CJ Jacobson

Are you talking about the margins on the top of a clip from being enabled as a 'Groove clip'? If yes, then you should be able to right click the clip and enabler it as a groove clip again and it will follow the projects tempo and you can stretch it out as well

Did you add the 3rd pin or take it out to lift it? PLEASE Make sure your stuff is grounded somewhere ⚡

RCA are unbalanced, so that can be part or all your problems. It doesn't matter if you use a 1/4" from it. It will not make RCA balanced. If you just swapped them out with other monitors and the noise went away, there is your answer. Stay away from KRK's. A quick google search would have made you understand they are noisy, boxy and other things.

The 'noise' can be caused by a few things, so you just need to troubleshoot and rule out some things: Are you using balanced cables from your audio interface/sound-card to your KRK's? They need to be balanced. Are you using one wall wart for all your electrical connections? Try another wall wart on another electrical circuit Do you have any LCD lighting in your studio? When you hear the 'noise' are you recording anything or mixing? Are any audio cables crossing or near any electrical cables? They should not be. Check and replace all cables involved, as a faulty balanced cable can cause noise KRK are known to be a little noise. Just do a quick search and you'll read countless occasions, but it should not be really noisy and getting in the way of recording and mixing. As far as you saying "you cannot hear your mouse noise" That is a good thing when you are doing music production. Do you really want to hear 'click click clackety clack' when you are mixing a song or recording a song? Check your sound settings on your PC for window sounds and set them up the way you want.

I never ever put a reverb on the Master Bus. I usually have about 2 to 6 different reverbs on bus's and i use them in conjunction with mid and side edits to create a 3D stereo field so each instrument is in its own space. Reverb can be used any way you want it, as long as it gets you the sound you want. so use it where ever you want If it sounds improper, then its improper. Each reverb can be set a billion different ways, you just need to use your ears to set it so it sound s the way you want it to. First of all, you never SOLO an instrument when you are mixing it in a mix, as all the other instruments effect the sound of every other instrument in the mix. You just do what ever sounds best for that mix Try what ever way you can think of and do what sound best for that mix. If CPU is a problem, raise your buffers. Todays PC's can handle hundreds of plugin effects. No need to worry about CPU

Forget what other people are using. Your instrument tracks, mixes, and personnel preferences are different from theirs and in return, you will need different things done to each and every track. It changes with every instrument track and every mix. Because i do not want the same sound for every single thing . Every guitar track, bass track, vocal track will need different things done to it in order for it to fit in every specific mix. Other instruments effect the sound of other instruments in the mix. So i do not have a set plugin chain for every instrument track. I like to mix with my ears & personnel preferences and then let those tell me what needs to be done to each and every track. I think over time you will know that this question has a million different answers and all answers are correct, as long as it gets you the sound you want.

Just raise your ASIO buffers or go into your Aud.ini file and raise the setting for the dropout. But i would raise your ASIO drivers first, as that will work

All your troubles will go away if you get a audio sound card that is made for audio production. What you are using (Realteck) is made for just normal pc audio playback. It lacks drivers and circuitry that a dedicated audio interface has. Try opening it up in Safe Mode. But this may be due to you not having a audio interface with drivers written for audio production.

I guess its time to learn the tools you want to use. I do not know how in-depth you want to go, but when i create a loop, i do not use the Loop Construction View. I just edit the audio in the track view and i adjust the zoom to my liking and i edit the audio clip and when i'm done, i 'right click' the clip select 'Apply Trimming' and then I right click it the audio clip again and enable it as a 'Groove Clip' -https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X3&language=3&help=Looping.07.html CJ

I would not recommend either of those. What is your maximum budget? Look for JBL's in that price range. You will get a better bang for your buck with JBL's

The different ways to do it is more intrusive than just moving the Track Fader or gain knob with your mouse. FYI: Gain and Track Fader Volume or 2 different things. Gain raises the volume pre effects and pre-sends, unlike the Track Fader that can be post for effects and sends

I got a solution for you, download the FREE Cakewalk by Bandlab. Its better than SONAR 8.5 and you'll get the support you need for your plugins 🧐

No folders, but there is a feature to collapse them and make them smaller

The first thing i would do is look at your 'Prepare Using ____ Millisecond buffers' int he preference menu Click the 'Preference' menu, the, click 'MIDI' and then click 'Playback and Recording' and try raising your buffer or even lowering it. I'm assuming you are using an dedicated audio interface with your DAW, drivers are very important for your DAW's performance as well..

Can the MIDI file be played with any of your soft synths? (ruling out a bad MIDI data)

Maybe auto-punch record is enabled? If it with every project or just one project?

More control and each project is different and can use different resources as well. so maybe raising your ASIO buffers can help as well. Also maybe try disabling any FX plugins, if you are using any to start troubleshooting it. As this is how you will solve the issue, if its not driver related or signal chain/gain stage related. Its one of those 3 things. you just have to start troubleshooting each of them to rule them out now

Set the master to go to the main outs 1/2 and set up a headphone out in your sound card's cue mix

As i said, check your entire signal chain to make sure its correct. you saying "no visible clipping" is so vague and it doesn't mean your routing is set up correctly. You have not answered this, and this is the first thing i would look at if i had your problem. This is what you need to look at when seeing if your signal chain is set up correctly: Do all tracks go to the master bus? Do all sends go to a designated bus? Does all bus's go to the master bus? Does the master bus go to the main outs 1/2?

Well then its the 2nd thing I said "2nd thing 2nd - is it can also be due to you are clipping your signal chain" So check your entire signal chain and gain stage and make sure all routing are set up correctly Also, it still can be the first thing, as no 2 project are the same. Some take more resources than the other, depending on hats in them, So it still can be a DRIVER issue..

Solo each track until you isolate where its coming from.

When using MIDI (Recording, playback) i always start on measure 2. For some reason when starting on beat 1, measure 1, the MIDI doesn't have enough time to trigger the sounds. I found this to be true going back all the way to SONAR 2

First, lets start with some baseline questions: What guitar are you using? What pick-ups? What amps are you using and What mics are you using? To get a sound like “Breaking Benjamin”, you need to first start at the source. Ben Burnley uses 2 guitars mostly. Custom PRS Breaking Ben Hollow body Baritone (stock pickups with piezo) and ESP LTD EC-401B guitar. The amps Ben uses is the Randall RM-50 with Tread plate for dirty distortion sounds and the Blackface Module for most of his clean sounds. The pedals he uses are Boss OC-3 Super Octave pedal, DigiTech TimeBender Delay, DigiTech X Series Multi-Chorus, Boss DD-20, Dunlap Crybaby and he uses a boss tuner (I know the tuner doesn't matter), but its what i saw on his pedal board. Ben uses Ernie Ball guitar strings (yes it makes a difference). so try and get the sound you want right from he start, because if you do not, then you cannot come close to it in the mixing stage, as what sound you start with is the most important sound.

First thing first - The reason you can hear YouTube and other PC sounds just fine, but you cannot in Sonar is because you are using an integrated sound card. Those are only meant for PC sounds, not meant for using with a music production program (DAW) like Sonar. 2nd thing 2nd - is it can also be due to you are clipping your signal chain and/or driver issues. Using the on board sound chips that come with PC's are pieces of crap and not meant for the use with a DAW like Sonar

I think all songs are arranged differently, depending on who is writing it. Everyone has different styles, even if you are writing for the same genre. Also, everyone has a different understanding on music theory. That plays a lot in arrangement. Think of it like this. You can have 50 painting of a sun setting into the ocean. painted by 50 different artist. All 50 artist will go about painting it a different way, but still ending up with a sunset into the ocean.