vicsant
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Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
Hi,
Running Sonar X2a on a new Win7 i7 64 bit system setup.
I am experiencing a slight delay of a few ms when I hit the play/spacebar.
This happens on a new project with just one audio track or an older project with many tracks.
Playback used to be instantaneous is my previous setup.
Is there a setting I have to tweak in Preferences or the aud.ini file to correct this?
Thanks,
Vic
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KPerry
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/17 04:47:28
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Playback buffer size in Preferences/Audio?
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emwhy
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/17 08:05:12
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Vic do what KPerry said, under Preferences/Audio/Sync And Caching there's a parameter called Playback I/O Buffer size. My is at 512, I think the default is 128 and may be too small. BTW what type of audio interface are you using?
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jb101
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/17 08:23:15
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I agree with everyone about buffer size.
Also, do you have any effects on the track, or busses? Some induce latency. If you do, try pressing e on your computer keyboard to disable effects, and see if it improves.
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vicsant
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/17 08:46:41
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emwhy
Vic do what KPerry said, under Preferences/Audio/Sync And Caching there's a parameter called Playback I/O Buffer size. My is at 512, I think the default is 128 and may be too small. BTW what type of audio interface are you using?
Thanks guys for your replies. Will check my buffer settings. I'm using the Quad Capture...great interface!
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bitflipper
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/17 09:55:19
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Think about how buffering works: rather than sending data directly to your audio interface, it's instead written into a buffer. Only when the buffer is full of data does the driver pull out that data and blast it to the interface. While it's doing that, a second buffer is being filled up with the next chunk of data. This is how we assure an uninterrupted stream of numbers going out to the interface.
The rate at which the buffer fills depends on the sample rate. At 44.1KHz, a new sample is written every 22.7 microseconds. Simple multiplication will tell you how long it'll take to fill the buffer. If the buffer is 512 samples in size, it'll take 512 x 0.0000227 seconds to fill it, or 11.6 milliseconds. That means there will always be an 11.6-millisecond delay before playback is actually heard. It also explains why the lag is shorter at higher sample rates (at 96KHz there's only a 5.3ms delay).
 All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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John
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/17 11:03:05
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jimusic
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/18 01:49:35
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Ya - Bit's Back. How the back Bit?
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brconflict
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/18 16:21:02
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Yeah, but psht! He's got no reward points! (kidding).  He's got it right, though. Buffering works just like that. Ok, but seriously, how do I get the buffer to start filling up before I click the Play button? Cakewalk should figure that one out. har har No disrespect intended to the OP. Trust me, I went through the same futility.  Freeze your tracks, and you can lower your buffer number.
Brian Sonar Platinum, Steinberg Wavelab Pro 9, MOTU 24CoreIO w/ low-slew OP-AMP mods and BLA external clock, True P8, Audient ASP008, API 512c, Chandler Germ500, Summit 2ba-221, GAP Pre-73, Peluso 22251, Peluso 2247LE, Mackie HR824, Polk Audio SRS-SDA 2.3tl w/upgraded Soniccraft crossovers and Goertz cables, powered by Pass-X350. All wiring Star-Quad XLR or Monster Cable. Power by Monster Power Signature AVS2000 voltage stabilizer and Signature Pro Power 5100 PowerCenter on a 20A isolation shielded circuit.
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Beepster
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/18 17:04:29
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This happens to me but it's because my audio drive falls asleep. I thought I had set all that stuff up properly but it does indeed take a snooze if I walk away for a while. Just takes a couple seconds to get going but I really should get around to fixing it as it occasionally will whitescreen for a moment as well. Doesn't seem to actually hurt anything though.
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Beepster
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/18 17:05:33
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And yes... bit's post was very enlightening. Thank you, bit.
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vicsant
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 09:04:18
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I tried a lower playback buffer size of 128 samples, but the lag is still there....
Guess I just have to live with it?
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Beepster
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 09:13:32
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Does it happen ALL the time or just when you haven't pressed play for a while? Like I said, when my hard drive falls asleep it causes a lag. That's a Windows Power Management/Hard Disk Management issue. Most "optimization" guides have a section of setting things so the hard drives stay active and ready at all times.
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KPerry
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 09:17:08
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Do you have "Always Open All Devices" checked? I've found that that can have an impact too.
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gswitz
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 09:34:46
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Bypass all fx just to rule it out? There is a global fx button on the control bar.
StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen. I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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brconflict
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 10:21:54
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Exactly. Try disabling FX or PC's. If you have lots of them, this will surely slow you down. Freezing your tracks may help as well. You It takes the ability away to adjust FX, but for those tracks you aren't tweaking, it's quite useful.
Also try disabling the 64-Bit Engine as well, if it's enabled.
Brian Sonar Platinum, Steinberg Wavelab Pro 9, MOTU 24CoreIO w/ low-slew OP-AMP mods and BLA external clock, True P8, Audient ASP008, API 512c, Chandler Germ500, Summit 2ba-221, GAP Pre-73, Peluso 22251, Peluso 2247LE, Mackie HR824, Polk Audio SRS-SDA 2.3tl w/upgraded Soniccraft crossovers and Goertz cables, powered by Pass-X350. All wiring Star-Quad XLR or Monster Cable. Power by Monster Power Signature AVS2000 voltage stabilizer and Signature Pro Power 5100 PowerCenter on a 20A isolation shielded circuit.
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Beepster
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 10:28:41
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I couldn't see an i7 system getting that bogged from FX on a single track. I mean check it out but with a QC, an i7 and the recommended amount of RAM it shouldn't be struggling.
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CJaysMusic
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 10:58:04
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Its one of these things, so just go thorough them and rule them out. - Try using a different driver mode. If your using WDM, try ASIO, If your using ASIo, try WDM
- Are your buffers in Que set to 2? It should be
- Lower your playback I/O buffer to 64 or 128 or 256
- Update to the latest driver for your sound card. Go to the sound crads website and check
- Some Non Native effects can cause a slight delay
- Your ASIO or WDM settings should be set as low as possible without causing any artifacts. Each project is different, so you may need different driver settings for each project, depending on whats in each project and track counts and so on.
- Sometimes, something in you PC, like a program running in the background may effect performance
CJ
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jb101
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 11:08:05
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As I said in post four, try disabling all effects by pressing "E" on your computer keyboard. Did you try this?
It doesn't matter how powerful your computer is, if it has any latency inducing effects on a track or bus, it will induce latency, unless it is capable of time travel.
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brconflict
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 12:22:32
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I would certainly try jb101 and freezing the tracks as a test.
Could Bit-Bridging have any effect? I know it certainly has a negative impact during playback, but do the buffers fill with pre-determined bit-bridging FXs, and that Bit-Bridging induces even more latency?
Brian Sonar Platinum, Steinberg Wavelab Pro 9, MOTU 24CoreIO w/ low-slew OP-AMP mods and BLA external clock, True P8, Audient ASP008, API 512c, Chandler Germ500, Summit 2ba-221, GAP Pre-73, Peluso 22251, Peluso 2247LE, Mackie HR824, Polk Audio SRS-SDA 2.3tl w/upgraded Soniccraft crossovers and Goertz cables, powered by Pass-X350. All wiring Star-Quad XLR or Monster Cable. Power by Monster Power Signature AVS2000 voltage stabilizer and Signature Pro Power 5100 PowerCenter on a 20A isolation shielded circuit.
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Taurean Mixing
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 12:28:59
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jb101
As I said in post four, try disabling all effects by pressing "E" on your computer keyboard. Did you try this?
It doesn't matter how powerful your computer is, if it has any latency inducing effects on a track or bus, it will induce latency, unless it is capable of time travel.
Absolutely, by bypassing any and all plugins you narrow down to a I/O issue or actual plugin latency. If it goes away after bypassing all plugins, slowly introduce each plugin back in one by one testing the playback to find the culprit.
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Taurean Mixing
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 12:29:00
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jb101
As I said in post four, try disabling all effects by pressing "E" on your computer keyboard. Did you try this?
It doesn't matter how powerful your computer is, if it has any latency inducing effects on a track or bus, it will induce latency, unless it is capable of time travel.
Absolutely, by bypassing any and all plugins you narrow down to a I/O issue or actual plugin latency. If it goes away after bypassing all plugins, slowly introduce each plugin back in one by one testing the playback to find the culprit.
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Taurean Mixing
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 12:28:59
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jb101
As I said in post four, try disabling all effects by pressing "E" on your computer keyboard. Did you try this?
It doesn't matter how powerful your computer is, if it has any latency inducing effects on a track or bus, it will induce latency, unless it is capable of time travel.
Absolutely, by bypassing any and all plugins you narrow down to a I/O issue or actual plugin latency. If it goes away after bypassing all plugins, slowly introduce each plugin back in one by one testing the playback to find the culprit.
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M_Glenn_M
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 14:10:22
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This is just to ask if it happens after working a while? I get a delay that starts to happen after working for a while (particularly in Audiosnap) and it goes away if I reboot the program. I've noticed it's a warning that, if I ignore, ends in a lockup. But then I'm on XP and X1
Producer Exp x1d Win XP, intel Core2 Duo CPU E4600 @ 2.4 GHz, 2 GHz RAM Nvidia gforce 8500 GT BR800 controller , DR880 drum machine. GR20 guitar synth, Alesis QX25 KRK 6 + 10" sub. Sennheiser HD280pro cans 2 Yamaki acoustics, Korean Strat, 60's Jazzmaster, 60's BF Deluxe Reverb,
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Studious
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 15:09:12
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M_Glenn_M
This is just to ask if it happens after working a while?
I get a delay that starts to happen after working for a while (particularly in Audiosnap) and it goes away if I reboot the program.
I've noticed it's a warning that, if I ignore, ends in a lockup.
But then I'm on XP and X1
I'm on Win 7 x64 and Sonar X2a. I too experience a playback delay sometimes after working for a bit. The playback verticle line motion also gets choppy in this scenario. And Sonar does lockup often, for no apparent reason. Another user referred to it as a "white-out". I did a complete X2a uninstall/reinstall (no fun!), and still get white-outs on the fresh install. Still waiting in more suggestions from tech support.
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brconflict
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 16:03:18
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M_Glenn_M
This is just to ask if it happens after working a while?
I get a delay that starts to happen after working for a while (particularly in Audiosnap) and it goes away if I reboot the program.
I've noticed it's a warning that, if I ignore, ends in a lockup.
But then I'm on XP and X1
That's a good observation. I "think" I've experienced this before, where working a long time in one project/song starts degrading in performance, but most times, it's because I'm adding more plug-ins, or tweaking in Audio-Snap without bouncing the results to clips. One thing I do, is close the project every once in a while. in case there's some kind of memory-leak, or somehow I've accidentally done something odd. I think by hanging up the phone so-to-speak, the session is closed completely, and can be totally re-opened fresh. I don't know if this really helps, but I feel like it does. Even sometimes closing X2 and starting it again, or even rebooting the entire machine. Starting with a clean slate I think has stability benefits.
Brian Sonar Platinum, Steinberg Wavelab Pro 9, MOTU 24CoreIO w/ low-slew OP-AMP mods and BLA external clock, True P8, Audient ASP008, API 512c, Chandler Germ500, Summit 2ba-221, GAP Pre-73, Peluso 22251, Peluso 2247LE, Mackie HR824, Polk Audio SRS-SDA 2.3tl w/upgraded Soniccraft crossovers and Goertz cables, powered by Pass-X350. All wiring Star-Quad XLR or Monster Cable. Power by Monster Power Signature AVS2000 voltage stabilizer and Signature Pro Power 5100 PowerCenter on a 20A isolation shielded circuit.
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vicsant
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 22:00:01
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Beepster
Does it happen ALL the time or just when you haven't pressed play for a while? Like I said, when my hard drive falls asleep it causes a lag. That's a Windows Power Management/Hard Disk Management issue. Most "optimization" guides have a section of setting things so the hard drives stay active and ready at all times.
On a newly created project with just one audio track, no effects, or softsynths, WDM driver mode, playback buffer set to 128 samples, Open All Devices not checked...I still get the slight delay upon playback. I brought up this issue because on an earlier Win7 32 bit, Quad Core CPU, Sonar X2a playback was instantaneous :) I remember in the good old days of S8.5, someone mentioned some tweaks in the aud.ini file to improve performance...just wondering if this would apply to SX2a?
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chuckebaby
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/19 22:43:59
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have you tried your buffers in queue ?
try lowering them from 256 to 128.
cheers man.
Windows 8.1 X64 Sonar Platinum x64 Custom built: Asrock z97 1150 - Intel I7 4790k - 16GB corsair DDR3 1600 - PNY SSD 220GBFocusrite Saffire 18I8 - Mackie Control
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jb101
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/20 06:56:35
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Are you sure? I would have thought setting Buffers in Queue to 128 would increase latency. My Buffers in Playback Queue is set to 2. Buffer size varies from system to system. Just try lowering them as far as they'll go when tracking to reduce latency. You can always raise them when mixing, as latency is no longer an issue. Has anything else changed since your old system?
post edited by jb101 - 2013/06/20 07:05:03
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gswitz
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Re: Slight delay when I hit the play/spacebar
2013/06/20 07:57:58
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Do you have a virus scanner running? Is there any chance that the Windows Scanner is trying to save you from yourself or checking to ensure the file you are accessing doesn't need to be scanned? This is a Wild A. Guess, but thought I'd throw it out there. I haven't seen it in the thread above.
If you don't have 3rd Party virus software installed, and you are using Windows 7 or 8, you should be able to hit the windows button and type virus scanner to find it. Then you can disable it at least temporarily to rule it out. Usually, for me, the Windows Virus scanner hurts me when I hit stop after making a long recording. Let's say i record 10 tracks for an hour and then hit stop... the Windows Virus Scanner starts ensuring there are no viruses in those enormous wave field. You can set exclusion directories... but when I'm making recordings I care about, I always disable it. I've never had a problem with the scanner when it wasn't running. :-)
StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen. I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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