User's Guide

Tutorial 7 – Mixing and adding effects
Mixing is an important part of recording that can really help the music you create in SONAR sound
its best. Mixing involves placing different instruments and sounds in layers of the frequency
spectrum, adjusting levels so that tracks blend nicely, spreading them across the stereo field and
adding effects where appropriate.
There are many important decisions to make when mixing; things that are sometimes not considered
while writing a song. The choices you make can have a major effect on how pleasurable the listening
experience is for your audience.
In this tutorial, we'll discuss some general guidelines. But, it's important to remember that there are
no rules. This is another artistic stage of song creation.
We'll start by opening the MixingTutorial project:
1. Go to File > Open and select the file named MixingTutorial.cwp.
2. Go to File > Save As and save it under a new name. This way, you can save your work without
overwriting the original, in case you'd like to start over.
In the same folder is a file named MixingTutorial-Complete.cwp, which is a copy of the same
project, but after the tutorial has been completed. You can use this project as a reference to which
you can compare settings and levels.
Note: Tutorial files are located in the My Documents/Cakewalk/SONAR/Sample
Content/Tutorials folder. You can jump to this folder by selecting Template Files from the
Go to folder drop-down list in the Open dialog.