Monitoring with effects

[riotshield]

Here are the specs of my setup:

Biostar mini-PC with Via chipset
Athlon XP1800+, 768MB PC2100, 80GB HDD, Audiophile 2496

It can handle all aspects of recording OK, except it chokes badly when I try to monitor live input with effects, particularly reverb. I could probably upgrade to a Barton 2500+ and a gig of 2700 RAM, which would also increase my FSB from 266 to 333, for maybe $150 net. But if I can get input monitoring to work without shelling out more $$ then that would be great (plus I don't know if lack of CPU power is the culprit). I am running Sonar 2 with ASIO drivers (got it to 256 samples = 5.8ms latency). Any ideas?

What specs are those of you who can monitor with reverb running? Thanks

 

[earthcub]

My system is 1.8Ghz P4, Intel chipset, 1Gig RAM, Delta44, Win2K. I'm using Cubase right now instead of Sonar because I had WAY too many stability problems with Sonar. I like the sound of verb on my voice when I record but I run an aux send on my board to a microverb so that I don't have problems with latency. Then I go and hook up my favourite verb in software later. I tested just hooking up a track on a file that I'm currently working on and I could get perfect input monitoring with a verb on my voice. The current file has 5 audio tracks with EQ and verb, and three midi tracks that are drawing sounds from two outboard synths and one softsynth and I had no problems at all.

I'm using the ASIO drivers for my Delta, and my latency is about at the same as yours. If you're not trying to do this on a file that has tons of other tracks eating up your RAM, I'd consider that there's a problem somewhere. Maybe try having Sonar recalibrate your driver or look for a driver update. Other than that, outboard it.

Peace

 

[moskus]

What specs are those of you who can monitor with reverb running? Thanks

I have a AMD Athlon XP 1900+ with 1024 MB DDR-RAM. I have the buffers set to 128 samples. I run Sonar 3 and have 2.9 ms latency. Works perfectly for Input Monitoring.

 

[Atterion]

Yeah something is definitely wrong. Try Re-installing your drivers, and maybe even Re-install Sonar. You can also try using WDM drivers in Sonar I tried once for giggles and actually did OK (about 10.8ms i think it was, and it barely messed with the timing in my head).

Also try this. In the M-audio control panel, set the buffer size to like 512, and then adjust the latency in Sonar. Then work the Buffer down. I found that my delta didn't like it if I tried to adjust the buffers from within any program or while any program was trying to access it, so close Sonar and move the buffer down, and Re-open Sonar, and so on.