I submitted a support request for this, but I thought someone here might have an idea. Out of nowhere my Sonar began acting up. Used to be fine last session. First it decided to set itself to 16bit, but that's sorted out. Now, I get uncontrollable clicks and pops during playback, but only specifically when there's low frequency content playing. Also, moving the volume, pan and gain faders during playback causes audible noise, but again, only in the case of audio tracks where there's bass. Only Sonar's track faders, inside Battery or Kontakt they work fine. This isn't related to buffer size, cpu spikes, windows power options or dcp latency, I checked it all out. Updating my focusrite pro24dsp to latest mixcontrol driver and firmware didn't help (it's working without issues outside of Sonar). I even moved my project and samples to an empty hard drive just in case, no luck. Tried the legacy firewire driver, no luck again. So something's gone awry in my sonar's audio engine. It's not clipping, everything is in the green. I'm using X3E but, alarmingly enough, X2A has the same problem. Quite unsettling.
 
Tried with the Auzentech X-Fi's asio driver, same problem, so definitely has to do with sonar and not my Focusrite. Bracing myself for a full re-install by now.

It sounds like you're pushing a constraint like IO (input output for reading the hard drive) or processor. In such a case, random things will cause crackling. When IO is at a limit, minor changes in processing can interrupt critical IO. Check the file size you are writing. Make sure you are recording 24 bit waves, not 32... find this in preferences.
 
You've been in the forum since 2005, but I'll mention LatencyMon anyway.
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
 
This is always a good tool to use to check your Deferred procedure call latency.

1.  What happens if you hit 'E' on your computer keyboard, to bypass all effects?
 
2.  Also, what happens in a new project - with a simple and small number of tracks, and no effects?
 
Just trying to isolate the engine itself, and see what it sounds like in a simpler world.
 
Could you please list the following information?
 
From audio interface: Sample Rate, ASIO Buffer Size
From Sonar: Sample Rate, Driver Mode, Record Bit-Depth, Total Roundtrip Latency
 
Lastly, I am wondering if perhaps some new updates have changed something, or if perhaps it is something simple like increasing the Prepare Using ___ Millisecond Buffers parameter size to something like either 500 MS or 750 MS.
 
Bob Bone
 
 

Although the way you describe some of the symptoms make it sound like the noise is coming from SONAR, I have to wonder if this might be an analog issue like low frequencies vibrating a loose connection to your monitors or possibly a component going bad in the analog section of your interface. Do you get the same noise monitoring with headphones? You might also try a demo or freeware version of another audio app to check whether it might be a firmware/hardware/system problem outside of SONAR. And can you reproduce the problem in a new project not using any 3rd-party plugins?
 
 
 
 
 
 

It only happens in Sonar, standalone Kontakt and Kore2 work fine, and even with one single instance of any synth or sampler and nothing else at all in the project. Like I said, asio buffer size and dcp latency aren't the issue (unless asio and playback buffer of 2048 and latency under 500uS is insufficient), it's some sort of engine bug. I work in 44khz 24bit. It comes directly from sonar, whether I use my sound card's headphone out or spdif out.
 
Aaaand a re-install didn't help whatsoever. Here I was, thinking I had seen everything with Sonar. Noisy faders now. Wtf. Cakewalk better come up with a good explanation for this. Software just doesn't quit working correctly from one day to the next. Nothing happened in my system except a new video card, which can't possibly be related to this.

I doubt this will make a difference, it can't hurt to try and I would definitely do it before a re-install; force a full re-personalization by holding CTRL and SHIFT while starting SONAR. This process resets the user directory config files and some registry settings back to factory defaults.
 
Make sure all drivers (not just audio) and the OS are up to date.

Spencer
Software just doesn't quit working correctly from one day to the next.

Exactly, and no one else is reporting anything like this. That's why it's highly unlikely that the problem is due to a software defect, and we're all looking for some other cause. Something changed somewhere.
 
Steve's suggestion of a complete re-personalization is a good idea. But short of that, just renaming AUD.INI will cause SONAR to build a new default one, and if it resolves the issue you can compare the new one to the old one to see what the culprit is.
 
 

Yeah everything is up to date, I'm a power user with a high-end gaming pc. My new card is a GTX 770, used to have a 580. Ctrl+shift start didn't work, nor did deleting aud.ini and ttsseq.ini. Recorded fader automation does not create the noise, only physically moving it with the mouse or a midi controller during playback does. Still clicks and pops in any case, though.

Spencer
Yeah everything is up to date, I'm a power user with a high-end gaming pc. My new card is a GTX 770, used to have a 580. Ctrl+shift start didn't work, nor did deleting aud.ini and ttsseq.ini. Recording fader automation does not create the noise, only physically moving it with the mouse or a midi controller during playback does. Still clicks and pops in any case, though.

I was just gogin  to edit my post to say that video or mouse driver issue seems like a likely culprit, too. "High-end gaming" hardware is not necessarily the best platform for a DAW.
 
But I'm not sure I understand what you mean by recording automation without using the mouse or a controller. Do you mean playing back previously recorded automation? In that case mouse driver would be  suspect. I know there have been some issues with High-DPI gaming mice.

Spencer
 Nothing happened in my system except a new video card, which can't possibly be related to this.

Why not?