Reference Guide

Tutorial 3 – Recording vocals and musical
instruments
One of the most important aspects of creating music in SONAR is digital audio recording. This is the
process of taking the sound from a microphone or an instrument and recording it to an audio track. Once
this step is completed, you can edit and mix the song to prepare it to share with the world.
This tutorial will walk you through the steps involved and provide you with some insight on how to get the
best possible audio recordings.
Adding an audio track
In Tutorial 1, you learned about opening project templates. Let's open a blank project for this tutorial:On
the File menu, click New.
4. Select the Blank (no tracks or buses) template and click OK.A new blank project is created.
With the blank project open, you can insert new tracks as you need them. For the task of recording
digital audio you'll need a new audio track. Follow these steps to insert one:
5. Do one of the following:
• Click Insert and then click Audio Track.
• Right-click on the Tracks pane and select Insert Audio Track on the pop-up menu.
A new audio track is added to your project.
6. In the new audio track, expand the track to expose all of its controls (for details, see “To expand a
track to make all of its controls visible” on page 108).
The track's controls are exposed.Click the Input drop-down menu to select the track’s input.
The available inputs for the track are displayed.
7. Select the physical jack that your instrument is plugged into. If you know, for instance, that your guitar
is plugged into input 1, click the Input control and select the first option. Some audio interfaces refer
to their stereo inputs as pairs, like 1/2, 3/4 or 5/6. Most often left channels are represented by odd
numbers and right channels are represented by even numbers.
8. Click the Output drop-down menu to select the track’s output.
The available outputs for the track are displayed.
Note: Most microphones and guitars are mono, so you'll want to select either the left or right
channel accordingly.