Sonar 8.5 Homestudio Problem

[GuitarSoloGuy]

Hey everyone! I’m new here, and I have a question. Hopefully I will be able to coherently explain my situation, and please forgive the rudimentary terms that I may use .

I am using Sonar 8.5 home studio (not producer) and I have encountered a slight issue. After most takes the soundwave graphic goes grey and says “(processing)” and if I try to do anything with the take (such as delete or undo) the system freezes. It only “processes” for about 1 minute and then allows me to continue on, but it definitely slows me down a lot. As a whole it doesn’t really bother me because while it is doing this I can rehearse a bit more, but on the magical occasion when I am in a recording mojo it can be a hindrance. This problem has been going on since October, but at the time I was not in the midst of making an album so it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Also, the computer that I’m using is running Windows 7 64-bit and is only a year old. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
And Merry Christmas

 

[punkin]

That sounds really messed up. Any chance you've got a virus on the PC or are there other processes running in the background utilizing CPU or RAM resources? I have version 8 producer with a WIN7 and it runs smooothly.

 

[GuitarSoloGuy]

Thanks for the reply man. Chances of a virus are very slim (I think) because I don't take that computer online, but I suppose it could be possible. I'll run a scan as soon as possible though just to be safe. There are no processes running that I am aware of, but I will check for that as well. This is the first problem I have had with 8.5, but I found it odd how this just started up abruptly.

 

[GuitarSoloGuy]

I've made a truly LOL-worthy mistake. I am actually running Sonar 8 studio. I have absolutely no idea why I was convinced that I was using sonar 8.5 haha. Anyway I wasn't fully up to date on patches so I caught up on those, but they didn't solve my problem. I've also checked for viruses and there are none. And there do not seem to be any other programs running on the computer. Could it be that I have to many projects on the computer (I've got a ton)?

 

[c7sus]

Cleaning and defragging your HD could help in that circumstance.

 

[GuitarSoloGuy]

Thanks for the reply man. I have been working on cleaning and defragging it for the last couple of days. Hopefully it will fix the problem. I'll post the results when I'm done so any other people who may encounter this situation will have some kind of resource.
Thanks again!

 

[c7sus]

If you have a second HD set up HS to put the audio on the second drive.

That's how all the kids do it these days.

 

[GuitarSoloGuy]

I've only got one HD, but I only have the music studio on it (aside from all the junk that comes with a computer). Should I look into getting another HD?

 

[c7sus]

Yeah, the hot ticket is having the host on the main drive and sending all the audio to the second drive. The seek and write times on the main drive while hosting a bunch of other programs is what slows down and chokes a lot of systems.

Also, put in as much RAM as your machine can hold, and max out your virtual memory too. Turn off screensavers and anti-virus programs when recording. Windows lets you create different boot options and you can make one just for recording that only starts your recording-related software and not other stuff that kills performance.

 

[GuitarSoloGuy]

Thanks for the info man I'll look into it.

 

[GuitarSoloGuy]

The problem is resolved! The issue came about because I had an incredible amount of junk in my Picture Cache. I cleared it and now the system runs perfectly.