Forum members,

Having some serious show stopping issues around audio recording and playback and need some advise and thoughts on what you think the problem may be. I have reviewed previous posts on this forum and others, so will attempt to provide as much information as possible on the issue, and the steps I have taken to try to correct it (without success so far). Please excuse the length of the post………..

Short summary of the issue would be: When playing back any audio in Sonar X1 I have recorded (or playing back the demo/tutorial file), audio stops playing after around 40 seconds (red line in track view). Sonar appears to continue playing the track - but without sound. When I stop playing - Sonar will freeze and will require a complete shutdown to start again. This happens with just one short audio track - no plugins etc.

System data. Recording to new laptop. Intel i5 450m  processor, 4gb RAM, 500gb Hard Drive. Windows 7 64 bit.
Audio interface - Lexicon Omega with windows 7 drivers downloaded from Lexicon website.

Initial recordings were made with computer settings 'out of the box'. After researching the issue and discovering that windows 7 requires some tweaking for DAW work - I made the following changes, took the following actions.

On the laptop, made the windows tweaks, ie switch to high performance, prioritise background applications, set to best performance (over best visuals), disable wi-fi, disable windows sounds etc.

I downloaded the x1 A and X1b patches.

I tested latency with the DRC latency checker. With wi-fi on, I have yellow and red bars all over the place. With wi-fi off it runs green bars at acceptable latency almost exclusively. An occasional red bar may appear.

I ran latency mon to try and identify any process that may be interfering with the audio. With wi-fi off it always runs fine. Reports zero errors and no hard page faults. According to this program - system should handle audio without issue. I can't see any one process eating up CPU resources, nothing over 1ms overall latency - nor a total comined summing of processes ms latency that would suggest an issue.

I reviewed and actioned the help file data from Sonar - adjusting buffers, latency etc etc in the preferences settings.

All of this - with no real improvement. If I manage to record one track of audio. Problem will arise either during direct playback, or playback plus recording a second track.

As a comparison - I installed a copy of Traktion that I had been using on an XP machine (via the lexicon) which always ran fine with zero dropouts.

Audio quality was awful - crackles and pops - followed by white noise. It didn't cause Traktion to freeze - but the program offered up some error messages which seemed to point the blame at the Lexicon. Whilst I tried to record to Traktion - it would tell me that the audio source stopped responding. When I started Traktion again - I was told the Lexicons drivers failed to load correctly. I asked Traktion to reload them - and again it found them - but said the failed to load correctly.

From everything I have tried, I beginning to lean towards my Lexicon as the problem (have downloaded the drivers a couple of times) . I know these interfaces don't get much love  - do you think it's the likely culprit here ? Is there anything else I should be trying, or anything I have missed ? I have big doubts whether it's the laptop. This is just one track of audio that causes the problem……..

Any advise would be welcome. It's hugely frustrating - I just want to get recording!!

Thanks

Assuming the laptop has an on-board sound card (and if so, have you disabled it? If not, that may be the cause of the problem), what happens if you  try using the on-board soundcard with X1?

If you're using ASIO drivers, does changing to WDM or WASAPI make a difference?

What's the cpu/RAM usage like while Sonar/Traktion is running? What about background tasks - anti-virus and all the junk that comes with laptops that's no use to anyone, etc.?

By the way - switching off all the Windows Aero display stuff may not actually make much difference to performance. It doesn't under Vista, and X1 may be expecting it to be there. Someone who knows Win7 better than me (I'm still on Vista) may have some more thoughts on optimisation.

tlw - thanks for the feedback.

Am running the tutorial file through the on board sound card as I write. It's played through a couple of times with no audio dropouts.

Have not completely disabled the on board card whilst using the Lexicon - but will try that and see if it makes any difference.

In terms of CPU usage - with the demo file playing and wi-fi on so I can write this - it's between 5 and 9 %

Although only programs open are Firefox and Sonar - there are 74 processes running in the task manager - none of them seem to be eating up resources though.

In relation to the drivers - the Lexicon only supports ASIO which I'm using, and WDM. ASIO is recommended by Lexicon - but I'll try the WDM and check status.

That's 5 full playthroughs of the demo file through the onboard card with no problems as I am writing. Does this suggest an issue communicating with the Lexicon ?

Thanks again......

That's 5 full playthroughs of the demo file

prioritise background applications,

Dont do this change it back, see this thread http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2303789

HTH

Tom

Saintom

prioritise background applications,

Dont do this change it back, see this thread http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2303789

HTH

Tom


I caught that thread today - change made - thanks

Sorry for taking so long to get back on this - I had a gig a distance from home yesterday (plus any time differences - I'm in the UK).

So, there's nothing going on to completely trash multi-track playback. That's good.

Processes. Handling audio in real-time requires the fastest possible response by the PC, and Windows is not a "real time" operating system. All background processes consume some resources, and can sap performance quite a bit. They may not take up many resources each, but it all adds up. 
 
This PC is currently running 62 processes (Vista 64bit with 2 instances of IE open). The dual boot installation I use for Sonar runs 28 background processes (including Automap), with the dpc latency checker never going much over 200 and generally under 60. Believe me, it makes a difference. Go through Windows and disable any services you don't need - including Window's indexing. The resident "helper" apps installed by things like printers, Quicktime, Acrobat, Itunes are best killed off as well. As is any "Hot key" poller used by your video driver; AMD's catalyst driver setup includes one - if you don't need it, kill it in Window's services otherwise it keeps asking "has anyone pressed the hot keys yet"? Ditto anti-virus if possible. Otherwise see if you can set an "exception" for Sonar and anything it opens, plus wav files (and any other audio file format you're using) so it won't scan them. Basically, kill every background process you don't need to be running.

If you need stuff running for "normal" use but not far a DAW, end the processes/stop the services, then when you're through with Sonar reboot the laptop to start them up again. It's a bit of a hassle, but worth it.

I guess you've probably tried the Lexicon using WDM by now - if not, try and see what happens. If that works OK then try ASIO again but set the ASIO buffers to a high value. Latency will be terrible, but glitch free audio is always a trade-off with latency, and external interfaces tend to need a higher minimum latency. If the Lexicon works at high buffer settings, keep reducing them until you find the point you get glitches then back off a bit. If you can't get glitch-free playback/recording under WDM or ASIO in either Sonar or Traktion no matter what you do, then it looks like it may be an interface/driver issue.

If you can't get it to work, then it may also be a good idea to raise a support ticket with Cakewalk if you haven't already.

PS - try a different USB cable - sometimes this does the trick. And don't use a USB hub, plug straight into the laptop.

tlw - don't want to count any chickens etc - but looks like some of the advice you've given has fixed the problem.

WDM drivers made no difference, so reverted back to ASIO (a reinstall) - and disabled the on board sound card. This one seemed to be the key  - as soon as that was disabled I was able to record three tracks of audio as a test, with no latency issues, no dropouts, snaps, crackles or pops.........

Only other changes were using a different USB port, and different leads into the Lexicon. No spikes on the DLC latencty checker either.

All seems well! Really appreciate the help here.

Hopefully my next post will be a link to decent song......

Cheers

I have MIDI related latency problems that have not been corrected by the change from 250 ms to 125 ms recommended in the Midi Playback and Recording section of the Sonar X2 Producer software. I am contacting customer service about this issue, but would appreciate anything you can tell me. Thanks.

You'd be better off starting a new thread to describe your problem.

When you do so, make sure you list all relevant information, including system specs/interface etc.