Hi there and welcome
    After a crap year when so many things happened and kept us pretty busy with other things and events we have finally got here and at last we can get focused on writing and recording again.
We will use this as an ongoing account of us recording our new songs,what we did,how we did it,what we used etc.
    Having used N-Track in the past we have now moved to Cakewalk Sonar 6 Producer Edition so there's a new learning curve to get to grips with.It also includes a  host of plugs and features which no doubt we'll get  busy with as we go.
    First up i made a track template which consists of 8 audio tracks and the Session Drummer 2.The SD2 is set to open 8 tracks for itself and in the settings it's very easy to assign each sound to it's own track and this makes it useful for adjusting the volume,pan,effect and processing for each drum,cymbal etc.
    So with Gary playing the guitar part we went through some presets and found a kit we liked and fitted the feel of the track,got the tempo then it's drag and drop it down to the SD track,catch the end of it and drag it out so we got a basic drum track of about 3 1/2mins.
    Next Gary laid down the first guitar part,his strat through a Marshall DRP and to the desk.Couple of takes and then on to the bass.The bass went straight to the desk and I managed to get the part down first take but on listening to it we felt there was a small part in the chorus which needed a little something,so with a new phrase worked out and 4 or 5 takes later it's done.
    Gary did the acoustic guitar part next,we miked the guitar as plugged in the sound can be a bit on the brittle side,and got it in 1 take though on playback the first few bars are with a strong attack and then he mellowed a bit so there was quite a difference in the level throughout the track.I copied the acoustic to another track and panned one track 65% left with a touch of reverb and the other 65% right with some chorus.
    On the console in Sonar i routed all the drum tracks to their own buss for overall control of the drum level.I also routed the two acoustic parts to their own buss and by automating the fader on this buss I could adjust the volume automatically between the loud and quieter parts.
    Listening back we decided that we'll just re-record the acoustic part.Gary also suggested a little delay on the electric guitar part and a cool feature on the plug-in was an option to sync the delay to the bpm of the track.We also thought about doing some punch-ins on the electric guitar part to tidy it up.
    So that's the details of our first session after what seems so long and it was great to get back into it,hope you enjoyed it.

         Steve
   

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