
 
It was time for a clean slate, so in early November I updated the tips, folded in more tips, fixed the typoze, expanded on some of the explanations, added a table of contents, and all that other good book-like stuff. Then I gave advance notice I'd delete all the old tips in this thread, and start over again with a new series of tips....so here we are with a sequel, as well as a full-blown book.
 

 
The book is 311 pages in PDF format, and is now available in the Cakewalk Store. You can download the Table of Contents to see what's included; chapters include MIDI, SONAR Workflow, Patch Points and Synth Recording, FX Chains, Automation, Tempo and Pitch-Shifting, Signal Processing, AudioSnap, Step Sequencing and Beats, Colorization, Loops, Melodyne, etc. - 120 tips in all.
 
Thanks for your support, your enthusiasm about this venture, your comments, and your participation. This is a great community, and you'll note that this thread retains some of the top community-contributed tips that were scattered in among the original 121 tips.
 
I hope you enjoy the book. And yes, the index will continue...for old times' sake, we'll pick up the tip numbers where we left off. 
 
Week 122: Clean Up Your Console View - Don't you wish the Console View could show Track Folders, and you could unfold and fold them? Well you can't, but here's how to have something very similar.
Week 123: SuperKick! Tune and Enhance Your Kick Drum - You can have a kick drum, or you can have a kick that could be mistaken for a seismic event. Here's how. With audio demo.
Week 124: "Percussivate" Your Part - Here's the easy way to impart rhythmic effects, polyrhythms, and interesting syncopations to sustained parts like pads and power chords. EDMers, take note - but this tip is about more than just that.
Week 125: Multiband Sidechaining - Use one audio track to "cross-modulate" another track, using multiband sidechaining with gates. With audio demo.
Week 126:  Linear-Phase EQ vs. Non-Linear EQ...Huh? - Cakewalk's Linear-Phase EQ has both a linear-phase and non-linear phase mode. Why does it matter? Which should you choose? What's the difference? All is revealed in this tip. With audio demo.
Week 127: Random Bass Line Creator - No, you're not going to replace Will Lee or Brian Hardgroove. But download a free MFX, then let SONAR swing into action and come up with some potentially useful bass lines. With audio demo.
Week 128: My New BFF Shortcut - When editing tracks, being able to switch between the Now time rewinding to where it started, or stopping where you stopped the transport, is vital - and this particular shortcut implementation works really well.
Week 129: Jamstik Meets SONAR - Although not really intended to be a Windows-oriented MIDI controller, the Zivix Jamstik can provide this function - and is particularly well-suited for use with Rapture Pro.
Week 130: The “How Does It Sound in a Car?” Tester - Are you one of those people who won't sign off on a mix until you've heard it in a car? Take the process to a more repeatable level with this novel FX Chain.
Week 131: SONAR's Dr. QuadraREX File Player - Play up to four REX files at once, play individual slices, drag MIDI files to the track view, modify the sound with Dim Pro's processors, trigger and transpose loops from your keyboard - it's all here.
Week 132: Delay-Free Faux Stereo - When you want to convert mono to stereo, there's more than one way to accomplish your goal...and this one doesn't require delay.
Week 133: Console Emulator Workflow Tip - If you use the Console Emulator, you already know why it's cool. This tip is about quickly verifying that all console channels have a CE, and that the settings are as desired.
Week 134: SONAR's Secret Time-Based Guitar FX - There's a really cool chorus that's not like other guitar choruses, as well as a pseudo-Echoplex - but you have to know where to look for them.
Week 135: An Efficient Workflow for Pre-Masters - Yes, you need to master your final mixes. But there's a very important step that needs to be taken before that, and here's an efficient way to go about it.
Week 136: Sonitus Presets - Yes, We Can! - Sonitus plug-ins are seriously cool...so much so that I keep creating presets. But managing those presets properly can be a little opaque--so this tip reveals all.
Week 137: Get More Out of TH3 Cakewalk Edition - The Cakewalk Edition of TH3 doesn't have an equalizer...or does it? Turns out that it does - with highpass, lowpass, bandpass, and notch responses - so this tip tells you how to access it.
Week 138: WTF Craig...Harmonicas? - One of these tips is not like the others...and this one is it. Check out why blues harp has merit, and how to get that down and dirty blues harp sound in SONAR.
Week 139: The Reason Why You Don’t Want to Compress the Master Bus - If like me you treat mixing and mastering as separate processes, this tip is important.
Week 140: SONAR's Incognito Lo-Fi Plug-In - Just when you thought you knew everything about Sonitus effects, it turns out there's an incognito lo-fi processor that can get seriously nasty.
Week 141: The Humanized MIDI Hi-Hat - Even if you're doing electro or other musical genres that typically expect highly-quantized parts, a little humanizing can bring a fresh, more interesting vibe.
Week 142: What Is the Sound of Two Hands Clapping? - Probably not all that great, because handclaps are deceptively hard to record. But take heed of these tips, and you'll have better results. 
Week 143: Using BLE-MIDI (Bluetooth MIDI) Devices in SONAR - "Cutting the cord" isn't just about removing the evil entity known as "TV" from your life, but getting rid of MIDI cables and using wireless controllers - thanks to Bluetooth MIDI.
Week 144: Four Quickie Automation Tips - Being able to navigate quickly among common functions is always a good thing, but not all shortcuts are obvious - so here are four ways to speed up working with automation.
Week 145: End Boring MIDI Drum Patterns! - "Friday's Tip of the Week," or public service announcement? You decide! Once you figure out the settings, the results are pretty amazing.
Week 146: The Perfect Fadeout - When you want to fade out a song using master bus automation, you can either take the time to place nodes exactly where you want them...or save much time by using this tip.
Week 147: Gourmet Flanging - Looking for ways to get the “tape flanger” sound of "through-zero flanging" without tape? Here's a way to get ever closer to that sound.  
Week 148: How to Use the New Drum Exciter Plug-In - Sure, the 2017.05 update has a lot of cool stuff in it. But that's no excuse to ignore the new Drum Exciter plug-in for Professional and Platinum owners.
Week 149: Morphable LFO Auto-Panner - SONAR doesn't have a versatile auto-panner - or does it? Here's how to create an auto-panner with over 48 waveforms, sync, MIDI control, and dual morphable LFO waveforms.
Week 150: MIDI Velocity "Compression" with the Transform Tool - The new Transform Tool is your one-stop option for dynamics control. This tip shows how to use it with velocity, but the same technique also works with other controllers.
Week 151: Super-Long LFO Waveforms - The drawing tool for automated LFO waveforms does have a significant limitation—it can’t draw “frequencies” slower than 1 measure automatically. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to do this.
Week 152: Build a "Virtual Room Mics" FX Chain - Let’s improve the acoustic environment in which your instruments live, by faking—uh, I mean, “emulating”—a pair of room mics. And all you need is a simple FX Chain!
Week 153: SONAR's "Secret Weapon" Convolution - Applying convolution to sounds can do a whole lot of interesting things, and SONAR has a "secret weapon" for convolution beyond REmatrix Solo.
Week 154: Re-Discovering SONAR's Audio Waveform Editor - With audio in the clips pane, it seems lots of zooming and resizing is needed if you want a single track to fill the screen. Not so!
Week 155: Reverb Tools for Bigger Reverb - Want a bigger, wider, more interesting reverb sound? Of course you do, so keep reading - and try Reverb Tools as an FX Chain, too.
Week 156: Let's Get Punchy! - Sure, comping gets all the glory. But punching has a lot of users, and there are various options with both manual and auto-punching that are worth exploring.
Week 157: The Missing—and Non-Missing—Link - This is an “eat your vegetables” kind of tip, but SONAR's ability to link and unlink clips has been around for a while - so it seems like a good time for a refresher course on this handy feature.
Week 158: Wireless, Hands-Free SONAR Control - Ever wanted to be able to send keyboard shortcuts via footswitches? Well, you can - and it's easy to accomplish. 
Week 159: The Matrix View Sampler You Can Trigger with MIDI Tracks - The Matrix View lets you drag in slices, and trigger loops and one-shots--but you can't trigger them from SONAR MIDI tracks unless you know what it's this tip.
Week 160: Cut Audio Groove Clips into Slices - Easily! - Wouldn’t it be great if you could treat Groove Clips like REX files, and extract individual slices quickly and easily? With SONAR, you can.
Week 161: SONAR Audio Stretching Options Explained - SONAR has five ways to stretch audio files, and it's important to choose the right tool for the right job.
Week 162: Here's Your Harmonic "Tremolo" - Some of the older, Fender “brown” amps used a variation on the standard tremolo which the company called a “harmonic tremolo.” Now you can make one in SONAR. 
Week 163: How to be a SONAR Power User - If you want to use SONAR in a smooth, efficient, fast way, you need to know how it works - and this tip gives a strategy for an efficient way to learn SONAR's basic features.
Week 164: The Case for Bass Multiband Compression - Sure, a lot of engineers will use a standard LA-2A-type compressor...but check out how the Sonitus multiband compressor can convert your bass sound from mild to mighty.
Week 165: The Modeled Guitar Tone Control - A lot of people think that guitar tone controls just roll off the highs. Well, yes…but…they also interact with pickups to produce a midrange peak, as modeled in this simple FX Chain.
Week 166: Perk Up Percussion with Probability - Few sounds are as boring as placing a percussion note on every step of a step sequencer...but we have ways to make those percussion parts much more interesting.
Week 167: Behold! Dual Mono Becomes Stereo! - This keeps coming up as a forum question, and I answered it in a post briefly...but feel it deserves “sticky status” and a more thorough explanation.

Community Tip: A/B Comparisons
 
One of my favorite tips is to add the power button for the ProChannel to a quick group so that all the FX for a subset of channels can be turned on and off with one click. This is particularly useful if you are working at the limits of your computer and need to recover a lot of processing power on a regular basis without disabling all FX.
 
If you go to Console View, you can use quick group and ctrl+add the power buttons to a group so that they can be flipped on and off, or have sets of PCs that invert... Inverting can enable you to A/B different FX.

Community Tip: Instrument Customization
 
Some time ago I made a yellow DropZone and dressed up Cakewalk's SI-Bass, an elaborate example of how far you can go using a photo editor. You can also change the order and appearance of the layout by editing the GraphicResources.cwres and LayoutResources.cwres files, as I did for the SI-Bass.
 

 

DOWNLOAD HERE
 

Community Tip: All About Gain-Staging
 
Let's give a big round of applause to gswitz, who wrote the following post in response to a query about plug-in levels. It was too good not to include it as a tip of the week...which makes this our first "Guest Tip of the Week." And you'll still get another tip this Friday from me, so it really is a bonus tip. Thanks, Geoff! -- Craig
 
Gain-staging is just as important for software as it is for hardware.
 
Some VST effects model being over-driven as well as being driven in a more typical manner. This means that when you run hot into the VST you get the over-driven sound. Some VSTs really don't distort on being over-driven until you clip. If the VST is in the FX Bin in the pro-channel, you should see the pro-channel clip light flicker red when you clip a VST. For when you are over-driving a plugin, your ears are the best judge. 
 
Input Gain on your Pre Amp and Interface 
Input Gain on your Pre Amp and Interface give you your initial signal. Whatever changes these make to the signal are permanent. For example, if you over-drive your pre-amp before you reach Sonar, you can't undo it in Sonar. For this reason, people usually try to record fairly cleanly and dirty things up in Sonar. This gives you the flexibility to undo things you don't like.
 
Effect Send Level
Effect Send is a place you can impact gain going to a bus. You can then also use the bus gain nob to further adjust the gain.
 
Input Gain on the Track
Every track has an input gain nob. This nob cannot be automated for some reason. I use the input gain nob fairly regularly. For example, if I've got a track sounding the way I want but there are a few momentary clips during playback, I might turn the input gain down a few DB to compensate.
 
Clips have separate input gain
You can adjust the gain on a specific clip. If you split a clip at zero crossings, you can then adjust the gain of the clip (or normalize the clip to make the gain adjustment more permanent).
 
Odd transient peak reduction
If there are just one or two large spikes in level on an otherwise consistent track, you can split the clip around those peaks using snap to zero crossings so you don't get a click. Then use normalize or clip gain to reduce the relative level of that odd transient to be more in-line with the rest of the track. This basically helps you be a very good manual limiter.
 
FX Chain Controls
If you have an FX Chain in the Pro Channel, you have gain staging built in. You have a slider for the gain coming into the chain and another for the gain coming out. These sliders should not distort the signal (unless you clip the signal). They only adjust the heat of the signal into the VSTs or into the subsequent signal chain.
 
Tube PC Module
The Tube Pro Channel Module has an Output knob. If you keep the drive all the way down, you can use the output nob on the tube module to adjust gain staging or general track volume. Unlike the Gain nob on the track, this nob can be automated. Sometimes, when I want to reduce the volume for a track in the mix without moving all the fader automation or using off-set mode, I might use this nob to make slight tweaks.
 
Normalization
Sometimes I record for hours at once while a band plays through all the songs they know, and then I go back and mix those songs. When one song is significantly quieter than the others, I may want to use the normalize function.
Process > Apply FX > Normalize. I do not normalize to 0 very often. I usually normalize to -3 or so depending on the track. This leaves headroom when going into the VSTs.
 
Visually identifying peaks for nudging tracks or other work
Sometimes you just want to see the wave form more clearly. You don't actually need to change the track gain, you just want to see a particular transient very clearly. An example situation is that if you used two DAWs that were clock sync'd to record a performance and then moved all the tracks to a single DAW and wanted to line them up. You might pick a particular drum beat, zoom WAAAAY in and then adjust the tracks to align perfectly. For this purpose, it's useful to know that you can go into track view, put the tracks side by side, Set the Edit Filter to Clips and then in the gray bar between the track headers and the wave form views click and drag up. This will make the wave form get bigger so you can see it better. Drag down to make it smaller. Double click to reset it to default.
 
This link shows the order of events in Cakewalk X3
http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X3&language=3&help=Mixing.07.html
 
** I have never used Channel Tools to adjust gain staging. Channel Tools does have meters than can give you a picture of your levels at a particular point in the signal chain, but I would shy away from the mid/side gain nobs on the plugin and use some other method to actually adjust the gain.

.

Community Tip: Advanced Workshop Videos Timesheet and Description of Contents
 
Just thought I'd mention Craig's "X1 Advanced Workshop" series vids for those enjoying these little nuggets of wisdom (like I am) because they are still in the store and go on sale every now and then. There are few of these tips I remember from that series and it's cool to see them done on screen within the program. Even though it's all done in X1 since they mostly seem to be production tips as opposed to strict Sonar tuts they are all still relevant (maybe a few steps need to be tweaked for more current versions). I got them when I bought X1 Production Suite and every time I watch them I pick up something new.
 
So yeah... dudes and dudettes, if you are addicted to the Craig tips you may want to snag those vids. I've reviewed the videos again and compiled a list of all their contents with the times they appear here:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Sonar-X1-Advanced-Workshop-by-Craig-Anderton-Timesheet-and-description-of-contents-m3191641.aspx
 
So if you want to see Craig perform some of these tricks (albeit it in X1 but that doesn't really matter for most of the stuff) and many more I encourage you to snag those vids if you get a chance. They contain some very cool stuff.

Community Tip: What Data Defaults to Which Locations
 
The following was posted by Kylotan but it was a post buried in a thread. I think this info is really useful, so I'm pasting it here so it doesn't get lost in the noise. It explains what data defaults to which locations.
 

1. C:\Program Files\Cakewalk (Studio Instruments drop their multisamples here)
2. C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk (Studio Instruments have a copy of their multisamples here too - it's fine to install the executables in both the x86 and the 64 bit areas, but the data too?)
3. C:\ProgramData\Cakewalk (Cakewalk supplied but user editable data is here, like drum maps, but also a bunch of synth presets seem to live here, eg. for Dimension Pro)
4. C:\Cakewalk Content (this is 75% loops, but also contains the sort of thing you might have expected in C:\ProgramData\Cakewalk, such as track and project templates)
5. C:\Users\[your username here]\AppData\Roaming\Cakewalk (local settings, plus some more Cakewalk supplied editable stuff like drum maps - no idea how this relates to the stuff in C:\ProgramData\Cakewalk - maybe that is just a 'backup', copied for each user)
6. C:\VSTPlugins\Sonar (or whatever your VST directories are) (some stuff likes to drop its static data in here, like RXP, Session Drummer, and Perfect Space)

Community Tip: Organizational Hierarchy for VST Plug-Ins
 
Plugin layouts normally end in AppData/Roaming/Sonar Platinum/etc. It's usually a good idea to have AppData being backed up regularly, although the only other user-editable Sonar data likely to be in there is Drum Maps.
 
Anyway, if anyone's stumped for a good organisational hierarchy for their VST effects, here's what I use:

• Analysis/Metering - for spectrum analysers, gain meters
• Channel/Multi - for channel strips and multi-fx units. Includes Channel Tools, Percussion Strip, Vocal Strip, etc.
• Delay - time-based effects
• Distortion/Overdrive - effects that add noise or grit to a signal
• Dynamics
  • Compressors
  • Multiband
  • Gates
  • Limiters
  • Transient shapers
  • De-essers (basically a narrowband compressor)
• EQ
  • Graphic
  • Parametric
  • Vintage/flavour
  • Exciters (not always technically an EQ, but has a similar effect)
• Filters (for things like Wah, Tal Filter, etc, typically specialised EQs specifically designed to be automated)
• LoFi (bit crushers, vinyl simulators, tape simulators)
• Mastering - anything from the other categories that is especially suited to the master bus, here for convenience
• Modulation
  • Chorus
  • Flanger
  • Phasers would go here if I used them
• Pitch/Time - things that stretch audio, or change pitch without stretching audio, or both. Melodyne, pitch shifters, etc
• Reverb (could divide into convolution and algorithmic)
• Simulation - for effects designed to replicate outboard gear (in my case, mostly guitar amps and pedals)
  • Amp sims
  • Cabinet sims and impulse loaders (which might also be in Reverb)
  • Guitar pedal sims
  • Tape saturation sims (I could probably move these to LoFi)
• Spatial -surround sound, Channel Tools, anything with significant mid/side capabilities
• Synths as FX - dumping ground for VSTis that can double up as multi FX - Absynth, Reaktor, z3ta+, etc.

Community Tip: Edit Plug-In Manager Layouts in XML
 

Anderton

arlen2133
I also wish PIM could be exported "offiline" and edited via say Word or Notepad??
That would make sorting and setting up much easier.

The good news: It's an XML file, so you can open it in Notepad. The bad news: Your head will explode trying to edit it.

This makes editing it a lot easier (and it's free):
 
 NotePad++
 
Once installed, I recommend going to Plugins > Plug-in Manager > Show Plug-in Manager and select XML Tools and Install to help out with the XML editing.
 
Note that the files have a .PGL suffix instead of .XML.
 
 

Community Tip: Organizing Plug-In Menus with Menu Magic
 
I started using Menu Magic to organize the plugin menus and I like it (http://www.agitatedstate.com).
 
Here's a post about it: http://forum.cakewalk.com/Sonar-plugin-utility-MenuMagic-Cyber-Week-Sale-m3325859.aspx