Just a few casual SONAR questions!

[13th_Omen]

I'm running SONAR 3 PE on a P4 2.66Ghz with 1280 MB RAM.. (2) Terretec PHASE 88s (16 I/O in all)

Questions:

- is there an easy way to save effects chains? I found it simple with ACID, I would assign the FX and settings then save it as for example "Kick" and apply the same chain to all the kick tracks from different songs. Of course I don't make any changes to tracking levels or mic placement between songs.

- to avoid latency i have the out of soundacard routred back to my tracking mixer for overdubs... so i hear the instrument live with the song, yet when i play back it will be 10.7 ms off. What's the easiest way to move a track EXACTLY 10.7ms to the right?

- is there an improvement of audio quality if I increase buffers and raise the latency for tracking? At first I was trying to get the correct latency settings with the smallest buffers but now with the above method it isn't an issue, so I was wondering if instead of 10.7ms, maybe 12.5 or so would get better sounding results or not.

- does the buffer size really have an effect during mixing alone? can i make them huge during mixing to avoid and dropouts and not feel bad?

- Win XP doesn't recognize my 200 GB hard drive, it only shows 137. I have been told SP2 should fix this. Is that correct? Does SP2 mess up SONAR?

That oughtta do it for today!
Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

 

[dachay2tnr]

I'm running SONAR 3 PE on a P4 2.66Ghz with 1280 MB RAM.. (2) Terretec PHASE 88s (16 I/O in all)

Questions:

- is there an easy way to save effects chains? I found it simple with ACID, I would assign the FX and settings then save it as for example "Kick" and apply the same chain to all the kick tracks from different songs. Of course I don't make any changes to tracking levels or mic placement between songs.

You can save the settings on individual effects by establishing your own presets, but I don't know of anyway to save an effect chain.

Another approach would be to establish a project template with the effects in place. But this has limitations as well if you don't use the same set of instruments in each song.

- to avoid latency i have the out of soundacard routred back to my tracking mixer for overdubs... so i hear the instrument live with the song, yet when i play back it will be 10.7 ms off. What's the easiest way to move a track EXACTLY 10.7ms to the right?

You should be able to get this configuration to work with zero latency. Probably need to change some settings in your sound card's mixer applet to route the signal directly out, rather than through the software.

- is there an improvement of audio quality if I increase buffers and raise the latency for tracking? At first I was trying to get the correct latency settings with the smallest buffers but now with the above method it isn't an issue, so I was wondering if instead of 10.7ms, maybe 12.5 or so would get better sounding results or not.

AFAIK this would have no effect on audio quality. Your A/D converters should be the only issue regarding quality.

- does the buffer size really have an effect during mixing alone? can i make them huge during mixing to avoid and dropouts and not feel bad?

Only in response time. IOW, when you change a reverb setting or increase a volume setting, the response will seem a bit sluggish. However, it's entirely workable this way. I used quite high latency settings for mixing for years (200 - 400 ms) with no real problems beyond the sluggishness.

 

[lykwydchykyn]

One way to save fx chains is to use vb audio's ffx-4 to load in your fx. Then you can save the chain with all the settings as a preset. The free version only loads 4 effects, but I find that to be plenty for most applications.

it's at www.vb-audio.com

 

[13th_Omen]

You should be able to get this configuration to work with zero latency. Probably need to change some settings in your sound card's mixer applet to route the signal directly out, rather than through the software.

I currently am using channels 1/2 on the master card as my main outs from SONAR. I don't believe that I can have direct outs set up without interfering with the I/O of my ASIO drivers through SONAR. I belive my quickest fix though is to mixdown all the tracks excluding the one I want to overdub, open a new file, import the mixdown, and add a track to overdub with. This decrease the amount of tracks, which decreases the latency to 2.7... not a problem for me!

Thanx for your timely reply, any clue on my other Q's?

One way to save fx chains is to use vb audio's ffx-4 to load in your fx. Then you can save the chain with all the settings as a preset. The free version only loads 4 effects, but I find that to be plenty for most applications.

Thanx for the heads up, I just downloaded it and will try it on studio PC tomorrow!