Lag between MIDI and Soft Synths

You mean while you are playing from a keyboard for example, or when SONAR is playing it back? If the former, welcome to the wonderful world of latency!

If you're noting the time difference after moving tracks you might have a snap to grid problem.

Hi, thanks for the reply

I pasted them at the exact same location, at 1:01:000 for all the tracks. But the moment the notes are pasted in some Soft Synths, even at 1:01:000, they start to sound slightly faster than the rest, like 1/4 beat faster.

I'm not sure if this helps, but the following are the steps I did:

I have a pre-made MIDI, with 8 tracks inside.

1) I open SONAR 7
2) I click File> Open> MIDI
3) I click Insert> Soft Synths> Cakewalk TTS-1
4) I cut the events of one track in the MIDI
5) I paste the events of the track in the MIDI channel in Cakewalk TTS-1, starting at 1:01:000
6) I play the MIDI and now the track in the cakewalk TTS-1 is slightly faster than all the other tracks.

One thing I can do is I can paste all the tracks into Cakewalk TTS-1 and then everything will be sync-up again.

The issue I have though is that I am using different soft synths for different tracks, and apparently some soft synths (like SFZ+, Cakewalk TTS-1) will result in the tracks slightly faster, and other soft synths (like SFZ and LiveSynth Pro) will not make a difference. So if I have some tracks in SFZ+ and some in LiveSynth Pro, for example, then they are not synced up properly too.

Please advise, thanks.

Sounds to me like you are using your on board sound cards midi which is a waste of time. Just use the TTS1 all will be fine.

now the track in the cakewalk TTS-1 is slightly faster than all the other tracks.

Could you please clarify what you mean by faster. From your descriptions I think you are saying that a whole track is moved in the time line i.e. starts earlier (or later), but it is unclear if it is faster i. e. after x number of beats it is even farther out of time than when it began. Put another way is the bpm of the odd track different? Several explanations have been offered on how a track could be offeset, but it is hard to imagine why it would be accelerated or ****ed relative to other tracks.

I have one final question, however. Is there anyway to resolve the latency issue if I have no choice but have to use a Soft Synth that relies on an onboard sound chip with MME drivers?

 
See if your card has ASIO drivers, if it does not? I would try and install ASIO4ALL, its free. Just google it and install it.

rotaholic

I have one final question, however. Is there anyway to resolve the latency issue if I have no choice but have to use a Soft Synth that relies on an onboard sound chip with MME drivers?

 
See if your card has ASIO drivers, if it does not? I would try and install ASIO4ALL, its free. Just google it and install it.

First of all, you have not mentioned if you have another soundcard than the onboard sound chip. Do you have one - of what brand?
 
The delay was most likely due to the integrated GS Wavetable Synth, which is the "notorious one" Brundlefly mentioned, not the integrated soundcard
 
AFAIK there are no soft synths that require using onboard chip.
The VSTs use the exact sound card SONAR is using, there is no other option. If you don't have souncard other than the integrated chip then all the sound you hear comes from that, also the ones created by TTS-1.
 
I was wondering the use of the word "faster" as well. Couldn't figure out whether it meant off-tempo or off-time.

Another thing to try - DON'T have all your MIDI tracks starting aT 01:01:000

Move them out to 02:01:000 as sometimes Sonar doesn't like things lined up right at the beginning.

It's ok, I've deleted the Aud.ini and everything sounds back to normal again. I'll just make do with what I've got for now. Thanks all for the help...