Reference Guide

780 Editing audio
Digital audio fundamentals
• To indicate volume levels of audio tracks in the Track view, Track Inspector and Console view
• To indicate the effects of filters and equalizers
The reference level (0 dB) usually corresponds to the current loudness of the sound. A positive
change in decibels makes the sound louder; a negative change makes the sound quieter.
See:
“Digital audio fundamentals” on page 774
Audio clips
If you have read “Digital audio fundamentals” on page 774, you should have a good idea of what is
contained in a SONAR audio clip. An audio clip contains a long series of numbers, or samples,
representing the fluctuating amplitude of a waveform. Audio clips are typically quite large, hundreds
of kilobytes to many megabytes in size. By comparison, a MIDI event takes only a few bytes to store.
The Track view lets you see your audio waveforms in great detail; you can zoom in until you see the
individual samples.
You should also now be aware of some things to watch out for when editing your audio data. First, if
you cut audio clips apart or splice them together, you should do so at zero-crossings in the waveform
(places where the amplitude is zero), in order to avoid sudden changes in amplitude that may cause
clicks and pops. Second, you should beware of clipping. Clipping of the audio waveform can occur if
you record a signal at too high a record level, or if you apply audio processing or effects that
increase the waveform amplitude too much. If you accidentally cause the waveform to clip, you
should undo the command and try again with different parameters.
Clipping can also occur in other situations, for example, if you try to play or mix several loud audio
tracks together, the aggregate signal strength may at times exceed the clipping limit, and the output
signal will be distorted. To correct the problem, you can create a volume envelope to reduce the level
in loud audio clips or reduce the track volume in the Console or Track views.
See:
“Digital audio fundamentals” on page 774
Managing audio data
Because of the great size of audio data, SONAR uses an intelligent scheme for storing audio clips
on disk to conserve disk space and minimize the time it takes to load and save data. Audio data is
not stored directly in your project file, but rather in separate files in a special directory. For more
information, see “Audio file management” on page 1171.
You can export your project in MP3, WMA, or Wave format. You can also convert your project’s MIDI
data to audio and export it to any of the above formats. For more information, see “Preparing audio
for distribution” on page 926.