Massive Headache - Latency Problems galore. Tried everything I can think of. Help needed

Ok, so I have been having a ton of trouble recording soft synths/vsts ect as my latency is out of this world.  Under my device settings it shows me to have a very low latency, but once I try to play something its a VERY noticeable difference between key press and sound delivery.  
 
Here is a quick run down of my gear and how its setup:

1. Custom Built PC running Windows 8.1+ 64 Bit (Core i7, plenty fast harddrives, 8GB RAM) - was built a few years ago but should still be plenty fine, and I will be upgrading to 16GB RAM when I can, but that shouldn't be the issue.
2. Mackie Onyx 1640 (original) - this is my audio interface, and is done through the Firewire output.
3. Sonar X3 Producer
4. Novation SLMKII controller
5. MOTU Micro Lite Midi interface

 
I route input/output through the Onyx mixer.  Audio playback & recording are fine, but try to use MIDI and all hell breaks loose.  Its almost impossible to record vsts on some songs, and its killing my creative flow :|  
 
I have tried all driver combinations, including ASIO4ALL ect.  I have to put my ASIO buffer all the way down to 32 in order to record in "real time" with vst/midi, and at that low of a setting, the audio playback starts to fart and crackle so thats a no go either.  
 
There is also a noticeable lag/latency when recording audio with INPUT ECHO turned ON when you want to hear effects used while singing for instance.
 
Anybody have any advise here?  I'm not sure if I need to replace my original Onyx mixer with something better, or if I'm missing something simple here.  
 
Thanks in advance for any guidance here, as I'm in the middle of an important project and stressing out big time.

Is your controller hooked up via USB?

I usually get legged up by my FabFilter plugins; they're great but will cause latency (on MIDI also).

dtboos
Robert,
 
That sounds good.  I'll be figuring out which one(s) are the culprits and keeping them out until the mixing/mastering process.  Appreciate all the help, I was panicking for awhile there.

You could list all of them here, likely some of us would be able to identify some of them.
 
Bob Bone
 

If you want to hear your full mix when tracking, bounce the mix to a new track in the project, call it "tracking mix" or whatever and output to main out.  When recording, bypass all the fx, then solo this and the track you are recording on and you can have the benefit of playing to the full mix with no latency.

Set ASIO to a low number in Preferences while tracking and a high number while mixing.

Nice call scook !  Bumping to 500 solved things.  You guys are great, can't believe I got 2 responses and a solution within 3 minutes, awesome.
 
BTW, anyone migrated from X2 or X3 to the Sonar Artist or Pro ?  Good thing ?  Worth it ? Your older song files playable and editable ?  Any snags m,igrating ?

So my latency issues are back again.    Trying to lay down a bass track over top of a bunch of existing tracks (all bounced clips) using a VST (SI Bass Guitar set up as a basic Instrument track).  When I first play some notes on the new track they sound fine, but as soon as I play along with the other tracks, the new track gets some latency.  Played with the buffers, but no luck.  Trying to "set ASIO to a low number in Preferences while tracking and a high number while mixing" per konradh but can't find where to do that in the ASIO panel... can someone guide me to it 
 

My favorite tweak!!! Go to Device Manager and disable High Definition Audio Controller in System Devices folder. That one tweak has helped many of us tremendously!

Anderton
Are you using any plug-ins with look-ahead, maximizers or transient shapers?

This! Convolution reverbs and compressor/limiters are other common offenders.
 
Go back to what originally eliminated the latency for the OP - bypassing all FX plugins. Not mentioned is that plugins with lookahead buffers trigger SONAR's automatic Plugin Delay Compensation which delays output of all other tracks in the project to sync with the track/bus that has the PDC-inducing plugin on it. The reason you don't hear it initially is that SONAR does not calculate and apply PDC until playback is started the first time.
 
You can either bypass the plugin, substitute something that doesn't have a lookahead buffer or hit the PDC [bypass] button in the Mix Module to temporarily override PDC on audio tracks with input monitoring enabled, allowing you to monitor live input without PDC to record a new track.
 

pharohoknaughty
Lets say I put an offending plug on my already recorded vocal track. Then I use a soft synth with a midi controller in "real time" to record a new track, Sonar will be required to insert latency to compensate for the Vocal track's look ahead buffers(?).

 
No, it's not tracks that have look ahead buffers, it's VSTs. In some situations a VST cannot operate on sample 1 until it has seen enough later samples to know what to do with sample 1.
 
eg. You have a surgical EQ on a track that removes 100Hz hum. Your track is recorded at 44100 samples per second. So, for the EQ to detect cycles that last 1/100th of a second, it will need to see 441 samples (44100 / 100) to have seen that cycle happen once. There simply isn't enough information before that point, so it needs to look ahead to sample 441 before it can even output sample 1.
 
(NB. Before synth developers and electrical engineers bombard me with talk about Fourier transforms and derivatives and Nyquist limits, I know that this isn't strictly true, but obviously the general concept of 'the plugin needs a chunk of samples before being able to process even the first one' is true and this is the broadly intuitive reason why.)
 

I suppose this makes sense. I always figured that high latency plugs just delayed the start time a a little bit, and then the soft synths would be compensated for and have audio interface minimum latency, but evidently I was incorrect (as all too often).

 
Latency is the time difference between a sample going in and a sample coming out. A delayed start time is the symptom, not the cure. :) The compensation we usually talk about is Sonar being careful to line up the delayed start times so that everything plays back in sync, but there's no way to escape the intrinsic delay in processing a sample. If you want to reduce the latency, the plugin that causes it needs to come off the track.
 

I use the L2 limiter on almost every track in a project. I assume the 64 sample latency is not cumulative. If I put 4 instances on four tracks I will still only have 64 sample latency added to the overall system.  Right? I hope?

 
Delay from plugins on separate tracks won't be cumulative - the project will have whatever is the worst latency across each of the tracks. However, plugins on a single track - and on any buses that the track feeds - will be cumulative, as the samples make their way through the plugin pipeline.

Kylotan
No, it's not tracks that have look ahead buffers, it's VSTs. In some situations a VST cannot operate on sample 1 until it has seen enough later samples to know what to do with sample 1...etc.

 
Your post is an excellent explanation.
 

I know this thread is getting old, but so am I.
 
I was wondering what would happen if I put my VST instrument in a minimalist VST Host, like VSTHost or SAVIhost.
 
Then use Sonar as normal with my usual high latency plugs.
 
This would seemingly separate the latency of the audio processing from the synth response, getting best of both worlds.
 
Anyone figured out how to use a small VST host with low latency that then runs into Sonar and works as a virtual instrument?
 
Thanks