Anyone using Focusrite Saffire 56 here? Bought one last year, finally had the opportunity to install. Win 7 64 TI firewire card. Mix control 3.2 driver. Multiple buffers and firewire driver speeds all resulting in stuttering audio or a hesitation, disrupting the audio timeline. Small and large projects alike. So what's a a good combo of settings for this one? Older driver 2.4 maybe? Figured there are some 56 users round here.

User here, bought mine 18 months ago after my Presonus FS 26 died.

No problems, i have a Lacie FIrewire card (which has a TI chip on i)t, working fine with standard W7 drivers (NOT the legacy ones).

I/O buffers 512 in Sonar, hardware set to match. No stutters nor problems (touches wood) as yet. Runing latest Focusrite drivers/software v 3.2.

Typical set up : mainly audio (20 odd tracks) plus midi drums (Toontrack EZ), midi bass (Dim Pro with Craig Anderton's wonderful bass sounds), midi keyboards of some sort and occasionally midi strings.

Cheers,
Jerry

I'm using mixcontrol 3.3 fine (running on 256 buffers in mixcontrol). I would stick with it
 
So I have some Q's first:
 
What is your ASIO buffer set at in Mix control?
In Sonar preferences -> Audio -> Driver Settings - what is your buffer size and playback queue?
In Sonar preferences -> Audio -> Sync and Caching - what is your Playback and record buffer size?
In Sonar preferences -> MIDI - > Playback and Recording -> Playback What is your Millisecond buffer size?
What's your hardware and software, that's really important (please see my footer).
 
Another thing to do is:
In mix control clear all settings and restore fact defaults in the menu, then switch off your device. Remove mix control. Reboot (keep device off), reinstall mix control.
 
Cheers...
 
(Edited to change 3.2 to 3.3). Upgrade to 3.3 but do a clean install!

512, 2 buffers in playback cue (grayed out), 512 playback i/o, 512 record i/o, 1000 ms midi playback, i7 proccessor 8 gigs ram win 7 64 bit, focusrite saffire 56, sonar X3 all the way back to sonar 2 every other version. Most of Vienna's software, Native instruments, East West, Waves, Antares, plethera of Roland keyboards and modules, Yamaha wind controller, Maschine, Traktor, Homemade digital drums...

I would try MIDI playback with 250 and 500.
I would also try changing the playback/record buffers to 256 in Sonar. Put them back if any issues persist (in fact weirdly enough just by doing this it could clear the issue, even though none of the settings may have actually changed in the end).
 
Also please check to make sure this issue is (or isn't) happening with new projects with no template, and please be aware (if not already) that a plugins could be the cause of this issue.
 
... and what I recommended earlier about reinstalling Mixcontrol (specific procedure) if you have been upgrading from older versions.
 
Oh and please defrag!
Running antivirus?
 
Thanks..

In addition to Alex's tips...
 
- Is the TI Firewire card FW only?  (It's not recommended to use one of those FW/USB or eSata combo cards).
- Make sure to disable the onboard Firewire.
- Run DPC Latency latency Checker to make sure nothing else is using up resources:
http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml
 
BTW, I have a Saffire Pro 24 DSP, and it has run glitch-free since day one out of the box.

I use onboard VIA firewire very successfully, it's the chipset that matters (TI looks good as well), I agree only use one of them
Here is what Focusrite recommends:
http://global.focusrite.com/answerbase/is-my-firewire-device-compatible-with-my-firewire-adapter
Oh BTW if you are using the Windows legacy firewire driver you should not be using it any more with 3.2

FWIW, the current version of Mix Control is 3.3. It came out in late September of 2013, I've been using it with my Saffire Pro 40 since October with no issues. (Actually, Alex, your footer indicates version 3.3.)
 
I'm running a Studio Cat i7 4770 at 3.9ghz with 16gb of ram on Windows 8.1. I can often use the 32 sample ASIO buffer for tracking, this gives me a round trip latency of 3.6ms as measured by Oblique's RTL utility, so I am thrilled with that. I increase the ASIO buffer if required to handle a few sophisticated VST instruments or mixing a bunch of tracks with effects, but I never need to go above 256 samples.
 
If you get other things sorted out, you should also be able to get similar performance.

Good point I'm using 3.3 not 3.2 my bad.

I got my Focusrite last October, and it is pretty forgiving for somewhat drastic swings in buffers/latencies. My gut feel with your experience is a system conflict like JonD mentioned above (either a combo card, or competition with any onboard FW). I have been running mine with the onboard VIA chipset without issues.