Audio being recorded at a delayed rate - out of sync with the project.

I'm encountering a problem. When I record something along to the rest of a project in Sonar X3 the audio is recorded a second or so behind the rest of the track. I checked to see if it was my playing, but it's steady and consistent throughout - the audio is recorded and locked into the project at a point in time behind where it should be.

It happens sometimes and I've played around with buffer settings to try and resolve it but I don't really know what I'm doing, or why this happens in the first place. It has happened when I'm recording 9 mics at once on a drum kit, but it's doing it now for just two mics. What is going on?
 
I know it is possible to grab all the tracks and manually slide them along to get them in time, but I don't like that and I don't want to do it because you're trying to figure out how you played rather than listening back and hearing exactly what you played. I don't like the end result of that.
 

In addition to enabling Use ASIO Reported Latency, you will usually need a small Manual Offset to compensate for unreported latency, but that's generally less than 50 samples. You can calculate it by measuring the actual roundtrip latency using the free CEntrance Latency Tester, and subtracting the Total Roundtrip reported on the Driver Settings page of Audio preferences.
 
     http://www.centrance.com/downloads/ltu/
 
But if the compensation error is truely on the order of a full second, something else is going on. There have been cases in the past where users reported that having metronome count-in enabled was causing audio to be laid down a measure late. I never saw that issue personally, but if you're still on X3, that could be it. Do you have the 'e' update installed? Try disabling the metronome count-in in any case as a test.

ASIO; RME are the drivers by which all others are judged.
You can do the "loop back" test, it will be spot on; sample perfect.
Literally I never have a "sync" issue with either the UFX or the Babyface.
Oh, and did I mention; RME, ASIO, the BEST!
Make sure "Use reported Latency" is checked.
If you're using WDM, that's you issue right there.
T

Gideon K
 
I switched from ASIO to WDM a while back on a recommendation. I keep getting conflicting opinions about which is better for running SONAR on my system.
 

Reason could be this quote from the manual:
 
The program Sonar from Cakewalk is unique in many ways. Sonar uses the so called WDM
Kernel Streaming, bypassing the WDM mixer, thus achieves a similar performance to ASIO.
[page 20 - UFX manual]
 
But this should be read in context (same page). RME recommends ASIO.
 
 

WDM mode will always be off sync. ASIO from any decent brand should be close enough for rock and roll. 
Screenshot of loopback test. You want real bad results just use MME mode! 

 No, I don't normally run that low - usually 32 or 64. But a lot of my projects will actually play smoothly at 16 with half a dozen synths and mostly just Prochannel FX and a lightweight reverb.
 
SONAR reports just 2 samples higher RTL than CEntrance, but there's a catch... that's a digital loopback with no D/A/D conversion. Comparing apples to apples with your 64-sample buffer and the converter latency included, the measured RTL is 213 samples = 4.4ms at 48kHz. Still smokin' thanks to the PCIe bus interface.
 
I just couldn't resist pulling your chain with that digital loopback and 16-sample buffer. 

Have you run Latency Monitor to make sure there's no background interference from other apps.. I guess I don't need to mention shutting off wireless and internet as well. Another bug a boo with some machines is HDMI audio driver.

Dropouts can also be occur when Playback I/O Buffer and/or Record I/O Buffer are too small for the given project load, e.g. the project runs a high number of audio tracks, Take Lanes.
 
Try raising the buffer size in Preferences>Sync and Caching>File System>Playback I/O Buffer Size (kb).