Sonar soft Synth slow response
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Posted on Jan 11, 2009 10:23 am
kats
Member Since: Jan 11, 2009
Hello, this is my first time to post.
When I use a couple of soft synths on my Sonar 8 Producer, the sound response for MIDI keyboard becomes slow. When using just one, I don't feel it. This is because of my old PC? Or do I have to optimize Sonar? My PC is AMD Athlon 64 3200, 2GB memory, SATA HDD with E-MU 0404 PCI sound card. ASIO Buffer Latency is 16ms. Synths are like session drumer, Dimension Pro, Emulator XL. Please give me some advice.
Regards, Kats
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Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jan 12, 2009 05:10 pm That would be latency. And as you add more instruments it will increase the load on the CPU and RAM as well as the audio interface.
I would take a look and make certain that you are running the ASIO drivers or at the very least WDM drivers.
That will help some indeed.
Your PC seems to be fit for the job. Although the CPU may be close to the lower end of what honestly works it should be just fine.
Are you running a separate HD for audio from the OS?
And what is your buffer set at by the way, 128, 256 or higher?
katsMember
Since: Jan 11, 2009
Jan 15, 2009 12:28 pm Thank you for the quick reply.
Drive Mode is ASIO.
Playback I/O buffer is 512
Record I/O buffer is 512.
OS and program is on the SATA HDD while data is on another normal HDD.
I know the CPU is rather old. I will upgrade it in future.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jan 15, 2009 09:30 pm You can try setting the playback and record buffer down to 256 or even to 128. This will help get rid of some of the latency, but going too low may cause pops or clicks. But you can sure give it a try. That will eliminate the lag or slowness you are getting from the time you hit a key to the time you hear the sound.
katsMember
Since: Jan 11, 2009
Jan 17, 2009 01:02 am I changed the buffers to 128 and figured out slight improvement although still I feel a little bit of latency. The CPU usage is around 30% without playing/recording. But when recording, it goes to 50-60%. Maybe like you pointed out the CPU needs to be upgraded for further improvement on the latency? When I reduce the number of soft synth from four to two, the CPU usage got down to 10-20%.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jan 17, 2009 07:15 pm I wonder is there is anything else running in the background that is using CPU cycles as well then. but it sounds like a pretty big drop with cutting two software synths out so that could be the CPU as well.
katsMember
Since: Jan 11, 2009
Jan 18, 2009 02:53 am I leand what the latency is and also CPU usage means. Thank you.
