Hello! Never replied (and rarely looked at) the Cakewalk forum before, but saw Sonar 7.0.2 patch was out and always check to see the buzz. The noise problem sounds bad and in your case seems to be triggered by the recent version change (but apparently, others have heard this back to even earlier versions of Sonar).

I've been using Sonar since version 1 (and Cakewalk Pro Audio before that, and Cakewalk Professional MIDI sequencers before that) and so far I've found that when I do have glitches it has been sound card and sound card driver problems. I used an Aardvark Direct Pro LX6 for many years, a really great card with excellent audio quality, but when I upgraded the studio to XP (Media Center first, a bad experience, then Pro on an HP xw9400 workstation) I had problems. Since the Aardvark company evaporated several years ago without a trace, the only driver I could find was at DriverGuide where the drivers are of unknown origin (yes I scanned the heck out of the file before using it). It seemed to work, but I started having occasional severe (read, Ctl-Alt-Del had no effect!) hangs with the new workstation and Sonar 6. I got 7 when it came out, but no change.

I was feeling Cakewalk had messed up, but upon advice from a friend, tried a new firewire interface (M-Audio 410) -- and like night-to-day, the problems ceased. I've run 128 audio tracks with 64 plug-ins, including multiple Vintage Channel 64 and Perfect Space instances with no problem. For hours on end. The only recent bad experience was Dimension Pro (bought the real deal on the recent sale) -- crashed badly if I tried to use Dimension Pro (Dimension Lite worked fine). Since there was an upgrade and a VST patch for Dimension, I downloaded and installed those, and now Dimension Pro seems fine.

I see you are still using Aardvark cards, so not sure where you got the drivers, but if you can borrow a firewire or USB 2 card to test, you might find a significant difference.

Dennis
PV Audio

ORIGINAL: Susan G

Hi Jeff-

Open the Help File [F1], click the Search tab, and type in 'AUD.INI' for a general discussion. I don't think the Help File says where it's located specifically (although it should!), but it's typically in the path mentioned above:

"C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Cakewalk\SONAR 7 Producer Edition", and make sure you check "Search hidden files and folders".

DropoutMsec is covered in page 10 of the 7.0.2 Readme.rtf.

-Susan

Another little tip... If you click Start|Run and type %appdata% in the open box and then click OK, you will get straight to your application data folder. From there you can browse to your Cakewalk folder.

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx
I doubt the other people still suffering these audio problems are using old Aardvarks. I got lucky that the A|WDM drivers work. There are still others that are not lucky. Perhaps on 7.0.3 I will be forced to buy new gear all together.

It would still be worth formally reporting the problem. Cake should at least be made aware of the incompatibility with the old Aardvark drivers... Again, in the time it took to find, fix, and test the original problem, who knows whether those Aardvark drivers were stressed. If Cake intends on at least providing "backward compatibility" with those older drivers, then this particular problem needs to be put into their queue to make sure it's exercised fully. On the other hand, if this is due to a buggy Aardvark ASIO driver (which just just happened to work with pre-7.0.2 SONARs) then there's a chance you are indeed S.O.L., at least as far as ASIO is concerned.

Keith,
I did report it properly. It was the first thing I did.

Bill,
It was the same ASIO driver that I have always used. As for as I knew they released the 7.04 driver then the 7.13 came out not too long after. Are you saying I should try the 7.04?

I agree on the A|WDM. Every time I hit play, the audio engine stops. As soon as I hit it again, it works. It sucks but at least the sound doesn't crackle. I will try the other driver and see what happpens.

Bill,

I just "re-read" what you said again about the drivers having the same #....perhaps I could use your help.

If you could set me up with the proper one, I would be very appreciative.

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

My motor boat is different. It is as loud but the frequency is more of a "putt-putt" sound rather than a "buzz" sound.

Mine is like that too Bass, but only if I enable 64 bit precision. As long as I don't have that box checked, I don't get any at all. Then again, I've always had that putt putt sound when using that option. That's the only time I get that artifact though.

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

ORIGINAL: Danny Danzi

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

My motor boat is different. It is as loud but the frequency is more of a "putt-putt" sound rather than a "buzz" sound.

Mine is like that too Bass, but only if I enable 64 bit precision. As long as I don't have that box checked, I don't get any at all. Then again, I've always had that putt putt sound when using that option. That's the only time I get that artifact though.

Hi Danny (nice vett!)

yeah, I tried the that option but it didn't seem to help. Nothing seems to help except to not use the ASIO drivers. Bummer.

Hahaha thanks! Gotta update that pic as I've since bought that vette a big brother to play with. ;)

Yeah, I don't use ASIO either. Though I can improve latency issues by using it, I use a mixing board so I don't have the need for low latency. 2 buffers and 100ms on the slider works for me in WDM mode. What kind of numbers are you seeing in WDM? Latency driving you nuts, or it is tolerable? The best I can get out of mine (though I don't use this setting) is 8ms using WDM in a fairly large project at 24/48.

B,

Go to:
http://www.ba-midi.com/stuff/AASetup713.exe

That's the correct last driver.

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

Bill,

I just "re-read" what you said again about the drivers having the same #....perhaps I could use your help.

If you could set me up with the proper one, I would be very appreciative.

There was a plugin I used that caused that kind of sound but ONLY when I had 64bit precision checked.
The plugin was PSP Vintage Warmer, DX verison. I switched to VST version and all was fine.
So maybe there's some relationship there?

ORIGINAL: Danny Danzi

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

My motor boat is different. It is as loud but the frequency is more of a "putt-putt" sound rather than a "buzz" sound.

Mine is like that too Bass, but only if I enable 64 bit precision. As long as I don't have that box checked, I don't get any at all. Then again, I've always had that putt putt sound when using that option. That's the only time I get that artifact though.

I think the three of us should split the credit. You two get credit for explaining the solution, and I get credit for coming up with the idea that the three of us should split the credit. What do you think?

ORIGINAL: Susan G

Hi Jose-

But the credit is still yours .

No it's yours, no question!

-Susan

Keep us posted, please?

Everyone learns from each other around here ;)

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

Thanks for the driver Bill! I'll try it tonight when I get a chance. I will make sure the I/O Buffer is set to 512 also.

As far as plugins go, I haven't changed anything there but since I am at 7.0.2 with Sonar, I will load them one at a time and test them as I go.

Did you UNINSTALL, then REINSTALL the driver? And, regardless, did you go into the Aardvark control panel and make sure you have TURBO mode checked?

There should be no reason for you not to be able to get down to around 5 ~8 ms unless there's something else wrong - like Hard drives (are you sure you're in DMA mode??), or IRQ conflicts, etc.

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

OK it works but it is still puzzling. The new driver seems to work but ONLY at a latency stetting of 14.5ms ?!?! If I go to 12ms or to 16ms,... pop and click city. Going to 512 on the I/O seems to have helped but if I change the I/O buffer from 512 to 1024 or anywhere in between, it has no affect. No other setting or check box has any bearing on the symptoms. I even removed ALL my 3rd party plugins.

It is 14.5ms with the Billy Arnell signature series Aardvark driver ONLY that seems to work.

That's a pretty small window but if it works, I'll take it. Of course these results are based on recording one track at a time. I doubt that I could get away with recording all 16 tracks in a single pass. I suppose a major hardware over haul is on the horizon for me.

With the AArdvark, I doubt going below 5.8ms will be useful.
One thing you can try -- because Windblows can get weird -- is to do a "repair" install of XP, just in case something got weird in the OS.

You boot from the XP CD and do the repair options. But you'll have to redo all the windows updates and other patches.

This is a last-resort, of course, so perhaps just continuing to try to tweak your system would work as well.

I forget - did you delete your aud.ini (not while running Sonar) and let Sonar recreate it? If you haven't, definitely try that - and then redo all your option settings, etc. And, of course save a backup of AUD.INI first.

And, if you're running Sonar with the 64Bit Double Precision Engine (in audio options), I would suggest not doing so as it does put more taxing on the CPU. You're on a single core system, so CPU will be tugged by EVERYTHING.

And lastly - have you tried updating your video drivers? The video drivers play almost as important a role as audio drivers as they interact on a low level with the system (OS/Hardware).

Just some more thoughts/suggestions for you to try.

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

Hi Bill,

Yeah, I uninstalled the Aardvaks then installed the new ones.

Turbo is checked.

I can get the latency down to 2.9ms...but it pops and cracks. And like I said, longer settings work as poorly as shorter ones.

I don't think it's the hard drive because I reinstalled Sonar and everything is OK in 7.0 and 7.0.1. Then when I install 7.0.2......well you know the rest.

Like I said, it works. I'm not that happy with my system but it works (sorta).

Well, as many wise men have said:

Whatever works

But seriously, that's good news! Get back to work! lol

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

OK I think I may be on to something. Someone had recommended changing the default "DropoutMsec" from 250 to 500. When I did that it didn't seem to make too much of a difference so I changed it to 1000 and now I can get down to 5ms without pops and crackles !!!

You're more than welcome.

Now help others

ORIGINAL: Bassmanx

I Be Cured

Thanks for all your help!!