Recording using MIDI keyboard and quantizing

Hi,
 
I have a weird question to ask. I'm currently using the latest version of SONAR (steam edition) and one of the challenges I'm facing is I cannot seem to play in sync with the beats. Everytime after I record, I would quantize, and 20% of the notes will be either a beat too fast or a beat too slow (I usually quantize to 1/8 beat)
 
The funny thing is, when I play on my digital piano and I try to quantize, it always happens with virtually no off beats.
 
As I had a rather challenging time today trying to get all the notes in sync, I downloaded the trial version of Cubase, and one thing that struck me was that I also hardly experienced any notes that were off after quantization to 1/8 beat.
 
What I did after which was to test out the two software, each time by recording 8 bars of 64 notes (each note is 1/8 beat length). I alternated between Sonar and Cubase three times, and the results are as follows: Three times I reproducibly made between 5-10 notes that were off (out of 64 notes) by 1/8 beat after quantization for Sonar. On the other hand for Cubase I made 2 or less notes that were off each time after quantization. I used the same VST and keyboard for both.
 
I suspected it could be the timbre of the metronome notes that made me have a lower tendency to go off beat. I subsequently tried to change the metronome note sounds for Sonar to make it sound more similar to Cubase and the thing is I am not sure if it is because of practice, or is it because of the metronome sound, or is it by pure luck, that I might have appeared to make less off notes after recording. But the frequency of errors is still more than Cubase (roughly 3 or 4 notes were still off, out of 64).
 
I would like to ask if there is any software / hardware reason that could have resulted in such a difference in performance when I use Cubase vs Sonar? I'm hoping the culprit lies with metronome sound (which can be changed easily) but I'm just concerned if there is another factor that I have overlooked. This is rather important for me because it takes a lot of time and effort to correct all the notes - and even more frustrating when I know that I can have a better performance when I play using the digital keyboard or Cubase.
 
Please advise, thanks!
 
 

1) Apologies for not being clear - for the case of my digital piano I did not route it to SONAR. It has an in-built quantize function and I used that to verify
 
2) At present, no. There used to be, but I changed the buffer size under "Mixing latency" to 44KHz (30 ms)
 
3) I'm using on-board Realtek audio driver (unfortunately), MME 32-bit driver mode, triangular dithering, stream >16 bit data as 32 bit PCM, left-justified. I'm not able to find Roundtrip latency, but as mentioned above, the latency I get from the Preference is 44 KHz. Sampling rate: 44100. Buffers in playback queue: 4.
 
4) Notes tend to get quantized consistently too early. 
 
Thanks again.

Thanks for the reply.

To clarify, I used a vst (ewql piano). Actually I only use vst, hence only need to dabble in midi, so the music stores I visited said there might not be a need to purchase an audio interface. Unless I'm working with really a huge number of channels.

Is there any way to further reduce the buffer? This is already the lowest option that I can set, apparently.

I'm also unfortunately using windows 8.1, would there be an alternative to the wasapi driver mode that I can use in this case?

I'm curious also why I had better performance using Cubase considering I'm trying using the same gear otherwise. I suspected that it could be metronome sounds - but as I generally perform worse using my midi controller than on my actual digital piano in terms of keeping in beat, hence the query here.

If you have 30 ms of latency, it is likely that your notes are at least 1 1/8th note (and maybe more) off which would make it appear that they are getting quantized too early.  Did you use the same tempo in Cubase and Sonar?

Thanks for the reply. Yes I used 205 bpm as the same tempo for cubase and sonar. I know one alternative to resolve this is to reduce the bpm to a lower value - I have reasonably good results at 120 bpm. Nonetheless would like to find out if there are more sustainable alternatives that can resolve the latency

Thanks for the reply. Yup I do agree that 205 bpm is too high to maintain a good performance. I also read advice that typically composers record at lower tempo for accuracy and then jack it up to the actual song requirements.

Nonetheless I am apparently still experiencing fairly reproducible better performance on other platforms than sonar, whether it is 205 bpm or 120 bpm. hence wanted to check if there are other ways to further improve the situation, in addition to lowering the bpm

Sorry for the double mail, to add on, the music I was working on is 150 bpm and i was also experiencing this issue frequently, which triggered the subsequent investigations..

You are comparing an older version of Sonar against the latest version of Cubase and that may not be a fair comparison.  Cubase may have optimized their software for MME drivers while the older Sonar did not.  For a true comparison you will need same circa version of Cubase or the latest Sonar.
 
If you are serious about recording in any DAW then you should get a good audio interface that runs on native drivers.  These will eliminate any latency.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I'm using the latest version of sonar. my auto update is enabled every time I launch the client. Unfortunately I'm using windows 8.1. Is there no wasapi equivalent for that? If not, may I confirm that buying an audio interface should help to at least mitigate this issue? That should still cost way lower than cubase and Thus far it seems that functionality wise everything else is comparable between the two.

It was Panu:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com...included-m3314119.aspx

Some click samples might have a sligthly slower or delayed attack, but I don't think any of them could account for noticeable timing errors. I never used them because the default Ping Lo/Hi samples that I'm accustomed to using were not included, and have a nice quick attack.

If there was any audio delay then (assuming playing exactly with the audio) the notes would be behind too. Perhaps the real issue is Sonar is playing/voicing the notes slightly before the measured beat. Maybe an attempt to make up for possible latency?

Thanks for the comments. It actually occurred to me to create a drum track and use that to record too, then delete it at the end. I will try and see if it makes a difference. At worst case then I will just suck it up and get an audio interface which itself is worth investing in anyway. Thanks again

Im just here to verify what Johnny is saying is 100% correct.
I've seen people confuse this a lot but yes, even with a USB keyboard/controller, Doing Midi, 
a soundcard is a must if you want a correctly synched  and stable set up.
You plug in the USB Keyboard as normal and the Soundcard USB goes in another USB Port.
 
Probably not going to help that much but you might want to give the new WAASPI driver a shot.
It's aimed at Windows 10 but I did read in the EZine some users of previous windows versions "May" benefit from it.