If you can't get help here, try posting another request for assistance in the Sonar forum corresponding to whichever version of Sonar 8 you're using. You might try doing a search first, such as for "MIDI delay" or "MIDI lag" or "MIDI drift".

You can also try inspecting what the MIDI data looks like in Sonar's views, e.g.  whether it's shown with correct timing, or for anything abnormal.

Btw, ASIO doesn't handle MIDI, only audio, so all interfaces use Windows MIDI drivers for streaming MIDI data.

ASIO doesn't have anything to do with MIDI itself, but ASIO has everything to do with latency of softsynths triggered by MIDI, which is what musmin2415 stated in his original post, so gbarrett's questions/ideas are very relevant.

the advice about the video drivers and the ASIO drivers are good things to check.  they may not be what your problem is, that's why the forum is such a great place - the community of users have different experiences and different angles of advice.  Goddard's advice of asking in the Sonar forum is not poor advice - you might find more answers there to help. 

The symptom described by musmin2415 of the latency (response time to MIDI keyboard input) of the MIDI piano softsynth track being recorded progressively increasing with time as the track recording progressed would indicate a timing/sync mismatch somewhere.

Without getting into too long of a technical discussion, if audio and MIDI data are being processed using respectively different clocking (timebases) such a progressively increasing drift as described can occur. 

ASIO and VST on Windows get their timing by using an older and less precise Windows system timing routine harking back to Win98 days, whereas current Windows OS's and and applications can implement more precise timing using system calls to higher resolution timing references, so timing discrepancies (which can progressively increase over time) may occur when ASIO audio drivers and/or VST plug-ins use a different timebase for time stamping or transmitting or playing out their data than is being used by the Windows kernel and drivers and DAW client applications.

Sonar has a configuration option parameter setting in TTSSEQ.INI for "IgnoreMIDITimestamps=" (or something like that) which iirc defaults to a value of "0" (zero), so one thing to try is editing this file (using a text editor such as Notepad) and changing the value to "1" (one) and then saving the file and restarting Sonar. Easily reversible if it doesn't help, just edit the file again to change the "1" back to "0", save and restart Sonar.

Another possibility might be the delay and reverb fx used for the piano softsynth playing up with (delaying) the processing of MIDI data, dunno, but it might be worth a try disabling those fx to see if that improves MIDI responsiveness.

Btw, Beagle, I won't bother responding to what you've since edited from your post, other than to say that if you can truly read my thoughts then you are probably right now checking whether HDMI audio is enabled in your Radeon driver. 

I edited it because I felt I was being too harsh.  If you want a public apology, then I do so publicly apologize.

however, if you really want to help the OP why didn't you post this information earlier instead of just discounting other responses?  I fail to see how that helps the OP. 

and no, even tho HDMI was included in my Radeon drivers, it was already disabled during the problems I was having before I disabled all of the Radeon software to get the "workaround."  So, there's no need for me to check it because that was disabled as soon as I started having problems.  thank you for your thoughts, tho. 

Beagle, no apology necessary, I'd just happened to see your initial post but by the time I got some time to respond you'd already edited it.

I do not believe I had in any way criticized anyone's post as being unhelpful, but was only giving my own view, namely that, from the described symptom, imo it seemed more likely a software issue rather than a hardware problem, which is why I'd suggested posting to the Sonar forum might yield more help.

Trust me, when I'm criticizing another post, there will be no mistaking that!

I'm not posting here out of any obligation to spoon feed anybody anything. I'm happy to help if and when I can, but anyone needing help should first at least make an effort on their own to RTFM, check the info and FAQs on the Sonar site or their hardware or software vendor's site and use any forum search facilities first, and only then if they still can't find a solution, post a forum request with all necessary info.

Btw, as far as I can see, the OP has not even indicated what piano softsynth is being used, only some details of the hardware in use (but not the motherboard?), and nobody has yet bothered to even ask about that. Hmm.

Goddard


Beagle, no apology necessary, I'd just happened to see your initial post but by the time I got some time to respond you'd already edited it. 

ok.   

I'm not posting here out of any obligation to spoon feed anybody anything. I'm happy to help if and when I can, but anyone needing help should first at least make an effort on their own to RTFM, check the info and FAQs on the Sonar site or their hardware or software vendor's site and use any forum search facilities first, and only then if they still can't find a solution, post a forum request with all necessary info.

I guess personally I don't mind spoon feeding sometimes - that's just me, I don't expect others to do the same.
 
but you're right they do need to post all necessary info.

Btw, as far as I can see, the OP has not even indicated what piano softsynth is being used, only some details of the hardware in use (but not the motherboard?), and nobody has yet bothered to even ask about that. Hmm.

you are correct there as well.
 
we could use more info from the OP in order to help.
 
cheers.

Goddard

I'm not posting here out of any obligation to spoon feed anybody anything. I'm happy to help if and when I can, but anyone needing help should first at least make an effort on their own to RTFM, check the info and FAQs on the Sonar site or their hardware or software vendor's site and use any forum search facilities first, and only then if they still can't find a solution, post a forum request with all necessary info. 

Btw, as far as I can see, the OP has not even indicated what piano softsynth is being used, only some details of the hardware in use (but not the motherboard?), and nobody has yet bothered to even ask about that. Hmm.

Hmmmmm....can't help feeling I'm being somewhat indirectly chastised for not knowing exactly what I'm doing here.  Lol!  I never asked to be "spoon-fed", but I will say that I really appreciate it when someone gives me a direct answer instead of assuming I didn't "read the f'ing manual".  You see, even though I'm a professional musician, I still hardly know ANYTHING about DAW systems and home recording.  I'm a husband of one, father of 3 daughters, and am in full-time ministry.  So, as much as I love to research (I actually do - and am sort of a nerd that way), sometimes that "free time" (which is usually only at night) is taken up reading bed time stories and dealing with little ones that are scared of the dark.  I have read manuals, how-to's, watched YouTube videos, etc., and honestly, even though I've learned a lot, a lot of it is still very foreign to me.  And since this is such a basic/general question and I didn't know enough to narrow down my search, when I did search 3 or 4 forums for the answer, I couldn't even figure out where to start because I wasn't sure which posts were relevant and which weren't!  So, I thought I'd show my ignorance and post here.  I'm a huge fan of the adage, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime...." but sometimes a brother just needs a fish to get him through the day so he can eventually get to the pond to throw out his line.


I'm sorry I forgot to post MoBo - I just honestly forgot (Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. Z77X-UD5H).  And the softsynth I'm using is "TruePianos1".


I can reassure you that I'm not just a leech that comes to forums to take up space/time and post for the sake of posting.  I love the Proverb - "A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash."  I am not a fool.


Thank you all again, and I will continue to try what has been suggested (although it'll take some time because I'm only down in my studio a few times a week for about an hour).  Gotta go kiss the little ones good night!  Take care all.

musmin,

I read the manual and still can't figure stuff out.  DAWs and such are so darned complex, it is like trying to spell a word w/ a dictionary but having no idea what letter it starts w/.

The forum is a helpful place, but many times OPs don't know the first thing about recording, or computers, or music.  You can write a long post and when they answer you realize that didn't have that first letter.  Or get offended because they do and think a helpful poster is talking down to them.  Take nothing personal.  One of the hardest things is figuring out how much the OP knows.  Although I've got a lot of posts, sometimes I find myself asking a basic question because I can't remember it.

later,

@

Do ya just want a fish?

Or do ya want to learn to fish?

Here's a couple of fish for ya:

http://forum.cakewalk.com...mpage=1&print=true

http://forum.cakewalk.com...mpage=1&print=true

Learning to fish yet?

Taking some advice from another thread, I ran 2 programs to check latency & firewire chipset compatability.

Here's the results of ohciTool.exe:

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 [6.1.7601]
CPU(s):
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz
Physical: 1
Cores: 4
Logical: 8
L1 Cache: 32 KB (
L2 Cache: 256 KB (4)
L3 Cache: 8192 KB (1)
Installed RAM: 16345 MB

Microsoft 1394ohci.sys [6.1.7601.17514]
Microsoft ohci1394.sys [6.1.7600.16385] ????
Microsoft 1394bus.sys [6.1.7600.16385] ????

Looking for OHCI 1394 Host Controllers...

1:
Vendor : (104C) Texas Instruments
Chipset: (823F) XIO2213
Revision: 01
Status : Active
Details:
Subsysten VendorId: 3412
Subsystem DeviceId: 7856
Max # isoch Rx contexts: 4
Max # isoch Tx contexts: 8
Max 1394 Speed Capability: S800
Support: Compatible, no known issues.
2:
Vendor : (1106) VIA Technologies
Chipset: (3044) VT6307/VT6308
Revision: C0
Status : Active
Details:
Subsysten VendorId: 1458
Subsystem DeviceId: 1000
Max # isoch Rx contexts: 4
Max # isoch Tx contexts: 8
Max 1394 Speed Capability: S400
Support: Compatible, no known issues.

The next test was for DPC latency (http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.exe), and the graph came back showing that mine was consistently in the 'yellow' at around 1100us (& peaked around 1189us).  I'm assuming this is high.

Should this tell me anything I don't know besides now I can rule out chipset incompatbility?

Goddard:  I'll check on the miditimestamp values, and begin sifting through the other thread.  I believe one of those I already came across, and it'll come as no surprise to anyone that I was confused.  But I'll dig deeper.

AT:  I'm very thankful that someone can resonate with me at least a little, because it's EXACTLY like you said -- trying to look up a word in a dictionary and not knowing what letter it starts with.  Believe it or not, I dig putting in the hard work (no matter how long it takes) when I can narrow down what I'm actually looking for.