Apparently Sonar doesnt work with onboard sound.  For a laptop usb is the answer it seems.  Then I can use on other systems as well.  Any suggestions?  The onboard sound for playback now a days is as good as a lot of add ons so I dont understand why Sonar doesnt support.  Thanks very much.

There are many. The Roland Capture series, I use the Octa-Capture, are very good and have very low latency. There are RME interfaces as well with just as good if not better performance. It all depends on what you want to spend.

Thanks very much, I do own lots of Roland and Boss stuff, hoping the UX2 works well for input.  I just searched the Roland usb and saw one by Cakewalk, the V studio 20?   Anyway, ill check them all out.  and compare latency.  The hard card less latency i assume?  I havent dont this in years.  Thanks again i really appreciate it.

If you've got firewire with your laptop there are other alternatives (check my footer), plus it can be more portable with different OS's. I'm not a big fan of USB for an external audio interface as there are too many USB standards to get in the way, and not all of them are implemented correctly by PC manufacturers. With firewire you're more than likely to have a more dedicated interface for the card (one device and one interface)... with USB you're plugging everything and the kitchen sink into it.

People will be posting next disagreeing with me, but that is my opinion.

Cheers

Shreddi


Apparently Sonar doesnt work with onboard sound. .

Where did you get that? - It will work with onboard sound, but you are more likely to run into problems such as high latency, clicks and pops etc. with a realtek device that probably costs a few dollars to build onto a mother board than with a professional audio interface.
 
The most sutable interface will depend on what you want to do. I just replaced my PCIe ESRI Julia@ card, with a USB Roland Quad Capture. The main reason is for the improved interface options including the ability to connect microphones with phantom power.

Glyn - I just watched a video clip with some Roger Dean comments on the artwork you have posted as your profile pic.

Good stuff.

I would suggest doing some compatibility homework,should you choose to consider a Firewire interface, particularly using a laptop.

Firewire works great, and many have good Win 7 drivers, BUT there are potential hardware issues with SOME (not all) chip sets used for the Firewire on motherboards.  Because of the fact that this posted is going to use a laptop, I recommend either being careful to check the chip set compatibility FIRST (Saffire has a downloadable chip set compatibility checker) OR shop for a USB interface.

I have never had any issues with any USB-connected interface, EXCEPT where I accidentally used a USB 3.0 port and they had told me not to.

At the same time, I have nothing against using Firewire - just be careful as I indicated, due to potential chip set problems on the motherboard and the interface.

Bob Bone

Oh , and Glyn - I just played along with Yours is No Disgrace and Starship Trooper this afternoon.  Felt good (I am a keyboard player).

Bob Bone

I am going to Try a Line 6 UX2 since I have one here.  Has anyone used one before?  I just need some quarter to eighth adapters.  Or get a mixing board to use the other monitors and cabinets in here.   Thanks.  I havent done this sequencing stuff on PC since voyetra came out so I do appreciate any advise, thanks again.

Onboard sound cards work fine. Your driver mode is probably not set up correctly. Try setting the driver mode to WDM. The only thing onboard sound cards will not do is low latency when trying to play soft synths using an external midi keyboard. 

The things you will get from a sound card designed for computer multi track audio recording is audio/midi inputs and outputs, and low latency for external midi keyboard playing of soft synths. 


If your gonna use the Line 6 UX2 set the driver mode in Sonar to ASIO. 

Thanks WDI.  Mine is set to WDM/KS by default,  Triangular as well.  For the hell of it i tried rectangular and no luck.  Its weird because everything else works fine with sound, i just fired up something called Notation Composer dowloaded earlier that transcribes midi to sheet music and played the sound perfect.  I have read other posts where onboard just doesnt work but i believe its some thing i am missing.  I just tried something and get list of what is possible.  example of a line being "48000 Hz Chanels 1/2 Bits 16,24 [4 bytes] 32--OK",  i am wondering if that 32 means 32 bit os?  this is win 7 64.  I doubt it and its reffering to sound but.....   I havent used sound cards for years and yea onboard should work.  Im missing something.  thanks again.  Still no sound and first thing i did was check out Cakewalks faq but their solution is get a sound card they support.