Reference Guide

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Creating a new project
Recording
2. Click Metronome Settings in the Metronome toolbar to open the Project Options dialog
box.
3. Make sure that the settings in the Output and Channel fields match those for the track in the
Track view.
4. Click on the Key box in the First Beat or the Other Beats section.
5. Play a note on your MIDI instrument. The note number is entered automatically. The velocity is
not updated.
6. Click OK.
Your metronome settings will be saved with the project file.
Setting the audio sampling rate and bit depth
Each SONAR project has an audio Sampling rate and an audio driver Bit depth that indicate the
level of accuracy with which audio data are sampled and processed. The same parameters are used
for all the digital audio in a project. When you create a new project, if you do not want to use the
default setting, you must choose a sampling rate before you start recording audio.
SONAR lets you choose from several different sampling rates: 11025 Hz, 22050 Hz, 44100 Hz,
48000 Hz, 88200 Hz, 96000 Hz, 176400Hz, and 192000 Hz. The default used by SONAR is 44100
Hz, the same rate as audio CDs. However, you may choose a higher rate and later mixdown to
44100. You can also enter any hardware-supported value in the Sampling Rate field. Consult your
hardware documentation for supported sampling rates.
A higher sampling rate produces better quality sound. However, a higher sampling rate also means
that each audio clip takes up more memory and disk space and requires more intensive processing
by your computer. If you have an older computer, or a slow hard drive, you might be better off with a
lower sampling rate. For more information, see “Improving Performance with Digital Audio” on page
851.
By default, the audio driver bit depth of audio data is 16 bits. If your sound card supports 18, 20, 22,
or 24 bit audio, you can choose to take advantage of these higher resolutions.
If you are creating a new project that will contain only MIDI material (no audio), you do not need to
set the audio sampling rate or bit depth. If you import audio from a Wave file or another digital audio
file, the sampling rate and audio driver bit depth of the wave file are converted to your default setting,
if necessary.
To set the sampling rate and audio driver bit depth for new projects
1. Choose Options > Audio to display the Audio Options dialog box.
Note: If you are planning to move your project to a Digital Audio Tape (DAT) or to some other
media via a digital transfer, set your sampling rate and bit depth to match the target unit. For
example, use 44,100Hz/16-bit for a project that will be mastered to a CD, so that no sample rate
conversion is required.