Hi Everyone,
 
I have used Sonar X1 for a quite a long while with no problem.   I recently upgraded to Sonar X2 (also installed the X2a patch) but now I'm seeing lots of crashes whenever I try to create a V-Vocal clip.  It doesn't fail on every attempt but seems to fail on certain tracks every time, and other tracks it's more forgiving.  I can't seem to figure out the failure mechanism. It's just unstable as hell and I can't finish a project because of it.  I've tried bouncing the clips to separate tracks first, but that doesn't seem to help.  It's just random and fairly persistent.
 
Any advice is welcome.  This is affecting a project deadline and I'm starting to question why I did the upgrade now.
 
Thanks for any tips,  --Jim 

Hi Fife . . . I've always had success with V-Vocal myself. I don't know your system Specs (or even which OS), so don't know what you system may be capable of, but one thing that comes to mind is - - -> how long are your V-Vocal clips ? I've had best results when I keep them fairly short.
(eg. if your clips are 3 minutes long - this may be a problem)

I've also had good luck with V-Vocal when running Sonar X2 EXCEPT when using it in a take lane. If I "promote" it to a standard track it's fine. Hope it's something as simple as that... 

Try reading bitflipper's guide to using vvocal:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?high=&m=2276613&mpage=1#2276613

3 rules since day 1 vvocal don't use it as the track is playing,
 don't leave it on a track use and bounce the track.
don't put it on takelane break your track into bounced 4-8 bar parts on master lane.
i love vvocal and if I rememeber these rules it works for me.
 bitflip was the founder of this concept I think and there has been debated here for ever.over Vvocal could be why its now gone from X3

Funny, I've broken all 3 of them in all versions of sonar and VV hasn't flinched.
 
Yet, on one or 2 projects, even following all of the usual sage advice, VV just crashed Sonar repeatedly.

Thanks everyone.   I have no idea what's causing all of the problems with V-Vocal.  I've relied on it in the past prior to moving to X2 and it has been extremely useful.  
 
I checked my tracks and I don't even have the Take Lanes option enabled for those tracks that I'm trying to use V-Vocal with.  The tracks are some whistling parts where I'm trying to line up the pitch to match some other tracks, and they're really short phases, no longer than a few seconds for each V-vocal section.  The crashing seems to be random.  On a given track it may allow V-Vocal for one section with no problem and then I'll use the same approach to a different section of that same track and it crashes consistently.
 
I'm using Windows 7 Professional (Service Pack1) on a i7 PC with 12GB of RAM.
I'm using the 64-bit version of Sonar X2 with the X2a patch.
 
 

A lot of noise is produced when you whistle.
 
It's important that you try and minimise the amount reaching the microphone by whistling across the business end of the mic, rather than straight into it.
 
Also make sure you top & tail each ciip and bounce to clip before invoking V-Vocal.
 
If your whistle is quite high in pitch, try shifting it down an octave, and again, bounce it before applying VV. 
 
Take a safety copy of the original before you start any of this.

Thanks for the tips Bristol_Jonesey  I can understand the need for bouncing to clips ahead of time, and limiting the V-Vocal to only short sections, that's exactly they way I was trying to use it.  But I don't see how the audio data in the track can actually crash the application.  I would think that the V-Vocal effect would simply create a bunch of audio artifacts if I had too much whistling (breath noise) in the track or something rather than crashing Sonar entirely.    I'd used a pop screen close to my mouth to limit the amount of wind noise when I recorded the track and it actually sounds pretty good like this.   For now, I've completely stopped using V-Vocal since it was crashing so much.   I'll just need to practice up on my whistling.  I re-recorded my tracks to get the pitch better and they're acceptable now.  I'm just not happy that I can't rely on V-Vocal for anything anymore.   I'd had some great results with it in the past for bringing out-of-tune instruments back into pitch (a live piccolo player that was playing sharp on some notes for example).   I've sent my crash reports to Sonar support so I'm hoping there is some way for them to fix it or provide a workaround at least.
 
 

Try it in a completely blank project - just insert one audio track, do your whistling & V-Vocal from there.
 
If it works ok you can easily bounce it down & drag/drop into your main project