Your computer is very out of date.

What is your sound interface? 

You are way behind in hardware. Pentium 4 is a dinosaur.

Lance Jones

vladasyn


I experience many dropouts. It started with Sonar 8.5 and persist in X1. I replaced almost all hardware on my computer, so if it was hardware- it already addressed- the dropouts are still happening. I have 3 Gb of memory, it is 3.6 Pentium 4 single processor. The dropouts happening during Audio playback some time, and often during manipulations with Z3ta 2.1. Some time it would recover but often I have to restart the Sonar. Any suggestions (other than “buy Mac”), please? Thank you.   

For sure your processor is out of date and you are probably thin on memory. What type of drives and how many are you using? Have you checked your performance monitor to see if you are swapping to your system drive? I don't get how you replaced hardware with a Pentium 4. That does not make sense to me unless you took something very old and swapped it for something just old.

From the Cakewalk Sonar Web Pages...  http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/X1-Producer/feature.aspx/SONAR-X1-Producer-System-Requirements

SONAR X1 Producer System Requirements

The following are the minimum recommended system requirements for SONAR X1 Producer.


 

• Windows XP Service Pack 3 (32-bit)/Vista Service Pack 2 (32- or 64-bit)/Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit)*
• Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz/AMD Phenom Quad Core 9750 2.4 Ghz
• 2 GB RAM
• 1280x800 minimum screen resolution
• 4.5GB for minimal installation, 15GB for complete installation
• SONAR on DVD: DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R or DVD+/-RW Drive
• SONAR download: Broadband or better internet connection for download
• Cakewalk Publisher requires available web server space with FTP access

Heres my answer  Stop using Z3ta.  I too have an older system running 3.2G processor with 4 GigRam and my system runs fine.  I can play 20+ tracks at the sametime with the needed EQ,Comp,Limit or what effects i need all fed into 8-10 busses with no issues(Until i try to run Z3ta.  So..... I dont use it.)

Probably minor compared to the hardware thing, but make sure virus protection is either off or in gamer mode.

If you have a Firewall running in the machine, that could cause dropouts too... I had to disable my Firewall (Agnitum Outpost) to resolve the dropouts issue.

Here is the thread:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2395986

For me, Norton was almost as bad as a virus.  I went with Webroot which has always served me well and which is recommended by several techs and companies I respect.  (Get the one with both anti-virus and anti-spyware.)

I tried McAfee and ended up with their "security as a service" which required long phone sessions with India and then wrote applications and icons I did not want all over my machine.  I got really frustrated with this and felt I was deceived.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus is good but not as user-friendly for non-techs.

Webroot has a gamer mode that keeps it from scanning or interrupting.  When I am recording or mixing, I pull the plug on the Internet and go into gamer mode.  When I plug the ethernet cable back in, I get out of gamer mode.  (You are not unprotected in gamer mode but some of the scans and services don't run.)

By the way, if you use Firefox (I do) be sure to keep it up-to-date so you don't get stuck with the Google redirect virus which is hard for an anti-virus product to clean.
Your mileage may vary and I did not mean to end up doing product reviews, but for a music computer, anit-virus is almost as improtant as your DAW.  It's noble to say you won't use Internet on your music machine, but with all the software that requires Internet download and upate, it is hard—plus you have to have a second machine handy for forums, email, posting music online, etc.

I also don't understand- after we freeze the track- does it mean- the soft synth is closed? If I want to have 20 Z3ta tracks, with different sound on each track, do I freeze it 20 times- what is the limit? What happens after I freeze soft synth- does it release the memory and resources?

 
This is not what you're wanting to hear... but your current system isn't going to deliver that kind of performance with up-to-date soft-synths.
 
Next go round, don't bother puchasing a "server".
Instead, build a custom machine where you have complete control over what goes in.
Then, several years down the road, you can swap out the CPU/motherboard/RAM... and essentially have a new machine.
 
FWIW, Sonar makes extensive use of multiple CPU cores...
There's a *huge* performance leap between the P4 and the latest SandyBridge i7 CPUs. 
Not saying this to annoy you...
 
With regards to the existing system, make sure your DPC latency is low/consistent.
Make sure all drives are operating in DMA mode (not PIO which would kill performance).
I'd test your system's RAM... and I'd stress-test the system as a whole (to be sure the core hardware is stable). 
 
The P4 would be fine for tracking and light mixing.  It's not going to have the DSP muscle for dense mixes... or running multiple instances of the better soft-synths.
If you want to work extensively with soft-synths, you're going to be forced to upgrade.  Doesn't matter what host software you choose (Sonar, Cubase, ProTools, Reaper, etc)...
 
When you "freeze" a track, the soft-synth and any EFX are bypassed.  If they were not bypassed, they'd double the "frozen" result (which is actually a bounced down audio file - freeze is just a means of automating and making the process fast/convenient).  You can go into the EFX bin... and enable it and apply processing to the frozen tracks (just be sure to turn off the original synths/EFX so you're not doubling them).
I'm mixing "frozen" tracks for a client right now in X1 Expanded... (working great)
 
 

vladasyn


I copy it from another thread:

Time flies. I spent all my savings on that supercomputer- 2004 was just yesterday. All idea was to have top of the line processor- I was not going to replace it every 3 years after I set it up and configured. I doubt much changed between P4 and Core2 or i7. It is a recording computer- Dell Precision workstation (server)- you supposed to configure it and it should run for years. Well- the only original parts I have left in it is a chip and audio hard drive. 

I had power distribution problem on a motherboard- I had to replace memory, 2 hard drives out of 3, DVD drive and finally- the motherboard. I thought I had a ghost in a computer- things would just burn randomly- fans would start spinning like crazy or stop, black screen of death, not able to boot... That all fixed- it was the motherboard. The Windows were re-installed from scratch, all drivers reinstalled. No viruses, no junk- only Sonar and drivers.

I will say it again: this is Dell Precision Workstation. Another words- server. They meant to work for years- not to be replaced every 3 to 5 years. It was not in use heavily, and now it has all new parts. There still new computers released with Pentium 4. It is 3.6 clock speed- they do not get any faster. The drives- SCSI- 15,000 rpm. SCSI used for servers to retrieve heavy load of data. They respond in seconds. Memory is 3 Gb. The system meets and exceeds minimum requirements for Sonar. 

Audio interface is Helix Phonic Fire Wire 18 simultaneous. I also have Delta 10 10 and M-Audio Ultra 8 R installed, not in use. The Phonic set as master device for recording, clock and playback.

As stated earlier- my Internet computer is Core 2.6 Duo

The computer I use for Live performances is Core 2, 2.93 duo with Solid State Drive. Again- best I could get in Lap Tops in 2008

 
I strongly suspect either of the Core2Duos you have is more powerful than your Pentium 4. Certainly my Core2Duo 2Ghz laptop with 2GB of RAM is much faster than my old P4 with 2GB (which is now in service as a small server running Linux and handling file backups, mailspooling and a few networking/web related things). 

My current Core2Quad DAW tower system is a supercomputer compared to the Pentium 4 one. Projects that peaked at about 80%cpu on the P4 run on the Core2Quad at about 20-25% cpu spread across all four cores.
As for the number of cores that's desirable, "as many as you can afford" is probably the best way to go. Even a Core2Quad will give you a huge improvement over a P4 (you may find you don't need anything more powerful -I've no urge or need to upgrade at the moment, though I usually use hardware synths so my DAW sees less load than one running software synths).
Having said that, I can run multiple instances of Rapture/DimPro with no problems at all.

When I in a freeze track, the soft synth closes, it has a snow flake next to it and I can not reopen interface. So does it mean- I have to insert new Z3ta instance, is there any way to reuse the one that was frozen? 

 
Off the top of my head, clicking on the snowflake button should "unfreeze" the track and any synths/fx it contains. Look up "freeze track" in the Sonar manual/help file.

As Jim wrote above, Freeze does disable the synth (and FX bin) freeing up those resources.  So if you freeze 10 ZETA tracks you should certainly see a decrease in CPU while disk usage increases slightly.