Latency issue with a Mackie Onyx

[joe mama]

OK, so I got this Mackie mixer and once I got the drivers set up and what not, I tried to record some music. I tried to record one mono track of guitar using the "Hi-z" function on channel one. When I recorded this, it was distorted and sounded awful. I tried increasing the buffer size to as high as it would go, and while this made the problem less severe, i could still hear the distortion (if you need to hear what the distortion sounds like I can upload an mp3). This caused me to install Tracktion, the software that comes with the mixer, just to see if it made a difference, and sure enough, it did. Recording through the mixer with Tracktion works great. Now, I am reasonably happy with Tracktion, but I know Sonor is so much more powerful, and I know I will want to use it some time soon. So this is my question: Why does Sonor distort my audio while Tracktion doesn't?

[Synkrotron]

Which Onyx mixer are you using?

Do you have the optional Firewire card?

If you don't use Firewire, what sound card do you have in your PC?

In Sonar, are the meters peaking?

[joe mama]

I'm using the Mackie Onyx 1220.

Yes, the optional firewire card is installed.

The Onyx Mixer actually acts as my sound card now. I used to have a Soundblaster Audigy 4 Pro in, but with the mixer and the soundcard both installed there were what I was told were "IRQ" problems. I uninstalled the Soundblaster card and installed the mixer as the only sound device and it works fine for that.

And in Sonor, no the meters aren't peaking. I have the fader up to Unity and I have the gain up only a little bit and in Sonor it's staying in the blue.



Also, if you need to know, here are my computer specs:

Pentium 4 2.0ghz
512mb ram
Windows XP Home
3-port firewire PCI card running Onyx mixer as soundcard


If you need anything else let me know.
I hope this helps!