what i've never understood is why sonar would be at all bothered by other installed devices/drivers, when they're not being used by sonar?

The problem is they control elements of the computer that are being used by SONAR. For example, that infamous HD Audio driver decides which gets priority, streaming audio or fast frame rates. It also may assume that any audio you're generating has to be available to go to a TV or whatever. Some drivers are nice about this. Others will actually cause audio to stop streaming from a hard drive while they catch up with graphics. This is why when this type of HD Audio driver is enabled, you need to increase latency drastically to compensate. And if you don't, the system will become unstable when the audio buffer runs dry...at least that's the way it's been explained to me.

Anderton
The problem is they control elements of the computer that are being used by SONAR. For example, that infamous HD Audio driver decides which gets priority, streaming audio or fast frame rates. It also may assume that any audio you're generating has to be available to go to a TV or whatever. Some drivers are nice about this. Others will actually cause audio to stop streaming from a hard drive while they catch up with graphics. This is why when this type of HD Audio driver is enabled, you need to increase latency drastically to compensate. And if you don't, the system will become unstable when the audio buffer runs dry...at least that's the way it's been explained to me.

Anderton
The problem is they control elements of the computer that are being used by SONAR. For example, that infamous HD Audio driver decides which gets priority, streaming audio or fast frame rates. It also may assume that any audio you're generating has to be available to go to a TV or whatever. Some drivers are nice about this. Others will actually cause audio to stop streaming from a hard drive while they catch up with graphics. This is why when this type of HD Audio driver is enabled, you need to increase latency drastically to compensate. And if you don't, the system will become unstable when the audio buffer runs dry...at least that's the way it's been explained to me.

BINGO! I think this is my problem, what is the fix? I already set my audio int buffer to 1024 which is max.

Anderton
The problem is they control elements of the computer that are being used by SONAR. For example, that infamous HD Audio driver decides which gets priority, streaming audio or fast frame rates. It also may assume that any audio you're generating has to be available to go to a TV or whatever. Some drivers are nice about this. Others will actually cause audio to stop streaming from a hard drive while they catch up with graphics. This is why when this type of HD Audio driver is enabled, you need to increase latency drastically to compensate. And if you don't, the system will become unstable when the audio buffer runs dry...at least that's the way it's been explained to me.

yeah, i understand all the various considerations, it's weird because i don't see that behaviour with other apps

pwalpwal
 
yeah, i understand all the various considerations, it's weird because i don't see that behaviour with other apps

Well again this is from people who know more than I do, but cross-platform programs seem to have less issues with these kind of problems compared to Windows-specific programs, which tie in with the operating system at a deeper level. This may make sense, because Sony's Windows-only programs and Samplitude seemed touchier as well.
 
Or it could be poltergeists.

while you're in device manager, don't  forget to disable this hd audio stuff in the system devices as well.

pwalpwal
what i've never understood is why sonar would be at all bothered by other installed devices/drivers, when they're not being used by sonar?

The heart of any DAW is the audio "tick" or audio callback. This is the heart of the system and serves as the pump for all playback and record capabilities of the DAW. This audio callback is invoked by your audio device driver or the operating system itself if you are using Windows audio. A regular frequency of this callback is critical for stable audio playback in the DAW.
 
Any device driver in the system that interferes with the frequency of the audio callback will starve the DAW's audio engine and cause dropouts, clicks and pops, instability or poor quality audio. Since drivers operate at the kernel level in the operating system, you can even have an unrelated driver such as a network or display interface interfere with an audio driver's clock tick. Such problems can be diagnosed using tools that monitor DPC latency such as LatencyMon.
 
The above applies to any DAW not just SONAR. There are several reasons why you may see differences in behavior across DAW's - different driver model, different buffer size, system load differences, can all play a role in how and whether such symptoms show up.
 

Hey Leee & all, I see this thread is now marked as "solved." I've gone through all 4 pages but didn't notice any one post marked as having "the" answer, but several marked as helpful. Leee, could you tell me if there is one particular thing that turned it around for you, or was it a combination of everything? I'm still having the odd freeze-up with buzzing sound occur, and it happens about 15 to 20% of the time when I hit "play," and about 5% of the time when I hit "record." I've implemented several of the suggestions in this thread, with no luck yet. I guess I'm being lazy and trying to avoid going through all 4 pages & trying everything suggested, lol.
 
Thanks!

ClarkPlaysGuitar
Hey Leee & all, I see this thread is now marked as "solved." I've gone through all 4 pages but didn't notice any one post marked as having "the" answer, but several marked as helpful. Leee, could you tell me if there is one particular thing that turned it around for you, or was it a combination of everything? I'm still having the odd freeze-up with buzzing sound occur, and it happens about 15 to 20% of the time when I hit "play," and about 5% of the time when I hit "record." I've implemented several of the suggestions in this thread, with no luck yet. I guess I'm being lazy and trying to avoid going through all 4 pages & trying everything suggested, lol.
 
Thanks!

I'm pretty sure your problem is different than the stuff discussed in this thread, however, I've had the same problem as you and I'm sure it's focusrite related and more specifically the buffer settings, I haven't had this problem in a good while because I changed my buffer settings to 128, they used to be at 64.  I thought my system could handle it and it really can but I suspect that focusrite has not refined the drivers yet.  anyway I just went to the lowest buffer setting 16 just the check it out and yes every so often I get the buzzing but it is very high pitched at this setting, so I went to 32 and it still happens but the pitch drops, and it drops more at the 64 setting, for me I can't remember if it happened at all at the 128 setting so, what is your buffer set at?