a pair of Sonar questions

[maryslittlesecret]

I've nearly finished my first project in Sonar (to be posted soon) and have couple of questions as I approach the home stretch…

First, in the Console view, there's a bunch of empty space in-between the aux controls and the sliders. It looks like there's room to add other aux sliders or other controls, but I don't need anything like that right now. In the meantime, the extra space keeps me from seeing the name of the track while I'm adjusting the levels which, needless to say, makes it quite difficult to mix when you can't tell which slider is controlling which track without scrolling up and down constantly. Is there any way to get rid of all this excess space?

And speaking of unwanted space, the song I'm recording only has about 3:45 minutes of MIDI/audio. However, when I mix it down (ie: export the song to audio), the .wav file has about an extra 1:30 minutes of silence at the end?! Looking at the track view for the project, the automation lines (where you add/move the nodes) extend for literally hundreds of measures beyond where the song ends and are apparently translating to audio when I mix down. Can someone please tell me what is causing this and, more importantly, how I can fix it?

Any input is welcome. Thanks for your help.

J
http://www.30SoS.com

 

[SBax]

Why not just use the level meters in the Track view? I hardly ever look at the console view. Use the blue volume control in the Track view as the fader.

Why not just highlight the area of the extra automation and delete it?

 

[keith turner]

hi j ,you can just hide the aux bus entirely if you need more space. to export only what you want try to highlight the time ruler that should do it.you could also place a automation node at the end of the track and delete the extra automation you don't need.try clearing out the now and thru time settings too, just set them both to 1:01:000.one or all of these suggestions should work,i don't have the program open now to verify but you should be ok.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Mary -

I agree with you on the console view. It's quite poorly designed. I think the length is to keep it even with the Virtual Mains, which you'll notice have playback meters in that area. In any event, I don't know any way around except possible to go to a higher resolution on your monitor. Or, as SBax says, don't use it. I find I can do everything I want in Track View and never open Console View at all.

I also have the same problem as you have with one of my songs. It has an extra 4 minutes of silence in it at the end. I've tried several ways to get rid of it, but no luck. I end up bringing into a wave editor and cutting it off. I suspect if you do what Keith says and just highlight the ruler to the end of the song, that will work. But that's as much a pain in the ass as simply trimming it in a wave editor. It's wierd as I only have this problem on one song. None of my others seem to do this.

 

[maryslittlesecret]

Thanks for your input everyone. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one having these issues.

I am getting more comfortable with using the Track View for mixing and may end using it exclusively. Still, it's irritating to me that there's no known way to get rid of all the extra space in the Console view -- you'd think that the software designers might understand the benefit of knowing which track you're mixing...

And with the extra silence, I did the same thing as you, dachay2tnr, and removed it from the final .wav in Sound Forge. But again, its a pain and, while I'm sure I can deal with it in other ways, it seems like both of these are issues that should have solutions, not just workarounds.

Is any one else experiencing either of these problems or have any suggestions? Let us know. Thanks.

J
http://www.30SoS.com

 

[heinz]

keith hit the nail(s) on the head.

if you don't use the Aux sends, then click on the button at the top of the console that looks like a list of little checkboxes. there you can turn on/off bus displays.

the automation data should be deleteable past the end of your song, just select it and nuke it. as mentioned you may need to insert a final key value to keep from jacking the automation curves, but I don't know of any reason that wouldn't work.

that all being said, dealing with automation data and the consoles in general has always been a pain in the ass with Sonar/CW. I crave the day we can actually edit the splines on our automation curves, as well as having finite visual control over the data. the sonar boys oughta spend a day or two over at adobe or discreet to learn the ropes.

heck, I wish I could just type in fader values, is that so much to ask???