Hey Jon,
 
Not a bad suggestion.   I have talked to just about everyone (Cake, UA, Jim)  and no one can figure it out.   Trying to broaden the pool.   
 
Thanks and keep any ideas coming!  
 
 

JonD
If this is a brand new DAW from Jim, I would suggest you give him a call/email.
 

Hi Wynnsong... actually anyone..
Has anyone actually gotten the Apollo interface to work using firewire on Win 7 and Sonar X3?  I am getting desperate.  Ive worked with both Sonar and UA tech support a number of times, and no one can solve the problem.  Music plays just fine when I am playing an MP3 using media player for example, so UA says this is not an Apollo problem.  I have the correct Firewire card (the one UA recommended), they had me change the slot its installed in, we've raised and lowered the buffer size, optimized the system, and every other obvious fix anyone can think of, yet nothing helps.  
 
Symptoms:  There are drop outs galore, and as the track gets more complex they eventually become almost non stop.  If I am starting a new project, maybe just recording a midi piano for example it is either non existent or so minute that you don't notice.  However as you add tracks the crackles and drop outs get intolerable.  raising the buffer size does seem to help a little but it only make a real difference when you get high enough that the latency is approaching 1 second which is unusable.  It does not seem to make a difference using audio or midi tracks.  I am entertaining going back to Pro Tools but I love Sonar and do not want to do that if I don't have to.  I am open to any RELEVANT ideas anyone might have.  thanks
 
System:  Creation Station 4500, 16 gb ram i7 processor.  Win 7, SiiG Firewire card, Apollo Duo interface. Sonar X3 latest version.    

I've been using SONAR and my Apollo QUAD for years now without any showstopping issues. Started using via a recommended UA FW800 PCIe card (Sonnet Allegro) back about 2 years ago using X2. Eventually updated to X3e and about 6 months ago I built a new Thunderbolt PC DAW and moved to using my Apollo (with it's TB card) to that exclusively. I've never had an issue using my Apollo (either with FW800 or TB) with SONAR (X2/X3). Does the Apollo work without issues using other DAW software?
 
Have you checked your DPC latency lately? High DPC latencies will make your DAW more dropout prone. This free utility will analyze your system for it's suitability in using real-time audio.
 
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
 
Best of luck,
 
Billy Buck

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
 
Everyone uses this tool to try to identify problematic drivers. I use a DAW built by Jim at Studio Cat too. Mine works fine down to 48 sample buffers with only a few tracks.
 
I did have trouble at one point when I changed the mouse. I used LatencyMon to determine the mouse that was the problem and downloaded the driver from the company. After that, no probs.
 
So use Latency Mon, identify the driver. Then post back here telling us the results of the monitoring.
 
G
 

Gentlemen..
 
I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to this.  I read the Latencymon information cover to cover a couple of times.  I only understood about half of what I was reading.  I am concerned whether I have enough technical acumen to do this.  If on the other hand understanding the technical jargon is not necessary to identify the problem I may try it because what I have now is unusable.
 
Just a side note: prior to buying the UA interface, I had a Focusrite 8i6.  There were never any crackles or drop outs with that interface, and latency was never an issue even when I had >20 tracks with data hog virtual sounds.  The only reason I switched to UA (other than the plug ins) was that the Focusrite was a bit brittle sounding on vocals.  When I spoke to UA they seemed to suggest that Sonar X3 was not a very well respected or highly used DAW.  Having worked on Pro Tools for a few years I find Sonar to be SO MUCH easier to work with.  My fear is having to give up on Sonar in order to continue improving my studio to the next level.  Ive not used ProTools 11 so they may have fixed the issues that existed on the older versions but I would sure like to keep Sonar if I can.  

It's not that hard.
 
1. Install it.
2. Run it.
3. Click the Play button to record info.
4. Does it say your computer can handle Real Time Audio?
5. If it doesn't, click the drivers tab
6. Sort the drivers by the Highest Execution (MS) column
7. Tell us what you find.

Perfect... I will give it a try in a couple of minutes, wish me luck and once again thank you for taking the time to help

I wasnt sure how long you are supposed to run this, but after about 5-10 minutes but it says,
"your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks w/o drop outs."
Highest measured interrupt to process latency was 3 green squares
Highest reported ISR routine had no green bars at all
Highest reported DPC routine execution was three green squares
Highest reported hard pagefault resolution time was all the way up and ran green through red squares
 
Under the drivers tab (sorted by highest), top three were:
Wdf01000.sys kernal mode driver framework runtime 0.145614
USBPORT.sys USB 1.0 & 2.0 Port Driver 0.120733
TCPIP.sys  TCP/IP driver 0.058001
 
 

Ok!! That's great news!!
 
You might try running it while you playback in Sonar and see if there is any change.

Be sure to use your mouse. You can run it for 10 minutes or so. I just accidentally left it running while I went to bounce tracks. :-)
 
If you stay this low, then we've basically ruled out an DPC Latency issue.
 
Your computer looks a good deal faster than mine.
 
So, next, are you aware if you have USB2 and USB3 ports? This can make a difference. Try plugging your device into one or the other. I'd start with USB2. See if that works better. I know my PC Built by Jim has both types, and I'm careful to use the USB 2.0.
 
My USBPORT.SYS driver reaches 0.362... ms latency. That's my highest.
 

Don't laugh as I ask to validate this... but the next thing I can think of is IO.
 
What are your settings under
Preferences > File > Audio Data for File Bit Depths?
 
I use Record Bit Depth of 24 (because that's what my interface delivers)
and Render Bit Depth of 32 (for internal bouncing).
 
You want to avoid using a Record Bit Depth of 32 because that is usually wasteful in terms of IO. If your device only delivers 24 bit (and almost all do) then you are writing 0s on the end with no advantage. Then when you playback you have to read all that data as well.
 
So, Record Bit Depth at 24?