Underwhelmed with Sonar X1 on New PC

I just finished building the new rack mount box and loaded a 12-track song with only 3-VST plugins and Session Drummer 3 track. I cannot get the song to play without consistent (every 15 seconds but never at the same timeframe) dropouts on playback. This PC was literally built last night with only Windows 7 and Sonar. I have never used it for any other functions and it is a new build with new SSD and HDD.. baffling and it's too late at night to jump into this more. Hopefully someone might see my rig in signature and spot something... 

Thanks!

Try upping the audio buffers a bit. Or at least until the dropouts stop.

I'd have to agree with Seth on this one.

The 1010 is getting quite long in the tooth and while it would function OK on an older system with IRQ sharing etc it just is't going to cut it. sounds like its time to upgrade your soundcard.

Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk
]

I'm guessing its that you're using a PCI card audio interface on a motherboard that probably doesn't natively support PCI (chipset). 

I run X1 all day on a first-gen i7 system at 48 samples/ 1.1ms buffer and you should be able to, also. Its definitely not SONAR. First thing I would do in your case is try a new audio interface.   

SP

 
What audio interface/card do you use? I have to run 9504 samples @198 ms on my 2nd gen i7 64 bit laptop with IDT HD Audio card to avoid the crackles. My 32 bit desktop with SB Audigy 2zs runs 4410 samples @100 ms.
 
Steve

soens

Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk
]

I'm guessing its that you're using a PCI card audio interface on a motherboard that probably doesn't natively support PCI (chipset). 

I run X1 all day on a first-gen i7 system at 48 samples/ 1.1ms buffer and you should be able to, also. Its definitely not SONAR. First thing I would do in your case is try a new audio interface.   

SP

 
What audio interface/card do you use? I have to run 9504 samples @198 ms on my 2nd gen i7 64 bit laptop with IDT HD Audio card to avoid the crackles. My 32 bit desktop with SB Audigy 2zs runs 4410 samples @100 ms.
 
Steve

Steve,

I use the Roland Octa-Capture which is an 8 mic pre USB 2.0 interface. It uses Roland's VS Streaming driver that goes down to 48 samples which is easily usable on any i7 system (probably even i5 just never tried it). The Quad-Capture also uses the VS Streaming driver as do the VS-700 and VS-100. 

I would look into Roland's interfaces for sure, and since they're USB 2.0 you can buy one and move it from your desktop to your laptop as needed.

The sound quality is also outstanding.

SP

I'm currently using a Quad capture via USB2 on a W7 2600k based box I run it on 64 buffers all day long.

I'd run it at 48 buffers but occasionally I'd have to adjust it to 64 for mixing so I just leave it at 64 and I'm getting a full measured round-trip at 7.2ms which is fine by me so I just leave it at that.

Obviously it depends on the project but I rarely see greater than 20% CPU utilization averaged over all cores on anything audio related on Sonar's meters, the machine in the OP should be smoking mine by a good margin.

Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk
]

Its true, that's just how tech is. I also spoke with a vendor of a company who's made PCI cards in the past and he mentioned that the newest Intel chipsets don't natively support PCI like they used to. I didn't get into the specifics, but he said it had something to do with emulation or the PCI chipset they use and that they're awful for audio. 

I don't think "PCI emulation" would be a chipset standard, per se. I could be totally wrong, as I'm not a gear head, but I think it's up to the manufacturer to fill in where the chipset stops providing support. So Z77 itself does not support legacy PCI, but ASUS may (or should) have their own controller integrated onto that board. E.g., I have an old Gigabyte board that has a Gigabyte branded SATA III controller, which is not part of the stock chipset.  

That ASUS board has 2 legacy PCI slots, so it must have been somewhat of a priority to support legacy PCI. Now, does Z77 provide "legacy PCI emulation"? I have no idea, but why would it?! No PCI support on the chipset means no PCI support on the chipset! Right? (What part of "no PCI support on the chipset don't you understand?" :) ). 

So the question wrt. legacy PCI support on that board is: what is ASUS using, and does it perform well for the task at hand? An audio interface is not bandwidth-intensive in the way that a PCI graphics card, disk controller, or generic USB/Firewire/whatever adapter would be. Audio requirements are in the 44100 * 4 bytes * (10 out channels + 10 in channels) = 3,528,000 bytes/sec … or roughly 4MBytes/sec, give or take. PCI bus is what 133MBytes/sec? IMO, even the crappiest PCI emulation should be able to reaonsably handle 4MB/sec throughput, esp. running on one of the fastest memory/chipset/CPU consumer combos you can buy today… That's a lot of iron under that hood. I think blaming legacy PCI is too easy. :)  


Let's think about this... and maybe there are some system techs out there w/ experience w/ that particular board that can help out. 


All motherboards are resource-limited -- the x4 slot shares bandwidth with the USB3.0 controller, the legacy PCI slot #2 shares bandwidth with the frobnitz controller, whatever… The question is: what is sharing bandwidth with your PCI slot(s), and how do you get around that bandwidth sharing?


Since the apparent bandwidth sharing is obvious (e.g., 1000's ms latency required for uninterrupted audio I/O), my guess is the sharing is with something high-bandwidth… like a disk controller or the graphics chip. Some things to try before totally trashing that PCI card:


1.) Move the card to the other PCI slot (that board has 2, I believe)… any difference in performance?


2.) Try to find from the manufacturer how legacy PCI is implemented on that board, and specifically what bus sharing you need to worry about (BTW, I just scanned their manual -- it sucks). If you can move things around and/or disable stuff in the BIOS, that is going to be your only hope in getting good PCI performance.


For example, perhaps legacy PCI is shared w/ the SATA III (6Gbps) controller... and you have your SATA II (3Gbps) drive plugged into the SATA III controller unnecessarily… Plug the SATA II drive into the SATA II controller, and disable the SATA III controller.  This is just an example. Or maybe you're using the onboard video, and that's sharing (and consuming a lot of bandwidth, BTW). Plug a discreet graphics card into the PCIe slot and disable onboard video. LAN and Wi-Fi devices are another thing to look into. Common source of bus issues. 

Then again, maybe legacy PCI on that board truly sux, and you simply need to ditch your beloved 1010.


Anyway… my $0.01. 

+1 for the DPC offender. Wireless NIC/Bluetooth device or maybe some Windows 7 feature like Aero (doubt it) or index service (possible) or defrag (possible) or auto-updates (probable). Could be you need updated video drivers (not likely). Could also be that you need new/updated SDD drivers (possible). Sorry you're having problems I know it can be maddening.

Turn off Windows Core Parking.  Instructions at this link.  http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1861804
 
 
Here is another link with some useful tweaks for Windows 7.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1862515

About 6 months ago, I migrated from XP to a new 64-bit PC running W-64 (Asus P8Z68 Deluxe motherboard with PCI "bridge"). I also transferred my Lynx L22 sound card, which hosts an Aurora 8 via the Lstream interface, to the new machine. In te new environment, I would observe occasional audio dropouts (e.g. 3-4 per hour). I finally got the problem solved by REDUCING the ASIO buffer from 256 to 64 samples. It was the first time on any of my previous systems that I solved an audio problem by REDUCING the buffer.

i still think an average audio card is acceptable.
you dont need anything that extragent unless you need multi ins/out/
you can get a good interface with dual ins/dual outs and midi in/out that is tested windows 7 64 ready

the focusrite saphire 6 usb

200.00 bucks/sometimes on sale for 180 ish

problem solved/make music/headache gone/complaining on the forum will go down to about 7%

complaining about audio interfaces 1%

staying with that delta pci and having problems  emm,92%
 
 
i will say this though,you seem like a pretty cool guy.
most people in your position come on here blaiming sonar x1 as the root of all evil.
claiming its sonars fault.
this is what i heard this week:
 
"i got a brand new computer intel I7 16 ram and sonar x1 cant even play for 5 seconds with out dropping out"
o..my sound card? a 1982 pci rca/radio shack special"
 
seriously,not to that extent but close.
and then the worse is when other people chime in saying "ya,i hear ya man"
its sad.
ofcourse there are real problems,with every daw there are always real problems.
your post is genuine.

The new rig: 
SONAR X1 Producer 
Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50 GHz 
ASUS P8Z77-V PRO 
Windows 7 Pro SP1 / 64  
OS and Sonar on Solid State Disk 
16 GB RAM 
Delta 1010 PCI (latest 64-bit drivers) 

I just built a desktop with identical specs except I got a 3770S (same but mine can't be overclocked).
I just threw on about 12 audio tracks and they played fine except I can't seem to get a 24 bit project happening...even though the Delta is showing 24 bit ...that'll be another thread I need to start but are you using version 6.0.8 for the Delta?

Hoping I don't need to get a new card as well...were you able to get 24 bit running in X1?
Also what card did you decide on?
Thanks,
Randy

Randy did you set the project to 24 bits in Preferences? You need to have it set in Audio Devices and File audio data too.

Jonbouy

markno999


Turn off Windows Core Parking.  Instructions at this link.  http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1861804

Here is another link with some useful tweaks for Windows 7.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1862515  

NOT on that machine!!!!

On a first generation i7 maybe you'd see some benefit, otherwise those tips will do more harm than good.

Turn off core parking is a very good idea for a DAW.