Hi Sonar Monsters!
 
I'm pretty new to Sonar (I've had it a long time but I only get to use it about once or twice per year so I'm always relearning ;-)
 
I thought I would get fancy and try to setup a few busses to put the instruments and vocals on and apply single instances of F/X to each buss, then route my individual channels to those busses so I would have less CPU over head (I'm on an old XP box with a dual core Pentium D CPU and 4GB RAM, so at 6 channels with compression and EQ and F/X on each channel it stutters!).
 
I setup a Perfect Space reverb (Falling Rocks) for the uke tracks (3) and added some other chorus and flange F/X to two of the uke tracks that were solo parts.
 
Then I setup a vocal buss and put an FX on that (short and sweet Sonatas reverb).
 
When I add sends to each vocal channel to go to the vocal buss everything is working great, including the reverb as expected. But when I add one more vocal part (backup vox) it some how gets a lot of reverb that is comb filterd, distorted and seems to have the perfect space reverb on it. I've not sent it to the other reverb or instrument buss... but it's just swimming in it. and digitally distorted like it's in a loop of deterioration.

What am I doing wrong?
 
Thank you very much in advance for any help you can offer.
Bruce - Aardvark Hill

Have you expanded the ( what ever its called) where you can see all the routing for the track and check that a buss send was not accidentally added. I've had this happen lots. Where I add the efx send on one track it gets added to another too. 

What's the main output of the track that is swimming in reverb?
 
There are two ways to direct signal... the main out and sends.
 
Outside of this, the signal should not be going anywhere.
 
After asserting that you are definitely NOT accidentally sending the problematic track to the verby bus either by send or output...
Check to make sure you didn't accidentally record it on more than one track. Expand Lanes to ensure that the only recordings on each track are the ones you expect.
Having several takes of the same track where all are unmuted can have the effect of too strong a signal.

we'll, now I can't even load sonar to check! I've got a Tascam FW-1884 which basically works once per month, and if I miss that one day... It won't connect and sonar will want to re-rout all my outputs to my sound card which is exclude but it doesn't seem to like having no output devices ;-)
 
I guess I'll have to check in the a am when I've got more time to reboot, reboot, reboot and futz with it. The main reason I don't use and learn sonar is that my interface is a pile of junk most of the time. ;-)
 
I did a screen cap but in order to include it I have to have it uploaded somewhere first... so I can't even show what I've got setup at this point. thanks for your help, I'll try this all again in the am when I can sit and stay on it. urg ;-)
 

Sorry for your troubles, Aardvark.
 
The interface you mention looks like a pretty good one. Firewire troubles tend to be heaviest on the PC interface side. In other words, a dedicated Firewire card might help you. Does your Firewire card have a Texas Instruments chipset?
 
It's possible you can fix your problem with something like this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124107
if you have a free PCIe slot.
 
The hardest part of getting to enjoy Sonar is getting a system that works. Once you do, the whole world opens up!

Thanks Studio Cat and other... I'm un-able to get my 1884 to talk to my computer today either, although I purchased a new firewire card a couple years ago which worked well for a while... The card you linked to .... is cheap enough that I've ordered one and will give it a try. Who knows... it might work great.  I'll post when I have it installed and then try everyone's other suggestions.
Thanks very much!
 
Bruce

I hope it helps. I think it's strange that you got a firewire card that worked for a while but didn't consistently work. That's kinda unusual. Leaves me wondering what happened.
 
Perhaps the power supply in your computer is insufficient to drive all the stuff you've got plugged in? Insufficient power supply can make Firewire behave in a goofy way. If that is the case, it might be that you can remove excess cards or disable devices to save power. This would probably require disabling devices in the BIOS. Alternatively, perhaps you got a driver update that messed it up.
 
Jim at Studio Cat also does consulting for a fee and can probably help you run down your issue with your XP computer. I bought my DAW from him. He's been helpful and it was he who recommended that particular Firewire card for me and it has worked fine for my purposes.
 
Personally, right now I'm guessing that your interface isn't the problem. You should be able to test your interface with a friend who has a stable DAW to eliminate the interface from consideration.