Hey All

Getting a crash I can reproduce every time in Sonar 8.5.3

1: Blank Sonar project (no other audio/midi tracks)
2: Insert two instances of Thesys in the Synth Rack
3: Draw a pattern in each one/random velocities
4: Put Sonar in a four bar loop, press play -- both sequences will play

Within 5 secs to 1 minute, I get a hard crash of Sonar every time -- crashes with the "Do you Want to Debug SonarPdr.exe dialog.

Don't get this issue with one instance -- only when two (and presumably more) instances are instantiated.

Tyson

Hi,

i'll investigate this issue, please give me some days to sort things out.
Which OS do you use ?

Best,
Robert

Just out of interest, do you have to have midi out enabled for each instance of this plugin? There is a growing number of people over on the Cakewalk forums that are seeing issues when running more than one plugin that require midi out!! I came across this when running more than one instance of Catanya, or Cochleor's HI, or combinations. If you go to the Cakewalk forums and search for Catanya, you will see some people have done some very in depth research on this problem.

For the moment I purchased Reaper and rewired it into Sonar 8.5.3!!!! No feedback from Cakewalk to my problem yet, but I only sent a ticket regarding this yesterday so they should be given some time.

Very useful information on this from here -

http://www.alienworks.com/cakewalk/sonarmidibug/sonarmidibug .htm

Couple of mentioned links -

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1643436&high=enable+mid i+output+bug&mpage=1

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1952618&mpage=2

Hope this is not off topic, it was your mention of two instances that prompted me to add this comment, as if this is a Sonar bug it would be helpful if it's priority could be raised within Cakewalk.

BW

Mark

Just tried myself. It didnt crash Sonar 8.5.3 (winXP sp3) I used at first the internal engines of the 2 Thesys instances. Then i used them both to control 1: Strobe and 2: StringVST respectively.

The only thing i would say is, i (out of habit now) always start my playback/loop etc from at least bar 2 on the timeline - this i understand is a prudent step to introduce some room for the initial midi messages to be sent accordingly to the plugins. Or at least thats how i believe it is the case....maybe thats wrong? In any case since i have adopted the practise ive had far fewer dropouts and hiccups when using plugs - so im sticking by that idea.

Second i made a note of first testing them both with both tracks set to Midi Omni - this too can (i believe) lead to issues with sending/receiving heavy amounts of midi data (again, another myth?) Maybe i read too much over at Cakewalk forums! But anyway - i almost always now try (and indeed i did the second time round) put them on individual channels. ie

Thesys 1 Midi ch 1 - Strobe 1
Thesys 2 Midi ch 1 - StringVST 1

Again, no problems. Iam very keen to monitor this thread though - as it relates directly to the whole midi topic that does come up time after time it seems regards Sonar. I have few issues these days compared to past updates etc but still...there is something not 100% right within the DAW. Anything that opens up discussion in order to achieve a solution is well worth flagging.

Are your buffers set OK? Other settings etc..I can honestly say it hasnt happened yet (even though i perhaps expected it to) Trust in Sonar is getting better all the time - yet there is stil that niggling doubt which made me try it as well.

This is a bug in Sonar, not Thesys. Sonar has long-standing MIDI related bugs that prevent more than one VSTi from sending MIDI events out at the same time. This applies to any combination of VSTis, like Thesys, Catanya, Jamstix, etc. As long as you checked the "Enable MIDI Output" on the VSTis, and they happen to send MIDI events out simultaneously, Sonar will crash. There is no work-around.

In addition, If you have a VSTi that sends MIDI events out, those MIDI events will be recorded on any other MIDI track that is in record mode. So if you have Thesys sending MIDI events out, and you record MIDI from your external keyboard into another track, those events from Thesys will also be recorded on the track. This particular bug might not be triggered if you have more than one MIDI input device enabled. In addition, the so called "work-around" for this bug is only partially effective. This is known as the "MIDI crosstalk bug", although Cakewalk fixed an unrelated MIDI bug just to claim that they have fixed the "MIDI crosstalk bug" when they were called out on this in a Computer Music Magazine review.

Cakewalk has known about these bugs for 2 1/2 years now (logged as CWBRN-1336 on 2/24/2009), but they don't consider them important enough to fix. These bugs are show-stoppers for me since I rely on VSTis that send MIDI events out, and I have since dumped Sonar for a functional DAW that can get basic MIDI routing right.