Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!!

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (a.d.i.d.a.s.)

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:49:42 GMT

Hi everybody,
I just have to agree with the i7, win7, and sonar 8.5 rocks statement. I have actually OC:d my i7 920 to 3.7GHz. I have the Megahalem monster CPU cooler with one 120fan. My CPU temps with Prime95 stress test go to 67-71 celsius. But using the machine for music production that kind of processor workamoun wont even happen. I have also 12GB of Mushkin 2000MHz DDR3 ram running at 1500Mhz. It's a monster. It's nice to work so that technical issues or restrains arent part of your composing work. I can use even 1ms latency quite long without any dropouts or pops. My audiointerface is the RME Fireface UC which totally kicks ass. :) Oh and dpc latency is about 7-10ms when the system is idle... :)
One thing that makes me wonder though is that the cpumeters in sonar seem to gather strain to only one thread. And when that thread reaches the top the combined CPU-meter in sonar shows also 96-100% CPU-usage and I start to get pops and cracks. When I check the taskbar in windows It shows that the CPU-stain is about 40-50% and it shows that the CPU-load would be more eaven with one thread just some more used. I have tested different setting and latencies and the same problem was eaven without OC:ing anythin on the PC. Does anybody know whats going on? I have set the thread option in the sonar initilation file to 2 as recommended for multicores.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (ESEMAJ01)

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:08:31 GMT

You're right about that. The core I7 is amazing! I've had mine since April. I have a 920, clocked to 3.2GHZ, 12GB DDR3 RAM and thus far, no matter what I do, I cannot push this beast to sweat!!! I LOVE IT." />

I mostly use Sonar 8 x64, but occasionally, I still use Cubase SX 3, but everything works fine, with the exception of Machfive, which works as a plugin under Vista x64, but not as a standalone, and naturally Waves plugins under Sonar 8 x64. Other than that, everything's cool.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Greybeard)

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:48:30 GMT

mosspa

specsmanship.

Great word.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (steveng57)

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:03:46 GMT

you guys are making me feel great about my i7-920 box that will be arrriving this week. Thanks!!!

my soundboard lets you change the delay to various speakers that I have in my setup...you can tell the diff at as little as 0.5ms, sounds like reverb depending on which speaker pairs I send it to.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (mosspa)

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:49:40 GMT

In practical psychoacoustics theory 10ms is about the threshold for perceiving latency. I've worked with drummers that insist they can hear less than 10ms, then again, they are drummers" />. However, 5ms round-trip latency is well beyond any psychoacoustic modeling of what you might possibly hear (with all of the variance accounted for). So, any reduction beyond 5ms is just specsmanship.

Speaking of shortened latency... What ever happened to WaveRT?

John

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Glyn Barnes)

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:59:14 GMT

DRW

Hey Hellogoodbye.

Glad to hear that you are in 64bit Heaven. Is it true that you have RealStrat and RealGuitar running in 64bit? What bridge did you use? Do you or anyone else know if there's any success in running IKmultimedia Ampeg SRX, Jimmy Hendrix, or The Fender Amp plugins in 64bit?

I have vISTA 64 but I have a similar experience to Hellogoodbye. Realstrat is running fine under bitbridge, as is the Amplitude Duo version that was bundled with it. So I expect the full Amplitude products would also work.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (holderofthehorns)

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:56:31 GMT

Put another way, a 1 sample buffer would be the same amount of delay as putting your ear 0.3" away from the speaker.

Yes, and 32 samples would be like putting your ear about 10 inches away from the speaker. Your near field monitors are farther away than that. (Mine are.)

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (hellogoodbye)

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:28:18 GMT

I didn't have to do anything to get RealStrat and RealGuitar running, so I guess they are working with BitBridge. " /> The only plugin that needed intervention was EZDrummer (using jBridge now for that one).

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (DRW)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:38:52 GMT

Hey Hellogoodbye.

Glad to hear that you are in 64bit Heaven. Is it true that you have RealStrat and RealGuitar running in 64bit? What bridge did you use? Do you or anyone else know if there's any success in running IKmultimedia Ampeg SRX, Jimmy Hendrix, or The Fender Amp plugins in 64bit?

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Jim Roseberry)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:37:00 GMT

Put another way, a 1 sample buffer would be the same amount of delay as putting your ear 0.3" away from the speaker.

+1
Round-trip latency is where the benefit of smaller buffer sizes would be most obvious...
(Playing/monitoring in realtime thru software EFX/processing)

Under the best of circumstances, we're currently at 5ms total roundtrip latency at a 64-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k
That's not terrible... but cut that amount in half and software based input-monitoring is a whole lot more attractive.
Cut it down to 1/4... and it nearly negates the need for hardware based input monitoring (assuming the machine could keep up with the load). The speed to do the later is not that far off...
As has been mentioned, a well configured i7 based DAW can currently run substantial loads at a 32-sample ASIO buffer size.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (SilkTone)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:07:44 GMT

Jim Roseberry

Is there any particular reason that most driver developers dont offer a 16 sample or 8 sample buffer setting ?

Audio interface companies are trying to ensure a glitch-free experience for all end-users.
Not a bad goal... but it comes at the expense of those who could benefit from the option of smaller buffer sizes.
I'd like to see these companies re-focus on providing the lowest possible latency.
Put a disclaimer by the ultra small buffer sizes ("Use at your own risk!")... " />

Software based input monitoring will never achieve zero-latency...
But we can certainly get closer to that ideal

Sound travels at 1125 ft/s. That means that at 44.1kHz sampling rate, one sample equates to 0.3" of distance traveled. That means that the difference between realtime monitoring (say, via a guitar amp), and using Sonar + Amplitube 2 with a buffer size of 1 sample would be the difference between sitting 6ft away from the speaker vs sitting 6ft 0.3" away from the speaker.

Put another way, a 1 sample buffer would be the same amount of delay as putting your ear 0.3" away from the speaker.

The bottom line is that for all practical purposes, the delay from a 1 sample buffer would be virtually undetectable, and therefore would be equivalent to realtime monitoring. So yes, we still have some way to go. We need both the driver developers to allow buffer sizes to go down to 1 sample, and CPUs to become fast enough to process in 1 sample buffers. At the rate we are going now, there is no reason to think we won't be able to hit that point in a few years.

As a point of interest, I have an old book that talks about using CPUs to process audio data. It talks about things like (paraphrasing): "After you wrote the DSP program, run it to start processing your 1 minute of 8-bit, 11kHz, mono sample. Let it run overnight, and when you came back, listen to the output waveform". And this is for simple DSP algorithms, nothing fancy.
So yea, we have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. I don't think 1 sample buffers are unattainable in the next few years.

EDIT: Of course I am leaving out the fact that there is delay within the interfaces due to the data being sent in packets, etc, but those things will speed up as well.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Jim Roseberry)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:09:25 GMT

Is there any particular reason that most driver developers dont offer a 16 sample or 8 sample buffer setting ?

Audio interface companies are trying to ensure a glitch-free experience for all end-users.
Not a bad goal... but it comes at the expense of those who could benefit from the option of smaller buffer sizes.
I'd like to see these companies re-focus on providing the lowest possible latency.
Put a disclaimer by the ultra small buffer sizes ("Use at your own risk!")... " />

Software based input monitoring will never achieve zero-latency...
But we can certainly get closer to that ideal

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (garrigus)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:17:49 GMT

Sound Advice

although we could like achieve a artificial artificial intelligence, if you know what i mean, a non-sentient software that mimicks sentience well, but it would inevitably have lots of limitations for many many years with all the nuances and stuff of language, no matter how powerful your computer is. and actually the i7s could probably do this without too much difficulty it's just writing the software that's incredibly tough at that point i think.

eventually, the needs for higher computing power will be incredibly limited. at least i think so.

Can I please just have my robot butler now, please? I have a lot of things that need to be done around the house. " />" />

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/ - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free SoundTech Vocal Trainer Package, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free i2i Stream Wireless Music Pack, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (TomG)

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:49:10 GMT

Hi Jim

Is there any particular reason that most driver developers dont offer a 16 sample or 8 sample buffer setting ?

My Echo Layla 3G and my i7 DAW runs everything I can throw at it at 32 samples no problem - would be good to at least have the option of going lower if your DAW can handle it.

Thanks and all the best,
Tom

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Sound Advice)

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:02:03 GMT

garrigus

I wonder when we will all have our very own super computers at home or in the studio with software that is artificially intelligent so that you can just tell it what to do? " />

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/ - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free SoundTech Vocal Trainer Package, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free i2i Stream Wireless Music Pack, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

ya, but the downside to that, is if we ever create any of those, they'll likely start telling us what to do. which actually come to think of it, if we make em smart enough i actually don't have much of a problem with.

although we could like achieve a artificial artificial intelligence, if you know what i mean, a non-sentient software that mimicks sentience well, but it would inevitably have lots of limitations for many many years with all the nuances and stuff of language, no matter how powerful your computer is. and actually the i7s could probably do this without too much difficulty it's just writing the software that's incredibly tough at that point i think.

eventually, the needs for higher computing power will be incredibly limited. at least i think so.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (A1MixMan)

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:46:27 GMT

Well, I'll throw my experience in with this. My i7 920, Win7 Sonar 8.5 in 64 bit is working great as well. It's fun to just make music instead of worring about getting your system working. It just works. Very cool indeed.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (garrigus)

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:23:31 GMT

I wonder when we will all have our very own super computers at home or in the studio with software that is artificially intelligent so that you can just tell it what to do? " />

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/ - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free SoundTech Vocal Trainer Package, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free i2i Stream Wireless Music Pack, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (farrarbc)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:11:46 GMT

Jim Roseberry
DDR3 has been increasing in price the past several months...
So the latest/greatest 4GB sticks are going for a premium.
Here's hoping the price starts tilting the other direction " />

Here's to hope!!!!

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Jim Roseberry)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:04:46 GMT

has anyone ever tried a buffer size of 1 sample? Is it even possible? Let's try...

One sample won't work... but you can run fairly substantial loads with a 32-sample ASIO buffer size (assuming the audio interface is solid and provides this low buffer size). " />

We need to get audio interface designers (and driver developers) to focus on small ASIO buffer sizes.
I know MOTU has been taking a step backward in this regard (with the drivers for their newer DSP equipped units).
Give me small ASIO buffer sizes. I'll decide if/when I can use them... " />

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (SilkTone)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:55:21 GMT

cmusicmaker

Thats is crazy! I have an i7 and never tried 60 instances of Izotope Ozone...maybe I should " />I7's provide an almost nonsensical amount of power. Thanks for sharing that. It could be that pretty much any project now can be swallowed up with an i7.

Oh you know people will figure out a way to use up all the power in no time. I mean, has anyone ever tried a buffer size of 1 sample? Is it even possible? Let's try... " />

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Jim Roseberry)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:39:39 GMT

Somehow paying $300 - $400 per gig seems so 1990's....

DDR3 has been increasing in price the past several months...
So the latest/greatest 4GB sticks are going for a premium.
Here's hoping the price starts tilting the other direction " />

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (farrarbc)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:35:28 GMT

I'm also loving the Win 7 64bit and Sonar 8.5.1 PE on my i7 920. I'm also overclocked to 3.2GHz and am never seeing any significantly higher temps than I was seeing at stock speed. I've yet to really get this machine to break a sweat even with projects with over 45 tracks (eqs, compressors, 9 to 12 soft synths, reverbs, and other plugs.) I'm rarely seeing more than 35% CPU utilization. Right now I'm only running 3 GB DDR3 in trichannel mode but will be upgrading to 12GB when the 4GB ram chips come down in price. Somehow paying $300 - $400 per gig seems so 1990's....

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Jim Roseberry)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:45:18 GMT

It could be that pretty much any project now can be swallowed up with an i7.

I'd say that's true for all but the most extreme of projects/circumstances... " />

I never feel limited by my 3.2GHz i7 DAW.
It can run an absurd amount of quality plugins.
ie: A single instance of Waves SSL channel-strip hardly registers on CPU use
You can easily run the channel-strip on each of your tracks... and have plenty of CPU left over for 'bus' processing... as well as multiple instances of delay/reverb/etc.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (Jim Roseberry)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:37:02 GMT

So, is it the i7 or the 64 bit environment (that allows more ram) that makes it all so wonderful? Or what??

The Core2Quads were fast/capable...
The i7 is even faster... and with the memory controller onboard it's particularly good at ultra low-latency settings.

With good cooling, the i7-920 will happily run at 3.2GHz... making it equivalent to a ~$1000 CPU.
As a point of comparison, the i7-860 has to run at 3.6GHz to *barely* surpass the 920 at 3.2GHz.
You have to goose the voltage to get the 860 completely stable at 3.6GHz.
The 920 will typically run at 3.2GHz without increasing voltage.

If you have any incling to overclock the i5 or i7, don't even consider the cheap mATX motherboards.
You'll burn them up...

If you factor in a quality motherboard for a socket 1156 system, it's not that much less than an equal quality socket 1136 setup. (The 1156 motherboards are slightly cheaper... but the CPU is slightly more)

With good quality 3rd party cooling, you can build a quite DAW with any i5/i7 CPU.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (garrigus)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:16:58 GMT

gt2004

The i7 is a monster you just cant go wrong with it. Wait till the i9 comes out next year. I was doing a test on my system last night with 22 tracks of VST Atmosphere, Nexus wtih 20 audio tracks and 60 instance of Izatop ozone 4 and boost 11 and LP64. The system was at 39% CPU load

Oh please don't be mentioning the i9 or anything more powerful... I just upgraded to the i7 a few months ago and I'd like this new system to last at least 2 or 3 years. " />

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/ - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free SoundTech Vocal Trainer Package, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free i2i Stream Wireless Music Pack, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (cmusicmaker)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 07:14:59 GMT

gt2004

The i7 is a monster you just cant go wrong with it. Wait till the i9 comes out next year. I was doing a test on my system last night with 22 tracks of VST Atmosphere, Nexus wtih 20 audio tracks and 60 instance of Izatop ozone 4 and boost 11 and LP64. The system was at 39% CPU load

Thats is crazy! I have an i7 and never tried 60 instances of Izotope Ozone...maybe I should " />I7's provide an almost nonsensical amount of power. Thanks for sharing that. It could be that pretty much any project now can be swallowed up with an i7.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (aj)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:52:37 GMT

For those on a modest budget, don't forget the core i5 750. This will give you a very significant portion of the core i7 performance but for a considerable reduction in overall cost. The core i7 platform is still quite expensive, particularly as budget motherboards are still not readily available for this platform.

Have a look at

http://www.hardwarecanuck...rocessor-review-2.html

and you can see the comparative processor specifications

At present the core i5 750 is probably at the sweet spot for 'bang for the buck', so definitely worth checking out. Also power consumption is lower and it should therefore be easier to build a quiet machine.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (gt2004)

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:14:36 GMT

timidi As far as the Ram you need 64bit to get more then 3.5GB. But As far as the RAW POWER 64 doesnt play that big a of a roll compare to 32bit. Its better in alot of ways to go to 64bit its SAD to put a 32 bit app and os on a 64bit CPU.

As far as going with an i7 on 32 bit you can do everything that you can with a 64bit os and program just less RAM.

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (timidi)

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:19:46 GMT

So, is it the i7 or the 64 bit environment (that allows more ram) that makes it all so wonderful? Or what??

I'd love to uprade and make things "better" but I refuse to get a new audio card that supports 64 bit (mine doesn't and won't ever). So, I would be upgrading to only i7 win7-32.

seems all these conversations are based on 64 bits, i7, more useable ram.
Is the processor not as important anymore??

Re:Sonar 8.5 Windows 7 and i7 920... a match made in heaven!!! (gt2004)

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:40:24 GMT

The i7 is a monster you just cant go wrong with it. Wait till the i9 comes out next year. I was doing a test on my system last night with 22 tracks of VST Atmosphere, Nexus wtih 20 audio tracks and 60 instance of Izatop ozone 4 and boost 11 and LP64. The system was at 39% CPU load