No Sound When Recording

Hello, all.


After researching the Forums, as well as going through the Cakewalk troubleshooter and user guides, I have not found a solution to the following issue:

When recording an audio track with Cakewalk LE 8.5, the only way that I can hear what I am recording, through my monitors, is via the "Input Echo" feature. But, as advertised, this is an "echo" of the instrument (Roland JUNO Gi, connected via USB to my PC) that is about 1/4 of a second behind the actual time of the audio input.

Clearly, this makes multi-tracking impossible.

A recorded track plays back, as intended, thorough my monitors. All other input devices and audio programs also work as intended.

The drivers for the Realtek HD Audio that shipped with my Dell PC are all up to date. This entire set up is brand spanking new, and it's a clean install.

 I was trying to avoid waiting until after the holiday weekend to get this issue resolved via customer service...


Thank you in advance for any information.

sharpdion23-

Thank you for your reply. I just wanted to clarify where the changes that you suggested should be made:

Within SONAR, or via my PC audio settings?

Thanks again.


Edit: I found the I/O buffer size box. I'll provide an update in a bit.


Edit #2: After approximately 30 minutes of tinkering with the Advanced Audio features and tweaks, it looks like I will be contacting Tech Support for a remote fix. Update to follow.

No. The input echo is the way to hear what you are recording in real time. The latency you hear is due to the fact that integrated soundchips are not capable of proper multitracking, no matter how spanking new the system is.

Trying ASIO4ALL drivers (free download) might help, often the integrated chips want to use MME-drivers, which are very weak. WDM and WASAPI are good as well, if your chip understands them.

You can make them work OK sometimes with simple projects, but serious DAW work is out of the question. A decent soundcard is required for that.

Changing the buffers in Options-dialogue might help, as Sharpdion suggested.

ADDITION: Juno is a real synth, right? Should you not use it's audio outputs to record it's sound in SONAR? USB doesn't usually carry both audio and MIDI. Which of those are you trying to record? If you record MIDI, what is producing the sound?

Hello, Kalle-


Thank you for your reply. I would like to preface my response by saying that I already have a Cubase DAW up and running, and that the input is, in fact, a USB mixer. When I initally installed the Cubase on my previous PC, as well as the new one, I simply contacted Steinberg with this very same issue. They then remote accessed their product on my PC, and corrected the latency within minutes. I am here in the forums today as a result of the Cakewalk Tech Support's deserved time off.  I'm sure that Cakewalk Tech Support will extend me the same courtesy, and service, as the Steinberg staff, and resolve this problem.

So, yes. A light weight DAW works perfectly fine on my spanking new sub-par sound card. Additionally, My DAW is merely to get a few scratch tracks or a quick song idea down, as was the intention of purchasing the Roland JUNO Gi, with it's on board 8 track digital audio recorder. When I need a "real" DAW, I bring the ideas to my band's studio, and we record on a "real" system.

Additionally, the whole purpose of installing the Cakewalk software, and connecting my JUNO to my PC via USB, was simply one of convenience. If I'm playing away from my home recording set-up, I can simply drop an idea in the JUNO recorder, and then expand on it when I get the chance at another time. Also, if I get something put together on my home DAW, I wanted to be able to transfer it via USB to my JUNO recorder to take along to the "real" DAW. Pretty simple concept in theory.

Due to MIDI's limitations, I prefer to record in actual audio, and in the digital realm as much as possible. This way, myself, and my engineer, have almost unlimited flexibility when manipulating pristine sounds into a final product. Besides, if I have a lousy sound card, why would I plug directly into it?

All of these things considered, thank you for your input, Kalle. I'll take a look at those downloads. However, in all seriousness, why would I spend money on a better sound card to "fix" a free product that I don't really need?

Hello, Greg-


I'm actually using a Yamaha audio interface that was bundled with the Cubase software. It's simple and straightforward. I am not using MIDI at all; straight audio. No soft synths.


I was going to just use the Yamaha interface that I have, with the SONAR, but it also runs USB into my PC, so I get the same lag issue in the software. The "audio in" on my current sound card is basically a single 1/8" jack. So, I have a PC mic plugged into it, since it's not exactly a quality input.


I think I'll have another look at this in the morning when I have a fresh perspective.


Thanks.