Problems with Sonar 5 PE

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Faze 2 Studios
Member Since: Aug 15, 2005

ok so i got sonar 5 with a Firepod. I had it working. yay.

so heres the problem.
I got to record a guitar track right, plug my rode nt1000 in, all is good. So i start to record and i play my song. All goes good. When i go to play back the track it plays but randomly thoughout the song there will be these little... mess-ups. its not a click or a pop, its almost like it just stopped recording for a half second then started again, so there are just liek little bits missing. Which makes the song sound weird, its liek it skips forward in time a half second or so. its random but once its on there, its on my wave itsself, not just a mess up during play back, i guess it happens during recording.

what could this be?

also, i have another problem, which is probably worse. I started sonar and was prompted with this thing that said something to the effect of "the folowing driver will nto work with sonar" and it had soemthing called "conex audio driver" listed (i think thats my laptops audio drivers) and it said i had to disable it and had a little button that said disable. so i hit disable. Now i can get sonar to recognize the firepod, but when i arm a track to record, i dont get a signal from my mics. phatom power IS on, the pre's are up. the cables are fine, and i have the inputs set to the correct inputs, it just doesnt get the signal into sonar anymore... wtf? I thought it could be that i disabled the "conex audio blah blah blah" so i went into my device manager and it says that its still enabled.

i dont know what to do.. heh

thanks for anyhelp you can give.

-melty

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Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 09, 2006 09:10 pm

So the laptop had an onboard sound card? If yes, then it is a very good idea to dissable the drivers completely through the windows control panel. Not just with the pop up that appeared in Sonar. It is possible that windows may have messed with the firepod drivers possibly dissabling them. I guess I wouls suggest going in and dissabling the onboard drivers and possibly re-installing the firepod drivers.

As for the skipping, it is possible that the conflicting drivers caused the hiccups. but you may also want to check your buffer settings in both the firepod control panel and in Sonar. In Sonar go to Options/Audio and then have a look at the buffer setting. The lowest you should go is maybe 128 depending on the amount of ram and the CPU speed. I will generally set it at 256 for bigger projects or lower ram and CPU types.

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 09, 2006 10:06 pm

well, i figured out the not recrding thing. I jsut went to options/audio and had to re-add the firepod on the inputs. it was weird.

for the skipping thing im not sure but i have 2gb of ram and my cpu is a duo core 2.0ghz. what buffer size would you recommend? what is the difference?

-melty

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 09, 2006 10:11 pm

I would try 128 first. But if it is allready set at 128 then bump it up to 256. That is how it buffers the incoming and outgoing audio.

What you should do is double check and make absolutely certain that your settings in Sonar and the settings in the firepod control panel match. If you have things missmatched then it can cause some minor problems as well.

Prince CZAR-ming
Member
Since: Apr 08, 2004

Aug 10, 2006 09:29 am

I had a hard drive in an older DAW work funny like that. record fine, then just cut out for a bit. Turns out i didn't have the high-speed ide cable, i was using a standard ide ribbon cable instead. swapped that around, an viola, fast drive.

I'm not saying that the cable is a problem, cause you got a laptop, but maybe the HD speed of your laptop is an issue. some aren't built for speed (i know mine isn't).

(just thinking out loud)

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 11, 2006 07:52 pm

mines 7200 rpm, average seek tim eof 10.5, its pretty fast

Hold 'Em Czar
Member
Since: Dec 30, 2004

Aug 12, 2006 01:03 am

yeah, i systematacaly had to find my 'ideal' buffer settings....i started with 8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048 and so on....also, i found out, lower settings is better for tracking, and higher settings for mixing (depending on track count)....i had an issue with my hard drive beein' taxed too much with 40+ tracks (overkill!) i only had 512 megs of ram then though.....play with dem buffers, you'll find the sweet spot.

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 13, 2006 05:42 pm

what exactly does the buffer setting do? why lower better for tracking and higher for mixing?

-melty

Hold 'Em Czar
Member
Since: Dec 30, 2004

Aug 13, 2006 05:47 pm

i'm not really sure, my 'theory' is when trackin', you need more of a 'direct to disk' kind of aproach to it. the goal is to get the audio to the hard drive as fast as possible (again this is all luney wyd theory) so why 'buffer' the audio in any sort of way, a buffer is like a funnel, i see it as a way for a computer to take a sec. and make sure things are right before letting the data out...this seems like it'd be good to have if you were running alotta tracks, with plenty of real time effects (more algorithms to equate).....atleast that's how i feel on the subject.

cheers

wyd

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 13, 2006 06:24 pm

The buffer is actually what tells the application how much information to feed to the audio interface and application at one time. That is why it is directly related to latency. But it is a catch 22 on that. It also will utilize ram and CPU resources as well.

But the reality of it is the lower the settings are the less latency you will have as the data trasnfers faster and sucks up more resources. The higher the buffer settings the more latency is introduced but it will eliminate the pop's and crackling that will happen when running several tracks of playback while recording new tracks with lower buffer settings.

It is the applications way of giving you processing headroom when you need it. And it is also there so that people with slower PC's can adjust to use the higher end stuff without any bad noise being created.

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 13, 2006 08:15 pm

well ok heres the deal, it seems like the metromnome is on time, then my guy starts playing drums, and in playback he is completely off, though during real time it sounded dead on...
what does this mean?

if im getting these weird like skips in my recordings i should lower my buffer settings? its at 256 right now, it was at 128. raising it seemed to help a little.

-melty

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 13, 2006 09:07 pm

NO, if your getting skips during playback and recording you need to raise the buffer setting.

As for the out of time thing. When your in your options/audio tab in Sonar take a look at the latency reading it gives. At 256 with your computer it should be around 8 to 11 milleseconds. If it is more then that then the firepods drivers arent doing their job real well and you can hope there is or will be an upgraded driver soon. On my rig which is running an AMD Athalon XP 3200+ with 2 gig of ram I can run at 1.4 milleseconds with the buffer at 128. That is with the ESI ESP 1010.

Another fix would be to manually move the track into the correct timing position. Simply look at the latency number and the you can move the track that much to allign it into position. Unless you have a built in delay compensation then you could use that while recording.

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 13, 2006 11:30 pm

ok so now my buffer setting is at 2048 and it still is skipping. should i have either "enable read caching" or "enable write caching" boxing checked? because neither of them are.
what driver mode should i have it in? wdm/ks, asio, MME?
what dithering should i be using?

anyone with sonar 5 pe see the boxes that can be checked right under the "dithering" box. should i have any of those boxes checked?

i just want to make sure this gets fixed fast.

i had a band in today, and it sucks when a whole take is ruined not because of there playing, but my computer skipping during recording.

-melty

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 14, 2006 08:20 pm

My guess is your prbably runnig the mme drivers if your buffer is up that far and your still getting drop outs.That or as I stated above your drivers are not playing nice with the system.

Anyway, start on the advanced tab set your buffer back down to 256. Next under playback/recording choose the ASIO drivers. The dithering should default to Pow-r 3, if not choose that. Check the share drivers box as well as the play tails box. The others are your choice if you need them. I leave them unchecked. In the synch column choose Full Chase lock. Now go to the drivers tab and select the ASIO drivers listed for both recording and playback. It should list all the firepods channels like it did before 1/2 3/4 and so on. When you have them selected they will be darkly shaded around the lettering.

Now then go back to the general tab and choose your first set of drivers in each playback and recording timing master sections. For now I would not check the 64 bit double precision engine untill you get the first bits sorted and running without any drop outs. I would also try recording and playback and 16 bit 44.100kHz. Leave the stereo panning at defualt for now as well.

Now read the line that says effective latency at....... and post back here exactly what it says.

Hopefully we can get you squared away and get you up and running good.

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 14, 2006 09:34 pm

first of all, thanks a lot noize, wyd, and pjk for your help. it really means a lot.

second, noize.

i did all those things your told me to do except when i changed over to asio drivers it said i had to close and re-open sonar for the changes to take effect. so i did, and now the audio driver bit depth box is now changed to 24, and i cannot change it to 16. i dont know if that will change things or not.

as far as the latency it says exactly:

"effective latency at 44khz/stero: 10.2msec"


i wont know how all this effects recording until tomarrow, BUT during play back it still skipped 4 times in a 5 min song, which if that happens in recording will suck. 4 is a LOT less then it used to skip though so it seems you might be on the right track. Do you think there is any more info i can give you to help me out anymore? or should i just fiddle with the buffer setting some more?

-melty

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 14, 2006 09:58 pm

You could try bumping the buffer size to 512. And yes with ASIO that is my bad, 24 bit is the standard setting.

One other thing to try is going inot options/project options and on the clock tab make sure it is set to audio. That will help as well.

I'll keep checking a few things to see if I can come up with anything else.

Other then making absolutely sure your firepod settings match the Sonar settings that is about it though that I can think of at the moment.

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 14, 2006 10:47 pm

where do i check the firepod settings?

-melty

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 15, 2006 05:10 pm

other then the checking the firepod settings, ive done all youve recommended, it still skips though its a little better.

any other thoughts guys?

thanks

-melty

Hold 'Em Czar
Member
Since: Dec 30, 2004

Aug 15, 2006 06:20 pm

when i was taxin' my computer too much, i'd loop a verse or chorus, and after it played through once, it wouldn't glitch anymore....i'm starting to think this is a hard drive issue....do you have two drives or one? havin' a dedicated HD is definately worth the money.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 15, 2006 06:25 pm

Well hopefully for the price of those things they install a control panel application for it. It should be either residing on your taskbar in the quick click area on the right. Or it should be installed in the start/programs area. I would check the manual and see what it says.

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 15, 2006 07:14 pm

my usage meter hasnt even gotten over single digits yet on either cpu or drive. I have a maxor drive but im not using it, it was having the skipping issue with it, so i dissconnected it and havent added it back into the system chain yet.

yeah, the firepod setting are the same as the Sonar settings.


any more thoughts?

hehe

-melty

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 15, 2006 07:50 pm

I dont remember asking this before, but have you checked your driver version. For XP it should be 2.14.25. That is that latest revision.

As well, have you tried a complete uninstall of the drivers and unit and then a complete re-install? If you have and older driver version installed I would highly suggest doing the above and when doing the re-install using the newer drivers as it is a complete install itself.

Here is the page for the latest driver and manual downloads. www.presonus.com/downloads.html

Faze 2 Studios
Member
Since: Aug 15, 2005

Aug 20, 2006 10:16 pm

hehehe

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!


ok for some reason on the start up menu when you right click on the firepod's icon you can set the cpu to high low or medium. It was defualted on high.. I changed it to medium and it works like a charm.
though i dont understand becuase my cpu or hardrive have yet to be challenged even by the slitest by sonar... so i dont understand


but it works... so im not going to try and fix it


-melty

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 21, 2006 05:13 pm

Well that is good that you got it sorted then. I would guess that the firepod sucks up a huge amount of resources then in high mode if that was causing the problem.

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