Silicon Audio

peter434
By curiosity, where do you insert your external device ?

You physically patch the device between any spare set of inputs and outputs on your sound card and then select those I/Os in the external insert module...

I've often wondered how this was done.  Unfortunately my soundcard has only one set of analog outputs.

SF_Green
Hi Silicon, I've been wanting to do this also, and was wondering how you determine the latency when going in and out to an external device. Thanks.

As Craig says, Sonar works out the round-trip latency for you.  It sends a "ping" through the output pair and monitors how long it takes to return on the input pair.  It even displays the latency in the external insert GUI.
 
You just need to make sure the device is passing audio before you hit the button to measure latency.  If you you intend on using an external reverb or delay unit, just make sure its dry level is up and wet level is down to nil, otherwise the reverb/delay may confuse the automatic round-trip detection algorithm.

Hi Silicon Audio
Yep, External Inserts are cool. Just a couple quick notes about using E.I. I use external hardware all the time...maybe one of these will save you some trouble:
 
1. If you use an E.I. on a bus don't try and measure latency until you have signal routed to the bus. Until the bus has something routed to it latency measurements will fail.
 
2. Speaking of E.I. on a bus, there is a known bug (CWBRN-18719) where soloing a bus that has E.I. inserted results in silence. I work around it by putting the tracks that feed buses with E.I. into a folder and soloing from the folder instead.
 
3. Remember as well that Sonar will only allocate inputs and outputs in an E.I. in pairs. So, for example, I have a Distressor on Input/Output 45 and a TLA-100 on Input/Output 46. If I assign the Distressor to a mono snare drum mic it will make the TLA-100 unavailable for use anywhere else in the project because the entire stereo pair (45 and 46 in this case) is marked as "used" by Sonar.

All that said,generally speaking the E.I. stuff works pretty well. There are a couple of things to be aware of, but hopefully this doesn't come off as too negative...I certainly use E.I.'s all the time. Just pointing out some things to try and spare my fellow Sonarites some heartburn.
 
Dean

Silicon Audio

SF_Green
Hi Silicon, I've been wanting to do this also, and was wondering how you determine the latency when going in and out to an external device. Thanks.

As Craig says, Sonar works out the round-trip latency for you.  It sends a "ping" through the output pair and monitors how long it takes to return on the input pair.  It even displays the latency in the external insert GUI.
 
You just need to make sure the device is passing audio before you hit the button to measure latency.  If you you intend on using an external reverb or delay unit, just make sure its dry level is up and wet level is down to nil, otherwise the reverb/delay may confuse the automatic round-trip detection algorithm.

Hi Silicon.  I'm mainly using this baby externally, so no worries on intrinsic delay:
 
http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/mutator.php
 
Thanks again!
Cheers from SF
 
 

Razorwit
Hi Silicon Audio
Yep, External Inserts are cool. Just a couple quick notes about using E.I. I use external hardware all the time...maybe one of these will save you some trouble:
 
1. If you use an E.I. on a bus don't try and measure latency until you have signal routed to the bus. Until the bus has something routed to it latency measurements will fail.
 
2. Speaking of E.I. on a bus, there is a known bug (CWBRN-18719) where soloing a bus that has E.I. inserted results in silence. I work around it by putting the tracks that feed buses with E.I. into a folder and soloing from the folder instead.
 
3. Remember as well that Sonar will only allocate inputs and outputs in an E.I. in pairs. So, for example, I have a Distressor on Input/Output 45 and a TLA-100 on Input/Output 46. If I assign the Distressor to a mono snare drum mic it will make the TLA-100 unavailable for use anywhere else in the project because the entire stereo pair (45 and 46 in this case) is marked as "used" by Sonar.

All that said,generally speaking the E.I. stuff works pretty well. There are a couple of things to be aware of, but hopefully this doesn't come off as too negative...I certainly use E.I.'s all the time. Just pointing out some things to try and spare my fellow Sonarites some heartburn.
 
Dean

Excellent tips, Dean.  Many thanks!
Cheers from SF

hmmm. 
might try this with a POD then.... :)

Another note (which someone might have said already), if you send external to an FX unit, remember to bypass the effect when you "ping" for latency, otherwise the reading will be off, especially on time-delay effects such as reverb..

Razorwit
Hi Silicon Audio
Yep, External Inserts are cool. Just a couple quick notes about using E.I. I use external hardware all the time...maybe one of these will save you some trouble:
 
1. If you use an E.I. on a bus don't try and measure latency until you have signal routed to the bus. Until the bus has something routed to it latency measurements will fail.
 
2. Speaking of E.I. on a bus, there is a known bug (CWBRN-18719) where soloing a bus that has E.I. inserted results in silence. I work around it by putting the tracks that feed buses with E.I. into a folder and soloing from the folder instead.
 
3. Remember as well that Sonar will only allocate inputs and outputs in an E.I. in pairs. So, for example, I have a Distressor on Input/Output 45 and a TLA-100 on Input/Output 46. If I assign the Distressor to a mono snare drum mic it will make the TLA-100 unavailable for use anywhere else in the project because the entire stereo pair (45 and 46 in this case) is marked as "used" by Sonar.

All that said,generally speaking the E.I. stuff works pretty well. There are a couple of things to be aware of, but hopefully this doesn't come off as too negative...I certainly use E.I.'s all the time. Just pointing out some things to try and spare my fellow Sonarites some heartburn.
 
Dean

1. Yes the bus needs to be in a streaming circuit for delay measurament to work. Buses are dormant until something live is routed to them.
2. Wasn't aware of that one. We'll look into it at some point. Probably somthing simple.
 
The EI is probably one of the most complex objects in SONAR with all the delay compensation stuff that goes on behind the scenes. I'm glad some folks find it useful.

Hi Noel,
Thanks for looking into that. Incidentally, I've also submitted CWBRN-24189 about mono E.I.'s consuming a stereo pair. It too has been "Submitted to Development".
 
Dean

>  Wasn't aware of that one. We'll look into it at some point. Probably somthing simple.
 
Would it be possible to have clear, specific and full steps to reproduce from creating a new project for CWBRN-18719 in X3E so I could try to reproduce this and maybe for the other issue as well? I had a little difficulty with this one...
 
Many thanks :)