Live Recording Sonar 8.5SE

Hi everybody, I just received my Scarlett 18i6 and I am planing to use it record my band next week.
 
So far I ran a few tests on my desktop PC and I am really satisfied with it.
Unfortunately I cant bring my desktop with me but I am going to have my old lap top. It s really old but it runs fine.
 
Here are some specs: Toshiba Satellite M55-S331
 
Notebook with 14-inch TruBrite display
1.73 GHz Intel Pentium M (Centrino) 740 processor, 2 MB L2 cache
250 GB hard drive, + Glyph 1T external HD via FW
1.5 GB of RAM, 4 X USB 2.0, one FireWire (TI),
Dual Boot Windows XP Home edition, SP3/Windows 7 Home
 
Installed and been using for years with no problems, is Sonar 6 SE, Sonar 8.5 SE, Pro Tools 7.3 + MBOX2
 
I have recorded stereo with the MBOX2 for years with no problems but now I need to record 8 tracks simultaneously for hours.
 
- Do you think my lap top is going to be able to do it?
The XP boot is optimized for studio work only (mostly tracking and basic editing)
 
- Does the old processor play a major role for recording 8 tracks? or the low memory?
 
- Should I better use Sonar 6 instead of 8.5? (may be less resources?)
 
- Should I use Windows 7 instead of XP?
 
Thank you all in advance

You should have someone hit CTRL-S during the recording or have autosave turned on otherwise if it crashes during the recording, you may have trouble recovering it. 

You should test it with the laptop that you're going to use. Test it just like you plan to use it and record 8 tracks of something for 2-3 hours and see how it holds up. I'd be a little concerned with just 1.5 GB of memory and only 250GB hard drive. 


8 tracks x 10MB per minute x 60 minutes = that's about 5GB per hour plus paging space and temporary files. I'm not sure if the 2GB file limit applies to XP, but if it does, you could be in trouble. You really need to run some tests. 

Firefox is the cause of missing paragraphs. Anything newer than vs. 3 doesn't work well with the forum software. Chrome, IE and others are ok.

I have a Toshiba Satilite A40  P4 2.4Mz with 1.5 gig RAM,, I did upgrade the Hard drive to a 7200 RPM 100 Gig which is the most critical component when streaming audio. CPU and RAM have very little effect if under powered. The audio is written directly to your hard drive, so you can see why that's the most important item to optimize. 
Anyhow you will be just fine, I've recorded 12 tracks and CPU never leaves the basement. I have been doing this for 10 years on this computer and before that an even worse Acer 1.5Mz. Centron. 

Some tips.  Run DPCLAT meter.. This will tell you if all is good. Any yellow of red spikes need to be dealt with or you could have a dropout.  
Kill these in Device Manager:
Wireless adapter
Battery management 
On board Sound card
Use 44.1/ 24 bit. 48/24 might work too. but don't try any higher. 

I also keep the hard drive under 40% used and will defrag before the session. Just get rid of all your crap to a external drive. 

For the session make a template with the amount of tracks you need and name them. Set all the inputs etc. DON"T add efxs at this point. or Bypass the bins. 

Then for each song your going to record perform a "save as"  of the template , rename, and put each song in it's own folder.  These folders should be in an Album folder too. This will make it simple to drag and drop this folder to transfer to your desktop DAW later. I always include the date in the title of album folder.  
Make a few extras just in case your band writes a new song that night! Seriously! 

The night of the session you can open all those projects and minimize to tray. I had 14 projects open the other night and my RAM never choked. This makes it easy on you as the night progresses you can quickly be ready for the next song. 

Once a good take has been made SAVE it right away. 
If you decide to make a second take, just record over the other one and do a "save as" take 2 when done. 

DO not use auto save. it's too scary for me.  

Because I dont have 8 signal sources at the moment, I recorded just silence from the 8 inputs for about 30 minutes and it seems fine.

I don't think that's a very good test. Why not record 8 tracks from the same input for the sake of testing? 


Edit: I'm running a similar test now and my disk is at 50% and the CPU is at 52%. I'm using X2 Producer on a QuadCore with 8GB  of memory and a 7200 1TB drive. 


Edit: Well I turned the input all the way down so that it recorded silence and that didn't lower the CPU or Disk % used so maybe your test was ok. What were your CPU and disk #s? 

The DPCLAT will show issues pretty much right away, What you can do is let it run for 5-15 minutes. Any processes that were lurking will show up by then. 

Hmm an hour , that's a different kettle of fish. As Daveny is warning you'll hit the file size limitation.  
I would see if there was any point in the show that you could spare 30 seconds it would take to hit save. The fastest way would be to close the project window via the red X. It will ask you if you want to save.  Then start a new recording with one of the already open files like I mentioned. You could have multiple projects open and layered over top one another.   
If Sonar crashes you'll loss everything so you have to figure a way to do a few saves or the whole thing is gone. Tell the band to have a smoke after the 5th song. Sets of 4 to 6 songs would be ideal. 
Just remember, the longer the song , the longer it will take to save, This is where a faster CPU would help. 
You'll find that when you hit the space bar to stop that the waveforms will take forever to be drawn too, don't worry, it's not important to the recording. 
 
I've been told that if your hard drive is full then the wave file cnnot fit in one space so there is an interuption while the hard drive looks for the next space. This is why I would only attempt what your doing with a fast and empty hard drive, Might be better to use an external drive, long as that old turkey has USB 2. 

Some updates

about DPCLatency
Left it running for about half an hour and everything is nice and green. I would say better than my desktop.

I have been recording for about 10 minutes now 8 mono tracks and no hick ups so far.

@Dave
the CPU meter in SONAR is showing 01-02%
The Disk meter in SONAR is showing between 02-05% 

I ve just opened the task manager and CPU is showing 100%
I think I am going to have to pack some ice! lol. 

what bothers me is that in the audio preferences in SONAR the 24bit is grayed out and I cant find the setting in Scarlett mixer options to change it to 16bit

It s going to be a long night... 

Cactus Music


You should be able to change that setting in the Scarlett ASIO panel. 

What I notice is that in ASIO mode that is greyed out, If you change it to WDM it gives me options from 16 to 24. But I set mine in the Tascam control panel. 

Thanks for your reply,
 
Well.... I know it should change from the ASIO panel but unfortunately there is no option, or at least that I can find right now.
 
Coming from EMU 1820 with an amazing virtual router/mixer UI, this Scarlett's mixer looks like a cheap plastic toy.
 
Anyways, I dont think there is an option to record in a lower bit rate... If anyone has any information about how to lower the bit rate in ASIO I will be so thankful
 
I found this in the Focusrite site.
 
"This article addresses concerns raised by some about 16 bit and 24 bit in Windows systems.
When using the WDM driver, only 16 bit modes are seen as an option in the Advanced section of the interface's Properties. However, this setting has absolutely no effect when recording using the ASIO driver, which users should always use in DAWs, due it's its low latency and increased peformance over WDM (Windows' own audio driver).
The audio stream captured from our USB 2.0 hardware is always 24-bit samples. These samples are not altered or processed in any way by the driver when recording via the ASIO driver. Windows audio control panel may say the device is in 16 bit mode, but the ASIO driver bypasses the Windows audio system, and is therefore not affected by this setting.
Therefore, using 24 bit depth in your recording software, while using the ASIO driver, is still 24 bit when recording/creating, where 24 bit actually matters.
 
http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/en/article.php?id=1209
 
Now the problem is, how to deal with the CPU load...
Although it seems like the laptop is behaving fine I am concerned about the temperatures.
The highest buffer size I can select in the Scarlett ASIO panel is 20 ms.
 
Does the Read/Write Cashing play a role in lowering the CPU load?
 
Have a nice day everyone!

The process SONARSTD.EXE uses 94-99% of the CPU just by starting Sonar.
But even when I record the load doesnt change.
I dont like the Task Manager in Windows, I dont use it because it s kind of problematic.
I never noticed how Sonar loads the CPU.  
 
Anyways I have no Plan B, I have to use this laptop for the session and if it makes it I will be happy, if not... let that be a lesson. 

That's odd about your Task Manager. I just tried it on 2 different computers and they both are showing a low reading with a song playing, This one is a few audio tracks and MIDI via TTs1. Both computers are XP P4 and 1.5 GIG RAM 2.5 Mz. single core. This screen shot is from my office computer and it's so full of apps and software, It is not optimized at all.  The CPU usage history shows it was high during Sonar loading then it settled down to 5-15% 

there was a thread about this not that long ago, X1 forum? Anyhow I think they said 25' and if you use a powered usb hub you might go further

Test that long USB cable ahead of time! It may or may not work reliably. Another possible solution might be a wireless keyboard. (The ideal solution is, unfortunately, a product you can no longer buy, but might be available on eBay: a Frontier Designs Tranzport.)

Also take a look at the Korg Nanokontrol controller. It's got the necessary transport controls and it's cheap, but the downside is that it also requires a USB connection to your computer and is therefore restricted by USB cable-length limitations. I don't have one myself, but it's long been on my list as a potential replacement for my Tranzport, should that treasured device ever stop functioning.

SONARSTD.exe Problem solved!


I uninstalled Pro Tools and for some reason everything is working as it should! 
8 Mono tracks recording and the processor doesnt even sweat! You were right and thank you so much for your help!

Cactus Music


That's odd about your Task Manager. I just tried it on 2 different computers and they both are showing a low reading with a song playing, This one is a few audio tracks and MIDI via TTs1. Both computers are XP P4 and 1.5 GIG RAM 2.5 Mz. single core. This screen shot is from my office computer and it's so full of apps and software, It is not optimized at all.  The CPU usage history shows it was high during Sonar loading then it settled down to 5-15%