No sound generation from SONAR 8 when it's not the "focused" windows application

Hi,

Please can anyone help with this problem:

I've been playing around with bome's Mouse Keyboard (http://www.bome.com/midi/keyboard) and LoopBe1 (http://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html) in order to enable MIDI input into SONAR from the qwerty computer keyboard. This is incredibly handy when I'm travelling with my laptop and need to tap in some ideas. That seems to work ok some of the time but here's my question...

Sometimes (and I can't quite figure out when / why), the midi input makes no sound when I'm pressing notes on the "Mouse Keyboard" application. Obviously, I have to switch main focus to the "Mouse Keyboard" application to trigger the notes either with the mouse or keys. Only when I switch windows focus back to SONAR do I suddenly get all those notes played at once! It's as if all the MIDI input is being queued up while SONAR is not the active application.

I find that if I have some other audio in my application and I'm playing it, I can switch to the Mouse Keyboard app and it will play in real-time. It seems that *sometimes* after I stop playing in SONAR, I can switch to the Mouse Keyboard app and the notes *will* play in real time.

I've tried switching off the global option to stop playing at end of project but I'm not sure that was what was causing the issue. It didn't have an immediate effect.

Does anyone know what SONAR is doing w.r.t. muting the sounds and if there's an option to just tell it to always play the sounds. I suspect this same problem will occur if using a regular midi device and SONAR is not the currently focused application.

Thanks!

Alex

Alex, in audio you have "shared in background" on?

if it works normally when it's in focus, that might be it.

posting more info would help though, what mode the card / model etc.

Hi,

I'm not sure what you mean by "In Audio" and "Shared in background". I have "Share Drivers With Other Programs" unchecked. I don't believe this makes any difference as the Mouse Keyboard is only pushing midi messages to LoopBe1 - which is inputting to SONAR.

FYI, I'm running SONAR 8.0.1 (32bit) on Vista Home Premium 64 on a shiny new Sony Viao VGN-FW270J. I was running via ASIO4ALL to the internal Realtek HD Audio card. When that plays it works well. I've been seeing other odd behavior from SONAR but that's another story I think... (see below **). Anyway, I just tried an experiment that I'd like to confirm is a bug so please *do* try this at home and report back... :)

Close all projects.
Configure the audio to good old reliable but slow (MME 32 bit) drivers
Perhaps you can confirm that you can hear an existing project with this ok.
Open a new blank project.
Open synth rack and create an instrument track for TTS-1 (default options)
When the TTS-1 property page appears, try the audition button at the bottom of a channel strip (the button with the note on it).
At this point, I hear nothing. I see no midi signal.
OK... so I see the Run/Stop Audio engine indicator is off - if I turn it on and try again, I do hear the audition.
But try this... press W to rewind to the beginning of your project or hit the |< rewind button on the transport....
now when I click audition, I see the midi signal but there's no audio.
Sometimes I don't even get to see the midi signal in TTS-1

There's definitely something screwy going on... I just tried the same experiment with ASIO4ALL drivers and it's even less predictable. I can't get any sound or response from the audition button at all now... When I click on the Stop Audio Engine button it's clear that SONAR is really thinking hard about something. It takes about 10 seconds to respond. If I click play, again, SONAR thinks for about 10 seconds then does nothing (as the project is empty), but the audition button still does not work. Now, if I open the Options->Audio dialog, and click on each tab but don't change ANYTHING, then click OK. Then try play, suddenly my TTS-1 audition button works. CRAZY! I can't imagine what kind of spaghetti code lies beneath this interface!


** w.r.t. to SONAR behaving badly, occasionally I start a project playing, I get no sound or see an audio meter activity, and SONAR refuses to stop playing. SONAR wont even close down! At which point, I have to kill the process (and this also happens without ASIO4ALL using my EDIROL M-16DX mixer)

SONAR 8 is a mess!

I'm about to try installing the 8.0.2 update - I'll let you know what happens next...

Bump...

Has anyone tried creating a project as I described above yet? I'm very curious to know if this is a general SONAR 8 bug.

Thanks,

Alex

rogeriodec
I was having the same problem with X3e. Turning off "Share Audio" solved the problem. Although in my opinion this should be just the opposite ...

You are running ASIO4All?

Rather than ASIO4ALL, I would suggest uninstalling ASIO4ALL and running SONAR in WDM driver mode. For friends with laptops without an external audio interface, WDM has often been the solution to issues with SONAR. ASIO4ALL is actually using WDM mode anyway, but I have seen enough flaky behavior with it that I no longer trust it.

old thread alert.
revived with post #8

It's not a good idea to bump/piggyback on the thread that is 6 years old. It can cause a lot of confusion and unnecessary posts. We have all seen countless examples of it.
 
Regardless Scook's post was only designed to be informative, and it certainly helped me out. So please don't be surprised if people warn other people that an old thread has been bumped, many of us attempt to indicate it when we spot it and it's a good public service methinks.
 
Thanks..