Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it

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GDameron
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2006/05/11 14:08:55 (permalink)

Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it

I'm getting bad audio distortion during playback. No dropouts, just distortion. Audio is set to 44.1K, 16 bit. Meters stay well in the green during recording and playback. The distortion is sporadic, meaning it happens at different spots each time I play back the audio. On average, 20-40% of the audio track comes out distorted; the rest is clean (i.e., it's not solid distortion start to end).

Not just my project - I also get playback distortion from the Cakewalk's sample "SONAR Audio and MIDI DEMO2.cwb".

Environment: Windows 2000 Pro SP 4, Sonar 4.0.4, Emu 0404 sound card (no other sound cards).

A (sort of) brief history:

Three days ago, the DEMO2 sample played flawlessly. I tried for the first time to record audio in Sonar, but no signal was getting in. Also could not record in Windows Sound Recorder - no signal. Concluded it must be a driver issue. Upgraded the Emu 0404 driver and digital audio system software (PatchMix DSP) to the latest. Audio recording then started working, both in Sonar and Windows Sound Recorder. One problem solved.

But - audio playback of what I recorded in Sonar was distorting. Same with DEMO2. Record/playback was clean in Windows Sound Recorder, as long as CD quality format was used.

Googled around and saw a suggestion to upgrade to the latest DirectX. Did so - now at 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) (don't know what it was before).

Distortion still there in Sonar playback of DEMO2. Was DirectX to blame somehow? Ran "dxdiag" and all audio was flawless, so doesn't look that way. MP3 playback in Win Media Player also flawless.

The problems seemed to start when I upgraded the Emu driver and software, so I rolled back both to what they were. Distortion still occurred playing DEMO2! (Plus, I couldn't record again, so leaving the old Emu driver/software in place was a non-starter. I've since re-applied the latest upgrades.)

Multiple reboots and multiple resets of AUD.INI along the way were unfruitful.

Bottom line - audio playback is perfect outside of Sonar (dxdiag, Win Media Player, etc.), sporadically distorted inside it. Suggestions?

GD
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    glazfolk
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    RE: Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it 2006/05/11 17:39:10 (permalink)
    Whar is happening to your audio meters, especially Bus and Output meters? Do they appear to be clipping along with the distortion? If so, it could be a panning law isue. Try Options, Audio and select a -6dB panning law, see if that helps.

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    #2
    GDameron
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    RE: Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it 2006/05/11 18:05:43 (permalink)
    Tried all of the panning law settings. Still distorting. -- GD
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    chulaivet1966
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    RE: Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it 2006/05/11 18:16:49 (permalink)
    GDameron....

    I'm going out on a limb here so could the fact you're OS is Win2K be a factor also relating to a 'driver' type of issue?
    Although, I believe I've read here somwhere that Win2K works fine with 5.0.
    What about 'share drivers' with other programs....should that be checked?

    Sorry if this is no real help but we all feel the pain when things are pissing us off.

    Hope you get it resolved.

    Quaz out
    post edited by Quazelar - 2006/05/11 18:24:45
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    GDameron
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    RE: Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it 2006/05/11 19:18:48 (permalink)
    Quazelar - "share drivers" made no difference. But, good news, I found the solution. Your suggestion took me to the "advanced" tab of the audio options, so I tried an experiment - switching driver mode from WDM (the default, apparently) to ASIO. Bingo - audio is now crystal clear.

    Now, can someone explain why/how ASIO made the distortion go away?

    GD
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    Rev. Jem
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    RE: Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it 2006/05/11 19:44:02 (permalink)
    Not sure why, GD but I wasn't even aware that Emu supplied WDM drivers but I do remember reading something in Sound On Sound recently by Craig Anderton where he mentioned that, under Sonar, ASIO is the way to go with Emu soundcards.
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    chulaivet1966
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    RE: Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it 2006/05/11 21:24:09 (permalink)
    Howdy GDameron.....

    Cool.....very glad you figured it out.
    Glad I could at least get you on the right 'path', so to speak.
    Wish I could help with your other query re: why WDM made the audio furballs go away.

    I'm off tomorrow so a great weekend to all.

    Quaz out
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    pjl
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    RE: Audio distortion in Sonar, but not outside of it 2006/05/11 23:21:42 (permalink)

    ORIGINAL: GDameron

    Emu 0404 sound card (no other sound cards).


    Absolutely no other sound cards? No on-board sound device enabled?

    I ask this because this distortion problem often occurs when you are in WDM/KS and have more than one device selected. In this case SONAR can use only one of the devices as the clock master and if the other device is not digitally synced (via word clock or similar) attempts to play back audio through the non-synced device produce the distortion you describe.

    So, if SONAR was set up to use your on-board sound as the timing master but you routed the audio out through the EMU card you would get this problem.


    Celebrate reason, sleep in on Sundays
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