OK Sonar heads, solve this dropout problem and I'll give you

[Hunter]

a hug.

I've just done a complete system reinstall and install of Sonar 4 up to 4.02 to avoid the envelope bugs in 4.04.

I can't get Sonar to playback for more than a fraction of a second.

Well its not as simple as that...

Audio plays back fine, but the now time inidcator line whatsitcalled does not move at all, and the now time timer does not change - essentially the playback has crashed though audio can still be heard.

MIDI playback stops the moment it begins, wiht a nice fat crackle, even though audio tracks keep playing back.

Also, only one in every three hits of the play button results in the joy of a fraction of a second of playback, the other times the audio engine stops and the big red light of doom comes up.

I've tried all drivers, asio, wdm, increased buffer sizes to frankly ludicrous sizes, tried everything I can think of, with no joy.

this has never happened before and I'm using exactly the same install procedure as always, with no hiccups. Its always worked straight off the mark before.

Can anyone help? I'm sure I must be missing something stupid.

FLStudio works fine, as do WMP, tracktion and audacity etc.

I really want to use Sonar for a big batch of sound design this week but I'm going to have to go elsewhere if i can;t get playback working.

Athlon 1700, Audiophile 2496, 512ram, GForce256, Win2K

[Hunter]

Oh yeah I can play back MIDI via the scrub tool but that isn't exactly much fun!

[whyterabbyt]

Dont have a clue if you've already buggered about with drivers and stuff.

YOu say you've done a full OS reinstall... is it worthwile trying an older set of soundcard drivers in case something is screwed in the latest version; I had a weird problem a while ago where a version of an ethernet card driver was causing the systems to freeze up after a few hours; I didnt notice it on my 'test' install because it was updated after I did the test, and I only managed to 'solve' it because another version went up less than a week later ( a week of very pissed-off headscratching!)

[Hunter]

Dont have a clue if you've already buggered about with drivers and stuff.

YOu say you've done a full OS reinstall... is it worthwile trying an older set of soundcard drivers in case something is screwed in the latest version; I had a weird problem a while ago where a version of an ethernet card driver was causing the systems to freeze up after a few hours; I didnt notice it on my 'test' install because it was updated after I did the test, and I only managed to 'solve' it because another version went up less than a week later ( a week of very pissed-off headscratching!)

Well its always worked with the drivers for the soundcard that came with the box until this reinstall. I actually went and got the latest update and tried that but no change.

I have this niggling feeling I'm missing something, or that this has happened before and its taken one mouse click to resolve, but I just can't put my finger on it. The weird thing is that its always worked straight off before, and now it doesn't, but nothing has changed. Its not hardware as everything else works. I've even done 2 OS installs just to check nowt was wrong with that, just because I could do it relatively easily before I reinstall all my apps.

very peculiar.

When I work out what it is you'll probably hear me from dundee swearing

[sevenorchids]

Perhaps try to reprofile your sound card?

[Hink]

Even though it's never happened before Hunter, I would swap your card to another slot (if possible)...though the fact the problems seems to bebase around midi, so I find that odd...are you using a card that has both midi and audio? Does your card have midi plugs or breakout cables...perhaps a midi connection coming is broke (a cable or mabye one of the jacks the pins go in has been pushed through). Also maybe you have a rogue pluggin that just doesn't like your system...

[Markleford]

Do you have all of the v4 patches? Make sure you do!

Does this happen on *every* project?

If not, create a project (reduced as much as you can, with only common synths) that exhibits the problem and post it. Then we can try to reproduce the issue on our machines.

- m

[Hunter]

Hi everyone,

thanks for the replies...

...I'm going to leave this at the moment because the Cakewalk fairy has just delivered this shiny green and white box with the number 5 on it


So I'll see how I get on with that and let ye know


@markelford - yep every project file, new, or existing. very curious. I'm wondering if there is a rogue file in the Program Files (on a sepreate partition form windows) thats causing the problem, as the format and reinstall of Bindows should have properly cleared any registry entries.

[keyman_sam]

I've had the same exact problem in the past.

Forgot how i fixed it though....

Anyways, i vaguely remember messing with audio drivers.

Do this : go to the drivers tab and disable all drivers you dont need. For my card, i disabled something labelled AUX. I only had E-mu ASIO 31/32 and something else. Also, disable the onboard soundcard.

One more thing is, in my setup, before changing sonar's settings, i change my 0404 mixer's settings and then change sonar's. I dont want to insult your intelligence, but incase you've forgotten, check to see if both the soundcard AND sonar are operating under the SAME settings, like ASIO mode should be on both, etc, etc.


One more tip : before doing something major like this, its always a good idea to setup a system restore. I disable it normally, but just before a major change, i enable it. Very handy.

[Hunter]

Well Sonar 5 works as it should

Sonar 4 hasn't miraculously fixed itself since 5 was installed, which is a shame as I'd like to be able to use more than one automation envelope per effect.

[Markleford]

Well Sonar 5 works as it should

Any easy fix (if by no means cheap!).

Sonar 4 hasn't miraculously fixed itself since 5 was installed, which is a shame as I'd like to be able to use more than one automation envelope per effect.

If you still want to get 4 to work, try deleting the aud.ini file and reprofiling your soundcard. Sometimes just reprofiling isn't enough.

- m

[codacoda]

Hey Hunter I know that you can't automate some effects with more than one envelope at a time but I just did a test with the Sonitus and Cake FX and at the moment, on one track, I've got four Sonitus Modulator FX parameters auto'd and functioning, three on the Sonitus Wahwah and two on Cake's Spectra FX. Do these work for you?

[Hunter]

Sonar 4 hasn't miraculously fixed itself since 5 was installed, which is a shame as I'd like to be able to use more than one automation envelope per effect.

If you still want to get 4 to work, try deleting the aud.ini file and reprofiling your soundcard. Sometimes just reprofiling isn't enough.

- m

Actually I do still want 4 to work until the envelope bug has been fixed - I rely heavily on filter etc automation through envelopes.

I tried the aud.ini trick after reading it on the FAQ at the forum, but to no avail. I even deleted all the Sonar 4 files with a shredder program so there was defintiely nothing there to cause confusion, and reinstalled, but still the same prob.

Well its not the end of the world, Sonar 5 looks good and works fine, just need to work out how to change the setup of it a bit (they took away the inbuilt track EQ mini-GUI??? grrr), so I'm, off to bed with the manual, coz thats how exciting a guy I am

[Hunter]

Hey Hunter I know that you can't automate some effects with more than one envelope at a time but I just did a test with the Sonitus and Cake FX and at the moment, on one track, I've got four Sonitus Modulator FX parameters auto'd and functioning, three on the Sonitus Wahwah and two on Cake's Spectra FX. Do these work for you?

Hmm haven't tried the native ones, but it's not them I'm automating anyway, its 3rd party plugs I'm using.

[Rev. Jem]

M-Audio driver installation can be a bit of a bastard so make sure you follow their uninstall/install procedures to the letter. May require 2 reboots. Can't remember exactly which ones i'm on for the 2496 but the number 29 comes to mind. Disable any on-board audio, set 2496 in the card's mixer app to 64 or 128, profile your card in Sonar & slect the correct drivers from within Sonar's Audio Options. Hope that fixes it: best I can do for you at the mo'.