What's causing my Drop Outs?

Hi folks,
 
When I open up a project and hit 'play', whenever a new track begins playing, the whole project 'stutters' or 'buzzes' for a moment and then continues. I believe this usually happens with MIDI tracks.
 
I am also experiencing regular Drop Outs in my general movements around a project - particularly when zooming in on Audio very closely when the track is playing. But these drop outs tend to happen at just about any moment when playing back. 
 
Sonar freezes for a few seconds when I open a new synth.
 
When I stop playback, often the project will 'stutter' or 'buzz'.
 
Moving between screen sets often 'hangs' and I get a glimpse of a strange loading window which appears but disappears very quickly.
 
Pro Channel EQ buzzes and freezes BUT NOT ALWAYS ARRRGH! This is intermittent. I will have 1 glorious week where it's smooth and then the next week it will buzz and freeze everytime I sweep a frequency or hit the 'gloss' of filter buttons.
 
Everything just seems unpredictable and unstable.
 
What I've Done:

• I feel like I've tried everything. I've experimented with buffers on my sound card and in Sonar preferences. I've tried many combinations - Whether the two match or not doesn't seem to make any difference. Believe me, I've tried and tried. 
• I've disabled 64 Bit Precision Engine as I read a few threads that it can cause issues.
• I've experimented with different Drivers - ASIO etc... No change.
• I have spent 1 whole week of my life trying to single out any hardware/software issue on my machine that may be causing problems and found that MAYBE it was my network adaptors causing a few spikes now and again. However, with them completely disabled - no improvement.
• My projects have about 6 synths in the rack - including True Pianos, Rapture, maybe Predator or Z3TA.
• Dimension Pro just crashes EVERYTIME. Completely unusable.
• No major processing on any tracks - no look ahead plug ins etc.

Sonar just generally feels unstable. I can't trust it. I have a very powerful Audio-friendly machine with hardly ANYTHING installed on it other than Sonar. My machine should be able to EAT the projects i'm working on. Could Sonar be causing this general unstable feeling in all of my projects??
 
If someone could give me a lead - something else to eliminate - that would be much appreciated. I am determined to make Sonar X2 workable, but since purchasing it and my new machine, I have completed absolutely nothing.
 
Many thanks.
Dave
 

Check the file sizes that are being written under Preferences > Files. If the files are 32 bit consider reducing it to 24 bit. Also consider turning of virus scanning. If you have a tool that is inserting itself between you and your files, that might cause some stuttering. Most virus scanning programs have the ability to bypass certain directories.

Yup... run the buffers up to give it more time to think.... also ASIO is the driver you should be using... (preferred choice)
 
Even though you think the computer should be able to "eat huge projects" you may wish to experiment with some reducing..... bounce or freeze the synths. Some of them may be using enormous amounts of processing power to keep everything running.... convert them all to audio and freeze or archive (turn off) the synths. 
 
I also noticed in your list of gear that you mentioned Melodyne. This is another one you definitely want to bounce to audio and remove. I work on it.... one instance at a time, one track at a time and when I have that track correct I simply use the APPLY FX function to print ME to the track it was in. ME is a big power hog.  Generally I work on audio vocal tracks with ME. Since I don't want the out of tune vocals (that's why I'm using ME in the first place) I do use the destructive editing of "apply FX" without fear. If I'm scared to loose the original track I will clone the track before I work on it with ME..... then I have a backup in the event something goes wrong. I mark it Original Vox track and proceed with editing the clone.
 
By converting all the synths and the big FX like ME to audio, it should be a breeze to handle the projects in audio.
 
Just my 2 cents

posting your specs might yield better results to pin point certain issues.

(the bold was from the original poster, not I) :)
 
Bob Bone
 
 

Certainly everyone here are suggesting the usual suspects and you need to go though them.
 
There is something that struck me about your hardware.
 
The Nimbus Z2 has five internal drive bays but there are 3 external drives mentioned in the configuration. I wonder what portions of the DAW are running on the external drives. Are the external drives bus powered? I might try running exclusively from internal hardware with the external drives powered off (if they have external power supplied) or disconnected if they are bus powered.
 
If all else fail, Rain does configure the Z2 with SONAR. Did they setup this unit? Either way, they might be able to help you sort out your issues with their hardware.

Hi Daylaa,let me try.....
Your problem semms like a spike cpu overpowered and many times this is a wifi mobo related issue.
You can try to disable all wifi devices and cpu power speed up in your mobo set up.
Last for now,choose the background servicies in System Advanced properties tab in W7.
Good luck
 
 

It may go without saying, but your OS is x64, right?
 
For people trying to help, there is a prior thread on this with more information...
http://forum.cakewalk.com...Problems-m2848204.aspx

DaveNY5 has good tips. Also, I run a 6 year old laptop with only 1 processor and it can handle Dim Pro without any problems. It can handle a pile of Dim Pros without problems. My laptop processor and memory has a windows experience index of 6 and 4 GB of RAM.

I am surprised CJ did not say it is the driver.
 
dan

Teksonik will be along soon with one of his obsessive rants about people obsessing about specs, if we're not careful..

I just got some help on this: http://forum.cakewalk.com/WmiPrvSE-is-causing-I-spoke-to-soon-It-seems-that-my-USB-hubs-SOLVED-m2857812.aspx
 
I was getting spikes when running DPC Latency checker. I tried this and that but after getting excellent help I went in Device Manager and disabling everything under network adapters. Just try disabling everything there, you can enable them when you get through. After doing this I was getting an absolute maximum μs of 148. This after running DPC for about 5 minutes. Most of the time I was running between 90μs and 108μs which is pretty excellent for an off the shelf laptop.
I hope this helps.
 
Julien

jb101
Teksonik will be along soon with one of his obsessive rants about people obsessing about specs, if we're not careful..

Beat me to it Jonathan

Hi guys. Just as an update, I have installed home studio 7xl in my new machine. I am very familiar with it having used it on my old machine. It is working solid as a rock. Even dimension pro works great. Even huge projects work great.
What does this eliminate? Sound card? Devices?

I don't know but if I were you I would try a clean install of X2 Producer... just to see.
 
J