Pitch Bending In Sonar X2 Producer

Hi guys,
 
Thanks in advance for any help you can give. I've been experimenting with a MIDI controller keyboard and have run into an obstacle. When I go to use the pitch wheel on MIDI notes I get a very brief, low fuzzy sine wave sound and then the note is stopped in its tracks until the next one is triggered. This is the case whether I draw the pitch control messages in or play them in with the wheel. For what its worth, when I 'play' the wheel into Sonar the messages are all drawn in fine, so no problem at the hardware end as far as I can see.
 
This appears to happen on all the SI (studio instrument) soft synth plug-ins, but not on other plug-ins - for example the wheel works fine in Dimension Pro.
 
Interestingly, if I hold the wheel dead still in a certain position along its track (i.e. somewhere other than the neutral position) the note is changed correctly, but as soon as I release or move it, it dies again. Is it the case that these plug-ins are simply not made to be used with a pitch bend wheel? Perhaps the soft synth doesn't have enough samples between the increments or something? If anyone would be able to check this out on their own setup or let me know if this is normal I would be very grateful. It's a bizarre problem and some looking around has not yielded me any answers yet,
 
Thanks
TMG

Hi Bob
 
Many thanks for the reply Bob. After you asked me about my driver mode I experimented with the sampling rate - as you can see below my usual rate is 96khz - I dropped it down and noticed that anything lower and the pitch bending works fine! My setup is as follows (what an idiot for not posting it originally):
 
Driver mode: ASIO 96khz, 16-bit
Audio interface: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20
Computer: i7 3770 3.4 GHz, 12GB RAM
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
 
Sonar reports a total roundtrip latency of 50.8 ms (I use direct monitoring so don't usually touch this).
 
The problem happens even if I have one instance of the soft-synth loaded and try it on that (it does it on a brand new empty project), so it's safe to say I don't have any 32-bitters running.
 
Another thing I should mention is that when the problem occurs the MIDI channel's dB meter spikes to the top - in fact this happens even if I move the wheel without playing any notes and seems to push the meter higher or lower depending on how hard I push the wheel (though this doesn't generate any actual sound)
 
While I've got you on message Bob, would you happen to know why I am unable to change my audio driver bit depth to 24 from 16? If this is not normal perhaps there is something I could do? I read that deleting the aud.ini file is an option though it was on quite an old post.
 
TMG

I don't know, I've never got much from working in 96k other than loosing half my resources.
 
Been really happy working in 48k. Also 16bits? 24bits would give you a lot more headroom.
 
Anyway.
 
It sounds like that pitch bend was just maxing out the synth and you were getting an audio artifact.
 
 

slight addition to my last post - realised the wheel triggers the MIDI meter regardless because it is of course receptive to data and not representative of dB!

Hi scook. The driver settings menu says '24' - but it's greyed out (is that normal when using ASIO?) - in the actual project control bar it is displayed as '16'.
 
The audio data record bit depth reads '16'. I just changed that to 24 and the control bar now reads '24'. Would you kindly explain to me the difference there? Is it simply that I was recording at 24-bit (driver settings) but playing back at 16 (project settings)? I must have overlooked that rather obvious detail when setting up.

1.  To change Record Bit-Depth from 16 to 24-bits.  This is a common complaint, or at least stumbling point for folks, and if it is what I think it is, the fix is easy.
 
The bit-depth is displayed in the transport bar, and in a couple of places in Preferences.  The place to actually CHANGE it is in Edit>Preferences>File>Audio Data.  Once there, you will see Record Bit Depth, with a drop-down arrow.  Expand the list and choose 24-bit, then click Apply.
 
Please note that this will only affect NEW audio.  (It may only work for brand new projects, but it MIGHT work for new clips within existing projects.  All of my stuff is is in 24-bit, so I do not know for sure about this aspect). 
 
In any case, the above is where and how you change it.
 
2.  I am going to recommend you try the following settings, to get better latency and have your computer not have to work so hard:
 
Audio Interface: 24-bit, 44.1 k or 48 k Sample Rate, ASIO Buffer Size of 128
 
Sonar: Sample Rate 44.1 k or 48 K (MUST match setting on interface), Record Bit-Depth 24-bit.  You want to try to shoot for a Sonar-reported Total Roundtrip Latency of at or a little below 10 milliseconds, for recording.  (for mixing/mastering, you can jack up the latency for some of the more cpu-intensive plugins or those that use look-ahead processing).  You will see the various latency values reported by Sonar at: Edit>Preferences>Audio>Driver Settings.
 
There are some buffers that you may choose to adjust at some point.  The Playback I/O Buffer and Recording I/O Buffer sizes default to something like 250, or 256.  Some folks get better results upping those values to something like 512.  So, after you try out the other settings I posted above, you may circle back to try adjusting these buffers, as well, to see if it benefits performance on your system.
 
 
I hope the above settings give you a good balance between resource demand and audio quality.
 
Please give them a shot and post back with your results.
 
I use Sample Rate of 48 K, 24-bit recording, ASIO Buffer Size of 128, and have a Total Roundtrip Latency running at a little over 9 milliseconds, which works fine for me.  I have not thus far had to adjust the Recording and Playback I/O Buffers, and am quite happy and quite stable with these settings.
 
Bob Bone
 

Thanks guys. Bob I'll set my computer up like yours - processing power wasn't really why I was posting as I don't have any need to save it (it's a pretty meaty processor that I haven't even got close to half way in my work so far), however it sounds like 48 is probably much more reliable/predictable especially in my case so thanks a lot.
 
bvideo - cheers for those links - they perfectly describe my problem so it must just be a hang up from then. Nice to know it's not my hardware causing the issue as such.