Guitar Rig Session I/O Interface Question

I just purchased the Guitar Rig Session 3XE Audio Interface and have a small problem. I am running Sonar 5 PE in XP32 w/ SP3. I installed the driver for the interface and I only can get a mono output out of the interface. Also, I cannot hear a monitor mix of me playing but I am getting a good signal in Sonar as the meter registers and I can record (the signal) and when I play it back, it is amplified and can hear it through the monitor (mono left only). In an audio track, the only output option the Session I/O Interface shows is Session I/O Ouput L. There is no stereo option for the output at all. The only way I can hear any monitor mix when not playing a track back is if I select the Input Echo button. Am I overlooking something simple or is this (more specifically the mono output issue) typical amoung any/many of the USB 2.0 audio interfaces out there? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Computer Specs:
Macbook running Windows XP32 SP3 via Bootcamp
Two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
250GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard disk drive

ORIGINAL: ew

The input for a guitar is mono. If you aren't running it through a plugin (for example, the GR version that comes with Sessions), you're only going to hear the left channel.
It sounds to me like you have the track selected to be mono to begin with, hence the one output. What happens if you choose both inputs (that is, a stereo track)?

ew,

I have not been running the interface through the plugin (GR3XE) but rather was using the Session I/O to record guitar straight into Sonar, so you are correct about that. I am merely trying to test the waters of the interface itself as the sound card interface for recording in Sonar without activating the plugin. With that being said, I take it that running the interface with the plugin should yield me a stereo track as long as I have both inputs selected? I plan on activating it soon but I figured I could get the settings on the interace dialed without using the plugin as it is an external audio device just like many others out there. Do you think the answer is to activate the plugin and try running with that? Thanks!

ew is right....

The input for a guitar is mono. Your guitar only sends a mono signal. Your cable only carries a mono signal.

record in sonar

This is where people get mixed up all the time. We see this once per week. You recorded (INPUT) in mono so you've only got data on the LEFT side of your stereo track in SONAR. Record into a MONO track and then pan it left or right and MIX in stereo.


Basic stuff guys.

please communicate clearly

"even if" - hypothetical meaning it isn't reality yet.....
"even if i have a stereo track selected to record in sonar" - hypothetical meaning you haven't recorded anything yet.....but only set up a stereo track in SONAR (for a mono input)
"i can only playback from the left speaker" - still meaning you haven't actually got a recording in stereo yet so playback must mean you're playing an instrument (mono) to try to hear stereo. That confused the issue right there.

I actually read everything you wrote many times to make sure I was understanding your statements. Now that you've clarified a bit in your subsequent reply, I don't know how the Session IO works or what it even looks like or what it has as outputs. But there's a lot of different places this can go wrong for people which could mean mono cable in a stereo jack (one channel is carried); it could mean you think you have a stereo track with stereo data but only have mono data in a stereo track.

You also confuse with two different things so I'll ask for clarification....

Is your problem that you're only hearing left channel sound through headphones as per "it plays that rhough only one ear also"?

Or is your problem "only "session i/o left" driver available to be selected in asio mode"?

You shouldn't have been talking about playback in one ear if the problem is that the NI drivers aren't communicating 2 channels to SONAR. So, if you can only pick output of one channel then there is indeed a problem with NI hardware and you should go to NI directly with that because that sounds like an issue.

Most of us here try to help when and where we can but sometimes how the question is asked misleads us to try to solve where the actual problem is. In this case now that you've clarified, you're saying you only get one channel exposed from the hardware? That's a driver issue and has nothing to do with SONAR so try going to NI's forum and see if there is anything there for help.

I had the same problem in X2. After some aggravation, I reinstalled the session io driver and made the following changes in Sonar via Edit -> Preferences
Playback and Recording -> Driver Mode -> ASIO
Audio Data -> Change Record and Render Bit Depth to 24, Import stays at 16
Click Ok to save
My guess is the ASIO driver only wants to work with 24 bit files and the left channel must be used as the timming device (Forced 24 bit)
The other drivers (i.e. WDM) sounded really bad when recording which supprissed me so I was forced to figure out how to get ASIO to work.