Dropouts when loopng in SONAR

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wurlitzer
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Wurlitzer

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Any SONAR users able to help?

When I set a section to loop in a Sonar file, it tends to stop with an audio dropout message just before the end of the loop.

It doesn't happen every time - sometimes it plays through the loop a few times OK, then drops out the next time. But the dropout is always in the same place - just under a bar before the end of the loop.

Latency makes a difference - if I set the latency high, the problem occurs less. But I can get really low latency reliably EXCEPT when looping, so I'd like to work out if there's something wrong so I can set the latency low and leave it there.

Track count seems to make no difference - this happens just as much when using a few MIDI tracks and DXIs as when using lots of audio tracks.

Its like the looping command caches some information somewhere, and something goes wrong when trying to replay that information. Does anybody know what the technical basis of this might be?

System:

Asus TUSL-2C mobo
PIII 1.2 Ghz w 256K cache
512 MB RAM
2 x 7,200 RPM hard drives
Matrox G450 dual head video card
2 x Soundscape Mixtreme cards
Adaptec SCSI card
Windows 2000 SP2
Only SONAR (version 2.0) and the Mixtreme mixer running.
 
There is a patch released for Sonar 2.0 which is supposed to affect the operation of the DXi plugins.

Maybe throw this on and retest?

I am not familiar with your particular sound card, but mine allows me to specific things like the DirectX audio buffer size and the ASIO latency settings. Both of these settings seem to have an effect similar to the latency slider - fiddling about with these made my system more stable. If you have similar config on your card, it may be worthwhile playing with it.........

Good luck,

Q.
 
The same darn thing here.

Win2K,
Sonar 2.0
Audiophile 2496

Applying the DXi patch makes no difference.
 
POSSIBLE solution . . .

My mixtreme soundcard has 16 internal audio streams in 8 stereo pairs. Picking about in the audio settings page, I discovered that the "playback timing master" field was set to "mixtreme WDM 5-6" instead of 1-2. I must have changed it by mistake some time ago.

I set it back to 1-2, and was able to play my loops round and round at 8.7 ms latency with no dropouts. I need to test it for a while longer, but it looks like that might be it. Why, I don't know.

Bamboo, I don't know whether there might by something similar in these settings for your audiophile card causing the problem. As the audiophile is only a stereo card, I can't really see how there would be, but have a look anyway.
 
Nope, false dawn . . .

Didn't stand up to further testing. Sonar now crashing and behaving very strangely. Time for tech support . . .
 
Wurlitzer

Thanks anyway. I'll try and see if setting the timing master has any effect.
 
Result!

Through trial and error, I found that the problem only occured when playing MIDI AND audio (audio taken to include DXIs) at the same time. Must have something to do with sync between the two. I could play lots of audio tracks with no problem, but as soon as I added MIDI, down she went.

Also through trial and error, I found that switching off "patch / controller searchback before play starts" in the MIDI OUT tab of the PROJECT dialogue under the OPTIONS menu, solved the problem! There is something in the help file saying that having this on can cause an audible delay, but nothing about crashing. Do Cakewalk know about this?

Anyway, I don't use patch changes and I think the term "controller" here only refers to pitch and mod wheels and sustain pedal - not to volume, pan etc (someone tell me if I'm wrong). So I can live with it left off.

Given that the crash is always in the same place - about three beats before the end of the loop - it must be that Sonar suddenly realises its about to restart and searches back for the most recent controller and patch info. But because it already playing within the loop, it gets confused. Maybe the MIDI signal gets disrupted and loses sync with the audio or something.

Anyhow bamboo give it a go - I'm going rock solid at 8.7 ms now.

Might send a bug report to Cakewalk to see if there's something they can do.
 
Thanks Wurlitzer,

I'll give it a try. Please DO send the bug report, all Sonar users will benefit from that.
 
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