Sonar dropouts, spikes, crashes. Help.

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gordholio

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Hi:

I asked this question in the Sound Cards forum, and someone sensibly suggested it might be better over here. So here goes...

I have a serious problem with Sonar 2.1 and my system. After spending an hour total time on the phone with Cakewalk support, another fifteen minutes with Midiman, and at least 12 hours of solo troubleshooting, it has not been resolved. I am going to return the product this week if I can't find a solution. If anyone here can help, it would be very much appreciated.

I run Sonar (2.1) on a Windows XP system with a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz processor, 512 MB DDR RAM and a Delta 66 sound card with the latest non-beta drivers. I've just completely reformatted all three of my drives (3 80GB drives) and re-installed everything. This system is used ONLY for audio.

Anyway, I'm getting erratic dropouts, crashes, and CPU spikes when I use Sonar, especially when I add effects to tracks. I don't have any particularly big files - my biggest is 8 tracks. In one particular song, I have just three tracks, and even it is problematic. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when the problems arise. On one song with just 5 audio tracks, the CPU meter spikes about 15 seconds into it (from 3% to 70%), and sometimes the song crashes Sonar. In another song with 7 audio tracks, I can sometimes add twenty-plus effects with no problem (CPU stays below 15% even with these effects active). Yet when I start the song up another time, I can't even add ONE effect without a dropout. There are many other problems just like these, but in the interest of brevity I won't go into them.

I have tried ALL the fixes suggested by Cakewalk. I have tried the fixes suggested by Midiman. Furthermore, I know my way around the computer, and have tried everything I can possibly think of (including reformatting everything for a clean start). By the way, I have been previously using ntrack and have been
able to record and playback as many as 15 effect-laden tracks with no problems.

The really strange thing is that when I copy the offending songs to my other computer (an Athlon XP 1.4 GHz that also has an installed copy of Sonar), there are no problems whatsoever. These are no spikes, there are no CPU warning lights, there are no crashes. I can add twenty or more effects or DXi's and no probs. What makes this even more strange is that this second computer has tons of stuff going on in the background, lots of installed programs , lots of background tasks - in short, it is totally not tweaked for audio.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. If ANYONE have a potential solution, I will be forever thankful.

gordo
 
One other thing. I wanted to mention that in my many hours spent troubleshooting this problem, I've removed and temporarily replaced every bit of hardware outside of the motherboard, CPU and hard drives. I have disabled onboard USB (it's an ASUS P4B533 mobo), disabled on-board sound, removed the Delta 66 in favor of a Soundblaster, swapped video cards, etc., etc., etc. I've basically done everything that's been suggested by the Cakewalk and Midiman support people, and a whole lot more. :-(

gordo
 
This is a stupid question, but here goes: Did you format your main HD (the one with Windows)? Have you reinstalled WinXP?

And perhaps most important: Have you tried another OS? Windows 2000?

I would suggest that your videocard may be broken, needs to be replaced or needs updated drivers, but if you already tried other videocards...

One thing I know for shure that having a SoundBlaster togheter with another audiocard can cause problems...

Good luck! :)
 
Hey Moskus:

Yep, completely reformatted the main drive (the one with Windows and Sonar). I've tried it with just the Delta 66 by itslef, just the Soundblaster by itself, just the onboard audio chip by itself, and all various combinations. I temporarily replaced the GeFroce 3 video card with a new Matrox board. The only thing I haven't done is to try a different OS. But seeing that my other computer (my home office computer) is also Win XP (and it handles Sonar just fine), I saw no need to move back to Windows 98.

Thanks for your input, man.

gordo
 
Yeah... seems weird! :mad:

But Win98 isn't the only OS avaiable besides WinXP, you know. I've tried WinXP on my system, and problems too. So I went back to Win2000 and everything was fine again.'

Does Sonar work with the SB? Have you tried the Delta 66 in the other machine?
 
Hey:

Yep, I've tried the Delta in the other machine. No probs. FYI, the other machine's regular sound card is a Philips Acoustic Edge.

But in the dedicated audio computer, I have the same problems no matter which sound card is running. So the Delta is not at fault.

As for Win 2000, I don't own it, and I hate the thought of buying it just for this.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

gordo
 
Ok, just another question:

Does the computer work without a problem, except for Sonar? Or is there anything else that doesen't work?
 
Everything else is peachy. I've owned ntrack for nearly a year, no problems. I've tried the demo of Cool Edit Pro, no problems. Sonic Foundry's ACID, no problems. Everything is cool until Sonar, adn even then only on this computer.

gordo
 
...excuse me, but have you set the Mixing Latency too low ? I've got many interesting topic due to crash & drop outs by reading SONAR's help section. Have you tried what they suggest ?
 
Hey James:

Yeah, definitely. Those were the first fixes I tried. And when I called tech support, I went over the whole procedure again. I tried at least a couple dozen different settings to do with latency and buffers, etc. As you can tell from my posts, I've now gone waay beyond that and into the heart of the system itself. I'm posting here to try to see if anyone has some bizarre solution that they've used throught heir own experience. It's either than or I send Sonar back, because I simply cannot use it in its current state.

As I said before, grrr...

gordo
 
Awful strange problem. I guess the only other thing is to try a different motherboard if you can. Just to see what happens.
 
What plugins are you using? There is a notorious problem between Livesynth Pro and Ultrafunk's multiband compressor. I too am getting spikes at 1.5ms latency. When I am tracking large projects I run up the latency to accommodate and then as I mix everything down to the final tracks I lower it again

The P4 spike thing is inherent in the CPU. The way some plugins are written they exacerbate the problem. One work around I have found is to save the plugin settings, delete the plugin from the track, then put it back and restore the settings. This usually makes the spikes go away until the next time I open the project in which case I have to do it again.

Hope this helps.
 
Denormalisation

Middleman (and anyone else who cares to listen):

From what I've been reading in the last couple of days, I think these CPU spikes and dropouts are a Pentium 4 phenomena. It's supposedly called "denormalisation". There are several write-ups about it on the Internet. You can find one here:

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=6

If this is true, it sucks. But I can't find any other reasonable resolution thus far.
 
Yes, I saw that information the other day but thanks for the link. It's really only an issue with certain plug ins. It has not held me up as I know which ones are causing the problem and I work around them.

I am getting around 16 tracks fairly loaded with effects and EQ as well as the 2-buss master comp. This is all I really need for a mix down. This is at 1.5 ms. If I need more tracks I run up the buffers and unload some plug ins.

If you run the M-Audio drives up to 384 buffers and reprofile your card in Sonar the spike should not be a factor.

Regarding sonar lockups, check for Bios updates on the MB. Also, how big is your swap file under Windows. If the swap is maxing out your hardrive then this could be an issue.

Swap files in this day and age need at least 150MB of free space.
 
Yes

One would suspect that its the P4 denormalisation issue being set off by certain effects or DXIs. You said that you ran lots of "effect-laden" tracks in n-track, but presumeably not all the same effects as in Sonar, or at least not DXIs?

I suppose the sensible way to test this theory would be to start a new file with just a few audio tracks and no effects or DXIs whatsoever. Then add some plugins, one by one, testing thoroughly to see if the spikes occur.

One other thing: Does the dropout problem seem to be connected to loop-playback at all?
 
Actually, I don't have the problem when working with a clean set of tracks and adding the plug-ins. It comes after I save the file, then load it at a later time. For some reason the later load introduces the spike/plug-in issue. As I said before, if I then delete the plugins, add them back in, the problem goes away until I load the project file again.

gordholio, isn't this what you are experiencing too?
 
Hey guys:

No, my screw-ups are erratic in nature. What I mean is that they all involve tracks/songs with effects, but the dropouts/frozen screens/spikes might just as well happen when I'm initially adding the effects as later. Of course, I don't add my effects in real time while I'm playing - I add them after I've recorded the track.

And hey Wurlitzer, I used the same effects in both Sonar anfd ntrack. As I think I said before, there were no problems whatsoever with ntrack over the course of the last year or so. In fact, I've never even given a thought to effects being problematic at all until these recent experiences with Sonar.
 
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