SONAR, MAudio Frustrations

  • Thread starter Thread starter chewmanfoo
  • Start date Start date
C

chewmanfoo

New member
Guys,

I have seven good tracks of guitars on SONAR XL with an MAudio Delta1010. Now, I have no trouble recording the guitars and listening to them through my PC's soundcard (a SB Live). But I now want to record vocals with my crappy mic. Then the problems start.

How do I tell SONAR to send the audio from the seven guitar tracks out through the Delta1010 output1 - output7 so I can monitor them through my mixer and the headphone jack there? I can't get SONAR to let me select the Delta1010 as an output device. It is stuck on the SB Live. I don't have a headphone jack from my PC's speakers, so I'll have to use the speakers for monitoring, and this will leak the guitar tracks onto the vocal track.

How do I get SONAR to let me output the recorded guitar tracks out through the Delta1010's out ports?

Please help!
chewy
 
I had that problem with Sonar, a multi I/O-soundcard and SB Live!...

I ripped out the SB Live! and lived happily ever after. :)
 
This should really go in the Cakewalk forum.

However, I am not sure I understand your problem. Are you saying you can select the M-Audio card as an input source, but cannot select it as an output source? That doesn't make sense. Sonar should either see the card or not see the card.

Also, your outputs will be in stereo pairs (1/2, 3/4, etc.). Generally most people send their already recorded tracks to the same pair of outputs. There no need to keep them separate any longer for playback purposes.

However, if you can't select the M-Audio at all, that is a problem. :)

Maybe you don't have your VMains assigned properly. Look at the Mains Window in Track View (the lower half of the screen below the window splitter bar). You should see about 5 or 6 VMains (A to F, or something like that). In the output box of each VMain look and see if maybe they are ALL showing the SBLive. If so, click the down arrow and reassign it to one of the Delta pairs. Generally I would assign my somewhat as follows:
A = Delta 1/2
B = Delta 3/4
C = Delta 5/6
D = Delta 7/8
E = SBLive 1/2

Unless there is a VMain established for the output, it will not show up as a choice in the Track Out selection box.
 
Fixed it, but wait!

OK, I didn't know about the VMains (My SONAR Power! book is in route to my house.) Now, when I set up the stereo track for output, I can hear little pops in the audio that weren't there in the SB Live audio, so I know they weren't on the track. What gives?

Also, there are so many places to set the levels with this SONAR/Delta1010/Mixer combination. The SONAR track view has a volume slider, the Delta driver has a level slider, the mixer has Gain and a fader. Are there some settings that can be left "factory"? How do I set the gains and levels for the tracks?
 
Pops and clicks can be coming from a variety of sources. First check to see what you have as your Playback Timing Master under Options > Audio. If you're using the Delta for playback, make that your choice.

If that doesn't help, try raising your latency settings and reprofiling your sound cards (in fact, try reprofiling first, and the raising the latency and reprofiling if you're still having a problem).

If neither of these work, you might need to try a different driver for the Delta. Or disabling USB. Or disabling APCI.

As you can see, lot's of places this can be coming from.

As for gain, generally you would set your gain for recording using your outboard gear (mixer/preamp) and use Sonar's meters to determine the proper level. I don't ever touch the faders in the Delta mixer.

I use Sonar's faders (or volume slider) to set playback levels.

Hope that helps.
 
Reprofile?

I think I know how to "raise latency settings", but how do you "reprofile" the sound card? What is reprofiling the sound card? What does it do?

I tried setting the Playback Timing Master to the Delta and not the SB Live. This did not make the regular, rhythmic popping sound go away. Pls Help!

chewy
 
The profile button is next to the latency slider. Some claim to get as low as 3ms with delta cards but I find 10.2ms is plenty fast enough.
Provided you don't use the Cards ASIO or GSIF driver and the Live cards audio, I would do the following.
Close Sonar.
Open the Delta Control panel - set buffer to 64 or 96 if using higher than 48khz sampling.
Open Sonar - options/audio - Deselect the Sblive entries leaving only the Delta ones highlighted blue. Count how many Delta outputs you have - this is the number of "virtual mains" you should get.
Ensure "Buffers in playback queue is 2. Uncheck "Use MME..." Pull the latency slider fully left.
Click the Wave Profiler button and let it do its stuff.
On completion, you will be able to set the latency in 1.5ms steps. Close & restart Sonar to make the changes effective. You can change the latency slider at any time without a restart.

This probably won't cure the Deltas clicks and pops unless you have optimised the pc for music (these cards are different beasts to the Live - low latency has a price). This means...
No virus scanner running.
No screensaver.
No auto power saving (should be always on)
No file indexing service (if WinXP).
No Scheduled tasks (like defrag or disk cleanup).
No CD auto insert notification.
Win XP - performance set to Background services, not Programs.
What Windows do you have? If XP (or Win2000) then take a look at www.musicxp.net
www.tascam.com has two good pdfs on optimisation. One for 9x/ME and another for XP/2000.
Actually, I wonder how much longer this issue has to crop up. It's about time both cards and software came with a booklet explaining the necessary optimisation steps or at least post it on their web sites.
 
Last edited:
A lot to work on here...

Jim Y, dachay2tnr, wow what a lot of information! You guys must use SONAR a lot and know it by heart! I'm a software engineer by trade, and I've never met anyone with this much knowledge about such an obscure product! Thanks mightily!

OK, after setting the bitrate to 48KHz and sliding the latency to about 10ms, and then clicking the Wave Profiler... button, now NO POPS.

Thanks, you guys. I can't wait until Amazon ships my SONAR books. I'll read them night and day. I can't imagine how the developers of this product got so much into it for such an excellent price.

Thanks again,
chewy
 
Re: A lot to work on here...

chewmanfoo said:
OK, after setting the bitrate to 48KHz and sliding the latency to about 10ms, and then clicking the Wave Profiler... button, now NO POPS.
Click to expand...
Chewy - first off, 48KHz is the sample rate, not the bit rate.

I'm happy you were able to clear up the pops, but you might still have a problem if you ultimately plan to burn your musid to CD's.

The standard for a CD is 16 bits at a sample rate of 44.1 KHz. If you record at 48 KHz you will have to resample down to 44.1 KHz before you can burn it to a CD. Generally resampling is not desirable. You would be better advised to record at a sample rate of 44.1.

That shouldn't have any effect on your pops and clicks, and hopefully it won't - however, it is better to get it resolved now rather than wait until you have a bunch of music recorded.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top