Bingo, your wireless keyboard and mouse. Disable it. It doesnt matter if it worked before. Things just tend to happen with wireless.

I also asked 2 times for your signal chain. what are the meter reading for your tracks, buses., master bus and main outs.

Cj

I think that a 96KHz sampling rate is overkill. I'd stick to 44.1KHz at 24 bits whilst you work out this problem.

Anyway, the problem is meant to be on playback. Have you tried monitoring with headphones and does it show up then?

What happens if you export the track from Sonar as a wav file and then play it back through your Soundblaster?

edentowers


I think that a 96KHz sampling rate is overkill. I'd stick to 44.1KHz at 24 bits whilst you work out this problem.

Anyway, the problem is meant to be on playback. Have you tried monitoring with headphones and does it show up then?

What happens if you export the track from Sonar as a wav file and then play it back through your Soundblaster?

I totally agree. Anything above 48KHz is overkill unless one is recording symphonic instruments using pristine mics with pristine preamps in a finely tuned room or concert hall...

Well, I am sorry I haven't been updating this lately. Work has been Hell and I haven't had any time to even work with this a little bit. I have disabled any power saving features, disabled AMD Cool n Quiet, completely removed and reinstalled anything M-Audio related on my computer. I was able to try it a few times at 48khz and 1028 ASIO buffers. About 5 minutes each time. Haven't had any problems yet. I'll post back when we have band practice this week and let it run for an hour like we usually do. If it's still doing it, I'll dig up my old wired keyboard and mouse and try that. Other than that, thanks for the help so far!
 
By the way, M-Audio is useless to contact for this. They give me a generic link to try things I've already done a bunch of times.

Relic: This is the same issue that I've been complaining about. The problem is not your mouse, cabling, etc.
What I hear on your tune is NOT clipping as if you were recording too hot. This "fizzy" sound is actually being recorded on your track (and ironically you will not hear it in the cans so therefore you won't know until playback time, thus wasting a take) and I personally think it's a Sonar problem (I called tech support about this and they are clueless with this issue).
Another person on this thread has an EMU with the same problem so I don't think it's an M-Audio issue (or any soundcard).

My setup is typically this: U87 into a Vintech X73i (or a Great River ME-1NV) into a compressor (I have several dependent on the tune) into my Delta 66.

I never had this "fizzy" distortion with Sonar 6 and XP. When I upgraded to Sonar 8 (then 8.5) and Vista, that's when the problem started.

Frankly, it's embarrasing to have to record another vocalist and tell her that I need to record her for a few seconds and then play it back to make sure that there's no "fizz" on the track.

You're only option is to save your tune, delete the fizzy tracks, close Sonar, then reopen Sonar so you can re record all over again.

I hope Cakewalk can fix this soon...in the meantime I think I'll upgrade my Pro Tools rig, lol

Gaffpro: You are right in the fact that I've never had this issue in the past with other versions of Sonar. I've been using it since version 6. However when this happens, I don't have to exit Sonar completely to record again. It's hit or miss when it does it. If I hear it in playback and then just delete it and record again, it might not be there any more. I'm starting to believe that it is in fact some kind of interference, whether be from my pc or elsewhere, based upon the last sample I posted that shows the fuzz getting worse and worse until it's almost like a fuzz and hum mix, then all of a sudden out of nowhere it completely disappears.
 
This issue is not uncommon. I've searched online and found many other people with the same problem or at least some variation of it, but nobody ever follows through enough on their posts everywhere else to tell us what their issue was.
 
Sorry again to not have updated yet. I just got home from work and it's 7pm. I have to sleep and go back in at 2am until 5:30pm tomorrow. We are rehearsing this Friday evening , so that will be the latest that I found out if this has been fixed yet. Thanks again everyone for keeping up with me on this! This forum has the most helpful people I've ever come across anywhere online!

yeah i'm not sure what other options i can get in my setup. I'm limited. My PC however is plugged in directly to the plug by itself coming out of the breaker box, so I'm not sure I can get much more seperation than that.

CJ might be onto something with this....but.....I've had the same setup with the audio cables, strips, and electrical connections in the exact same spot...again this never happened with Sonar 6, only when I upgraded to 8.....

I still think it's a Sonar bug 

I think Gaffpro is right about this.
 
I've tried using wired keyboard and mouse, removing the wireless phone from the room, routing all different setups for power, changing my cable routing, reinstalling my drivers, going through BIOS to make sure everything there is set to not interfere or down throttle the CPU. I also removed my Sound Blaster from the PC, amd I've also tried to move the M-Audio to another PCI slot. Everything I can think of. I've tried every possible thing I can think of as well as everyone else's suggestions.
 
Last night we rehearsed and I was recording. The first 3 times I set up a new project I got the fuzz in all the tracks. The 4th time I was able to record for the rest of the night. I stopped and went with playback a dozen times at least to check on the progress of our recordings. That session went well. No fuzz on any tracks.
 
Now for the next day. Today I tried opening a new project to try this again. I redid this probably 5 times this morning and I kept getting that intermittant fuzz. Just like my 2nd sample uploaded. It comes in, gets worse, then just disappears all of a sudden. Then it comes back in after another 10 or 15 seconds go by.
 
After going through this, I re-opened the session we recorded last night. I recorded some extras onto those tracks today for about 25 minutes. They came out fine. Not one bit of fuzz or crackle. Either this is the biggest coincidence in the world, or Sonar is glitching on me somewhere when I start a new project. It can't be something on the outside, because there's nothing left to check. I think it's either a Sonar setting or a software glitch somewhere. I know it seems that tons of people would be posting this issue if it was that common, but I know I'm not the only one. I'm going to put back on an earlier version of Sonar and then update here again. If the earlier version works, then it has to be the software. I'll check back when I get something older installed and working right under Windows 7.
 
 

Ehh.. just to be sure...

You said you used Sonar 6/7 on Windows XP and did not have this problem?
Then you upgraded to Sonar 8/8.5 and Windows Vista/7 and this problem started?

Have you ever tried to use Sonar 8.5 on a Windows XP system?

The reason I ask this is because Windows Vista and Windows 7 had a major redesign how sound is handled. This Windows versions are completely redesigned and build from the ground up (and in a relatively short  time because they have to drop years of "Loghorn" work). For instance - try running the dcplat utillity and you will see latency timings are WAY higher in Windows 7 compared to Windows XP on exactly the same hardware (although in practice there seem to be no latency problems). I do some work in IT and a lot of people where complaining about sound handling in Vista in the early day's. It seems a lot of drivers had to be redesigned to handle the new audio capabilities, but a lot of sound card designers just "wrapped around" old XP drivers giving some very strange side effects.

Now - this was corrected later on, but still - windows Vista and Windows 7 can have some problems that have to be ironed out (I do not say that is the case - I only say it is a possibility). It is easy to say Sonar is the problem (and I do NOT say that's impossible), but it is also entirely possible it is a problem with (yet) undocumented "features" of the new operating system (Windows Vista/ Windows 7), or a combination drivers/Sonar/Windows 7 and some scheduled tasks automatically set up in Windows 7 (like automatic memory check, hard disk check etc...) and the most users are not aware of...

If you already have tried running Sonar 8.5 in XP on the same hardware I apologize for giving the wrong suggestion....

Relic1882


Ok. I've checked my cables. I can't find anything strange. I don't see how it could be a cable anyway because this fuzz noise happens on ALL of the tracks whenever it decides to do it.  I've tried a bunch of different drivers, whether it be for windows 7, xp or vista, compatibility modes, etc. I've tried changing ASIO buffer sizes from 64 to 4096. I've tried setting the record bitrate and frequency different. I have also changed all my power management in BIOS and Windows to be on all the time.
 
I have uploaded a new copy of the problem here---> http://soundclick.com/share?songid=9140084 
Pardon the language at the end. This is getting on my nerves!
It seems that it comes in around 13 seconds, but then it gets worse and worse, and then all of a sudden it goes completely away at 1:03. Then it comes back again 10 seconds or so later. What the hell?!
 
I really don't want to throw my computer through the basement wall because I just built it this year. But I'm running out of ideas! haha. I have seen this problem on other sites and forums as well. It happens to a lot of people but it always gets left behind unsolved. I am determined to figure this out!!
 
Thank you very much again to anyone who is helping work on this. You have no idea how much it means to me!

This isn't clipping. It's system thing.

It's Sonar and Windows 7 (at least the 64bit versions) ... they just don't get along as well as advertised.

PS: About higher sample rates: Mixing in 88.2 or higher will make your plug-ins perform better. Less aliasing, more clarity. I will not go in depth, but look into it and check it out if you don't believe me. Aliasing makes plug-ins fuzzy.

Plus, I seem to get by with a lot more plug-ins before my system starts to crumble - in 88.2 than in 44.1.

Cheers.

#deleted.
 
I hate these folded forums. You think you are answering the last post, but you are not.

BTW: I don't think plugins are the issue here......I was getting the "fuzz" without any plugins except for Session Drummer 2

Wow. Here's a good one for you all! Tell me if this sounds right to you...
 
My setup is in the specs below. I'm running Windows 7 with Sonar 8.0 right now. I have 8 tracks all going through my 1010LT and coming into Sonar. I armed them ALL for recording, and I set ALL of them to live monitor via Input Echo: On.  My latency is 5.3 because I'm running 48khz and the M-Audio ASIO buffers are turned down to 256. I'm running ASIO in Sonar. I am able to live monitor everything at once, while recording and I have no interference or crackling... now the the 2nd part.
 
I am arming the tracks with the R at the top that does them all at once. The first time I armed all the tracks, it was smooth. Keep in mind I am wearing headphones and live monitoring via Input Echo On. When I armed/unarmed the tracks all at once, I'd always get that very split millisecond sound cut from Sonar working and doing its thing. The first time I rearmed the tracks, the crackling noise was there via the input echo. I though, huh, makes sense. I'm running extremly low latency for all this stuff at once. Then I unarmed the tracks and the noise went away. I rearmed them again. The noise was GONE! Then I unarmed and rearmed them a few more times in a row. Sometimes the noise was there. Sometimes it wasn't.
 
Nevertheless. When the noise was NOT there through the input echo I was recording everything at once like I should be able to, with live monitoring, no frying noise at all.
 
I am really thinking that this bug, at least in my instance, has something to do with the way Sonar arms its tracks and opens the devices for input. Maybe it's the sound card, maybe it's the drivers, maybe it's the software. But I think I'm finally getting somewhere with this at least in my case. With this fresh install of Windows 7 and Sonar 8 I'm able to do everything very efficiently, as long as I monitor to make sure I don't start with the noise. We are practicing this week and I hope to catch up on some serious recording for our cd, so I will definitly be back on this forum to let you know how it's going.
 
Yeah, my hypothesys so far is that something is glitching when arming the tracks. That's why for some of you that are going through this you are having to take many takes of something, and then on the best take you have to scratch it cause the noise comes out of nowhere. I'm going to keep a log of everything else I install on my PC from here out to update if this happens again. But so far I think it's an issue with Sonar opening the sound card for recording.
 
P.S. The Windows 7 sound latency thing that I read about from JClosed might have a big deal to do with this. Maybe when Sonar goes to arm the tracks, Windows can't handle it fast enough for some reason. I don't know, but I never had this problem with XP.