gmp
you're correct Sonar and Windows Media Player both using ASIO drivers.  That was what most people were advising years ago in XP. So that's not a good idea anymore?

Keep in mind there is a combination of 32bit and 64bit applications attempting access the interface. This was not the case on the XP installation. I have no difficulty running 64bit SONAR with 64bit WMP using the same interface. But I would not recommend moving to 64bit SONAR without at least 8GB of RAM.

scook

gmp
you're correct Sonar and Windows Media Player both using ASIO drivers.  That was what most people were advising years ago in XP. So that's not a good idea anymore?

Keep in mind there is a combination of 32bit and 64bit applications attempting access the interface. This was not the case on the XP installation. I have no difficulty running 64bit SONAR with 64bit WMP using the same interface. But I would not recommend moving to 64bit SONAR without at least 8GB of RAM.

I see, right now I have 4 gigs of Ram. It's been a very long time since I got RAM. Any suggestions on where to get it and how to make sure it's compatible with my system?

Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.  (apps and ASIO access)
 
I avoid the whole issue by keeping everything but Sonar and stand-alone things like Dim Pro and Kontakt away from using the audio interface.  The hard-code music apps are all that get pointed to the audio interface, and everything else uses the on-board sound.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.  (apps and ASIO access)
 
I avoid the whole issue by keeping everything but Sonar and stand-alone things like Dim Pro and Kontakt away from using the audio interface.  The hard-code music apps are all that get pointed to the audio interface, and everything else uses the on-board sound.
 
Bob Bone
 

I'm curious, what falls in the category of "everything"? The only thing I can think of is Windows Media Player. I suppose that's accomplished by choosing your onboard sound in control panel/sounds/playback. So in Sonar doesn't your onboard sound show up in Sonar audio options? Do you not check them under drivers?

When you set the Driver Mode in Sonar to ASIO, and then go back to the audio devices screen, only devices that have ASIO drivers appear as audio devices, so only the audio interface appears and able to be selected.
 
'Everything' for me refers to not only IE, Chrome, and Windows Media Player, I also have additional music applications - such as one called The Amazing Slow Downer, and by telling Windows to use the on-board sound as the default audio device - I can play any or all of them concurrently with no worries about interfering with Sonar, since Sonar uses the audio interface and ASIO drivers, rather than the WDM drivers that the on-board sound uses.
 
Because I have multiple sets of speakers, it is easy to have multiple sound output methods and hardware in place.  The reference monitors are hooked to the audio interface.  
 
I have 2 different choices for handling getting the sounds from the on-board sound chip to routed to speakers. 
 
1st method is the one I use most often, which is that I have a splitter (stereo mini to two 1/4" mono), with the two quarter-inch outputs from the splitter fed into a couple of inputs of my audio interface.  This arrangement gives me both Sonar's output and any of the non-Sonar apps that use the on-board sound (like Windows Media Player) coming through one set of speakers.
 
If I need those inputs from the audio interface, I then simply tell Windows to use the HDMI capabilities of one of my HDTV's I use as display monitors, as the Windows default audio device.  The TV/monitor has its own speakers, and I do not have to unplug anything from the computer in order to switch the audio routing.  I only need to unplug the 2 instrument cables from the input ports of the audio interface (the ones carrying audio from the splitter that is plugged into the speaker jack in the back of the computer).
 
I ROUTINELY use either The Amazing Slow Downer, or am playing things through either Windows Media Player or YouTube in Chrome, at the same time I am in the process of recording keyboards in Sonar, and because of the applications that are running only Sonar is using the audio interface's ASIO drivers, and the rest use the on-board sound, there is NO problem whatsoever with having any combination of those applications running concurrently.
 
I hope that helps explain what I was talking about.  For ME, the above works very well.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
When you set the Driver Mode in Sonar to ASIO, and then go back to the audio devices screen, only devices that have ASIO drivers appear as audio devices, so only the audio interface appears and able to be selected.
 
'Everything' for me refers to not only IE, Chrome, and Windows Media Player, I also have additional music applications - such as one called The Amazing Slow Downer, and by telling Windows to use the on-board sound as the default audio device - I can play any or all of them concurrently with no worries about interfering with Sonar, since Sonar uses the audio interface and ASIO drivers, rather than the WDM drivers that the on-board sound uses.
 
Because I have multiple sets of speakers, it is easy to have multiple sound output methods and hardware in place.  The reference monitors are hooked to the audio interface.  
 
I have 2 different choices for handling getting the sounds from the on-board sound chip to routed to speakers. 
 
1st method is the one I use most often, which is that I have a splitter (stereo mini to two 1/4" mono), with the two quarter-inch outputs from the splitter fed into a couple of inputs of my audio interface.  This arrangement gives me both Sonar's output and any of the non-Sonar apps that use the on-board sound (like Windows Media Player) coming through one set of speakers.
 
If I need those inputs from the audio interface, I then simply tell Windows to use the HDMI capabilities of one of my HDTV's I use as display monitors, as the Windows default audio device.  The TV/monitor has its own speakers, and I do not have to unplug anything from the computer in order to switch the audio routing.  I only need to unplug the 2 instrument cables from the input ports of the audio interface (the ones carrying audio from the splitter that is plugged into the speaker jack in the back of the computer).
 
I ROUTINELY use either The Amazing Slow Downer, or am playing things through either Windows Media Player or YouTube in Chrome, at the same time I am in the process of recording keyboards in Sonar, and because of the applications that are running only Sonar is using the audio interface's ASIO drivers, and the rest use the on-board sound, there is NO problem whatsoever with having any combination of those applications running concurrently.
 
I hope that helps explain what I was talking about.  For ME, the above works very well.
 
Bob Bone
 

Very good explanation - very helpful. I've already enabled my onboard sound in the bios and it's showing up in Win 7. Now in control panel/sounds, both my Layla cards and the onboard sound are all showing up. I uninstalled X3 and reinstalled as the administrator. I'll be trying the onboard sound soon with Win media Player.
 
I have an analog mixing board, so it'll be easy to bring the onboard sound into that. Win media Player worked pretty well with XP, now I understand why it hasn't done well in Win 7, because it's a 64 bit app and I'm currently running Sonar as a 32 bit app.
 
If I go to 64 bit X3 in the near future, will my current 4 gigs of RAM work as well as it does in 32 bit or does it need more to do the same thing? The reason I'm asking is I'd first want to test the waters with 64 bit before buying the RAM.
 
Hopefully next week, I'll have much better results. If not, I assume I may need to revert to an old Acronis image file of my C drive. I have tons of images from every stage of installing Win 7. I've also documented every change i've made in an image file log. So it may not be too difficult to retrace my steps. The first step being to do a complete Windows update on an early image.
 
Thanks for all your help, Bob,

Make sure you go to Preferences>Audio>Driver Settings and chose a Driver Mode of ASIO.  You may have to first uncheck any devices on the Preferences>Audio>Devices screen.
 
Once you set the Driver Mode to ASIO and click Apply, then when you go back to your Devices screen, you should only see devices that support ASIO, like your audio interface.
 
Try the above, 
 
Bob Bone
 

I just connected the headphone out of my onboard sound to my mixing board and Win Media Player works great and is totally independent of X3. I can, like the old days, play Win Media Player and Sonar at the same time, which is great for matching tempos or all sorts of other stuff, like playing youtubes at the same time Sonar is playing or recording. This one thing has removed a major PITA, thanks so much.
 
And you're so right the onboard sound doesn't show up in X3, since I'm using Asio. Many years ago Echo recommended us using the WDM driver and I guess that was when we were discouraged from using the onboard sound and disabled it in the bios. It's a new ballgame with new rules.

This should make things a LOT more stable, as well as sounding better.
 
If this stabilizes things for you, please then consider editing the first post of this thread, and add something like 'Solved' to the subject line.  That way, folks looking for a similar solution will know there is one in the thread.
 
Glad this helped you out :)
 
Bob Bone
 

gmp

scook

gmp
you're correct Sonar and Windows Media Player both using ASIO drivers.  That was what most people were advising years ago in XP. So that's not a good idea anymore?

Keep in mind there is a combination of 32bit and 64bit applications attempting access the interface. This was not the case on the XP installation. I have no difficulty running 64bit SONAR with 64bit WMP using the same interface. But I would not recommend moving to 64bit SONAR without at least 8GB of RAM.

I see, right now I have 4 gigs of Ram. It's been a very long time since I got RAM. Any suggestions on where to get it and how to make sure it's compatible with my system?

Hi gmp:
 
You can go to http://www.crucial.com/store/drammemory.aspx to get memory for your system. There is a tool there you can use to scan your system, and it will bring up a list of hits for compatible memory for your system. The list will also list other compatible hardware for your system that you can buy from the site, such as internal hard drives and solid state hard drives.
 
I just used the scan tool from the site and bought 24GB of memory for my system this month. I have received and installed the memory. I'm happy. My system is, now, maxed out on memory and running better.
 
I think the general consensus is to go with a 64bit Windows version if you have or will be using more than 4GB of RAM. Different Windows versions have different physical memory limitations, as well. So, before you buy a Windows version, know the physical memory limitations of the Windows version you want. See the charts in the link below for the physical memory limitations for the various Windows versions:
 
http://msdn.microsoft.com...aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx