Midi events appear to be written sooner than they should

I notice the same thing.  I was always assuming that my timing was the problem.  I cannot say for sure that i specifically noticed it happening with any hardware or software change, so I just live with it. 

I usually select all the midi notes and nudge 6-10 or so ticks and that seems to do the trick.   

BTW....nudge moves the selected midi note left or right a certain number of midi ticks that you can define.  I just use the defaults

I submitted a ticket to technical support. I'll find out what they say and get back with you.

This is what they told me and it didn't do a thing to improve my situation at all!

Click Edit | Preferences and select the Playback and Recording Section from the left-hand column. Set your Driver Mode to ASIO, and click Apply.

Next, select the Devices section:

Make sure your MOTU is selected under both inputs and outputs. If it appears grayed out, deselect all drivers, in both inputs and outputs, then select the MOTU device. If changes are made, click Apply.

NOTE: MOTU also provides very reliable WDM drivers. If you experience problems in ASIO Driver Mode, you may want to consider using WDM as an alternative.

Select the Driver Settings section:

Make sure one of your MOTU card drivers is selected as Playback Timing master. For most users you'll want to set this to be either MAIN or Analog outputs 1/2. Click OK.

Finally, all audio playback will occur from the MOTU device itself. Make sure you have your speakers or headphones connected to its outputs.
 
On the Sync and Caching tab of the Preferences make sure the "Use ASIO Reported Latency" box is checked. There is also a manual offset here which you would not typically touch, but can be used to manually adjust the delay compensation.
 

Where is the adjust delay compensation knob? Why would I use anything other than ASIO drivers? Is Changing them to WDM going to fix the delay compensation?  I'm going to keep at it. Hopefully someone in the forum knows the trick and will post a reply!

Yes MIDI records too early!
I've been talking to the good people at Cakewalk for years about this.
I save the e-mails and it's interesting how HALF the emails state that the problem MUST be my hardware (it's not) and the other half ADMIT the problem exists.
I received promises that the problem would be fixed in future releases but it never has been fixed.
This is what I believe is happening:
During RECORD only, the Previously recorded audio tracks and the Audio metronome trigger slightly early to compensate for a tiny bit of latency that occurs when recording the new track. I have a feeling that the designers are thinking that if you hear the previous tracks and the audio metronome a fraction-of-a-second-early you're latent-by-a-fraction-of-a-second recording will line up.
So, if you record ONLY audio tracks, you'll never notice any problems.
But if you record a MIDI track, and HEAR the audio tracks or Audio Metronome trigger early, your MIDI tracks will end up planting themselves too early in the recording during playback.
I've noticed, while watching the audio time line, that the AUDIO metronome fires BEFORE the beat during recording but fires ON the beat during regular playback.
Jackasspenguin's suggestion to adjust the TIMING OFFSET is a good work-around. (Thank you!) I set mine at 25 msec and the MIDI tracks land pretty much where they should now.
But... It shouldn't have to be this way.
 
 

I also see this and wish it would get fixed.  I see this when I connect a external midi drum machine and set Sonar X to use midi clock/sync, I see the midi data written early.  When I record with internal clock, monitoring audio tracks its also early?  In this case I usually edit the midi manually.  I must admit I have run these tests in X1 but also own X2.  Given my limited time in the studio, I choose to create over test and calibrate.  If I had the time I would gladly do both. 

This 12 year old chestnut takes exactly 30 seconds to disprove in Sonar Platinum thanks to Aux tracks. If you create an Aux track and directly record the output of the metronome bus it is precisely in time. 
 
Sorry dude -  12 years on and either there is something askew on your system or you are still playing ahead of the beat:)

tenfoot
This 12 year old chestnut takes exactly 30 seconds to disprove in Sonar Platinum thanks to Aux tracks. If you create an Aux track and directly record the output of the metronome bus it is precisely in time. 
 
Sorry dude -  12 years on and either there is something askew on your system or you are still playing ahead of the beat:)

He is writing about Sonar X3 though.
 
@steplander:
Does this also happen with a brand new Sonar X3 project?
Back in the day I found a few unusual differences between a new Sonar X3 project and Sonar 8 projects opened in X3.

As best I can tell from trying to help various users with this issue over the years, this is an interoperability issue with certain system/interface/driver combinations that affects a relatively small percentage of SONAR installations and is not peculiar to any particular version of SONAR.
 
I'm inclined to advise that you bite the bullet and get a new interface as I don't recall anyone ever completely resolving this by changing settings, though I would say changing driver modes is your best bet, and you should definitely check Playback and Record Timing Master assignments, etc. Setting a Timing Offset as suggested earlier in the thread is a workaround that should not be necessary, and will cause other problems, especially if you use both software and hardware synths.
 
My current system, and every system I've ever owned will record simultaneous MIDI and audio from a keyboard synth with near-perfect sync affected only by uncompensated MIDI transmission latency that inevitably causes MIDI to be recorded a few milliseconds late relative to perfectly compensated audio (including SONAR's metronome if patched back to an input) - never early. So I'm confident know there's no inherent fault in SONAR independent of hardware it's running on.

I have a feeling vst's Plugin Delay Compensation has to do with this....I had an issue once but can'take remember exactly what it was.

(chuckling) "Playing ahead of the beat".
No... I'm not having the  same issue in Cubase and other programs. Just Cakewalk.
I did not upgrade to the new version because Cakewalk had promised to fix the (known) issue for a few version but it never was fixed.
I tried to open a ticket so I could include vid, but there appears to be no support option for Cakewalk X3 (or at least for me... The option is no longer available from the support drop down.)
I have changed computers a few times and the issue stays.
I think everyone who replied.
Maybe I just have to keep aiming my projects into cubase.
Step

Same ASIO driver in the DAWs I've used. Cubase seems to work realy well, although I don't like mixing in Cubase. Mixing in Sonar is great fro me once I tediously correct each track. 
I'm considering tracking in Cubase and exporting the stems to Cakewalk for final mixing.
 

Thats odd. I have tried to recreate your metronome sync problem you demonstrated in the video. To me the metronome is always in sync provided the notes are quantised. Do you have any problem like the midi notes appearing early as well? if not then this is something particular abt the metronome and diff from the OP's problem. As far as I can remember I have my midi notes appearing ahead problem in all my daws.  If you have problem with midi notes timing as well and it does not occur in Cubase, then I am gonna trial cubase and check. 

Here's a thread I started demonstrating the same. http://forum.cakewalk.com/Natural-Human-playing-in-the-PRV-grid-m3398979.aspx It was doubted that I am experiencing this problem as I am using my inbuilt soundcard to record. Which may be the cause. Too tempted to spend money on sample libraries I still haven't got a dedicated audio interface. But here it seems people with dedicated interfaces are also experiencing the same problem. 

Do go through this thread. http://forum.cakewalk.com/Natural-Human-playing-in-the-PRV-grid-m3398979.aspx We haven't reached to any solution but you will get an idea how to easily move the notes to the exact ticks so that they get placed where they should be.
If time is of essence I will copy paste two posts from that thread in my next post. Go through it

I agree with some of you guys telling  'if it sounds right, it is right'. That's true that's the only thing that matters. What I have noticed always is that when I play and record it sounds so perfect but when I play back the recorded midi take I notice a bit of unnatural sync. Very minute though. I move the recorded notes a bit towards the grid and it sounds better.

here is what I did.
I recorded a take with synth audio track armed. 
This is what I got



Zoomed in


The audio was 10ms delayed than the midi note.

Then I noticed that My ASIO reported total roundtrip latency is 10.9ms as well




I changed my ASIO buffer size to max.



Now the reported total roundtrip latency is 100.9ms

Now I recorded a take again with synth audio track armed.

Got this



Zoomed In



The audio here was 100ms delayed than the midi note 

So although the midi note got recorded few ms ahead of the beat the audio is where it should be. 
So I can leave the notes there itself right? NO NO NO!!!! BIG NO!

Now I deleted the recorded synth's audio. And recorded it again(only the audio from the pre recorded midi). This will help me know whether the audio will still be delayed than the midi note while playing back the recorded midi.

This is what I got 
For 10ms



For 100ms



As you guys can see. The audio gets played just where the midi notes are without any delay.

What can we conclude from this-

1.While recording if there is latency in roundtrip. There is a latency between audio and midi. We humans will play the notes slightly ahead so that our ears will perceive the audio in sync with the timing of the metronome/other instruments. Yes the audio we hear while we play is  correctly in sync, but inorder to sync the audio we compromise by playing the notes slightly ahead
OR
The DAW records them slightly ahead so that we hear the audio in sync. (I am not sure which case is true but either way we know that the midi is recorded slightly ahead depending on the latency)

2.However while we playback there is no latency between audio and midi and we end up hearing the audio aswell slightly ahead of the beat(if the midi notes are ahead of the beats)

 How can we fix this

1.Move all the midi notes exactly __ms forward(depending on your reported latency)
2.You can also record the audio along with the midi while recording and then keep the audio and delete the midi.(This is not a good idea though as you cant edit the midi notes.  what's the advantage of using midi then)
3.Record the audio along with the midi and then move and align the midi notes straight to the audio transients and go on and delete the audio.

Point 1. will work for me.

But is there someother way to do this much more easily?

brundlefly mentions of having timing offset in preferences. Can that help. May be!

Or may be Bakers can provide us with an potion to override this automatically in sonar. May be we need a Midi Delay Compensation  Guess we will be the first to introduce that. 

I am no expert. Just a lay user wondering of stuffs. If I have noted something technically wrong here please correct me.

Thanks.