I have the Alesis V25 USB MIDI keyboard running in a sonar X3 DAW on an i5 core Laptop. And no matter how I set the buffers there is still significant latency. How do I fix this??? Or any ideas?

Thanks, 
Trevor.

What soundcard are you using?  Are you using ASIO drivers?

Yeah, it's ASIO

You might try creating a new song from the start. Just one track of MIDI with no effects. Do you still have the latency? Introducing an effect of certain types can introduce latency while tracking/recording. These can be perfectly appropriate effects for mixing later.

Try that for scientific elimination of potential latency contributors.

It's up to you to fix the latency. I run SONAR at 64 samples, with complex projects. That's 9 ms round-trip latency including USB safety buffers. 
 
But you won't be able to fix it unless you put some effort into describing the conditions under which it occurs. Troubleshooting is impossble without data about the trouble. We don't even know if you're using real ASIO drivers or a kludge like ASIO4ALL...whether you've uninstalled resource-hogging "HD" drivers that your graphics system installed without your permission...what background services you have running, whether you have programs constantly scanning your system...you get the idea.

walltrev
Yeah, it's ASIO

So, not ASIO4ALL and the laptops integrated soundchip? (You did not mention what soundcard you're using)
The integrated soundchips usually don't work very well witth DAWs.

One QUICK thing to check, particularly with laptops, is if your latency issues go away if you turn off or disable your WiFi adapter.  These are FREQUENTLY problematic for folks.
 
So to check this, prior to launching Sonar, look for either a physical switch or a function key combination that will simply turn the WiFi adapter Off.  If no such mechanism exists, go into Windows Device Manager, and simply Disable the WiFi adapter there.  Do NOT uninstall it - just Disable it.  Then launch Sonar and see if that 'fixes' your latency issues.  After you finish your Sonar session, either turn the WiFi adapter back to On, or go back into Device Manager and set it to Enabled.  Then your WiFi will work again.
 
Bob Bone

Audio latency is what you set as you want, in limits of your hardware. If you have asio buffer set to 64 you should not have significant latency, but you can get crashes/clicks/distortions because your hardware can not handle that.
 
But there can be other source. If your audio latency is OK, you still can get latency from MIDI synth. There was some problems with TTS-1 for example, which was fixed recently.

walltrev
I have the Alesis V25 USB MIDI keyboard running in a sonar X3 DAW on an i5 core Laptop. And no matter how I set the buffers there is still significant latency. How do I fix this??? Or any ideas?

Thanks, 
Trevor.

 
Latency has but two sources:

• Audio Interface (ASIO buffer size, A/D D/D, and hidden safety-buffer
• Latent Plugins

If you insert a latent plugin *anywhere* in a project (due to Automatic Plugin Delay Compensation), all other audio is delayed by that amount (to maintain sample-accurate sync).
When tracking, avoid using latent plugins... or use the global PDC bypass option in the Control Bar.
If you disable PDC, remember to re-enable it when mixing.
 
There's nothing Sonar (or any other DAW application) can do to reduce the latency of an audio interface or latent plugins.
 
 

Click the PDC button on the Control Bar, does that help?