UAD effects are presenting numerous issues in Sonar X3.  Three that come up often are the "-21" error message when inserting a non-UAD plugin between two UAD plugins, a crash or other mischief when using UAD effects in ProChannel fX chains, and disabling of UAD plugins in Aux Sends at certain times.  I have been trying to figure out what went wrong and what workarounds exist, if any.
 
At the moment, I think the only solid way to use UAD effects in Sonar X3 is to use no later than version 6.3 of the UAD software.  Unfortunately this is still 32 bits, so it's necessary to either bridge to 64 bits or use X3 in 32 bits.  UAD version 6.3.1 is the first update which offers "UAD plug-in chaining", which seems to have broken Sonar's implementation of UAD fx.  One other workaround that may work for some issues is to uncheck "Always stream audio through FX" in Sonar preferences, and be sure never to add any plugin while the transport is running.
 
Cakewalk and UA have each stated that they will make changes to coming versions of their software to address the issues people are having.  One can only hope that they communicate about their respective changes, so that the net result of both taking action will be a resolution, and not just a new set of problems.
 
Now I will speculate about what went wrong.
 
It seems to me that, in the absence of communication between the companies, Cakewalk continued to use the "custom chaining API" which they developed with UA, while UA changed their implementation of it without telling Cakewalk.
 
Around the time when X2 was released UA stopped "qualifying" as many hosts as it once did.  At one point I believe the only qualified hosts were Nuendo/Cubase 6.5 and Pro Tools 10, or some such thing.  So before that point, the UAD driver was actively looking for Sonar, and upon finding it took some steps to adapt to the so-called custom API.  When Cakewalk released Sonar X2, UA still took steps to add a flag for it in the driver, but the relationship seems to have broken down completely since then.  (UAD version 6.3.1 was released one month after Sonar X2.)
 
Why did Cakewalk and UA stop working together?  That seems to be the question. 
 
I think that UA may well have grown frustrated with Cakewalk, as there are other ways in which Sonar does not play nice with UAD effects.  For example, the "true mono" issue - Sonar's implementation of mono is very different from Cubase's (Sonar essentially just uses the left channel of a stereo plugin, while Cubase uses a mono instance of the plugin), and this is why in Sonar one must use the mono versions of UAD effects on mono tracks, because stereo plugins more or less double the DSP resources needed.  This "true mono" issue affects other plugins as well, although not as severely.  Cakewalk seems reluctant to change this implementation (and I think in some ways the Sonar system is better).  This and perhaps other issues may have eventually frustrated UA so that they gave up on Sonar - at one point (the same point in time when they changed their qualification standards) they even refused to provide mono dlls of their more recent effects; fortunately they relented on that point.
 
Moving forward, I think that if Cakewalk wants to provide a DAW which can incorporate UAD effects, without some change in the relationship, they will have to be more quickly reactive to changes in the UAD system in the future.  I don't think it would be a bad idea to attempt to become a qualified host, but some sort of basic functionality at least seems necessary. 
 
Frankly, I think UAD effects are not in the preeminent position they once were.  For example, Native Instruments now has pretty decent emulations of many of the same machines UA is known for emulating.  Still, I think that in order for Cakewalk to continue to market Sonar as a "pro" DAW - the top of its line of music software - they need to accommodate UA for the time being.  One can only hope that UA will go native in a year or two, solving many of the problems it creates, though that seems unlikely.

Hello so this is the fourth UAD thread created (or more), and I notice Brian you are on all of these threads.


You've just commented here:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/UAD-Plugins-in-FX-chain-are-disabled-on-opening-project-in-X3d-but-dont-show-as-disabled-m2952764.aspx
 
and here:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/UAD-aux-sends-disabled-in-X3-and-where-the-buck-stops-m2961478.aspx
 
For instance.
 
This is getting like spam and I'm getting rather annoyed having to read this every day. You have your answer from Cakewalk, this is a UAD issue and Cakewalk have already said what they are going to do, so please go and complain at the UAD forums instead...
 
Here is a perfectly acceptable answer, please live with it.
 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Its possible that this issue is also a side effect of the plugin chaining API. All versions of SONAR since 8.5 use this custom UA API that we implemented for them years ago.
 
I was in touch with UA fairly recently about this and their response was that this API is no longer actively supported by them at the host level and only used by them internally now. I was also told that they would add a remedy from their end. From our side I have now removed custom UA chaining support from SONAR for the next X3 update so hopefully this shouldn't be an issue going forward.
BTW this isn't really specific to X3 technically - the only reason that you see a difference in behavior is because the UAD driver seems to be testing for a specific SONAR version and masking the error messages - which is why the some UAD warning messages started popping up in X3.

 
You are also quite capable of rolling back to earlier drivers in the meantime.
Also I haven't seen anything written about Cake and UAD's relationship being strained in any of the statements, so I assume this is pure speculation.
 
Sorry but if I see the letters UAD again I might explode
 
Thanks... 

Since you don't use UAD effects, it may be time for you to stop reading about whether they work with Sonar or not.  You certainly don't have to read them every day.  Now that I have done the work to figure out what is going wrong with using these effects in this software, I don't intend to think about it any more.  However, I felt that it might be helpful for other people - those who are actually trying to use these effects in this software - to have a single place collecting most of this information.
 
I think I have adequately explained in what way these problems are not a Cakewalk or a UA issue, but have been caused by a failure to communicate between them.  I have also speculated about when and why they stopped communicating.
 
Again, I'm sorry if it's frustrating to you, but I am simply trying to work something out here.  Fortunately for us both, you don't have to read or contribute to this or any UAD-related thread.

Your information may or may not be helpful Brian, but please stop creating new threads about it. We already have far too many and information is being spread extremely thinly now (and there's a lot of repetition causing a lot of confusion). I would have thought the thread where the Cakewalk statement actually is would be thread to target which is where the real facts lay (not the invented speculation). By creating yet another thread you are fragmenting the issue further, Cakewalks statement to me seems pretty conclusive no need to recap.
 
In fact if forum Admin is available it would be nice if these threads could get merged.

Thanks for your help.  I try not to spend too much time on internet forums, so I must have made a faux pas.  Thankfully, I believe I've worked out, more or less, what's going wrong in this case, so I can get back to doing other things. 

To the jury, I say this: The great thing about topic descriptions on the forum is that you don't have to waste time with anything that doesn't interest or concern you. Brian Brock has done a superior job of summing up the UAD/X3 situation here. The information he's posted here IS helpful and concise. The other threads on this topic have become long, fragmented, confusing and hard to follow.
 
Of the 34 current posts in the thread at this link http://forum.cakewalk.com/UAD-Plugins-in-FX-chain-are-disabled-on-opening-project-in-X3d-but-dont-show-as-disabled-m2952764.aspx, 8 of them are from CakeAlexS, who owns absolutely no UAD gear. (That's nearly 1/4 of the total posts!) If anyone is finding these UAD/X3 threads to be a waste of time, quit reading them. No one is making you involve yourself in something you know nothing about. And frankly, when you constantly post with nothing of substance to add, you waste everyone else's time.
 
The last time I checked, this forum was for ALL Sonar users, and we don't need permission to seek clear solutions to problems.  

To answer the question, when UA qualifies a system, they pretty much test every parameter of every plug-in in every context they can think of. It's very time-consuming, and UA is not a huge company. As a result, they limit qualified systems to the DAWs used by the majority of their users. They expect their products to work with other programs, and do some degree of testing, but ultimately the solution is what's happening: Problems are found and quantified, relayed to Cakewalk and UA, and they figure out a fix (as they've done in the past).
 
I am using UA's plugs but simply avoid the things that people say cause problems, like putting a non-UA effect in between UA effects.
 
Also remember that UA effects are inherently a different animal because they're hardware-based rather than native. So trying to do something like a faster-than-real-time bounce is iffy. That used to never work for me, then it worked sometimes, but I just decided to do real time bounces with UA plugs.

melmyers
8 of them are from CakeAlexS, who owns absolutely no UAD gear. (That's nearly 1/4 of the total posts!) If anyone is finding these UAD/X3 threads to be a waste of time

 
That's it kill the messenger and the person who tries to help you...
I'm the guy who originally suggest this remember? and from this came quite a debate... Didn't appear useless at the time.
 
X3 -> Edit -> Preferences -> Audio -> Playback and recording -> Turn off "Always stream audio through FX".
 
I didn't see a individual person contribute much more than this. Sorry but you don't necessarily have to own the gear in order to troubleshoot or help people. Anyway you are (predictably and sadly) making this personal and diverting away from my point.
 
For anybody who is reading this, please read the other threads to get some balance, and please don't trust what you read here.
 
PLEASE STOP CREATING NEW THREADS ON UAD OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
 
And  please stop spreading disinformation to suit your arguments!
I know I'm any easy target as I'm always on these forums, so go ahead say something else to counteract.... And now you've got a brand new thread you can say anything because nobody is going to bother to read the other threads to find out what you are saying is true!
 
Thankyou

Sorry to have caused such consternation.  Thanks for letting me try to work out this issue, and yes, unchecking "Always stream audio through FX" was a helpful contribution to the process.  Good job, Alex.

Nothing personal either Brian, I just get frustrated because the situation gets really confusing. This thread is an example. One person has just said I was useless, and another helpful. And now in order to back my statements up I have to go over to another thread or maybe the other to get my facts straight....  And Cake's statement is on one of the threads... can't remember which.... arghh! :)

I feel sorry that the UAD situation is not optimal at present, but I really think until UAD pulls finger or Cake releases X3E then it's just a waiting game (or roll back the drivers). I can't see the situations being any clearer until either or both these scenarios take place.

Cheers..