Sonar and MTC - Sonar 0, Cubase 1

clivewil

New member
normally i used to use Sonar 2.2 with plain ordinary old Midi Clock, but recently tried to get it running with MMC/MTC instead as this is what my Yamaha DAWs sync to, they won't use ordinary clock

Sonar 2 craps itself pretty much instantly whenever i use MTC/MMC instead of clock. the best i ever got was a single pass from the song start; it never once succeeded synching from partway through. if it dies, i get a hung SONAR.exe process in the task manager which i have to close manually. midi buffers are already maxed and aftertouch etc. is turned off.

ok, same gear, same setup (i'm even using the same sequence, converted) - tried Cubase, it works fine no problems. after an iffy start, it even manages to sync itself if i start the song partway through. never fails, works every time. terrible gui though.

my Sonar is too old perhaps? so i try a newer Producer Edition - it craps itself instantly in exactly the same way as my own Sonar 2.2 does.

i notice there's nobody else having this problem so i hope there's an easy solution - Cubase was very fugly and clunky, and i'd rather stay with Sonar. any ideas?
 
What are your Yamaha DAWs?
I haven't used MMC/MTC in forever but, when I did (I'm guessing Sonar 5?) it worked with no issues at all... Sync'd up perfectly with my old Tascam/Fostex gear... I'm pretty sure I used it quite a bit with my Roland 2480 as well...
Which unit are you setting as the Master?
 
there's 2 Yami AW16Gs connected via midi and toslink, and one of those is MTC master.

i'm using Sonar for midi only - the audio engine is turned off - so sync shouldn't be a problem, even with MTC's higher traffic
 
What is your MIDI interface with Sonar?
Like I said, it has been a while... I was looking for some of my notes but haven't happened across any yet... I did find this link that looked pretty familiar in its procedure tho (it uses Sonar in the example). Maybe walk through it and apply to your situation...
Clock Sync, SMPTE, MTC and MMC
 
Maybe walk through it and apply to your situation...
that's a good article, unfortunately i didn't find anything useful. i should mention that i've been using midi for decades and some of my old setups used MTC/MMC and i'm reasonably used to setting up gear in this way - i've checked most of the obvious stuff, except for...

What is your MIDI interface with Sonar?
...my midi interface. it's an Emagic MT4 (2x4) - i have a MOTU 8x8 on order but that's probably still weeks away so i can't really do a swap/comparison until it shows up. it would be nice if the MT4 turned out to be the guilty party, seeing as it's already being replaced

the MT4 is notable because Emagic decided to go mac-only years ago, which means the only available pc drivers are old Win98/Win2000 ones - but by the same token it has acted normally most of the time
 
The fact that Cubase performed as expected makes me lean towards either a Sonar config issue or MIDI interface drivers not playing nice (or both?).
Give us an update when the MOTU shows up :)
 
towards either a Sonar config issue or MIDI interface drivers not playing nice
i'm getting the impression that unlike Sonar, Cubase on startup is sending out some sort of global reset command which is clearing the problem momentarily (which therefore points to the MT4 being suspect, maybe a buffer overflow or similar) - if i do this then i can guarantee Sonar getting one single recording pass without trouble, so long as i don't try anything fancy.

i tried upping Sonar's Panic Strength value in cakewalk.ini but it didn't help - if i can identify what Cubase's Reset Devices command is sending, then i can write that into a sysex file and execute it from within Sonar** to 'clear the line', which will free me from using the Cubase demo - yes this is only a workaround but it will do while i find a better solution.

** Emagic's ID is 00H 20H 31H. with luck i should be able to target the MT4 directly without having to reset everything else, and also means i can use a more aggressive reset command, like the GM1 '11111111' reset (description "Reset receivers to power-up status." - rather than just zeroing controllers)

meanwhile my MOTU is probably on its way to Spain or Antarctica...
 
Give us an update when the MOTU shows up
well the motu is in and running, and Sonar's behaviour is the same - it gives me one good run if i begin at the start, started once partway through a song** before it promptly shat itself until i ran Cubase again to 'clear the line'

my old Cakewalk Pro 9, while not as stable or ugly as Cubase, is still much better than Sonar and can handle the bulk of the things i throw at it. a major pain to convert everything back to .wrk format again, but has to be done.

one thing i noted: the motu's indicators seem to fire at more events than the MT4's did and i see some kind of pulse coming in on my Roland GW-8's midi in (GW-8 is a very crap workstation synth) even though i have turned off anything to do with sync and clocks in its settings. might take that out of the circuit and do another test (--->edit - cancel that. the GW-8 was only a secondary keyboard at the start of this problem, so it had no midi out lead connected. it can't be the GW-8 then. back to blaming Sonar again)


** i'd rarely ever want to start a recording from partway through with midi gear, but i use it as an indicator of how well the sync is performing. it should be able to start mid-song every time without failure.


---> ok, this is interesting: i've noticed both Pro Aud 9 and Sonar throw out something at the end of every sequence, and it is this that's killing the system - when the song ends, every output on the motu lights up. play a few keys, no nothing, a couple more, nothing - then 5 minutes later the keys i played come out in sequence but around 2 seconds apart

motu reckon that every output lighting up indicates a clock loop, but during these tests i only had a couple of modules on and they are not looped. i even unplugged most of the cables. Sonar is the culprit. jeez i really don't want to have to move over to Cubase...
 
Last edited:
end of story:

AW16G #1 sends MTC to AW16G #2.

AW16G #2 sends plain vanilla midi clock to Sonar. (for some reason this works now. did the MOTU fix it?)

Sonar is happy.

Cubase fades into the distance, to become only a story used to scare young musicians at night
 
Back
Top