Gapless audio - what is it?

There have been a TON of threads over the past year (and more) on this topic, so you might wish to do a forum search and review all that came before.

In general, the term gapless means that you can do things like insert plugins/synths in a project, during playback, without it stopping or hiccuping/glitching, etc.   You can do most editing without playback stopping or glitching.  IOW, you can have an uninterrupted workflow and audio flow.

Most of the modern DAWs such as Abelton Live, Studio One, Cubase, Fruity Loops, Reaper, etc. all have gapless workflow.  Sonar is basically the only one of the big boys that does not have this ability.

Once you work in a gapless environment, it's hard to go back to a non-gapless one.

I understand the concept but I have questions on how gapless these gapless solutions are.

Is it not true that in an analogue environment if one patched in an effect there would be an audible interruption (pops and clicks as patch plugs are inserted or removed) in the signal path whilst this occurs?

Is this not the same in a digital environment?  

Several methods on how it could be achieved spring to mind, but they all involve a tangible audible delay during the change over from what is happening now to what is happening at the point of change and at the point after the change.

I am genuinely interested in answers or an explanation of how I have missed the point.

Wookie: yes, in an analog environment you get all sorts of "gaps" (pops...) when patching and so forth. And when I taught recording techniques I would always say "mute the board" when doing stuff like that so as to not pop the speakers. But now that we can have a complete 'in the box' solution it is possible to do lots of stuff (routing, patching, editing...) without any interruption in the audio. As Billy pointed out, once you've been on a 'gapless' daw it's hard to go back. But 'gapless' is not a well-defined term which leads to the long discussions.

To me, Sonar seems to be really sensitive in this regard. Even when I do a slip edit somewhere far away from where the audio is playing I'll often get a glitch. It's annoying. It's certainly not a show-stopper, but it's one of those minor things that gets under my skin and makes Sonar less appealing to me.

As to the requirements of the implementation... I don't know. I just know that Sonar seems to be towards the bottom of the heap in terms of gappiness. Sure, I would expect a glitch when inserting a high cpu or dsp-delay plugin. But on another DAW when I insert a heavy plugin like that I only get a minor gap. On Sonar I get a larger short buzzing sound. They aren't comparable 'gaps' and Sonar is worse than the other.

To me, it's a nebulous 'smoothness' of operation. Sonar just doesn't feel like a high performance bit of software. And before people start questioning my hardware, One of my DAWs is a StudioCat DAW with plenty of RAM and RME audio. Another is a MacPro that I boot Windows. They both perform similarly. I'm not sure what hardware would be better.

Finally, I certainly don't criticize people who are happy with Sonar's performance. But for my work, I wish it had a smoother 'gapless' (or should I say 'lessgap') user experience, particularly since other DAWs are 'lessgap'.

Wookiee


I understand the concept but I have questions on how gapless these gapless solutions are.

Is it not true that in an analogue environment if one patched in an effect there would be an audible interruption (pops and clicks as patch plugs are inserted or removed) in the signal path whilst this occurs?

Is this not the same in a digital environment?  

Several methods on how it could be achieved spring to mind, but they all involve a tangible audible delay during the change over from what is happening now to what is happening at the point of change and at the point after the change.

I am genuinely interested in answers or an explanation of how I have missed the point.

Wookie, one thing about analogue patching is that the signal flow has to be interrupted because it is a physical domain whereas in the digital domain the interruption can be electronically routed/handled.


And as I've said, there may be situations that are not reasonable to expect perfect gaplessness.   If one inserts a plugin that introduces a heavy delay it will take a moment for the recalculation for PDC and that may force a slight interruption during playback.   Editing a few notes down the project timeline may also be a potentially gapping situation; so I personally wouldn't expect "nirvana" in this regard.

But it still is true that other hosts have accomplished a much greater degree of gapless audio/editing than Sonar.  Noticeably so.  Some do it so well that it could feel like nirvana.

Thank you Billy, Steve and Paul all very useful in giving clarity with this touchy subject.

Billy you raised the point that I see as the sticking point.  The insertion of a plug-in, be it heavy or other, into an active audio stream has to have an affect on playback because of the changes to that active signal.  As noted by Steve in an analogue environment we have always muted the board prior to the change.  Possibly an illusion but I thought that Cake had introduced a momentary mute back in SONAR 6 or 7.

The other problems raised such as changes to a midi stream in advance of the playback point I agree should occur seamlessly.  I have to say I have not found this to be a serious problem in SONAR.

Just thinking in the ether is this not to some respects connected to playback buffer sizes both audio and midi.  The midi buffer size is frequently ignored. 

It strikes me that the endless need for ever lower latency, which I fully understand when recording say a singer or a guitar, violin, piano, a softsynth, live, could be impart a cause.  But there again what do I know.

For the interested, I do record live guitar, keyboard and vocal (Though not Wookiee vocal as this can kill). My primary DAW is A Q6600 4gig Win XP 32 though this may change now that Arturia have released 64bit versions of my favourite soft synths.  The audio interface is a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26i/o with a Yamaha 01v ADAT link for my hardware synths.  Pictures of my setup can be seen by going to the last link in my sig.

Thanks again all that provided useful and informative information.


Ed: Thank you for your contribution of an audio example of gap-less cacophony playback. (just kidding (or am I?)) (actually its not a bad tune)

I'd wager most of the folks who say it's not a very high priority for them to have a truly (or near truly) gapless audio engine haven't had one and used it as their primary DAW.  Like Billy alludes above "how you gonna keep em down on the farm after they've seen Paree??"  I've used Sonar (and before that Pro Audio) since before there was hair and I thought all DAWs had to have playback stopped to perform certain tastks...then I started dabbling with Studio One.  It was a revelation.  Apparently many if not most of the other DAWs are considerably more "gapless" than Sonar.  Lets fix that, shall we?

While there are times I really wish I would have had a gapless audio engine (real time trying to tweak a sound in a loop) the bigger issue I keep running into is the audio engine just plain shutting off or crashing. So that is worse than a gap. That would be a canyon ;-) I don't think the audio engine likes me very much sometimes!

For these other reasons beyond the gap/gapless issue I think the audio engine is the weakest part of Sonar. It is the part of Sonar that most consistently frustrates me and gets in the way of my creativity.


Ken

inaheartbeat


While there are times I really wish I would have had a gapless audio engine (real time trying to tweak a sound in a loop) the bigger issue I keep running into is the audio engine just plain shutting off or crashing. So that is worse than a gap. That would be a canyon ;-) I don't think the audio engine likes me very much sometimes!

For these other reasons beyond the gap/gapless issue I think the audio engine is the weakest part of Sonar. It is the part of Sonar that most consistently frustrates me and gets in the way of my creativity.


Ken

Ken,


I think things like the audio engine shutting off or the software crashing are solvable to a greater degree than making a host 'tuly' gapless.


Often it boils down to a few things, like:  a) making sure the hardware is up to snuff, b) tweaking the system improving system /host configuration, and c) 3rd party compatibility issues.   But all these can help improve performance of any system to varying degrees.


If you're experiencing audio engine shutdowns and crashing often, then I would suggest doing a complete review of your system and setup.  IF your hardware specs are up to standards, you shouldn't be having too many issues.



BTW - I should mention (something I have often in the past) that I had lots of issues with Sonar X1 up until I installed "Expanded" which seems to have magically corrected most of my problems.   Too bad I had to pay more to get a stable situation, but such is life sometimes.

ba_midi

inaheartbeat


While there are times I really wish I would have had a gapless audio engine (real time trying to tweak a sound in a loop) the bigger issue I keep running into is the audio engine just plain shutting off or crashing. So that is worse than a gap. That would be a canyon ;-) I don't think the audio engine likes me very much sometimes!

For these other reasons beyond the gap/gapless issue I think the audio engine is the weakest part of Sonar. It is the part of Sonar that most consistently frustrates me and gets in the way of my creativity.


Ken

Ken,


I think things like the audio engine shutting off or the software crashing are solvable to a greater degree than making a host 'tuly' gapless.


Often it boils down to a few things, like:  a) making sure the hardware is up to snuff, b) tweaking the system improving system /host configuration, and c) 3rd party compatibility issues.   But all these can help improve performance of any system to varying degrees.


If you're experiencing audio engine shutdowns and crashing often, then I would suggest doing a complete review of your system and setup.  IF your hardware specs are up to standards, you shouldn't be having too many issues.



BTW - I should mention (something I have often in the past) that I had lots of issues with Sonar X1 up until I installed "Expanded" which seems to have magically corrected most of my problems.   Too bad I had to pay more to get a stable situation, but such is life sometimes.

Billy,
I definitely agree with the whole system review to make sure things are up to snuff. Unfortunately, my system was built from the ground up by PCAL to work with Sonar and should be more than up to the task. The issues I personally have been having revolve around several experiments I have been running to resolve the Octa-Capture driver issues I have reported on in this forum. Several of you have followed that sad saga.


My DAW has plenty of horsepower and is completely dedicated to that one function. No anti-virus stuff in the way, no extra games or MS apps or anything. Try having two projects open with different sample rates and see how many times you can go between them before crashing the audio engine. Or try messing with your ASIO driver buffer settings while the audio engine is still on. Doesn't always crash. But it definitely can cause a crash. 


It is not like I am using exotic unproven software either. I can crash a project with Omnisphere, Nexus 2, Ivory 2, Z3Ta 2.1, and Superior Drummer 2 on it. I think anyone would acknowledge that it is hardly a rogues gallery of sofware. For plugins on that project I had Valhalla Shimmer, Softtube TSAR-1, Softube FET compressor, and Softube passive EQ, and Softube Saturation knob. Once again, a pretty stable set of plugins. I didn't even try to get exotic. I was just throwing something together as a test of my Octa-Captures at the time.


Ken

ba_midi

Billy, I definitely agree with the whole system review to make sure things are up to snuff. Unfortunately, my system was built from the ground up by PCAL to work with Sonar and should be more than up to the task. The issues I personally have been having revolve around several experiments I have been running to resolve the Octa-Capture driver issues I have reported on in this forum. Several of you have followed that sad saga. My DAW has plenty of horsepower and is completely dedicated to that one function. No anti-virus stuff in the way, no extra games or MS apps or anything. Try having two projects open with different sample rates and see how many times you can go between them before crashing the audio engine. Or try messing with your ASIO driver buffer settings while the audio engine is still on. Doesn't always crash. But it definitely can cause a crash.  It is not like I am using exotic unproven software either. I can crash a project with Omnisphere, Nexus 2, Ivory 2, Z3Ta 2.1, and Superior Drummer 2 on it. I think anyone would acknowledge that it is hardly a rogues gallery of sofware. For plugins on that project I had Valhalla Shimmer, Softtube TSAR-1, Softube FET compressor, and Softube passive EQ, and Softube Saturation knob. Once again, a pretty stable set of plugins. I didn't even try to get exotic. I was just throwing something together as a test of my Octa-Captures at the time. Ken

Ken,  I'm not sure which version you are running, but many of the issues you mention (AND MORE) were happening to me before I installed "Expanded".


I'm not suggesting everyone should pay CW to get 'fixed' what was broken, but to me the cost wasn't a big factor.


I wasn't sure if "Expanded" would work for me or not (X1 was simply NOT working out for me on my system), but I felt it was worth a try, knowing that there probably were SOME fixes under the hood in Expanded.


Sure enough ... I've now had months of very stable operations in X1 -- even on a Win XP system.  Of course, the "try and see if it fixes anything" approach is not one everyone can afford, I guess.  And I'm not sure if just X1"C" works or not;  but if you're in a position to waste a few bucks and try Expanded (f you haven't already), it may solve things for you as it did for me.


Not having a stable Host is like not having air, to me.

Billy,
I am on Expanded with the latest quick fixes. I really do like the features. I have found that if I turn the audio engine off before messing with any of the ASIO settings then I can pretty much avoid issues. But....like everyone I get really involved in something and just forget and BAM you get whacked. Then you have to either reboot or desperately try to kill the SONARPRD.EXE process tree from hell that won't die ;-) I just wish I didn't have to worry.


One other thing to note is that I just got U-He's new synth Diva. It is a great sounding beast but it eats a system alive and is currently not multiprocessor aware. So....messing with buffers and trying to coax that thread onto something other than the main service thread for Sonar sometimes croaks the audio driver also. It is just hard to get into serious knob twisting sound creation mode and then have to think....oh wait...better turn off the audio engine if I have to change this so I don't die. You get the idea.

Ken

Ken, PS -- I've learned that NOT using the 64bit Double Precision Engine solves a lot of compatibility problems as well.

I'm not sure why it causes trouble for some plugins still, but it does.  So if you run with that setting checked, you might try unchecking it to see if there's ANY diff?

Jeff, I can understand why CW hasn't bit the bullet on gapless/glitchless audio.  The code for the audio engine in Sonar probably is fraught with land mines that would need to be carefully worked on to prevent a ton of new and difficult to find bugs.  Especially since some of the code is over a decade old as has been mentioned in various threads.

But, I do think CW will have to bite the bullet at some point.  By NOT making the effort to go gapless, at least in 2012, it gives all their competitors an easy marketing line.

I'm concerned that not enough of CW's market understands or feels the need for gapless as much as some of us do (not because we're better or smarter but because we have worked with gapless hosts and know the benefits first-hand) , but knowing that virtually EVERY other competitor is way ahead in this area will put some pressure on CW to revisit this topic, I'm sure.

And, for clarity - I use the term "gapless" knowing there's probably no "absolute" in this area; but Sonar's flagship product, especially with the "Expanded" approach, should be AT LEAST as good as their competitors in this area.

I always thought Sonar traded "glitch-lessness" for heavy-duty performance, IOW, it'll try and playback the song no matter how ugly things get. Like, it shifts everything towards getting through the song, no matter what. It's like a tank.

Working w/ Logic, I never get such glitches, clicks pops or things like issues w/ screen redraws. On the other hand, it does let me know in advance when my system is likely not to be able to handle what I ask of it before I add that one plug-in which makes a difference. 

I'd probably squeeze more tracks and fx out of Sonar w/ equivalent set-ups, but performance just wouldn't be as smooth or elegant, from the start. Logic will perform pretty much as smoothly all the way but won't go beyond a certain point where it'd have to compromise on "responsiveness", whether it's when I insert plug-ins, change loop points or skip a region. 

Both have their merits I guess.

Oh I agree w/ you Billy. This compromise shouldn't be relevant in 2012. But as you mentioned earlier, it probably involves a few land mines if they start messing w/ the old audio engine.

I used to appreciate that in the old days when you'd really try to squeeze as much as you can out of that old 1 Ghz PIII  - it's one of the reason I stuck w/ Sonar, because I felt I could get more out of it. But w/ today's machine, those considerations are a thing of the past.

I have to agree with Rain here - as I have done before - the Sonar performs like a tank and stop at nothing when it comes to how much sh!t I can throw into a project. And I can still automate stuff after it's packed to the brims with VSTs and audio. I too have a sneaking su****ion that this is why we don't have a true gapless audio engine in Sonar. But since Sonar 1.3 - when I first hoped on board - I've never really missed it to be honest. And I sit with these types of programs every day at all hours both pro and for hobby stuff (I need to pick up nitting or something so I can have a real hobby soon)

I work with Nuendo which has a gapless audio engine and it sure is nice to have! But the only time I find it usefull is when I'm doing edits on the fly and rewinding back to hear the edits while playback is going. Over the decade+ that I have been using Cakewalk products I have developed a technique which allows me to work with Sonar in a way that I don't even notice it isn't truly gapless. And the same technique works nicely in other DAWs as well as I don't really have to wait for the audio engine to take me places - I do it with my fingers on a keyboard. But sonar can handle a lot more junk than other DAWs I use. At least in my experience. And I work on some seriously heavy projects most of the time.

My take on these things have always been to learn how the functions work, even the play, stop, rewind and fast forward stuff, and learn and practice on how to utilize its functions rather than wanting it to behave like some other DAW. I'm not saying that gapless audio engine is nothing to ask for, because it is and I wouldn't mind Sonar to be a little easier in this regard even if it would cost me the ability to have a couple more unfrozen VSTis open. But if Sonar is unusable to you because of the non gapless audio then I say you're betting on the wrong horse. Nothing wrong with that but certainly - it's a personal desicion more than anything. And I'd say that Sonar's audio engine seem to have some strengths that other DAWs doesn't have which is worth to take notice of too.

Just my $2