I have an odd problem going on in X1 Producer - as I start up a new song, the VST plugins work fine. As I add in more than one VST synth though, the delay from pressing a MIDI key to the synth's sound being produced at my FW-1884's output goes from very short to about 2 seconds. It then remains this way, regardless of closing and reopening Sonar and/or the file. There is no such latency on the audio tracks or FX plug ins, just the synths related to producing sound from a live MIDI input. Also, if I go in and draw the part I want on the piano roll, it plays back just fine.

Has anyone else run into this? Please let me know! I'm not yet sure, but this seems to be related to adding Mtron Pro 32-bit to the project. I'm trying to figure this out for sure now. The problem happens a lot, but is not 100% repeatable.

Thanks,
Chris

BTW - I wanted to add that latency is very low in my system, and when this issue occurs, adjusting latency in the ASIO control panel has no effect.

I looked at this more last night working on a tune - it is definitely related to MIDI Hw devices somehow - when this problem occurs, I can make it go away by changing my selected MIDI devices and clicking OK. However, once I "play" the song, the problem is back and stays until I change selected MIDI devices again. 

So it doesn't have anything to do with Mtron. It also doesn't seem to be related to the FW-1884, since it will happen even when none of it's MIDI IO is selected and I am using an M-Audio USB keyboard. Any ideas would be great! 

On your control bar at the top of Sonar X1....do you see a button that says "PDC"? If so, press it and then try playing your stuff and see if it helps. It sounds like the plugs you are using are giving you a delay. The PDC may help with this. When you're done recording, press the PDC button so it's not being used while you mix.

Also, what are your ASIO buffers set to? When you record VSTi's, you should use the lowest latency your card can do. I use 32 buffers for extreme cases and just about always 64 buffers. When I'm done recording, I raise the buffers up to 2048 so I have more cpu headroom for mixing and adding more plugs etc. Good luck.

-Danny

make sure input echo is on only for the track youre playing and assign each synth to its own input channel.

Thanks Danny and ST - I will go into X1 tonight and check out your suggestions (I have not used that PDC button, and the echo stuff sounds possible as well)! I was adding guitar and drums (acoustic) to the tune over the weekend and those worked totally fine, it's just something with the MIDI setup it seems.

Danny - that PDC button did the trick thanks man!!! I feel like an idiot, I never knew what that button did (or the FX one below it, also quite handy now that I see it). Very cool! Chris