I use Presonus AudioBox 1818VSL and have ZERO problems.
It is MOST likely a combination of settings and/or your USB port.
Please list for me:
1. What kind of USB port you have it plugged into.
2. From the AudioBox UI, I would like to know the Sample Rate, and the ASIO Buffer Size you have it set to.
3. From Sonar Preferences>Audio>Recording and Playback, what Driver Mode you have specified.
4. From Sonar Preferences>Audio>Device Settings, what Sample Rate you have specified.
5. From Sonar Preferences>File>Audio Data, what Record Bit Depth you have specified.
Please DO post the above information.
My belief is that you CAN get this to work for your system. I would like you to try the following actions and settings:
1. With Sonar NOT running, plug the AudioBox into a USB 2.0 port, and make sure it powers up and loads its device drivers. (Make sure you have the latest set of supported drivers for your AudioBox from the Presonus site - note that any beta drivers have no support). PLEASE DO NOT HAVE ANY OTHER AUDIO INTERFACES THAN THE AUDIOBOX PLUGGED IN AT THIS TIME. My AudioBox 1818VSL puts an icon into the System Tray at the bottom right of my display monitor - if the regular AudioBox does the same thing, look there for an icon for the UI and click or double-click to open the UI for the AudioBox.
2. With Sonar still not yet running, once in the AudioBox UI, please set the Sample Rate to 44.1 and the ASIO Buffer Size to 128. (These values are reasonable starting points)
3. Once you have made those settings changes, power down and back on the AudioBox. (if it does not have a power switch, just unplug the USB cable and plug it back in. If it has a power switch, turn it off and back on). This is a recommended action anytime settings are changed for the interface, as it gets a fresh set of memory for the new settings.
4. Now, with the interface powered back on, fire up Sonar, and when the Quick Start dialog box opens, close it, and then hit the letter 'P' on your computer keyboard to get into Preferences.
5. Please follow the following order of actions:
- In Preferences>Audio>Playback and Recording, set the Driver Mode to ASIO and click apply.
- In Preferences>Audio>Devices, you should see your AudioBox devices already now set for both Inputs and Outputs. Make sure all available inputs and outputs are checked, and click Apply.
- In Preferences>Audio>Driver Settings, set the Sample Rate to 44.1 and click Apply. Please also note the reported latency values at the bottom and post those values back to this thread.
- In Preferences>File>Audio Data, set the Record Bit Depth to 24 and click Apply. This will set Sonar to use 24-bit recording for new projects.
After ALL of the above are performed, go ahead and got to File>New and create a project, using the Normal project template - name it whatever you want, and now perform the following actions to check the playback for audio dropouts, clicks, and crackles:
- In the Media Browser, at the far right, just to the left of where it says Cakewalk Content, hover your mouse over the little folder-looking icon (might be a little '+' sign in the icon's middle), and hovering should show a message saying 'Move Up One Level'. Click on that to navigate up as needed, and navigate to somewhere on your computer where you have an audio file - an MP3 or a WMA song file would be good.
- When you have navigated to where one or more audio files are displayed in the Media Browser, click once on an audio file to preview it, and if you give it a moment to process, Sonar should start playing the audio file. This will test out your system's ability to handle audio processing in Sonar, without introducing any other aspects of setting up tracks, and also avoids effects and all of that. It will purely play your audio file through Sonar, using the settings you applied in the earlier steps to both Sonar and your AudioBox. To stop the preview, just click on that icon again to Move Up One Level, and playback will stop.
HOPEFULLY, the above steps will provide you a clear playback, with no audio problems.
PLEASE try the above steps, posting back first the requested information, and also the results of performing all of the above steps.
Bob Bone