[Solved] Sonar Artist extremely low performance in a small project

Hello,
I have a small project in Sonar Artist (10 tracks and around 30 plugins), which have an extremely low performance. When I play the project there is a lot of pops and the interface responsiveness is really slow. There is nothing special in the project and the CPU meter never goes over 80% (as far as I can tell by the small indicators) in any of the 4 CPU displayed. I have a laptop with 16GB RAM, Intel Core i5, SSD 500GB.
 
I think the most heaviest plugins I am using could be 3 Waves VEQ, but this cannot explain the poor performance I have. Mi sound interface is a M-Audio Projectmix I/O with a buffer of 1024 samples (this is what I used while mixing) so it is high enough to not produce a high CPU usage.
 
This same thing happens to me in other Sonar projects... even I think that in the past I asked for help in this forum about other performance issues I had.
 
I also use Reaper and I have several projects a lot bigger that this (50 or more tracks with more that 100 plugins) and no issue at all under the same audio interface settings and computer. Well, this performance issue was what made me start my search of a DAW with less issues and I found Reaper. Sadly the project I am working on is an old one I started to work on Sonar a lot of time ago and now I have to finish it, but is probing to be a real challenge with all the performance issues.
 
I don't know if there is any advice on this. Could it be a problem with the version of Sonar I am using (Artist)? I have it updated to the last version. Any suggestion? I really don't want to invest a lot of time troubleshooting this issue as I did in the past with no real success (just a little improvement)... perhaps it will be quicker to just migrate the project to Reaper (with all the hassle that involves).

dwardzala
Does your interface support ASIO drivers (and are you using them)?  Also, is this computer Wifi enabled - try turning wifi off while mixing.

Thanks for your response swardzala. Yes I am using ASIO in my interface and no WiFi.

Thanks brundlefly for your suggestion. I will try bypassing all plugins and checking which one is the culprit. And I have no synths in the project, only audio tracks.
 
Anyway I would be very surprised to find one plugin as the one causing this issue. I only used Waves and Izotope (Alloy, Nectar) plugins, none of which should have compatibility issues with Sonar.
 
I will get back tomorrow with my findings. I am at the work now which sadly is not a mix studio work, just a software/hardware support job 

Well, increasing audio buffers is what I did as I mentioned in the OP. I use to increase from 64 samples when tracking to 1024 samples when mixing which always has been more than enough for my projects at least in Reaper. Anyway I tried up to 2048 samples with no changes in the project behavior.

Hi all, I tried your recommendation of bypassing all the FXs and with that I could spot the issue. It was produced by Izotope RX-Noise I was using in two tracks. I am a little surprised to see the impact of that plugin in this project considering that it is a plugin that I use a lot (and with many more instances than here) with no issues at all in the other DAW.
 
Also I used that plugin when I was starting my mixing, but the issue appeared very later and it wasn't after a plugin insertion, but just after several volume/pan adjustments after the plugins for the whole project were set. So it was a little more difficult to spot the culprit. Something I don't quite understand is why the CPU meter didn't showed the high CPU usage during the playback...
 
Something I can do in Reaper and that it could helped here in order to not having to have Izotope RX-Noise using CPU is that I can apply an specific plugin to the track, something like a 'selective' freeze. I don't know if Sonar can apply only one of the plugins in my chain to the media in the track keeping the other plugins active in the FXs bin. If that could be done then I think I could apply only those noise reduction plugins to the tracks. This can be easily done in Reaper but I cannot find the way to do it in Sonar, any suggestion?
 
Btw, thank you very much for all your help. Also I received a PM from Keith Albright, Director of Development from Cakewalk providing me assistance for my issue. I am gladly impressed with the support I am receiving from Cakewalk about my issue, and even more considering that I am an user of the most 'basic' (or cheaper) version of Sonar. Thank you guys!

before I got done reading your whole comment my thoughts were you should probably just use the RX noise to fix the tracks then bring in them in to Sonar after. but you can also use RX as a plug in and bounce it "freeze per say".
just make a back up copy if your going to use RX destructively = "Bounce/use clip FX".
 
- set up RX like you want it, then press the freeze button in the track.
- put RX in the clip FX bin and bounce it destructively.
- fix it outside of sonar, then bring it in by way of import.
 
I always choose to fix clips outside of Sonar, then drag them in via the browser.
but its your choice. good luck.
 

Thanks guys for your answer. I am would also like to do what Anderton asked about migrating the same project to Reaper just for the sake of checking the cpu management. I will try to do it, but as I said I am just a hobbist and with very few time to use my homestudio, and I think all of you know how much work it is involved in migrating a project from one DAW to another, I mean you basically must do everything from scratch.
 
I will se if I can save each plugin setting in each track, then create create a project in reaper with the same 24bit/44.1KHz wavs and see it how it behave. I will share with you my results once I do that.
 
I also replied to Keith Albright and I will send the cwb to him so he could take a look if is it any improvement that could be done.
 
Thanks everyone for your attention to this issue. Also sorry for my sometimes hard to understand english... I am a spanish speaker and my english is not all that polished as I would.

brundlefly
To freeze only Izoptope Rx, assuming it's first in the chain, you can just do this:
 
1. Temporarily bypass the plugins you plan to keep active.
2. Freeze the track with Izotope Rx active.
3. Un-bypass the other plugins.
 

 
Thank you very much for your reply, this is exactly what I need to do. It is a shame that I didn't figure out by myself. And about freezing only specific plugins I meant exactly what you told, being able to choose until which plugin in your chain you want to freeze. I understand that it is imposible, and also it doesn't make sense, to selectively freeze some non-contiguous plugins in the FX'x bin.

Quick follow up with the OP. When you say "Izotope RX-Noise" are you referring to "iZotope RX 5 Dialogue De-noise" plugin? The reason I ask is because I got the RX Plugin Pack is part of software I am evaluating this weekend, and the "iZotope RX 5 Dialogue De-noise" is part of that.
 
If this is the plugin, it is definitely not one I would ever run end-to-end on any track. Once noise and intended audio overlap, there is no way to differentiate the two, and no way to determine the assumptions it is making internally. Removing noise as surgically as possible requires the noise alone to be analyze (captured), and then removed from the track. This is a very manual and intentional process that should be done on a raw audio track (no other FX whatsoever), and requires the audio to have an isolated "noise only" portion (either a lead, tail, or section between phrases).
 
From the perspective of noise removal, *if* noise is consistent and can be isolated, you can take a sample of that to remove it from the entire track. This plugin can come very close to how I do it, but requires use in "Manual" mode on an isolated noise portion. This is also something I would definitely do to a raw track (no other effects whatsoever), and then bake in (i.e. bounce to a new track) once done.
 
Assuming you have a lead/tail/section of "just noise," you can:

1. Insert iZotope RX 5 Dialogue De-noise on a raw track
2. Position the now time so the transport will *only* pass over the isolated noise
3. Set up the plugin to "Manual" and click "Learn"
4. Start the transport and either stop the transport or disable "Learn" before audio hits the plugin (this way only the noise is analyzed)
5. Bounce the track to a new track with the embedded FX being processed

The above process comes as close as possible to the "Capture Noise Print"/"Remove Noise Print" that I do on a regular basis, but is rather clunky, takes 5 times longer to process, and requires the transport to be running to do the capture. However, it is a good option for removing noise, but not something to insert and run end-to-end in "Auto" mode.