SONAR - can't record track 2 without track 1 being on it??
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Posted on Oct 13, 2004 10:01 am
staceyv
Member Since: Oct 13, 2004
why is it that when i record track 2, and i play it back, i can hear everything from track 1 on it too. for example, track 1 is guitar and vocals. on track 2, i play a guitar solo. then i mute track 1 and playback, but on track 2 i can hear guitar, vocals and lead guitar. why can't i just hear the lead guitar???i'm plugging the guitar directly into a creative audigy 2 soundblaster. i tried using headphones but it made no difference. obviously, i need to listen to track 1 while i record track 2, but how can i do it without getting all the stuff from track 1 onto track 2 too???
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Oct 13, 2004 10:19 am Hello, Welcome to HRC.
VERY common problem.
Since you don't have your gear profile filled out I don't have much to go on other than that evil "SoundBlaster" word.
The SB is recording whats coming in the input and playing internally. In Sonar you need to specifically assign the track to listen to ONLY the input, and the output has to NEVER go back into the card, anywhere, at any time.
Follow your signal path through whatever gear you have, they have to be crossing at some point.
Oct 13, 2004 12:59 pm thanks for your help! i'm not good with all of this technical stuff...how do i "specifically assign sonar to listen to only the input"??? how do i stop the output from going back into the card? what i'm doing right now, basically, is plugging my guitar or mic into the soundblaster's input and i'm recording. then i'll start a new track in sonar. then i'll record track 2 the smae way, and so on. i tried all different combinations with sonar's input/output. they give you options for left, right, stereo, and "A". i don't know what they mean, but i think i've tried every possible combination! i also tried muting everything but the input on the soundcard. what exactly do i need to do??? i haven't recorded song in almost a year because i get so frustrated with this stupid program. at first it kept dropping out, then we got a new CPU and it was fixed. now this.
Oct 13, 2004 01:00 pm oh yeah! and how do i follow my signal path and make sure they're crossing at some point?
Oct 13, 2004 01:11 pm The input is assigned in the track view of Sonar in the track properties. Kinda falls under the "read the f'in manual" category. The left right and stereo are option to and from your sound card, A is a bus in Sonar.
Follow the signal chain in your head, you know how everything is hooked up, pretend you are a sound signal from an instrument, what is the path into the PC, what path does the signal take back out of the PC to your speakers...they intersect at some point...hell, draw it out on paper...you'll see it.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Oct 13, 2004 03:01 pm Check the SB Mixer and make sure you have only Line In or Mic selected as the source. SB's by default have the input set to What You Hear.
Dan
Oct 13, 2004 03:04 pm ah, nice catch OD...didn't think about that, it's been so long since I have worked with an SB :)
Oct 14, 2004 03:21 pm thanks for your help.
Oct 15, 2004 08:55 am That was so easy to fix!!! i can't believe i haven't recorded for months because of such a little problem. but ofcourse, it's not over. now that i fixed that, i seem to have another problem...there's a delay now between the time that i play a note and the time when sonar receives it. this makes it impossible to do a solo over a guitar track because it completely throws off my timing- ineed to hear the note as soon as i play it! i've got the "latency" set in a safe zone, because if i set it to be faster, then the sound keeps "dropping out". ???help!
Oct 15, 2004 09:03 am I knew this was coming...
That's an SB for you. Setting it to safe means the latency is too high for the app to compensate for, set it too low it drops out cuz the sound card is not high performance enough to do the job.
I am not sure, but I don't think SB supports zero-latency monitoring, if you see such a checkbox anywhere, check it and try that, also, make sure you are at least using WDM drivers, ASIO if you can, if not search out the kx (or is it xk) project, a team that is making high perf drivers for SB cards, some people have great reuslts, some people don't, it's worth a try.
Failing that, buy a better card. You can get a card made for recording for under $200 anymore...still a lot of money, but that's much less than they were than a few years ago...
tonyd1970The fat one always watches us.Member
Since: Nov 08, 2002
Oct 15, 2004 09:34 am I dont really have any problems with my sb. i remeber setting the latency in my recording software- not on the sb itself. i did have some problems going over 8 tracks with a 5400 rpm hard drive, and only 512 ram on my p3. ive gone upto 15 tracks with my current hardware and no problems. I dont dissagree with db that a better sound card would be better- the sb takes some tweaking sometimes, but the main bottle neck in my old system was the 5400 hd, not the sb.
as i have no clue on sonar,or how to set up the latency- thats about the best of what i know.
Oct 15, 2004 09:43 am Latency is set up in Sonar by selecting the driver type you want to use (it allows MME, ASIO and WDM drivers). and from there Sonar automates a lot of setting, generally very accurately, but you can also tweak a lot of performance settings such as buffers and what-not...
Like tonyd said, tweaking is in order, because you are asking an SB to do something it's really not meant to do, though it can with proper care. It's still more productive to just get a real recording card if you have the means, if not, start tweaking :)
tonyd1970The fat one always watches us.Member
Since: Nov 08, 2002
Oct 15, 2004 10:25 am Youve gotta get a real "music" sound card if you want to record mutiple tracks at the same time and keep them seperate in sonar. with the sb you can only record one track at a time. its not too bad for a 1 man band setup, but you need more to do more, thats fur shure
Jan 24, 2010 05:13 pm latency problems can sometimes be resolved by using "ASIO4ALL" -Google & Download it - set everything up to use it's drivers... worked for me.
