Tracking in SONAR..OVerdub Q..

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13th_Omen

13th_Omen

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I use SONAR 3 PE with 2 Terretec PHASE 88s on a P4 2.6 1024 DDR400. I am using a 16 channel Ymaha mixer direct outs to soundcard. I use 15 tracks at once. My first take is just to keep drum track and have other instruments as a reference until they are overdubbed. My problem is this:

When I record all 16 tracks I set buffers as big as I can because I monitor before the PC. When I want to overdub, however, I need to lower buffers to reduce latency, and with all 15 tracks going with a new track I get glitches due to CPU strain. (I'm assuming) So to remedy the problem I just do a quick mix of all the tracks EXCEPT the one I want to overdub, and bounce it all to one wav. Then open a new SONAR file and import that track. I can then lower buffers no problem to overdub.

This is just too much work and I was wondering if there I another way. I plan on upgrading my PC to an AMD 64 3400 in hopes that the faster bus speed will help, but I am not sure about this one. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Omen - I often wonder why there is all this talk of latency. I must be doing something different, because it's never been a factor for me. Perhaps is because I monitor from the sound card (Aardvark Q10).

Anyway, you are really doing things the hard way. I can think of one way to reduce your work without changing the way you monitor: Go ahead and create a new track combining all your recorded tracks. Instead of importing that track into a new project, just mute and archive the tracks you just combined into one. Then, when you're finished overdubbing, unarchive and unmute those tracks and delete the combo track.
 
Thanks for the reply, I will give it a shot. By muting and archiving the tracks will they still take up resources when I record the new track? As far as the latency goes, when you are recording 16 tracks at once things get a little hairy! When I add plug ins thing get REAL hairy! I seem to need to do a little PC upgrading! Thanks again for the tip I'll give it a try.
 
When you archive a track, the underlying sound file is not read by the program, so it takes no resources.

I have no problems recording new tracks with 16 already-recorded tracks, and I run an AMD 2.4 ghz with 512 MB memory, so I have doubts that you need faster hardware. Have you optimized your OS?
 
Yes I have optimized my XP PRo OS. Are you recording 24/96? What are your buffers set at? If I bring it down to 512 I get 10.7 ms latency which is reasonable, but with all tracks going with plug-ins I get some sputtering.
 
You may get more replies if you move/post this in the Sonar forum.
 
AGCurry,

I tried what you said, mute and archive and it works great. I still have some issues with running all the tracks with all the plugins going, so I try to apply the effects that I can and do the archive thing, it works great! Thanks, I never knew about that.

fraserhutch:

oops, I thought I was in the SONAR forum at the time :D my bad!
 
i think sonar 4 has a freeze track function that would help your cause a lot. also if you got a soundcard with external hardware montoring via a DSP, the latency issue would clear up as well. Both of these features would be upgrade costing some $$$ though.
 
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