Hello,

I am using Sonar Platinum with the latest March update on Windows 10. My audio interface is the Focusrite Scarlet 2i4 with ASIO driver.

I have a small score of 8 MIDI tracks playing through the ARIA Player. The MIDI plays ok. When I bounce these to a single stereo audio track I have crackling and stuttering during the last two bars/measures.

The audio file levels are below -14 Db so are definitely not clipping.

I should mention that when I try the exact same MIDI file on this very same system with the exact same settings and levels in Reaper and Cubase 9 the audio track plays back without the above interference. I hasten to add that that I'm not looking to abandon Sonar, this was purely a 'process of elimination' exercise.

In Sonar, when working with the score including bouncing, my system resources are well within limits; my i7 processor is below 10% and memory (32 gig) is at 8%. However When I 'freeze' the softsynth tracks in Sonar, playback is now ok. This doesn't make sense to me as I thought the 'freezing' process worked by using less resources yet I have loads available. Also, as mentioned, the same file on this same system in the other DAWS with exactly the same resources are fine.

In Sonar I have also tried increasing latency and buffer but this made no difference. I have also tried using the new UWP MIDI driver.  

I'm confident and positive about Cakewalk and Sonar Platinum and if other DAWS can process this small MIDI score without problems then I'm sure the mighty Sonar can. It's just finding that elusive setting.

I'd really appreciate any help with this and thank you.

You may want to take a look at the "Prepare Using nnn Millisecond Buffers" in Preferences > MIDI > Playback and Recording.
 
The default was changed from 500 to 250 with X1. Many users find the old default or even higher works better.

Hello Bristol_Jonesy,
 
Thanks for your reply, it's much appreciated.
 
I tried your suggestion but no luck.

Just throwing this out there, do you have any tempo changes at the point where the stuttering occurs?

Can you reproduce this every time ? in the same place every time ?
It might be due to something else. it does sound like a classic case of buffer adjustment.
The ASIO drivers your using you downloaded from Focusrite ?

Bristol_Jonesey
Just throwing this out there, do you have any tempo changes at the point where the stuttering occurs?

No tempo changes in the file at all.

Okay
 
Crackles, pops, exc are caused by 3 main things.
 
- Buffer rate
- Wireless interference
- Bad connections
 
The questions I asked was to try and narrow down which one it is.
 
Good luck

May want to visit AUD.ini. The settings may be edited in Preference > Audio > Configuration File. To see "Configuration File" option make sure the Advanced radio button is selected at the bottom of the Preferences dialog.
 
There are three variables I might tweak to see what happens

• ExtraPluginBufs - maybe start with 32 (This is what I use but like all these setting there is no magic number that applies for every setup)
• AllowOfflineRenderMixThreads - normally enabled, try turning it off for this bounce only
• BounceBufSizeMsec - set to the max, 350 for this bounce only

Tweak them individually before trying combinations. The is not much information about these settings but what there is may be found here

chuckebaby
Can you reproduce this every time ? in the same place every time ?
It might be due to something else. it does sound like a classic case of buffer adjustment.
The ASIO drivers your using you downloaded from Focusrite ?

Hello chuckebaby,
 
thanks for your help.
 
Yes, it happens in the same place each time. The ASIO drivers are direct from Focusrite and their latest drivers.
 
I've rechecked the buffers; here's a screenshot. In this you can see one reference set at zero and greyed out. In the other you can see the ASIO Panel buffers are set at max 10ms. I don't know if that greyed out bit is causing the problem!

 Thanks.

The SONAR Preference screen looks OK. The Buffer Size slider is not used in ASIO driver mode. The audio interface software controls buffer size in ASIO mode.