Sonar and Superior Drummer Meters

Hi. Which Audio Interface, Driver mode, SONAR and Windows version?
All the best.

Download and install the latest ASIO drivers from RME.
They have superb ASIO drivers.
I'm almost certain that this is driver related.

<duplicate post>

Help me understand..... why would I change over to ASIO if WDM have been working fine for so long?  What are the advantages or additional features?  Or rather is there some drawback/risk to using WDM over ASIO that I'm maybe not aware of?

For me WDM drivers have much higher latency than ASIO.  Sometimes when my DAW accidentally switches over to any other driver type, like WDM, I immediately notice latency when I press down on a key.  At first I couldn't figure out why.  But now I know the first thing to check is the drivers setup.  As soon as I switch back to ASIO....no more latency.
 

SonicExplorer
Help me understand..... why would I change over to ASIO if WDM have been working fine for so long?  What are the advantages or additional features?  Or rather is there some drawback/risk to using WDM over ASIO that I'm maybe not aware of?

Most consumer and pro Audio Interfaces makes their own drivers for their products (or outsource it).
RME makes their drivers in house, and are rated (by many) as the Benchmark for other to chase.
You will end up with lower latency, better stability. They support older devices, and OS back to XP.
As mentioned, if it doesn't work, you can always go back.
Driver are found here.
Sorry if I came across as an arse earlier 
All the best.

Yes, I use two interfaces.  The RME for primary DAW work and another interface (sometimes on-board) for conventional uses like listening to music, reference checking mixes, system sounds, etc.  I pipe that second interface (via cable) back into the primary interface's monitor input so I can essentially have everything still come out of the same speakers and be controlled by the primary interface, but can do so while keeping things separate in terms making sure the actual DAW work is still isolated & stable.
 
I also need to work on W2K at times, so maybe that was another reason I didn't use ASIO. ??
 
Latency isn't an issue, I can get down into single digit latency with RME's WDM drivers, that's plenty fine for me.  And I'm not even using a blazing system - just a 3GHz Intel Dual Core Pentium.
 
Sonic

Agreed Bitflipper, while possible, I highly doubt this problem has anything to do with driver type.
 
Correct, it is Superior 2.

<boom> 
 
That was my head exploding.  What are you guys talking about with latency alignment issues?? I never heard of that before, never noticed any problems either.  <confused>   I see what is being said, but it's just not registering to me.  I use MIDI tracks to trigger drum samples, and the rest is audio tracks, always recorded one track at a time.  So what would be out of sync using WDM?  The audio tracks against the drum samples?  Would all the audio tracks be out of sync equally?  
 
FWIW, I've used some plug-ins that have some serious latency and never noticed those even causing a problem, Sonar obviously knew how to handle things just fine.
 
Anyway, I just spent an hour experimenting with SD2 trying to see if I could figure out anything causing the latent meter readings after playback stops.  So far nothing obvious.   There are no delay FX anywhere, I just created a simple test project with a tiny kit.  Nothing special.  Really stumped on this one....

It works as expected on my laptop, using WASAPI Shared mode.

 

SonicExplorer
Thanks much Ken.  Is that W10 and 64-bit though?
 
Sonic

It is. Both my systems are. Sorry to be of no more help.

Or .... is there anything that could be causing a MIDI echo ?? (is there even such an effect) ?
 
The common denominator here is these are fresh DAW installs.  So in theory there could be some default setting someplace in Sonar or Drums Superior, or elsewhere that is causing this problem.  I'm just not enough of a MIDI expert to really know under what circumstances MIDI processing might be at fault, or rather whether this is an audio issue post-MIDI processing within Superior.
 
      Sonic

I can't speak to SD2, however, I can say something about SD3.  I forget where I saw it or what the switch is but
SD3 has a new switch that stops all sounds from SD3 when you stop playback (overhead and ambience...natural room sounds).  My guest is that this has been an issue in the past and now SD3 has addressed the issue with a configurable parameter.  Check the web ... you should easily be able to find the new setting.
 
If you're staying with SD2 I'm not sure it has such a setting, however, at least it will answer your question...maybe?
 
EDIT:
I found the setting in SD3...it's under "General Settings"
 
"Host Stops: Checking this option will stop all MIDI playback in Superior Drummer 3 when the host stops. This only apples to Superior Drummer 3 when it is launched as a plugin in your host DAW therefore, it is not available in the Superior 3 stand alone application."

Shot in the dark here:

Do you have the 64 bit double precision checked?

What Tom and I were mentioning about using other driver modes is important. You might not "hear" your audio tracks being out of sync but unless you don't mind sloppy mixes you might want to test for offset timing issues. 
 
You obviously ARE dealing with latency as you mentioned the changes when you lower your buffers. 
 
To perform a loopback test: 
 
Have a  midi kick or snare drum track with a strong velocity
Use SD2 and freeze it to create a audio track. It should have nice big transients that will line up perfectly with the midi notes if you zoom in. 
Now loop this back to a new audio track by patching your audio interfaces output back to an input. Make sure input echo is OFF. 
Record the new track and zoom in to see how the transients line up with the original. 
You can clearly see in my screenshot how ASIO is perfectly aligned and the other modes are late. 
 
I did this loopback test with 4 different computers and using 3 different ASIO audio interfaces as well as a few none ASIO interfaces. The results are always about the same. Interestingly ASIO4all will be perfectly in sync when using an on board sound card. My conclusion ( and many others too) is only ASIO should be used for overdubbing audio tracks. The workaround is you can manually adjust the timing offset but what a PITA that is. 
 
And your issue could very well be a combination of things due to outdated VST GUI or a slow video processor.