Is there going to be a Sonar 5.3 or just 6 ?

All I wanted was for them to fix VST problems like UAD, and they're doing that with the public beta. My day job is coding software and I know from experience how hard it is to work on a new code branch while trying to maintain an old one. Don't get me wrong I'm glad they did 4.0.4 and all that but I'm gonna upgrade anyways because I always like the new loot. But my vote is to make 6 super great and skip 5.3. Peace.

Well, something's gotta give. The original promise of WDM hasn't happened (high quality/low latency). SONAR is unique in that it bypasses the idiotic Windows mixer, thus recovering back from Windows some of the latency demands and vulnerability to mysterious OS happenings that make true WDM pretty usesless for recording. Still, I notice that even SONAR runs better now with ASIO (at least with E-MU, PRESONUS, MACKIE and RME interfaces I have tried, and I would bet, at this point, you will see even better ASIO/VST integration in the next version.

Best,

Mark

I've tried both with many of the interfaces. Unfortunately, I've found that some synths work better at low latency with ASIO but my timing's been better with WDM. I just switched my Layla3G over to ASIO to see how it works, because wusikstation was misbehaving with pops and clicks in wdm, but jlgrives, who has always been involved in my conversations about this with previous interfaces (I think) makes me worry. Now I have to do the test. Dang you, Grimes!

lets not forget our computer in this equation, I had a Lana II in my older computer and it worked flawlessly with asio, and not so good on wdm. Then I got a new computer and same card worked different on the new computer wdm worked better than the asio , Ater getting new computer I switched to Tascam 1884 on new computer I have to use wdm. Im getting ready to do it all over again, new computer new card, getting a laptop, and I sold my tascam, still deciding which card to get probally gonna get one card for both Laptop an desktop some thing portable to go back and forth to studio. the Fireface 800 it I guess the top choice.

ORIGINAL: MArwood

When I use ASIO for my Echo Layla 3, my recordings don't sound on time.

I had this too. The higher the latency the worse the timing is. WDM is better but not perfect.
Max Arwood

Same for me too. Timing is out with ASIO and UA-1000. It's acceptable with WDM. There are some big threads on this. Hopefully this issue will be addressed in 6.

Cliff

lets not forget our computer in this equation...

I agree. I've been having ongoing (but minor) issues with my Firepod. Turned out it was nothing to do with Sonar, but the chipset used in my firewire card (generic vs Texas Instrument). Got a new firewire card and all my problems (drop outs, stuttering, need for rebooting, etc.) went away.

ORIGINAL: Tombo

As far as I know, the BEST latency you will ever get with WDM, with PERFECT drivers, is 30ms, no matter what the drivers are telling you. Earlier tales of less were actually acheived by faulty drivers that were not reporting correctly. SONAR is unique in that it does bypass the Windows mixer, thus saving some time...still, there is no direct sound in XP...it is handled by the Kernal, and this is not a good thing. Ustudio is right about the RME...until I got one myself, I didn't understand.

nice to talk to you again. What are you referring to here with the 30ms latency? some specific sound card? Maybe I didn't follow the thread right but are you possibly suggesting that the best latency you can get with WDM is 30ms?

ORIGINAL: Tombo

As far as I know, the BEST latency you will ever get with WDM, with PERFECT drivers, is 30ms, no matter what the drivers are telling you. Earlier tales of less were actually acheived by faulty drivers that were not reporting correctly. SONAR is unique in that it does bypass the Windows mixer, thus saving some time...still, there is no direct sound in XP...it is handled by the Kernal, and this is not a good thing. Ustudio is right about the RME...until I got one myself, I didn't understand.

that's simply not true.

it might be true of WDM, but not WDM KS which is what sonar uses ;)

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Just to add on to my last post, RME is not fond of KS either, because apparently, in RMEs testing, the claims of low latency don't hold water, and the WDM KS driver model is just not living up to its promise. Now, if this last bit came from any other company, or an MS competitor, I would take it with a grain of salt, but coming from a company that has built a solid reputation of driver functionality and stability, I comfortable taking their advice (and though I can't use WDM as low a latency as I can with ASIO—no matter what sound card I used, including RME, at least the RME is rock solid at the higher latency, and do you know what? NO PROBLEMS WITH MY UAD-1!!!. LOL.

ORIGINAL: Tombo
My understanding is that, with TRUE WDM (which SONAR is NOT), that is the best you can get is 30ms. That's because everything had to go through the Kernal mixer.

All windows drivers (currently) are WDM drivers -- even ASIO drivers. "WDM" is simply a packaging standard for windows drivers -- indded a "driver model" as you pointed out. Sitting on top of WDM hardware drivers are various APIs for accessing the hardware -- MME, DirectSound, ASIO, GSIF. This is where the kernel mixer comes in. MME goes through the kernel mixer (software in the OS kernel) and incurs about 40ms overhead in doing so. DirectSound is a little better but still goes through the kernel mixer and incurs about 20ms overhead. ASIO is usually manifested as a user-mode driver which goes direct to the hardware -- no kernel mixer. Same with GSIF.

WDM KS is a programming method -- it is not a "driver" or an "API" -- whereby the kernel mode audio driver is accessed directly, bypassing the audio API.

See this excellent article for an explanation of the difference between "WDM" the driver model, the various audio APIs that sit on top of hardware drivers, and WDM KS (direct access to hardware drivers, bypassing kernel):

http://www.staudio.de/kb/english/drivers/

So... regarding "TRUE WDM"... SONAR most certainly does support "TRUE WDM" technically speaking. It happens to also provide the "WDM KS" option for those driver vendors who care to expose an appropriate driver model to handle that method.

BTW, WDM KS is officially sanctioned by MS -- at least it was as of a couple of years ago. At the same time, it's kind of a hack (or workaround, as you noted), so it may not be palatable to some engineering sorts.

That's why RME, for one, does not recommend using WDM, and deems it, "...nearly unusable for for professional music purposes".

That's true for the standard MS APIs -- MME, DirectSound -- but not so for a properly written driver exposed via WDM KS.

The fact is: some vendors like to align themselves with other vendors. E.g., Magix pushes RME hardware. RME pushes ASIO. etc.

Let's put it this way -- when I owned 2 M-Audio Delta 1010s, their driver support for WDM KS and ASIO was on equal footing. The only dfifference would have been functional -- WDM KS supports multiple audio hardware, ASIO provides synch functionality, etc. That's funny, how can M-Audio provide equally stable drivers for ASIO and WDM KS, but other vendors can't? The barriers are not technical in nature.

but my question is, at what cost...in terms of stability, that is.

All stability comes down to driver implementation, whether it be ASIO or otherwise. A badly written ASIO driver will ruin your day as fast as any other badly written driver...

Anyway... I'm a happy FF800 owner myself, and I'm glad to use ASIO if that's what is stable and is RME's preference...

ORIGINAL: Tombo

Just to add on to my last post, RME is not fond of KS either, because apparently, in RMEs testing, the claims of low latency don't hold water, and the WDM KS driver model is just not living up to its promise. Now, if this last bit came from any other company, or an MS competitor, I would take it with a grain of salt, but coming from a company that has built a solid reputation of driver functionality and stability, I comfortable taking their advice (and though I can't use WDM as low a latency as I can with ASIO—no matter what sound card I used, including RME, at least the RME is rock solid at the higher latency, and do you know what? NO PROBLEMS WITH MY UAD-1!!!. LOL.

hi again. Well, I'm not totally sure where we are at because I don't test things by hearsay or even what other professionals say. I do know that I am defintely getting 2.9ms with my MOTU 828MKII, and with the beta VST adapter I am experiencing no problems with the UAD. I will post later on tomorrow a song I did (I think you'll like the acoustics as I remember from your post and your site that is your "dig") and I have not taken the time to count the plug in's but I am using many UAD and Waves plug-in's to my liking. Sonar has done their homework with the adapter in my experience. I am a satisfied customer.

As far as the latency, I am very sensitive. As mentioned above I go by what works--I am definitely getting very low latency because I am very sensitive to it. My CPU (P4 3.2 2 GB DDRAM) chokes a bit at 2.9 because I mix as I go and have plug-ins installed so that I can get a clear vision of the overdubs I am adding. But what I know is, I can't play an organ part (NI B4) or a rhodes (NI Elektrik Piano) or a piano (NI Akoustik Piano) if the latency is above 5.8. It drives me nuts. 30ms would be totally unacceptable. So as far as the UADI, I have considered that a thing of the past--no more error messages.

You realize this isn't an argument right? I am just posting my findings. :)

2:00 a.m. here and off to bed soon.

ORIGINAL: michael japan

... But what I know is, I can't play an organ part (NI B4) or a rhodes (NI Elektrik Piano) or a piano (NI Akoustik Piano) if the latency is above 5.8. It drives me nuts. 30ms would be totally unacceptable.

i hate to suggest this, but IMHO, Sonar maybe the reason why you can't get low latency through your soft synth. i can instantiate
my softsynth in other DAW programs and have very low latency .. put the same one in Sonar, and I can't get close. there's something
in the pipeline that's sucking cycles and i can't figure out what it is.

ORIGINAL: BruceEnnis

As far as I know, the BEST latency you will ever get with WDM, with PERFECT drivers, is 30ms,

Not true with my Dakota I can go as low as 1.5ms but usually leave it at 2.9ms

That's not really WDM your getting 1.5 ms with; its the WDM KS workaround. Please read further in the thread for more explanation.

My whole point, or rather question, distilled to its essence (and it's inherent point supported with additional data by others here) is that WDM KS, in the engineering/developer sense, is a workaround Window's pathetic WDM kernal mixer, whereas both ASIO and Giga approaches are direct access (though I didn't mention this directly, it was pointed out by Keith). In any workaround, there is usually risk, and so my question: are some of SONAR's particular problems due to this workaround (not any other DAW, but SONAR's). Also, please be aware that there is an argument out there now, that WDM-based drivers, KS or otherwise, are NOT reporting true latency.

Best,

Mark


PS: There are posts like this one below in the real propeller-head forums that give you a glimpse of what is under the covers of WDM:

It seems incredible but true - there is simply no compliance requirement for

latency in the WDM driver. I've no idea what Microsoft plan for Vista but it

better be something smarter than the wretched,warped system that exists at
the moment. Any 'softies around to comment ?

The KSSTREAMALLOCATOR_STATUS call works for PCI devices but not USB. With
the hardware I've got here (various AC97 devices, Creative SBs etc) the call

always returns a value of 480 - i.e 10ms of buffering at 48K. This
(coincidentally) is the value used in the AC97 example driver. Maybe we just

have a recurring case of copy & paste or some guidelines somewhere dictated
the 10ms buffer. If you did have true AC97 compatible hardware you could try

rebuilding the DDK sample and see how well it works with smaller buffers.

Some time back the USB stack guy at Microsoft indicated that there was also
10ms of latency built into the USB stack - which about fits with my
measurements. Check the archives for more details.

I've no idea what you are doing but if you must have consistent and known
latency then either try hardware with ASIO drivers (which report latency and

allow much finer control) or use USB and insert your own driver. My original

hopes of offering low-latency via AC97 have completely faded though Michael
Tippach (www.asio4all.com) seems to know a trick or two that I don't. You
might try and ask him.

Jerry

That's funny, how can M-Audio provide equally stable drivers for ASIO and WDM KS

And that's funny too, because it was an m-audio device that I had last and it was terrible in both driver sets - asio had timing issues and wdm didn't work at 24 bit or below 10ms.

My Layla, on the other hand, reports down to 1.5ms in both ASIO or WDM, butI've not gotten back into testing it.

5.2 still has bugs that should be fixed first. I find 'em all the time. For instance try using a drum map then quantitize/audition command. It will still scroll but no sound will play. This is a known bug in sonar that was in version 4 too. Let's fix stuff we need daily in the program itself rather than concentrating on supporting someone else's stuff.