Reference Guide

71
SONAR basics
Introduction
SONAR basics
SONAR’s menus and tools give you quick access to all the features of SONAR. Some menu choices
and tools display dialog boxes that let you choose among various options, or type in the values you
want. If you click in most views, in time rulers, or on certain other items with the right mouse button,
you see a pop-up menu that provides quick access to many common operations.
The project is the center of your work in SONAR. If you’re a musician, a project might contain a
song, a jingle, or a movement of a symphony. If you’re a post-production engineer, a project might
contain a 30-second radio commercial or a lengthy soundtrack for a film or videotape production. By
default, every project is stored in a file (known as a project file). The normal file extension for a
SONAR work file is .cwp.
SONAR organizes the sound and music in your project into tracks, clips, and events.
Tracks are used to store the sound or music made by each instrument or voice in a project. For
example, a song that is arranged for four instruments and one vocalist may have 5 tracks—one for
each instrument and one for the vocals. Each project can have an unlimited number of tracks
(SONAR X1 Essential supports unlimited MIDI tracks and up to 64 audio track). Some of these
tracks may be used in your finished project, while others can hold alternate takes, backup tracks,
and variations that you might want to keep for future use. Each track can be made up of one or many
clips.
Clips are the pieces of sound and music that make up your tracks. A clip might contain a horn solo,
a drum break, a bass or guitar riff, a voice-over, a sound effect like the hoot of an owl, or an entire
keyboard performance. A track can contain a single clip or dozens of different clips, and you can
easily move clips from one track to another.
Groove clips are audio clips which have tempo and pitch information embedded within them,
allowing them to follow changes to the project tempo or project pitch. You can click on either edge of
a Groove clip and drag out repetitions in the track.
Events are MIDI data (in MIDI tracks) or automation data.
See:
“SONAR file types” on page 72
“Opening a file” on page 72
“Views” on page 73
“Working on a project” on page 88