Cakewalk Forum

Still using Sonar 2.2xl. Is it just me or are the audio effects hard to apply? Are there forums/sites to visit that offer help/suggestions in applying the settings for various effects (delay, eq, etc.)? Is the preview function hard coded to <5 seconds, or can it be increased? Or am i better off getting a separate wav editing application to use after I export my project to wav? Enquiring minds want to know.

I agree about the effects, I'd really like to use the live effects so I can tewak them in the final mix, but it seems to eat up all my CPU's if I get creative, so I minimize my use of real timeeffects. Another problem is they are difficult to control, If I wan an effect just on one part of an Audio piece - how can I do that? its all on or off, or I have to manipulate the little dials while I'm trying to mix - Yuck!

There has to be an easier way to use effects in Sonar.

If you want to just insert effects at one point in a track I think you can set markers to turn the effect on or off or just record the automation of the track.

This isn't really a problem with just Sonar I would say it is a problem in general with software sequencers. As each bit of software comes out it is more convenient to use and sounds a bit better but at the expense of memory and processor power.

I sometimes find using some basic older effects with a little bit of hard work in setting them up means that I can use more of them.

Sonar 3 or 4 is worth the investment to be able to put effects of busses and aux outs etc very easily. Something that is very fiddly in Sonar 2.2.

I have always found this site invaluable for links all over the place in the computer music world http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.htm

Thanks for both replies, and also for letting me know it's not just me. Is it possible to take the audio trax (they are recorde as .wav files, no?) into a 3rd party application (e.g. Adobe Audition, formerly Cool Edit Pro), and not mess up the Sonar project? Or are there plug-ins I don't know about (and there's not much I do know about plug-ins - ha) that would do the job easier than Sonars effects alone?