Anyone else ever experience a loud "gunshot" blast while listening to a project in X1 P Expanded? This happens randomly in one project I'm working on.  It hasn't happened in any other project. 

I'm currently running 56 tracks, of which 20 are muted, and 5 buses. When I export the file to an mp3 or wave file it plays fine, but the random blasts during live monitoring are deadly. The first time I heard it, I had my monitors up quite loud and I 
nearly had a heart attack, as the "gunshot" blast is probably at least 15 dB louder than the mix.

My performance meters are about:
CPU: 20%
Hard drive: 80%
RAM: 15% 

I'm not using any plugins that I don't also use in other projects. I'm really afraid to finalize the mix as these blasts may cause further damage to my hearing.

Any ideas?

If you have Concrete Limiter use that on your master buss or any good brick wall limiter. Set it so the output is just a bit below 0 dB.


Next time stay out of speak easies and blind pigs.  

Yeah with that kind of stuff going on I would definitely shove a limiter into the mix, especially if you ever wear headphones. An unexpected blast like that can give you severe, permanent hearing damage and tinnitus (a la Andy Partridge of XTC who got a full-volume blast of a snare sample through his cans and has had chronic tinnitus ever since). 

I don't think he literally means a gun shot blast.

I do know what I 'think' you are talking about.

It's a random sharp pop. Kind of like plugging in a guitar cord real quick.

It's some kind of electrical spike ... a compressor on a refrigerator starting to go bad, the start up capacitor on a furnace blower going bad, etc etc.

I used to get that sound when the compressor on my old refrigerator would kick on. I'd also get it from time to time when nothing in my house was running. I read somewhere that it could also be caused by solar flares ... but I think that's stretching it a little.

Try to see if any high current draw devices come on when it happens and causes the pop. A coffee pot, space heater, fridge, think big. If you can't isolate it, you may have to get a hefty line filter/conditioner. I'm not talking about a line filter on a power strip, I mean a rack mount style line conditioner.

Good luck.

I've had this happen a couple of times, and believe me Bub, there's no way this is caused by anything external to Sonar - it's more like a lightning strike than a gunshot, though this description is obviously a bit subjective - but it's a LOT more intrusive than a 'pop' caused by other electrical items kicking in/out. The blasts I've heard are deafening, but it's only happened 2 or 3 times at most.

I think there is a problem with the Audio Engine ,but this is definitely not repeatable, so how you go about submitting it as a bug report is nigh on impossible.

Bristol_Jonesey

I've had this happen a couple of times, and believe me Bub, there's no way this is caused by anything external to Sonar

I've had it happen internal and external. When it happens to me internally in Sonar, the meters on the track that it happened on peak to an unGodly level, the meter is lit all the way up to red, and the db level reading sticks (doesn't go back to zero when I stop and hit play). It also makes the Master bus meters peak and stick. The other thing that happens when this occurs, on my system, Sonar will freeze up if I keep trying to play the project.

If you're hearing something that's not registering on the meters, it's more than likely external to Sonar. I assumed the OP was not seeing anything on the meters because he didn't say anything about the meters peaking or freezing.

EDIT: I haven't had this happen since I added a table top/rack mountable line filter/conditioner. I even had less crashes since I hooked my DAW and monitors up to it. It's an older Monster AC filter/conditioner I got on Amazon a few years ago. It has optional rack mount clips you can screw on. It's big, it takes up 2 rack spaces.

Yeah, this registers on my meters as well - pinned all the way up to the top

Be careful with 'pops' on your monitor speakers at high levels - it's real easy to take out the tweeters...

It sounds like someone put a gun to my head then pulled the trigger. It leaves my head spinning for a good hour after that happens at high level. It's so shocking that I never even had a chance to look at the meters to see what they're doing. And yah, I already have tinnitus, so I don't need any more of this kind of stuff.

Under Preferences/Project/Clock/Source, I see that the Audio is checked. Since my audio interface does not have a clock generator, I checked 
"Internal", but every time I go back and check the preferences, I find that the "Audio" source has been checked again. I think this may be the problem. I don't know why the clock source keeps reverting. Perhaps there's a way to pin down the Internal clock souce in the audio.ini file?