Thanks. Now, finally, things are actually making sense. I still can't get CoolSoft to work. But I don't think I need it.

Yay!  I hope TTS-1 fits the bill for you.
 
Bob Bone
 

Even this thread is older, maybe I have a hint.
 
I also use sometimes Cool Soft. I struggled about this latency Problem also. But after a bit of thinking it might be clear, that Cool Soft is a virtual midi device, like the gm midi device. This means, the Audio is routed to the Audio device directly. So the latency depends on your Standard Audio Driver.
 
However, plugins like tts-1 or other VST Soft Synths use the Audio device of the DAW (Sonar e.g.). The midi ist routed to the VST and the Output of the vst is routed back to sonar. I experienced also bad latency, when i tried to make a mix from TTS & Coolsoft. The Coolsoft has noticable more latency then the "internal" synths.
 
The round trips in Sonar cannot measure this, as the Audio Output from Coolsoft never comes back to sonar.
 
Does this makes sense for anyone ?  
 

kevjazz
Hi All,
 
Does anyone have experience using a soft synth called, "Cool Synth?"  i just installed it on my laptop running the 30 day demo of SONAR X3 and I'm having terrible latency.  I've looked at the buffer size and chosen Cool Synth as my output device.  but I still can't kill the latency problem.  i've changed my audio drivers from MM32bit to WDMKS.  Originally, I couldn't get sounds.  Now I get sounds in WDm, but can't still get the latency down.  I may try again in ASIO.
 
Any advice appreciated.  Feel free to aSsume I've missed something basic.
 
Kevin

 Its possible that someone already mentioned this in the 42 responses, but latency also is caused by having certain effects in one of the channel's fx bin.
 
Some effects are low or zero latency, but others, especially Waves, induce latency.  Look ahead buffers for limiters and phase linear EQ are typical high latency plugs. The Waves website gives latency figures for each product.
 
So try to hit the "E" key in Sonar to turn off the effects and see if this is the culprit.
 
Suerte.

This might be the problem:
 
CoolSoft is actually the company name and the synth they have adds 250 ms to the playback latency.
 
Here is from their FAQ
 
See the advanced option "Additional output buffer" into VirtualMIDISynth confgurator.
This buffer is meant to be useful on mid-low performance systems, to avoid stutering and glitches while playing.
If you set it to 1000ms (1 second) it means that each note is player 1 second after the MIDI message is sent.
Default value is 250ms, which is an acceptable value for everyday use. VanBasco player also have a setting to delay karaoke text over music; setting it to the same value will make text and sound synchronized back again.
If you use VirtualMIDISynth for live performance (i.e. connecting an USB piano keyboard), set this buffer down to 0ms.