Probably asked and answered a million times, as my project gets larger i start to get major Latency problems when input monitoring, i've set the asio driver (Motu PCI-424) it as low as i can, 1 step up from not running at all. 128 i believe.
 
Also getting a lot of buffer crackling.
 
Heard it suggested to disable Sonar's PDC, delay control. I can not for the life of me find where to turn this off. If that i the answer can i get an instruction on where this is shut off during recording.
 
If the problem is caused by to many tracks and buses running eq's, compessors, verbs. wouldn't it be safe to say
if i deleted all FX and plug ins eq's etc completely there should be no latency or crackling?
 
Moving into vocal recording now, and input monitoring will be vital, as will be crackle free tracks.
Can anyone help an old Canuck?
 
Thanks,
Rob.

Can you "freeze" tracks that you are happy with - this will reduce the load on the system
 
You can always un-freeze if you need to make tweaks later
 
The buffer size is only important when recording (for latency issues) so when you are mixing you can ramp up the latency
 
You also need to be confident whether the pops and crackles are actually being recorded
 
I have some tracks that pop and crackle during recording with a low buffer size (to reduce latency) but when I increase the buffer size for mixing I have perfect takes (although I accept this is a risky, non-ideal approach!)
 
It sounds to me more like a CPU issue so I would freeze tracks as a first attempt
 
I would also look at other system optimisation tricks (e.g. disable any fancy OS effects like Aero in Vista, turn WiFI off etc.) - there are lots of threads on this you can look at
 
Good luck!
 
Boydie

Thanks Boydie, I will give the "freeze track" a try tonight. Hopefully Sonar 8's Help menu instructs one on how to do this. I tired to find this "PDC" and no where can i find a disable button or command.

I will look at the system also, i am hardlined to the router (no wifi) Using Windows 7. But the PC is a purpose built unit, dedicated to the studio. Off course it still has internet explorer and an anti virus is there for upgrades, and swapping files, uploads etc...

I've monitored the cpu and it's barley working even when playing back during recording (multitracking) with 10-tracks playing. I have a feeling this may be a Motu compatibility thing also. The PCI-424's control panel has a ms slider for adjusting speed, and i can't seem slide it. I can only select a speed. 128 ie 264 etc... It adjusts the buffer to suit.

The other thing i realized today is that i may not have updated Sonar 8 Producer. I am going to update tonight (if cakewalk still had the updates...
Cheers,
Rob.

Hard to say anything because you don't give any system specs, but "dedicated to the studio" could mean it's a decent tool (but why do you leave us guessing the most important factors??)

If your explanation about your latency setting is correct - "...as low as I can - one step  from not running at all", that would mean you're at the limits of your system.

If you set your latency lower than your system can handle, crackling will occur, obviously. Try raising the latency. Are you using ASIO driver (NOT ASIO4ALL)?? That's your best option.

If you are still tracking, which judging from your comments you are, then it's quite common to switch ALL your Fx off until you enter the mixing phase.

Once you're at that stage, you can switch them all back on and raise your latency with impunity

But please, edit your signature to include your FULL system specs - including soundcard/interface/driver

Hi Folks,
 
Sorry i didn't have my system info in the sig. line. (duh) i'm not bright at the best of times...
I added that info to my sg. line. perhaps gives you a little more info on my system. ASIO is set to MOTU PCI.
(when i used to use magix i used asio4all) 
 
Please bare with me, i am very green with Sonar, i used simpler programs (Magix, reaper) and hard disc recording up to this point. After seeing a friends set up with Sonar, i though, WOW i'm missing out on a whole world of possibilities. So i set out an put this all together.
 
I should explain how my project is saved. I have a 13 song project. All the songs are saved in one project folder tiltled with the CD name. When i open that folder, it shows all my CWP files (individual songs), named with each song title.
 
I also updated to 8.3.1,  only then i found the PDC shut off command and it did turn all the FX off (yay!)
But... still getting buffer crackling when tracking.
 
But perhaps i have this backwards? When i'm tracking (recording while monitoring other tracks) i set the sample per buffer size low (128). (To reduce latency)
Then;
When i go to mix the song i bring the buffer size back up (1024, 2048), for clarity.
If i am doing this backwards this might be the issue, no?
 
One other item i though of is that all my songs (13 in the project folder) should be saved with the FX turned off. Or would that make any difference to the one project that is open and being worked on?
 
So there it is, all i can possibly think off, time to go have a tea, any more advise you can lend would be great !
 
Thanks
Rob.
 

Sorry... sig. line should work now...

A couple of things. You normally cannot run 2 ASIO audio interfaces so I'm a little confused about you having 2? Is one just a MIDI ? Your computer and RAM is a little on the lower side by today's standards but should work fine. Plug ins use memory more than CPU. Crackles and pops are normally bad sound card drivers or pushing your system to hard. I have never had to mess with buffer sizes, I just let Sonar and the Audio Drivers sort it out. I think it defaults to 256. Latency does not matter unless your trying to use real time EFX. I go lite on adding efx to the bins until I'm ready to mix. Do a little digging and make sure there are no known issues with your sound cards W7 64 bit drivers. If your using a lot of Soft synths , freeze them.

Thanks Cactus. (The-Bush BC), that is British Columiba i take it?) (I'm a BC boy myself :) You must be near Cache Creek or near osoyos... if you got cactus around you, lol.
 
So thus far no success on a fix. I only have the one AISO Motu MK1 Interface (uses a PCI-424 sound card). (The nady pra-8 is just the pre amp for my mic's) I had a friend that has used Sonar for years over yersterday. We went through it with a fine tooth comb. The CPU is barely working hard at all during playback or recording for example. We froze tracks, we disabled effects, we moved projects out of files into new files, updated that latest drivers for the sound card. Checked for progams running during reording. We couldn't actually replicate the buffer drop outs while recording this time. And oddly, the drop outs are during playback only from what we can tell. For example the buffer drop outs aren't consistently in the same place when playing back a track. (Not visible on the track either) We though that maybe it is the system working to hard, but the cpu isn't even regestering up to 20% useage on playback or record.
 
I am going to do a full mix down on the worst song of the bunch to hear if the drop outs mix down on to the final product. That will be a sign that even though i am hearing the drop outs they are not actually recorded and are only on playback.
 
To help contiune the project i am going to use Cuemix for monitoring (i wasn't doing that before, and had to drop the buffer down latency issues) this time im leaving it at 256.
 
It's super annoying, but it may be fixed. If i'm getting it on playback only, and during mixing, i may just have to ignore it. Which is a shame and it just shouldn't happen.
 
My friend is going to look at his system settings and see if there is anything else we might have missed, but it could just very be how the system works. I am also going to try recording a lead track and a vocal track on my old hard drive Tascam DP-01fx, then mix it to wav, and drop it into sonar, see what happens, if we don't get any pops or crackles, i may have to finish the project that way.
 
If anyone has any more ideas that may be causing this please post :)

Have you tried running the DPCLAT test? download it and run to see if your problems are not due to system background process issues. http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml