Hi-
 
My audio interface is a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. I have it set to 44100 Hz, 64 samples, 4 ms USB buffer for all three tests below.
 
I'm running the latest 64-bit versions of the 3 DAWs I tested on Win 10 x64.
 
I'm wondering if there's a way to eliminate the lag I'm experiencing in SONAR when I relocate the cursor during playback. I might be missing a setting somewhere.
 
I created the test tracks by exporting the audio from SONAR's "SONAR_AudioDemo.cwp." Then I loaded those tracks in a new project in SONAR, REAPER and FL Studio.
 
Here are my results in SONAR (the video starts kind of late, sorry):


In REAPER:

 
and in FL Studio:

There's an obvious lag in playback in SONAR, but not the others. Does anyone know how I can get rid of this? As I said, my audio interface settings were identical for all three tests using these identical audio tracks with no FX.
 
Thanks much in advance-
 
-Susan

What happens when you press the PDC button?
I understand there is no fx.
Also disable arm record monitoring during playback.
Temp disable virus scanner.
Oh and long shot delete picture cache?

Wondering if offset is something to do with this... Just thinking out loud have not seen vid.

Hi Susan,
 
The good news is: I don't get that, so it's fixable. The bad news is: I don't know why, and it might be hardware, though I'm not running anything state of the art.
 
If it's only the display that's lagging and not the audio, my first thought is maybe you have Windows visual effects disabled that SONAR depends on to animate the Now time cursor. I recommend setting them to 'Adjust for Best Appearance' to keep Windows from changing things dynamically.
 
If the audio is also lagging, I would think maybe you need to raise (or lower) your disk I/O buffers. But I experimented with that, using the same Audio Demo project and didn't really see any difference in behavior at different settings.

Doktor Avalanche
What happens when you press the PDC button?
I understand there is no fx.
Also disable arm record monitoring during playback.
Temp disable virus scanner.
Oh and long shot delete picture cache?

Wondering if offset is something to do with this... Just thinking out loud have not seen vid.

Hi Dok-
 
I tried your suggestions, but no change.
 
Thanks-
 
-Susan

brundlefly
Hi Susan,
 
The good news is: I don't get that, so it's fixable. The bad news is: I don't know why, and it might be hardware, though I'm not running anything state of the art.
 
If it's only the display that's lagging and not the audio, my first thought is maybe you have Windows visual effects disabled that SONAR depends on to animate the Now time cursor. I recommend setting them to 'Adjust for Best Appearance' to keep Windows from changing things dynamically.
 
If the audio is also lagging, I would think maybe you need to raise (or lower) your disk I/O buffers. But I experimented with that, using the same Audio Demo project and didn't really see any difference in behavior at different settings.

Hi Dave-
 
The audio lags along with the display. I tried raising and lowering disk I/O buffers, but no difference. I did find what I might think my be a buglet where changing the Device for Record Latency Adjustment didn't stick, but I'll post about that separately.
 
Occasionally I'll get a loud buzz from my interface when I relocate the cursor which goes away when I click somewhere else on the time line. Since this is only happening in SONAR, it still seems like it must be a setting I'm missing; I just don't know which. I've tried different buffer settings on my interface and the CPU and Disk performance readings in SONAR are very low.
 
Thanks-
 
-Susan

Hi, Susan!
Usually I can see something like that on heavy loaded projects, so your situation looks strange, especially if you say that CPU and Disk is not very loaded. There is only audio in your test project. Do you use SSD? Or if you use HDD, have you done defragmentation? Also, if you have few or one track in a project, does it behave the same?

Susan G
I did find what I might think my be a buglet where changing the Device for Record Latency Adjustment didn't stick, but I'll post about that separately.
 

 
That's come up before. IIRC the display in the Record Latency Adjustment should not be a drop-down as the relevant device is ultimately controlled by what you have selected for your Record timing Master. My Record Latency dropdown only shows MOTU PCI ASIO.
 
For the other issues the only thing I can suggest is that you try renaming your AUD.IN file, and starting fresh.  also maybe run LatencyMon, and look for DPC spikes when you're changing playback position. Even though you're not seeing it in SONAR's performance monitor, it sounds like some combination of disk access, graphic updates or other system activity is interfering with SONAR's ability to keep the buffers filled or is maybe conflicting with the audio driver directly.
 
You might try putting SONAR in CPU Conservation Mode with the Pause key, and seeing if delaying the graphics update helps with the audio streaming side of it.

To make sure the test you're doing is completely accurate, check that all three programs are playing back the exact same wave files from the same location, etc. That will at least rule out fragmentation or possible disk errors. In Sonar's preferences, under File|Audio Data, make sure Always Copy Imported Audio Files is not checked. And make sure the other two programs are not playing copies of the original wave files either.

Adq
Hi, Susan!
Usually I can see something like that on heavy loaded projects, so your situation looks strange, especially if you say that CPU and Disk is not very loaded. There is only audio in your test project. Do you use SSD? Or if you use HDD, have you done defragmentation? Also, if you have few or one track in a project, does it behave the same?

Hi Anton-
 
The audio isn't on an SSD drive, and yes, the drive is defragged. 
 
I tried deleting all but one track and there was no delay. I then added them back one by one and the delay increased very slightly with each additional track until it was back to what you can see in the video. I wouldn't expect any delay at all with only 9 tracks.
 
Thanks-
 
-Susan

brundlefly

Susan G
I did find what I might think my be a buglet where changing the Device for Record Latency Adjustment didn't stick, but I'll post about that separately.
 

 
That's come up before. IIRC the display in the Record Latency Adjustment should not be a drop-down as the relevant device is ultimately controlled by what you have selected for your Record timing Master. My Record Latency dropdown only shows MOTU PCI ASIO.
 
For the other issues the only thing I can suggest is that you try renaming your AUD.IN file, and starting fresh.  also maybe run LatencyMon, and look for DPC spikes when you're changing playback position. Even though you're not seeing it in SONAR's performance monitor, it sounds like some combination of disk access, graphic updates or other system activity is interfering with SONAR's ability to keep the buffers filled or is maybe conflicting with the audio driver directly.
 
You might try putting SONAR in CPU Conservation Mode with the Pause key, and seeing if delaying the graphics update helps with the audio streaming side of it.
 

Hi Dave-
 
Yes, I found the Record Latency Adjustment issue after a search for it. In my case it was stuck on FL Studio (ASIO) which I don't use, so I uninstalled it. It's back to the Komplete Audio now.
 
I'll try your other suggestions next chance. I *almost* wish it happened with R and FLS, too!
 
Thanks-
 
-Susan