Sonar Prod.8 Latency, and buffer crackling troubles as project gets larger

Probably asked and answered a million times, as my project gets larger i start to get major Latency problems when input monitoring, i've set the asio driver (Motu PCI-424) it as low as i can, 1 step up from not running at all. 128 i believe.
 
Also getting a lot of buffer crackling.
 
Heard it suggested to disable Sonar's PDC, delay control. I can not for the life of me find where to turn this off. If that i the answer can i get an instruction on where this is shut off during recording.
 
If the problem is caused by to many tracks and buses running eq's, compessors, verbs. wouldn't it be safe to say
if i deleted all FX and plug ins eq's etc completely there should be no latency or crackling?
 
Moving into vocal recording now, and input monitoring will be vital, as will be crackle free tracks.
Can anyone help an old Canuck?
 
Thanks,
Rob.

Thanks Boydie, I will give the "freeze track" a try tonight. Hopefully Sonar 8's Help menu instructs one on how to do this. I tired to find this "PDC" and no where can i find a disable button or command.

I will look at the system also, i am hardlined to the router (no wifi) Using Windows 7. But the PC is a purpose built unit, dedicated to the studio. Off course it still has internet explorer and an anti virus is there for upgrades, and swapping files, uploads etc...

I've monitored the cpu and it's barley working even when playing back during recording (multitracking) with 10-tracks playing. I have a feeling this may be a Motu compatibility thing also. The PCI-424's control panel has a ms slider for adjusting speed, and i can't seem slide it. I can only select a speed. 128 ie 264 etc... It adjusts the buffer to suit.

The other thing i realized today is that i may not have updated Sonar 8 Producer. I am going to update tonight (if cakewalk still had the updates...
Cheers,
Rob.

If you are still tracking, which judging from your comments you are, then it's quite common to switch ALL your Fx off until you enter the mixing phase.

Once you're at that stage, you can switch them all back on and raise your latency with impunity

But please, edit your signature to include your FULL system specs - including soundcard/interface/driver

Sorry... sig. line should work now...

Thanks Cactus. (The-Bush BC), that is British Columiba i take it?) (I'm a BC boy myself :) You must be near Cache Creek or near osoyos... if you got cactus around you, lol.
 
So thus far no success on a fix. I only have the one AISO Motu MK1 Interface (uses a PCI-424 sound card). (The nady pra-8 is just the pre amp for my mic's) I had a friend that has used Sonar for years over yersterday. We went through it with a fine tooth comb. The CPU is barely working hard at all during playback or recording for example. We froze tracks, we disabled effects, we moved projects out of files into new files, updated that latest drivers for the sound card. Checked for progams running during reording. We couldn't actually replicate the buffer drop outs while recording this time. And oddly, the drop outs are during playback only from what we can tell. For example the buffer drop outs aren't consistently in the same place when playing back a track. (Not visible on the track either) We though that maybe it is the system working to hard, but the cpu isn't even regestering up to 20% useage on playback or record.
 
I am going to do a full mix down on the worst song of the bunch to hear if the drop outs mix down on to the final product. That will be a sign that even though i am hearing the drop outs they are not actually recorded and are only on playback.
 
To help contiune the project i am going to use Cuemix for monitoring (i wasn't doing that before, and had to drop the buffer down latency issues) this time im leaving it at 256.
 
It's super annoying, but it may be fixed. If i'm getting it on playback only, and during mixing, i may just have to ignore it. Which is a shame and it just shouldn't happen.
 
My friend is going to look at his system settings and see if there is anything else we might have missed, but it could just very be how the system works. I am also going to try recording a lead track and a vocal track on my old hard drive Tascam DP-01fx, then mix it to wav, and drop it into sonar, see what happens, if we don't get any pops or crackles, i may have to finish the project that way.
 
If anyone has any more ideas that may be causing this please post :)

How many, what size & type are your hard drives?

OK, the DPCLAT test came back normal, all very good. Well below the green line, and reporting that this system should not have any drop outs.
I even ran the test during playback of a 12 track song in Sonar with fx running.
 
So is it the Hard Drive... It looks like from a lot of sig lines that most of you have large external hard drives. Could i simply not be giving the audio enough room?
Thanks
Rob.

Hi Bristol,

OK, excuse the poor computer skills and spelling errors... i am going to try to attempt to answer these questions the best I can,

What does this, or any other project exhibiting problems, contain?
A: The total "project" contains 13 Songs (with all thier related Cakewalk Project Files, and Audio Files) For each of the 13 songs they started with a scratch guitar track and a click (now earsed) then (in Gyln Johns Style) 4 tracks of Drums were added, then next was added tracked backing guitar tracks. (This numbered up to 4-6 depending on the intros, acoustic vs. electric tracks that the song calls for) Why so many: Each track is doubled by the gitarist and panned left right for a chorus effect unique to the players style. 

 Is it all Audio or are you running Soft Synths? How many of each?
A: It is all Audio, each track was recorded with a microphone, no synths were used, no drumagog or anything like that added, pure dry signal mic'd amps and drums straight into each track.

How many tracks?
A: 4 for drums (put into a track folder) 2 for Rythumn guitars typical for most songs (Put into a backing guitar folder). 5 or 6 have 2 added tracks for acoustic guitar, and again 2 added for some rudimentary type lead lines. In the case of two songs 2 more added for Separate acoustic intro's and Outro's. So The real answer is mainly 6, some times 8, special case 10, and very speial case 12.

 How many Fx plugs?
For all the drums through out the entire project all 13 songs, all 4 tracks, a SonitusFx Compressor First then a SonitasFX Equalizer (on one song i used a SonitusFx 1DB boost for a weak snare) in order on the main track line.

For The Electric Guitars Typically i used a SonitasFx Equalizer, and A TL64 Tube Leveler on the main track line.
For Acoustic Guitar Track  i used only an SonitasFx Equalizer.

Any with known latency problems?
a: None that i know of, the acoustic guitars seemed to be problematic, but i think it was due to the fact they were late in the recording, and there was already 6-8 tracks being played back during recording. Drums had Zero latency problems, nor did Electric Guitars. We tryed to line in an acoustic, and then an electric thats where we hit the Latency trouble. The main problem was and has always been the Drop Outs. The latency is a huge concern though as we enter the vocal recording stage of the record. We were messing with Buffersize to eliminate latency and noticed drop outs.

What's your Bussing structure?
A: My 4 drum tracks are bussed accross into a single Sonitas FX Reverb Bus, they are also Bussed into a single separate Buss with a VC-64 Vintage Compressor.
Any Electric Guitars are bussed into single a Sonitas FX Reverb bus, there is one song that utilizes a Lexicon Patheon Reveb (but only one song.)
Any acoustic guitar tracks are bussed into another single SonitasFX reverb bus.

From this point you can see how each track is bussed accross into it's reverb/compressor buss.
Next all tracks, incuding busses are sent to the Master. On the Master i have a LP64 Multiband EQ, and BuzzMaxi brick wall limiter. The Master is bussed to the Motu PCI Card.

Have you cleared out your picture cache recently?
a: I am not sure what picture cache is, and have not done so.

I Hope this helps, thank you for your support, it is very much appreciated.
Cheers,
Rob.

Hi again,
So the new internal hardrive has helped, almost got it solved. New material being recorded is not being affected by buffer drop outs. Oddly enough on play back i am still encountering some buffer drop outs on tracks that i recorded earlier. After some long listening, i found that the buffer drop outs were not consistent, and if i expanded the wave form on screen, they were not there (or at least did not appear as a peak or drop out) So my only assumption is that those tracks now need to be re-recorded.
 
I do have a cunning plan however, before i drag a guitarist back into the Rock Walls, i am going to take my worst case song, bundle it, and send it to a fellow that has a better PC than i, i am going to have a listen there, hopefully there wont be drop outs. If this is the case, then i will do all my final mixes and production at his studio (If he'll let me, lol)
 
So in the end i believe that the new hard drive is helping to speed up in/out process. However i am beginning to thing that my I3 540 Hyperthreading core is just to weak. Its the last item that could potentially be stalling things. I do plan to upgrade to and I5 or I7 compatible with my mobo.
 
Thanks for all your help folks.
Rob.