Sonar 4 Producer Shuts Down Unexpectedly

  • Thread starter Thread starter jaylowrance
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jaylowrance

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Hello everyone! I am not new to software-based recording, but I'm new to this forum.

I am having a problem with Sonar 4 Producer Edition. I am running out of the sound board at my church on an aux send to my M-Audio Firewire 410 to record our services. Things record fine, I can see the audio wave being recorded in the track, but when I stop the recording when we are finished the program shuts down or all of the audio disappears. This has happened from time to time on my computer at home as well. The problem only seems to happen when I am recording a single audio track. I have recorded hundreds of other projects, all without fail.

Both computers are Windows XP Pro, SP2, the church CPU is P4, 3.2 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, my home CPU is AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core, 1.0 GB RAM.

I really would like to continue recording this way, without having to buy a CD recorder or hard disk recorder, as they are quite expensive. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for all the help!
 
check that you have the last update for that version of Sonar and also that you have the firewire hotfix from microsoft installed.
 
I have the latest sonar updates, I'll try the F/W hotfix. Thanks!
 
Okay, after checking both computers, the hotfix is already installed on both machines. The confusing part is that this only happens when I am recording an audio track by itself. I did try a few months back to add some random MIDI data in a separate track then record the audio and this seemed to work. I just think I shouldn't have to do all of that to get things to work. Any body else ever heard of this?
 
jaylowrance said:
Okay, after checking both computers, the hotfix is already installed on both machines. The confusing part is that this only happens when I am recording an audio track by itself. I did try a few months back to add some random MIDI data in a separate track then record the audio and this seemed to work. I just think I shouldn't have to do all of that to get things to work. Any body else ever heard of this?
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It is odd behavior.

How long is the recording? I am wondering if perhaps you are exceeding the allowable file size. If I recall, Sonar had a 2 gb limit on files - something to do with the wave file format. If you are recording a long service in 24 bit depth, perhaps that is the issue.
 
The recordings have been anywhere from 1 - 1.5 hours long. If there is a limit to the size of the files, that would explain things. I seem to remember reading that a while back in the cakewalk forums. What if I separated the band from the speaker on different tracks? Would that create two audio files? If so, it would keep the size of each at tolerable levels. I guess changing the bit rate might help too.
 
jaylowrance said:
The recordings have been anywhere from 1 - 1.5 hours long. If there is a limit to the size of the files, that would explain things. I seem to remember reading that a while back in the cakewalk forums. What if I separated the band from the speaker on different tracks? Would that create two audio files? If so, it would keep the size of each at tolerable levels. I guess changing the bit rate might help too.
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I'm not sure using different tracks would help - unless you mean that you would be recording them at different times (e.g., 20 minutes of band, followed by 40 minutes of speaker, then 10 more minutes of band). This would break them into smaller files. But if you record the band straight through, the band track will be as large as the combined track is now.

A 16 bit, stereo wave file at 44.1 sampling rate uses about 10.5 megs a minute. For an hour session that would only be 633 megs, which should be OK. However, if you are using higher bit rates or sampling rates, the file size would increase.

Anyway, if size is the problem, it should be fairly easy to test. Simply try recording for a shorter period of time and see what happens. Do a 5-10 minute test and see if you still get the problem. If that works, you most likely found the culprit.
 
Got rehearsal Thursday night, we'll try recording different chunks of audio and I will check the file sizes and play with the bit and sample settings.

Btw, we normally do 20-25 min of band, 30-35 minutes of speaker, then 5-10 min of band, on separate tracks, but we leave the recording going for ~1.5 hours non-stop. We may have to stop the recording, arm/disarm appropriate tracks, and start again. You may be on to something there. I'll give it a shot and let you know how it turns out. Thanks!
 
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