Thanks much Ken.  Is that W10 and 64-bit though?
 
While my Superior 2 meters are bouncing their way down toward flat (a good 7 or 8 seconds) I can't hear a thing.  Can't imagine what would be causing this....normally if a meter is moving there's some kind of sound.  At first I thought maybe something related to LiveSynth Pro and the multi-processor bug, which was a similar weirdness. But nope, not in the picture. Then I thought possibly the MIDI buffers are not adequate. Nope, not that either. No FX, nothing in the way.  Tried turning off multi-processor, etc.  I just don't get it.  Even being able to reproduce it with separate machines & configs..... The basic facts of this overall problem just make no sense at all....
 
If anybody has any constructive troubleshooting suggestions please share. Preferably ones that don't involve any installing/uninstalling components as I don't want to risk destabilizing the system.
 
Thanks again to the forum for all the help so far.
 
Sonic

SonicExplorer
Thanks much Ken.  Is that W10 and 64-bit though?
 
Sonic

It is. Both my systems are. Sorry to be of no more help.

Something just occurred to me.....given the way the meters are behaving could this be a MIDI feedback loop of some sort? One that just isn't generating any sound after the first hit but is registering inside Superior 2?   What kind of tests or settings would someone look into for troubleshooting that sort of thing.....?
 
Sonic

Or .... is there anything that could be causing a MIDI echo ?? (is there even such an effect) ?
 
The common denominator here is these are fresh DAW installs.  So in theory there could be some default setting someplace in Sonar or Drums Superior, or elsewhere that is causing this problem.  I'm just not enough of a MIDI expert to really know under what circumstances MIDI processing might be at fault, or rather whether this is an audio issue post-MIDI processing within Superior.
 
      Sonic

I FINALLY FOUND THE FRIGGIN' PROBLEM !!!
 
I don't fully understand it all yet, but by lowering the Sonar Buffer Size slider (under Audio\General) from 100ms more toward 0  (say 50ms or less) the problems goes away.   And realize, it does this same thing with two different driver modes and two different sound cards on two different versions of Sonar on two different versions of the OS.  So I'm left still wondering WHAT THE FRIG THIS IS ALL ABOUT?  Again, Superior 2 is what is new in the picture to my DAW, and there isn't an audible sound issue per-se, rather it's just the Superior meters.  I even tested increasing the Sonar Buffer Size slider over toward 200ms and the Superior meter just froze up in max position, had to hit mute on the kick pad to get it to let go.

Anyways, the normal "default" Sonar installation setting on my systems have always been 2 buffers with Buffer Size slider about 98ms.  But THAT is clearly a problem in this scenario WRT Superior meter behavior.
 
I'll keep tinkering with this further after I get some sleep, but in the interim feel free to chime in with any thoughts or ideas to check/test.  In fact, I'd be interested to see what happens if somebody else who has Sonar and Superior 2 raised their Buffer Size slider to 100ms+ and see if they too get this behavior.
 
Sonic
 

I can't speak to SD2, however, I can say something about SD3.  I forget where I saw it or what the switch is but
SD3 has a new switch that stops all sounds from SD3 when you stop playback (overhead and ambience...natural room sounds).  My guest is that this has been an issue in the past and now SD3 has addressed the issue with a configurable parameter.  Check the web ... you should easily be able to find the new setting.
 
If you're staying with SD2 I'm not sure it has such a setting, however, at least it will answer your question...maybe?
 
EDIT:
I found the setting in SD3...it's under "General Settings"
 
"Host Stops: Checking this option will stop all MIDI playback in Superior Drummer 3 when the host stops. This only apples to Superior Drummer 3 when it is launched as a plugin in your host DAW therefore, it is not available in the Superior 3 stand alone application."

"While my Superior 2 meters are bouncing their way down toward flat (a good 7 or 8 seconds) I can't hear a thing."
 
Could be ultra- or subsonic frequencies that can't be heard, but still registering. Insert a spectrum analyzer (like SPAN) to see what those frequencies may be.
But, since you didn't have that problem (and if you can't hear it, is it really a problem?) after reducing the buffer size, that may not be the cause of the bouncing meters. Unless some computational compensation is being done with the reduced buffer size which removes those frequencies.

Shot in the dark here:

Do you have the 64 bit double precision checked?

Actually I do have the 64-bit engine checked but as part of the troubleshooting process earlier on I tried unchecking it, and it didn't make a difference.  I will go back and experiment again though to see if there is any indicator it could be a contributing factor now that I know the buffer size slider is involved. If there is any new insight involving the 64-bit engine I'll report back.
 
Not sure if this may be another clue or not, but Sonar's default MIDI settings on my prior DAW installs have always landed at 500 (I forget what spec that is....number of buffers or whatever).  But on these machines I had to raise it to 600 to function correctly.  So that's just another clue there is a bit of weirdness going on with these installs.  Maybe I just got lucky until now, who knows.  These new machines have Intel DG41 motherboards and dual cores.
 
Sonic 

What Tom and I were mentioning about using other driver modes is important. You might not "hear" your audio tracks being out of sync but unless you don't mind sloppy mixes you might want to test for offset timing issues. 
 
You obviously ARE dealing with latency as you mentioned the changes when you lower your buffers. 
 
To perform a loopback test: 
 
Have a  midi kick or snare drum track with a strong velocity
Use SD2 and freeze it to create a audio track. It should have nice big transients that will line up perfectly with the midi notes if you zoom in. 
Now loop this back to a new audio track by patching your audio interfaces output back to an input. Make sure input echo is OFF. 
Record the new track and zoom in to see how the transients line up with the original. 
You can clearly see in my screenshot how ASIO is perfectly aligned and the other modes are late. 
 
I did this loopback test with 4 different computers and using 3 different ASIO audio interfaces as well as a few none ASIO interfaces. The results are always about the same. Interestingly ASIO4all will be perfectly in sync when using an on board sound card. My conclusion ( and many others too) is only ASIO should be used for overdubbing audio tracks. The workaround is you can manually adjust the timing offset but what a PITA that is. 
 
And your issue could very well be a combination of things due to outdated VST GUI or a slow video processor.