SONAR LE Documentation is based on the full version of SONAR. Some screenshots, folder paths, features and other references may differ from your installation.

Customizing track/bus colors

Each channel strip in the Track view, Console view and Inspector can have a custom color tint, which allows you to color-code your tracks and clips for better project organization.

When you change the track color, it affects the track strip in the Track view, Console view, Inspector, and clip foreground color (waveform or MIDI data).

Figure 59. Click a track’s Track Color bar to assign a custom track color.

A. Track Color bar

Figure 60. Track colors affect the Track view, Console view, Inspector and clip foreground color.

To select a track color

1.	Click the track’s Track Color bar, which is located at the far left in the Track view and the bottom of the Console view.

2.

In the track color palette, select the desired color. You can preview colors in real-time as you point to different color swatches. To assign a custom color, click the Other button and select the desired color. By default, tracks follow the color of the bus they are assigned to. If you do not want to assign a custom color or follow the bus color, click and hold down the Follow Bus button, then select Default on the pop-up menu.

 

 

Tip: You can use a Quick Group to change the color of multiple tracks simultaneously. To do so, select the tracks you want to change, then hold down the CTRL key while you change any selected track’s color. All selected tracks will be set to the same color settings. For more information, see Quick Groups.

When a track color is set to Default, the track strip will not be tinted, and clips will revert to using the track colors that are specified in the Preferences dialog box (Edit > Preferences > Customization - Colors).

Figure 61. Default track colors are defined in the Preferences dialog box.

Bus strip colors

If you assign a color to a bus strip, all non-colored tracks that are routed to that bus automatically inherit the same color by default.

For example, in the following figure, all tracks are routed to the Master bus. Tracks 1 and 2 have custom track colors, while tracks 3-8 use default track colors. If you assign a custom color to the Master bus, tracks 1 and 2 remain unchanged, while tracks 3-8 inherit the same color as the Master bus.

Figure 62. The bus color also affects all non-colored tracks that are routed to that bus.

A. Tracks with custom colors B. Non-colored tracks inherit the bus color C. Bus

If you do not want tracks to inherit bus colors, go to Edit > Preferences > Customization - Colors and click the Track Defaults button, then click and hold down the Follow Bus button and select Default on the pop-up menu. You can also configure individual tracks to ignore bus colors (see To select a track color).

 

Tip: If you want to visually verify which tracks are routed to a particular bus, temporarily assign a custom color to a bus. All non-colored tracks that are routed to that bus automatically inherit the same color.

To remove a track color

Click the track’s Track Color bar to open the color palette, then assign Color to Default.

To use a custom color

Click the track’s Track Color bar to open the color palette, then click Other and specify the desired color.

To disable track strip colors

You can disable track strip colors if you only want to change the clip color (waveform or MIDI data), but not the track strip background. To do so, go to Edit > Preferences > Customization - Colors and clear the Show strip colors check box.

If Show strip colors is disabled, the current track is always highlighted.

Figure 63. Clear the Show strip colors check box to disable track strip colors

To specify the default track and bus colors

You can specify a default color for all new tracks and buses. To do so, go to Edit > Preferences > Customization - Colors and click the Track Defaults or Bus Defaults button.

Figure 64. Specify a default color for all new tracks and buses

 

Tip: By default, clips share the same color as their parent track. However, you can use the Clip Inspector to assign a custom color to selected clips, independent of the track color.

 

See:

Customization - Colors

Changing track settings

Track view

Console view

Properties Inspector - Clip Properties

Properties Inspector - Track Properties