asio

Hi folks. Up and running with Windows 10 sonar Platinum and v700. How low do any of you set the ASIO buffers?

I'll do a little trial and error but curious as to what others are doing.

i7 4820 @ 3.70 gh 16 ram.

Cheers
WSS

Workable (no crackles/droputs) ASIO buffer size depends on the hardware in the PC, PCI-bus dpc latency, power savong settings and how loaded the DAW is.

I can get a buffer of 32 samples, and record monitoring through Sonar.

Once there's a heavy enough plugin load in Sonar then the buffer may need to be increased a bit.

If I try running wireless networking then the buffer needs to be 1 second+.

Only trial and error can tell you what will work as every Windows PC is different, even ones mass produced as the same "model" may be different to each other if any of the card/MB components have been changed by the hardware manufacturers,

It really is trial and error depending on your sound card and computer and i don't mean just whether or not it is an i7 or an i5 or which build the processor is or what speed or what speed your memory is or how much you have.  it also highly depends on the architechture of the USB bus/firewire bus/PCIe bus or whichever one you're using to connect your soundcard to the computer.
 
having said that - the only time I set my MOTU's buffers down to 128 or 64 is when I'm using a MIDI controller and trying to record MIDI using a softsynth inserted into sonar as the output.  and I don't always have to do that!
 
I mostly use hardware I/O so that I don't have to worry about low latency on the computer/soundcard setup.  I use an external mixer so I can route output from sonar to several headphones for tracking while recording audio and sometimes I'll even use a hardware synth with audio output to a monitor or keyboard amp and just record the midi into sonar while I listen to the audio output from the keyboard.  that way I don't need low latency and I can change the softsynth to anything I want later.
 
the other thing you need low latency for is for when you want to use an amp sim for guitar while recording.  but again, I prefer not to do that.  I can either record clean guitar and appy an amp sim after recording, or I can use hardware instead and monitor directly.

Westside Steve Simmons
Hi folks. Up and running with Windows 10 sonar Platinum and v700. How low do any of you set the ASIO buffers?

I'll do a little trial and error but curious as to what others are doing.

i7 4820 @ 3.70 gh 16 ram.

Cheers
WSS

 
Hi Steve,
 
I also run with Windows 10 sonar Platinum and vs700 - I get same performance as under win 7 i.e. I can run the ASIO buffer as low as VS700 ASIO setting = 3 (64 samples @ 44.1KHz, 128 samples @ 96 kHz) for very stable audio tracking and typical soft synth use ... than hike it up to ASIO setting = 6 (256 samples@ 44.1KHz, 512 samples @ 96 kHz) for heavy mixing duty ...
 
Something interesting I never spotted before ...

• when simply changing the project sample rate in Sonar preferences (without changing settings on VS700 front knob + power cycling), reported buffer size is wrong i.e. when switching from 44.1 kHz to 96 kHz, the VS700 ASIO dialog reports use of same number of samples as buffer, thus reporting half the latency (as you would expect: higher sampling rate => lower latency)
• however, when done as required (with changing settings on VS700 front knob + power cycling), ASIO buffer for same VS700 setting doubles; i.e. ASIO = 3 is now 128 samples @ 96 kHz instead of 64 (as previously reported); thus latency gets only a minor improvement (from 9.4 ms @ 44.1 kHz to 8.1 ms @ 96 kHz)

Do I see a VW-like cheat to suggest better performance than actually implemented ...???

Jim Roseberry
To effectively work at small ASIO buffer sizes... you need a well-configured machine (top to bottom).
The smaller the ASIO buffer size, the more critical all the details.
You need a machine that can sustain heavy loads (indefinitely)... with no hiccups in data-flow.
A general-purpose user wouldn't notice a few ms hiccup in data-flow (high DPC Latency)... but for us that's a glitch or (worse) a drop-out.
 
Heavy audio projects can be very demanding.
Video and especially 3D rendering/animation make audio look *super* lightweight.
Video is where audio was about 15 years ago...

Hi Jim,
Do you still employ a lot of system tweaks for win10 to get a "well-configured" machine ?