Delta 66 & Sonar

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kgbjamin

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Hello Again,
I have a delta 66 & Sonar running on my PC. My OS is now Win ME, 600 mhz processor and 320 Megs of RAM. I've been having a hard time recording anything audio into Sonar. It recognizes the card and all of it's inputs and most of the outputs, (not the s/pdif out). I've also installed WDM drivers for the card. When I record I get drop outs. I've messed around a little with the buffer size settings under the Audio/Options tab and the Driver Stream > as 16 bit setting as well with no joy. As matter of fact with that Driver Stream setting in the wrong position I get an ungodly awful noise from my sound card.
Any case if any of you have a similar set up I would appreciate it if you shared some of your setting relating to this problem. I am also experiencing an unusual large amount of latency from Sonar. Everything works fine when recording with other applications like ACID 3.0/2.O. I may have the wrong WDM Drivers????
Last but definitely not least, I'm going to a product Clinic tomorrow in Orlando FL. @ Sam Ash for Cakewalk with a pen and pad so if anyone has any questions they'd like me to relay first hand post them here and I'll hit you back on Wed. Manufacturer reps seem to respond better when you see them in the flesh!

Thanx for any assistance in advance!!!!
 
i'm using SONAR with the DELTA 66 and though i've had some problems here and there, and have yet to record more than a few tracks , things are going really well..(so far i've recorded five guitar tracks, all running thru ReValver with midi drum tracks running thru BATTERY)......i get the occasional dropout and stuff, but i'm also running DXi and using the ReVAlver plug in to record guitar in real time...i also have a soundblaster with WDM drivers installed that may contribute to some of the minor problems i've had...one of the biggest being that i keep having to select midi input drivers . SONAR doesn't seem to remember these with my setup, at least not every time i start the probram...but this hasn't proved to be any major thing thus far. and i should say that i'm not sure that SONAR is the problem here.

officially, there is no WDM from M-AUDIO for WINDOWS ME. they had some drivers up for a while, which i downloaded and they are what i'm using...if i'm not mistaken they are the WINDOWS 2000 drivers, driver version : 5.12.1.10.

i'm using the latest patch for SONAR, and the only tweaking i've done is to move the latency slider all the way down....i'm thinking that once M-AUDIO has their WINDOWS ME drivers ready, and SONAR is a little less buggy , things should be great...though, now, i have few complaints considering what i'm now able to do with SONAR.

if you can, ask the product specialist at the demo how far down the latency slider should go with an optimal setup for SONAR...right now, i can go no lower than 10ms, though i was told that it can go lower depending on your soundcard drivers...

hope this is of some help....good luck
j
 
Same set up

Hey J,
We have pretty much the same hardware, I'm also running a sound blaster live. I haven't had any trouble recording midi via SB live, but I am having a hard time with audio. Wow, I didn't realize there were no WDM drivers for Win ME from M-Audio. I thought the 98 drivers would work with this OS. Do you think I should change my OS? I'm going to ask cakewalk this along with your question look for a reply tomorrow here on that....
 
Actually, there aren't any official WINDOWS 98 WDM drivers either...if i'm not mistaken, the WINDOWS 98 and the WINDOWS ME WDM drivers that were on the M-AUDIO site are just the 2000 drivers...at any rate, they currently have no WDM drivers under 98 or ME on the drivers page of their web site. I'm curious what driver version you have... clicking on the 'About' tab in the Delta control panel displays your driver version, (though i'm sure you already know this.)

M-AUDIO says that they are working on WDM drivers for WINDOWS ME.....I've gotten used to ME so i'm not going to switch to 98 or 2000 unless i have to....i'm curious about what cakewalk has to say on the OS....

have fun at the product clinic...wish i could go to one...i'll be looking forward to hearing what you have to say after the clinic..
j
 
WoW! What a Clinic!!!

Hey J.
It was a very informative session with the cakewalk guy. He was running a dual 800mhz setup with like 1/2 a gig of RAM though. I didn't realize everything that Sonar could do (an oversite on my part). When asked why he was using the dual 800mhz config he replied because the program uses a lot of CPU resources for graphics, so the dual config freed up a chip for sound processing exclusively. His setup also included a delta 66 with an omni box.
I asked him your question and he said that with the WDM drivers for the delta cca you should be able to achieve at least 6ms of latency in the options/audio tab. Your PCs configuration will determine how stable your PC runs at this setting. And yes the sound card's driver does effect the amount of latency you'll be able to achieve. The buffer size settings on the delta 66 hardware tab are for use with some other programs. His demo PC was running at 2ms, I was impressed.
About windows ME, he said it was the most unstable platform to run the program on and 98se and 2K would give better results. But he did say ME should be fine with the WDM drivers and the right PC configuration/settings. I checked M-Audio out and they do have a ME set on their drivers page.
His demo was about an hour or so and it was very good. I learned a lot in a short time. I drove to Orlando from Jacksonville, about 2hrs, it was well worth the trip. If a clinic for this program comes to your area I would not miss it.
I hope this helps you out some, it's a shame nobody else had any questions.
 
hey kgb,

are you sure about the 98 WDM ? M-AUDIO tech support told me two days ago that there is only 2000 WDM available at this time. i have seen WDM for ME and 98 on their sight in the past, but i don't see them now....anyway ,they say they're working on WDM for 98SE/ME....

did the product specialist at the clinic show everyone how to play guitar thru ReValver ? if so, how did it sound?

i did get SONAR to go down to 2ms...i guess i forgot to use the wave profiler in SONAR after i changed the buffer in the DELTA control panel when i tried the first time....however, i haven't done much to see how stable it is gonna be...CAKEWALK says that they can get 2ms with a Delta, though, they are probably using 2000.
 
I think your right!!!

Hey J,
I checked with M-Audio and went to their drivers page again. They must of just changed the page here recently because it completely different. I know I saw a set of ME wdm drivers and down loaded them from a link that said, "sonar users use these wdm drivers for win me" or something like that.
I cured the dropout problem by deleting the AUD.INI file from the SONAR folder and then restarting SONAR. This is explained better on cakewalks troubleshooter page. I was finally able to get my pc to run at 6ms without dropouts but I still am experiening some pops and cracks when I played the files back. This may be because I have the wrong drivers installed. I have the 5.12.1.10 WDM version installed on my PC now.
Oh, and during the Sonar demo the sales rep used a midi keyboard no guitar. But he did have some guitar waves that he used to demo revalver. Pretty coool! I'm not a guitar player but I will definitely get some mileage out of revalver, it sounded great.
I have access to win 2k so I may make the quantum leap to a new OS to avoid any further problems. Win XP is supposed to be released this fall and the cakewalk guy said that this should be the optimum OS for this program.
 
WINDOWS 2000 does look like the way to go for SONAR right now...unfortunately i don't have a copy of it...M-AUDIO says there will be WDM for ME, but 2000 might still be the way to go...i'll have to look into this some more...

i still haven't done a whole lot in SONAR since i set it for 2ms latency, so i can't say how stable it's gonna be with the DELTA WDM (the 2000 drivers) and WINDOWS ME...if you are getting a lot of pops and crackles it could very well be something other than the drivers...i haven't found this to be a problem so far, and i'm using the same drivers you are using. are you using USB? your problem may have something to do with this...i've got USB totally disabled on my system.

the two processor thing is interesting....i might eventually go that way...however, i really like my mainboard, the Asus CUSLC-2, so i'm in no great hurry to replace it....i haven't had it very long either.....right now i've got a 16mb video card...i wonder if a video card with more RAM might help with the graphics.

let me know if the cakewalk guy said anything else you think might be helpful...i really appreciate what you've told me thus far.

later gator
 
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Delta 66 eats all of my memory... Film at 11:00.

I picked up a Delta 66, and it apparently is sucking up all of my memory (128mb). I've order three 256mb chips and should be getting them shortly. Hopefully I will get a happy medium between the dropouts and the bizzar pops, cracks and other undefinable noises caused by the computer utilizing the virtual memory on the hard drive to run this thing. With the 128, I can get the audio/buffer/latency settings almost right, but the machine struggles, and they aren't the settings I'm looking for considering the Delta's specs. I'll keep you posted. I also have to look into the driver thing... ...I'm using ME, and didn't realize there was a problem, but I'll try the memory first. I've also toyed with the idea of dual processors, and that's not out of the question. Tom.
 
????

Soundcards don't "eat memory." What are you experiencing?
 
OK, the soundcard may not be actually eating my memory, but I think the problem is the audio settings. Right now I only have 128mb of RAM. So, when I'm running Cakewalk, and trying to utilize the full potential od the Delta (less latency/smaller and less buffers) I think the settings tax the memory, and go to the hard drive for more virtual memory (yes/no?). When the computer does this, I get audible glitches (you can see the light for the hard drive flashing in time with the pops, etc., or I simply get a drop-out). You have to know that I've tried every conceivable configuration of settings, and I get close, but no cigar. It's a 500MHZ chip with a 30 Gig Maxtor spinning at 7200rpm, and I installed a Ultra ATA/100 PCI adapter card (which helped a little). I didn't have the problem with the Soundblaster, but I didn't have the potential sound quality that I have with the Delta, either. I still think that running Cakewalk, the Delta, and the video aspect of the computer is using all 128MB of RAM and wants more. I've knocked out everything else that I didn't need running in the background but I'm still experiencing problems. You gotta admit that 128MB is a little weak anyway, so I'm waiting for the additional memory (because I needed it anyway) and hopefully it will solve the problem. Whatdaya think Al, Is there hope, or should I put this tower out to pasture and build another one?
 
Fmmahoganyrush,

I don't think larger buffer settings are so large that they would make much of a difference to the system. If you have 128 MB of RAM things should work fine. More memory is good, too, but I don't think you should get your hopes up that your problems will go away when you get some.

Cakewalk has an entire series of things you should check in their documentation... have you gone through all these things? Also, note the discussion and confusion here about Delta WDM drivers for ME and 98SE. There seems to be something going on there. Have you checked M Audio's site for information and the latest WDM drivers?


Good luck and keep us posted...

-AlChuck
 
AlChuck said:
Cakewalk has an entire series of things you should check in their documentation... have you gone through all these things? Also, note the discussion and confusion here about Delta WDM drivers for ME and 98SE. There seems to be something going on there. Have you checked M Audio's site for information and the latest WDM drivers?
Click to expand...

i'm wondering what you mean by the word 'confusion'? anything special?................................i know i'm totally confused...:)
 
Hey Al, Can you come over to my place?

I'm using CPA9, not Sonar. But I figured (probably wrong) that If there were problems with the Delta 66 using Sonar, then it was reasonable to assume (I know where assuming usually gets me) that the problem probably exsisted with CPA9. One thing I haven't tried to eliminate is the fact that I have my computer hooked up to a Network. All the software and hardware I'm using for Cakewalk is in my tower, but would the network, while it's constantly sending and recieving information (I think) have an effect on the problem I'm experiencing? I could just log out of the network and try it. I'll keep you posted. Another note. I'm not just running two or three audio tracks when I noticed the problem. We're talking 10 plus. They were originally recorded through a SoundBlaser Live. I was trying to play it back at better audio setings (I know it won't make a difference in the actual sound, but I wanted to get used to using these setting). Would this be enough to confuse the shit out of the Delta (the Delta speaks: I know what you want, but I also know what you're giving me... What the F^*K are you doing to me???) Tom.
 
j,

Nothing special, just is there or isn't there a WDM driver for 98SE and/or ME (there definitley were at one point) and if not why not and is it a problem that will be fixed or not?

Fmmahoganyrush,

Re the network card, well, I've heard some people say that good network cards with good drivers won't impact recording but I find that hard to believe. I have problems if I am connected to the network; in fact, I went so far as to create a separate hardware profile for recording where I have disabled the network interface card.

The source of the WAV data you are playing -- what it was recorded with -- cannot "confuse the shit out of the Delta..." :)
No worries there.

-AlChuck
 
The Delta CCA

I see that I am not the only one having problems with the Delta card and a cakewalk product. I am running a 600 Mhz Chip w/320Mgs of ram and I am still experiencing similiar problems to the ones that FMMahogony mentioned. I switched from Win ME to Win 2k, tried the WDM drivers for it, and pulled a SB live card out of my system and I still am experiencing drop outs in Sonar when recording or playing audio. The more tracks of audio I record the bigger the problems get.
I think my problem is obvious. My processor's speed, combined with the fact that I utilize my PC for about 50 other applications. I don't know about CW 9, but Sonar is a resource hog and even though it is supposed to be able to run with a 400mg chip I highly doubt that a 400mg chip would be able to process many tracks of audio, with graphics, consistantly with any stability.

My solution, I am in the process of building a 1 Ghz system or better that will be dedicated to audio recording. Hopefully before I run out of cash I will be able to achieve some level of satisfaction with Sonar and my Delta 66 sound card. Anyone have any suggestions for a PIII mother board????
 
AlChuck,

M-AUDIO did have WDM listed for 98 and ME at one time...but in recent weeks the only WDM listed is under 2000. however, these drivers should work with 98 and ME...it is unclear why they are now only listed for 2000.

kgbjamin,

have you tried running SONAR in MME mode? are you using a lot of plug ins?

as far as PIII boards, i'd go with an intel chipset...815ep (no video)...i've got the ASUS CUSL2-C with PIII 1Ghz....
 
MME?

Hey J,
I started off running Sonar in MME mode. It worked fairly well but I had a serious latency problem. Do you think I'm asking for too much, minimum latency, clean non-distorted sound, and maximum track stability with no drop outs...?:confused:

Thanks for the input for my MB search, luckily for me PC parts are reality inexpensive these days...
 
no, you're not asking for too much.

apparently, CAKEWALK wanted to make SONAR an adventure.
 
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