The bass line consisted of hundreds of edits from multiple takes, and there were lots of takes to create the lead vocal. Sonar has clip-specific gain envelopes, which can raise and lower each clip of sound by a few decibels, which are great for smoothing out a comped track of lots of different takes.

I used a few different pre-sets of the Lexicon reverb on the vocals and the organ, and other plug-ins that ship with Sonar to compress the bass solo. Finally, I mastered the whole track with the Izotope Ozone mastering software.

Getting Past The Learning Curve

Of course, all this technology comes with a pretty steep learning curve for the newcomer to digital audio. But there are a couple of solutions there: Scott Garrigus has written Sonar 3 Power, which is a thick and thorough guide to the program, well worth reading for all the tips and tricks that Garrigus has discovered.

For example, Sonar has the ability to put automatically put fade-ins and fade-outs on any and every piece of audio in a song-or adjust the gain of each piece of audio. Both of these techniques are extremely useful in "comping" multiple takes of audio (as Nile Rogers described above) into a single final track whose volume is equal throughout, and with all edits clean, seamless and invisible, just like the pros.

The other option is to explore a program such as some of the mid-range products produced by Sony Pictures Digital (formally Sonic Foundry), or Cakewalk's Home Studio 2004, which reduces some of the available features, for a less cluttered and easier to get started with interface. (Apparently, Home Studio 2004 uses components from the previous version of Sonar--not a bad recycling of code.)

But for those serious about recording home, Sonar 3 is a great platform. It doesn't come with George Martin. But on the other hand, he had to start somewhere-and Sonar 3 is a great way to make professional-sounding music.