I might have asked the wrong question, but I have a large cover project I was working on in SONAR PLATINUM. It is not alot of VST plugins being used, but if you combine it with compression, noise removal on most tracks, and subtractive or additive eq..it starts to produce alot of latency within the mix. I have tried freezing some tracks but I just can't work that way. Once I turn off the fx effects, it runs smooth as silk on my HP laptop. Can I use my external seagate external harddrive with 931GB in some kind of way to use virtual ram from it or maybe make the latency go away?
 
I have read up that can use external hard drives, and I figured 931 GB can be used to help SONAR go faster in case some VST's start to make the program produce latency. I just need to know if I can do it and how do I go about it. Thank you in advance

I'm gunna say no. I'm sure someone with more knowledge than me will chime in. That said, even if you can use the external drive as virtual ram, you're still only able to access that external ram at the read speed of the drive. That means it would be still way way slower than actual ram.

You are correct. The sources of latency are buffers in the audio interface, buffers in the audio driver and buffering in the DAW to keep everything in sync based on the plug-ins used in the project. The audio driver buffer settings are usually limited by the ability of the CPU to keep up, selecting plug-ins that do not need lookahead buffers, freezing  tracks and overriding PDC on live tracks http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=Recording.22.html are all ways to handle latency. An external HD is not a solution the OP's problem.
 

I've never heard of someone using a hard drive as RAM.  I doubt it's possible.

you would need the latest Universal Audio Apollo interface, a Thunderbolt 3 computer, and then with an additional Universel Audio accelerator box, the manufacterer claims it reduces the latency of their plugins substantial.
The core processors or something in that accelerator box, somehow are then dedicated to those plugins and can produce a lower latency.
Imo would be  a say $ 5000 investment and then hope indeed the latency is reduced.
 
I'd say in a few years manufacterers like RME will have simular gear (Thunderbolt 3 for Windows) at a much lower price but at a proffesional level/quality.

Are you sure the latency comes from your system? Do you have to increase ASIO buffer size to avoid clicks/pops?
If not, the latency is not coming from your hardware.
 
Check that you do not use "mastering" FXes. They introduce the latency BY DESIGN. It is not they require a lot of CPU or RAM, they just need significant (up to 1 second!) amount of audio information IN ADVANCE. I mean they need to know "the future". Since there is no time machine, the result is the delay.
 
Scook has already mentioned that by "lookahead buffers",  my comment is just an extended explanation to correctly suggested approach.

Latency has but two sources:

• Audio Interface
• Latent plugins

There is no other source of latency.
Thus, the solution to the latency issue is not going to be a different drive (conventional or SSD).
 
If your audio interface doesn't offer low round-trip latency (because it uses a large/hidden safety-buffer), there's not much you can do about it.  You can double the sample-rate... and that'll lower round-trip latency (albeit at the expense of higher CPU use).
 
The OP actually mentioned the source of the latency issue (latent plugins).
Noise-reduction and many other "mastering" or "linear-phase" or "convolution" type plugins are latent.
Most DAW software (including Sonar) has automatic plugin-delay-compensation (auto PDC)... to maintain sample-accurate sync.  If a latent plugin is inserted *anywhere* in the project (doesn't have to be on the track you're recording/monitoring), literally all other audio is delayed by that amount.  
If you use several latent plugins in series, the latency can really start to add up.
The solution is to either avoid using latent plugins while tracking... or...
Temporarily disable auto PDC while tracking... making sure to re-enable it when finished.
 
Your computer hardware (speed and efficiency) will determine how much of a load you can run at a given audio latency (glitch-free)... but the computer hardware itself (CPU, RAM, drives, etc) doesn't determine the amount of audio latency.
 
 

Slugbaby
I've never heard of someone using a hard drive as RAM.  I doubt it's possible.

The Windows Virtual Memory Swapfile does exactly this (if the machine becomes RAM-starved).
It absolutely ****KILLS**** performance.

Jim Roseberry
 
Temporarily disable auto PDC while tracking... making sure to re-enable it when finished.
 

hey Jim, agee with what you wrote, good to read and learn from it.
Just I was thinking the PDC only affects the monitoring (playback), and does not alter recording / tracks/clips on the timeline/grid....not sure though.
And doubling the sample rate indeed reduces the roundtrip latency, and latency of some plugins too but some other plugins appear to increase latency at higher sample rates.
 
Cheers.