You know what... I just remember a whole pile of smart dudes here telling me ages ago to leave that 64 bit thingie unchecked until export. Forgot about that one.

Lynn
 
P.S.- I think that I may be chagrined with myself for spending a lot of money to upgrade my equipment for 64 bits when it may not have been necessary.  Nobody likes to feel "had".

FWIW, upgrading to use 64bit SONAR and 64bit plugins is an entirely different discussion than the 64bit Double Precision preference.  
 

stevec

Lynn
 
P.S.- I think that I may be chagrined with myself for spending a lot of money to upgrade my equipment for 64 bits when it may not have been necessary.  Nobody likes to feel "had".

FWIW, upgrading to use 64bit SONAR and 64bit plugins is an entirely different discussion than the 64bit Double Precision preference.  
 

Steve, you have added several good posts to this thread, as usual.
 
I think many people are getting confused about 64 bit operating systems/programs/plugs and Sonar's 64 bit Double Precision Engine.
 
I would only advise that forum members who don't understand the difference, please don't advise others on it.
 
 
 

jb101

stevec

Lynn
 
P.S.- I think that I may be chagrined with myself for spending a lot of money to upgrade my equipment for 64 bits when it may not have been necessary.  Nobody likes to feel "had".

FWIW, upgrading to use 64bit SONAR and 64bit plugins is an entirely different discussion than the 64bit Double Precision preference.  
 

 
 
I think many people are getting confused about 64 bit operating systems/programs/plugs and Sonar's 64 bit Double Precision Engine.
 
I would only advise that forum members who don't understand the difference, please don't advise others on it.
 
 
 

Yes, I'm entirely confused by that difference.  Is there anyone out there that can explain that difference to a "dummy"?

Lynn

jb101
I think many people are getting confused about 64 bit operating systems/programs/plugs and Sonar's 64 bit Double Precision Engine.

Yes, I'm entirely confused by that difference.  Is there anyone out there that can explain that difference to a "dummy"?

64 bit operating systems/programs/plugs = 64 bit memory addressing. More bits means you can address more memory locations.
 
Remember when libraries had card catalogs (oops, I'm dating myself)?
 

 
You can think of 64 bit memory addressing as lots more cabinets full of cards so that you can reference lots more books (memory addresses).
 
 
The 64 bit engine refers to mathematical precision - sort of the difference between 
 
12.27/4.73 = 2.6
vs.
12.27/4.73 = 2.5940803382663847780126849894292

Hi all,
I'm really confused by the suggestion to "uncheck the 64 bit double precision engine",as I run everything at "64" in Prefferences/Audio Data/All Projects/File Bit Depths,just for the simple fact that,"it allows me to do it so,if it works why not"?
 
I have to admit I did roll back to X3b,as I was getting some weird "never ending"-electronic"she's about to blow up"type noise,that vanished,after I rolled back to X3b.
 
Although I run my simple projects at 512,1024[all 64 bit],I just checked,by reimporting a project for messing with[mastering?]and my VS-100 played back perfectly with 64 samples 9.1ms RTLatency,which surprised even me.
 
One of the things that made me pick Sonar,was cakewalks 64 bit capability,but now we're being told to uncheck the "64 bit double precision engine"????
 
I do hope this just temporary,as although at 2 1/2 years with computers total,I definitely still consider myself to be a newb with "all things digital".
 
Apart from wishing I could set up my plugin list like I had in X2[obviously out of the question,now there is VST3]I'm really liking X3 and I'm super glad I just made it before the price changed[so my email's kept saying-"Last Days,Hurry Up"],or something similar,and I think I prefer the "Tape Emulator" PC module,over the waves Kramer Tape,but like a lot of things,maybe tomorrow I'll think different?
 
I'm definitely confused about the 64 bit thing though,as I said,it was one of the reasons I picked Sonar.
Cheers
Bob
 

Guess I wasn't clear about a few things, sorry..
 
1. I usually leave the 64-bit engine on, but after installing X3c, I noticed some people experienced some problems by leaving it on. So, I turned it off. When Cakewalk gives the "all clear," I'll turn it back on again.
 
2. One my desktop, I usually use an !/O setting of 512. But hex (audio) guitar seems to prefer 1024.
 
3. Hex guitar: I was a fan of Gibson's high-tech guitars long before I joined the company, in fact it's probably a reason why I joined the company ...the first was the HD.6X Pro, which formed the basis of the band EV2 (here's a clip, love the Pelham Blue guitar color!!) with Brian Hardgroove from Public Enemy. Incidentally, he converted to Sonar recently after excessive frustration with some other DAWs. 
 
I then moved on to the Dark Fire and Dusk Tiger guitars, which had dedicated computer interfaces, and finally to the FBX. The interfaces have a stereo out + three stereo outs that appear within Sonar - left is one string of a string pair, right is the other string of the pair.
 
Maybe I should start a thread on why hex guitar is so effing amazing...I think it's a kind of final frontier. If you want to hear some of the cool things you can do with six outputs, several plug-ins, and Sonar, I did a review of the HD.6X Pro for Harmony Central with a bunch of audio examples - scroll down toward the bottom of the article.
 
If there's interest, I'll start a separate thread. Hex guitar is amazing - many of the advantages of synthesizers, but with the organic, expressive possibilities of guitar. You can retrofit existing guitars although of course, it's a little more kludgy than having it built in.

CakeAlexS
I still think having a performance improvement by playing Grand Theft Auto 5 at the same time as recording is a bit of a scoop....

This is for real.

So about 64-bit audio engines...here's my "I think I got this right" response.
 
My first digital audio experience was Sound Tools on a Mac Plus with a 16-bit audio engine. It didn't take much processing to overrun what 16 bits could calculate, and you could hear the result. On the bright side, you had a built-in fuzztone (whether you wanted it or not).
 
The original TDM bus was 24 bits of resolution in the I/O and it dithered every time it went back and forth to the bus. The native version of Pro Tools didn't have this limitation, which is why there were those Gearslutz-type threads on "Why does Pro Tools on my laptop sound better than my TDM system?"
 
IIRC some DAWs made an intermediate step to a 24-bit engine on the way to 32-bit float. Pro Tools was 48 bits fixed and is now 32-bit float.
 
When Sonar came out with the 64-bit engine, again IIRC, not all DAWs in use had made it to 32-bit floating point. Those that were still using older engines definitely sounded inferior if you were doing lots of calculations with lots of plug-ins, bouncing, etc. Sonar was ahead of the curve with the 64-bit engine, but over time, 32-bit float became standard and provided enough resolution for all practical purposes, so Sonar's lead was not as significant as it had been when the 64-bit engine was introduced. 
 
However, from a theoretical standpoint, 64-bit floating point is as good as it gets. Will you hear a difference compared to 32-bit floating point? Highly doubtful. But somewhere, someone is doing their 2,344th bounce using a reverb plug-in, and is hearing a difference...