I had to buy a new PC and it doesn't have firewire (NONE of the PC's offer firewire anymore!!!), so I had to put away my M-Audio and buy a Presonus Audiobox for USB. On my old computer I could play youtube videos through real player, MP3s through iTunes and other sound applications and record to Sonar at the same time. After fiddling with my Sonar audio setup, I have it set up to share the device with other applications, so I can now listen to RealPlayer through the Presonus but when I click on record in Sonar, I get a flat line. I was able to do this in the past on my M-Audio and I read on this forum several years ago that anything you can hear through your soundcard you can record to Cakewalk (Sonar), so why isn't this working? I need to be able to do this for my college music classes I am taking. Any help will be appreciated!!! Thanks!

More info please.

Computer OS.... version of the cake product.... 

I've heard that firewire is going away and USB seems to be the enduring standard... for now. 

The Presonus will work, you just gotta get it set up right. 

If you can hear other things playing thorough the Presonus, you know it works.  

Can you hear PLAYBACK of your Cakewalk product through the presonus? If so, you simply have some setting not set properly or levels are down in the chain. 

I also notice that from time to time, something in my recording rig gets ..... "misdirected" and I get no input from my Saffire interface. I can hear playback just fine BUT... my meter indicates nothing, I get flat line recordings and looking at the settings, they are all correct. 

I re-boot the computer after a total shutdown. Computer & interface. After the restart, communication is restored and it works again. Be sure to try that.... fresh cold boot when in doubt. 

The other day, after doing all that... I had just deleted 2 envelopes and then edited a track to move one clip to the second track..... I was getting no sound from the second track after dragging the clip in. Not just the clip but the whole track wasn't playing.  After a reboot (cold) it still didn't work but I could hear the other tracks just fine..... I discovered that the clip had the volume pulled all the way down..... sometimes it;s just the simple things. 

You want to record in Sonar what you are playing from some other program. ------ In the Windows audio properties dialog for the Presonus, look for a setting that sends the output back to the input. It doesn't necessarily have one, but that is where you could look. Or maybe it is on one of the external controls. If not, you might have to hook up a cable sending the output to the input. Just make sure you don't have a knob sending the input to the output (zero-latency monitoring).

With some interfaces the only option to record "what you hear" is to patch the output back to the input (with some short cables,) Make sure to kill input monitoring to avoid nasty feedback loop.

I thought it might be a cable issue since with my former setup I used a mixer and the M-audio soundcard, with a cable hooking up output back to the input. Since the Presonus has mic inputs, I thought I didn't need the mixer, but it appears I do after all. Thanks for your replies, I will try to get this set up the right way soon. By the way, my computer is an HP Core i5 on Windows 7. My Sonar version is 8.5. All the input/output jacks on the Presonus Audiobox USB are in use, so I may have to go back to using my Peavey mixer after all, if the internal device setup does not solve the issue.

PRESONAS firestudio project

SKMan: Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about! LOL!

Oh, it won't work, it's firewire. None of the new PCs are coming out with firewire! They are USB only, it really sucks.

Karen

Oh, it won't work, it's firewire. None of the new PCs are coming out with firewire! They are USB only, it really sucks.

PCI-e firewire adapters are fairly cheap.

the pc keeps saying my presonus box is un able too hook up to the sonar x3 program??