Reference Guide

1556 Beginner’s guide to Cakewalk software
Audio
Audio recording
If your sound card and driver are properly installed, recording audio data is mostly a matter of
accomplishing two tasks:
• Connecting an instrument, home stereo, or microphone to an input on your sound card
• Choosing that same input in SONAR, your sound card’s software, and/or Windows
For more information, see:
“Connecting an instrument, home stereo, or microphone to your sound card” on page 1556
“Choosing inputs” on page 1561
“Audio recording” on page 1556
“Audio hardware (sound cards) and drivers” on page 1564
“MIDI” on page 1541
Connecting an instrument, home stereo, or microphone to your
sound card
You need a cable with the correct plug on the end of it to connect an instrument or mic to your sound
card. Low-priced sound cards usually have 1/8 inch analog jacks (inputs) marked Mic and Line, and
might have a digital input marked S/PDIF. The Line input is the correct one for most electronic
instruments such as electric guitars. The Mic input is calibrated to accept the input from
microphones (however, you can usually get a better recorded sound by plugging a mic into a
preamp or mixer with preamp, and plugging the preamp or mixer into the Line input). The S/PDIF
input is the one to use for digital audio sources such as samplers and some CD players. Guitar
cables usually have a 1/4 inch plug on the end, so to connect an electric guitar to a 1/8 inch jack, you
need a 1/4 inch-to-1/8 inch adapter, which is readily available at electronics supply stores. If you’re
not sure what kind of inputs your sound card has, you can actually measure their width (diameter).
If you have a more professional-grade sound card, the input jacks will probably be 1/4 inch, and you
might also have some XLR inputs for low-impedance microphones, and S/PDIF and possibly AES/
EBU connections for digital input and output. If your microphone cable has an XLR plug on the end
of it (an XLR plug has 3 pins sticking out of it), and your sound card only has 1/4 inch input jacks,
you need to put an XLR-to-1/4 inch adapter on the end of your microphone cable.