Help!
I used to use Sonar HS6 a lot. I haven't done any recording for 4 years and really want to get back into it.
I've bought a new pc, bought Sonar Professional but can't get the system set up well enough to record. The problem really bad when using 'input echo' when recording say a guitar. Can someone please help!?
 
I am using an Edirol UA-25 Interface, with the Win 7 (64 bit) driver installed.
My PC Spec is as Follows:
Win 7 64 Bit (Service Pack 1)
i5 Processor (i5-2500 running at 3.30GHZ)
6GB RAM
 
I've got background services checked in windows.
 
I've got buffer size at 20ms in sonar driver settings, If I go any faster than that audio just distorts.
I tried adjusting the buffer size in windows settings but go a similar result. Either the audio (record and playback) would drop out or the input would be so distorted.

Also the weird thing is, when I downloaded and tested my system with the free trial version of Sonar Artist it all worked perfectly.
 
Any help would be much appreciated as currently i've spent over £400 on a new PC and Sonar and can't use it :-(
 
Thanks in advance for your help,
Ben

Make sure to try both the ASIO and WDM driver mode for the interface using the latest drivers from http://www.roland.com/products/ua-25/downloads/. If you cannot get acceptable results monitoring through the DAW (IOW with input echo on) use direct monitoring while recording audio.

Hi Scook,
Thanks so much for your swift reply. I've defintly got the latest driver from Roland.
Sorry, I've not had this problem before. What is WDM driver mode and how do i try it? Also not sure what you mean by direct monitoring. I can record without input echo on and hear a clean signal through the interface. But that's not great, for example i find it so much more natural to be able to hear the reverb fx when singing or guitar fx when playing the guitar into the DAW.
Forgot to say in my original post that the weird things is when I donwloaded a trial version of Sonar Artist it all worked perfectly!
Thanks for your help,
Ben

The driver mode is set in Preferences > Audio > Playback and Recording. Chances are ASIO is your best bet but it does not hurt to test if WDM provides better performance.
Direct monitoring is what you refer to as

Benjamonk
 I can record without input echo on and hear a clean signal through the interface.

Be careful about which effects are added to a project. Some plug-ins are designed for mixing and mastering. Often dynamics processors have look ahead buffers which require a DAW to delay the rest of the audio to keep everything in sync. To test this press "E" to bypass all effects. If the delay goes away, that is the clue there are plug-ins in the project which are not suitable for use while tracking.
 

Since it's a new PC you will want to be sure that you are on a USB2 port. I'm pretty sure that interface is USB 1.1, in fact mine was particular about which USB2 port I was using, so try it in a couple ports and don't run it off of a hub.

My guess is that interface has high round trip latency and is not suitable for use with real time effects. This is common with most lower budget interfaces and is to be expected. 
do not use input echo,,, monitor directly. 
 
Your solutions are:
Buy a better interface (like RME) that have good RTL specs. 
A more powerful computer will also help here as well. 
Buy and interface with effects built in ( DSP ) 
Buy a small mixer with built in effects to run ahead of your interface ( what I do ) 
I'm a stomp box freak and I also own a Blackstar Amp so I never use the in the box effects.. only delay or reverb but I add them afterwards anyhow. 

All,

Many thanks for your help and advice.
On checking the driver settings, it had somehow switched from ASIO to WDM. (pretty sure I didn't do that).

Anyway, switch it back and things, for now, working much better.

Will definitely look into effects mixing pre interface so I can use direct monitoring as suggested.

Thanks again, I'm really glad to be up and running again and I really appreciated all the comments.

Ben

http://forum.cakewalk.com/A-BIG-REMINDERWindows-10-reset-my-audio-controller-m3290765.aspx
This discussion is about Windows 10 but I found the same to be true with 7. This tweak helped me get my latency problems at least tolerable when I ran 7. You might want to give it a try. The instructions are in the posts. BTW, I always ran ASIO drivers for much better results with this tweak.

Awesome, thanks Sidroe. This looks really useful.

Don't thank me unless it works! Tee-Hee!