KVR Audio

jimlau · Post by **jimlau** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:15 pm

I use Sonar X1, and sometimes i get loss of audio or computer freezing on larger projects. Specs below show I think I am covered in terms of CPU and RAM.

Anyway, normally people buy audio interfaces, but i don't plug any instrument/keyboards into an audio card. All midi data is entered by mouse.

I have Creative Sound Audigy SE. I also tried asio4all drivers, but no luck. i guess i need a better audio card, without need for an interface to an external MIDI controller.

Any suggestions?

my specs:

CPU: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor
MB: ASUSTeK (M5A88-M)
RAM: 7934mb
HDD: 233gb (WDC WD2503ABYX-01WERA0 ATA Device)
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4250
Sound: Creative Soun d Audigy SE
OS: Windows 7 Professional (7600)
Scr:Generic PnP Monitor

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:47 pm

To be honoust I don't think getting a proper interface with ASIO drivers is going to solve your problem. It could very well be that one of your fav plugins is causing this. You should rule that out before making that investment, although with a simple interface like the M-Audio AudioPhile 24/96 (should cost about $100) you can't go wrong. Unless M-Audio messed up with the Win7 drivers...

You should actually have a look at the Task Manager (press Ctrl-Shift-Esc to open it) and identify weather one of the processes is maxing out the CPU when this happens.

Another idea: 32bits vs 64bits. If you use a 64bit version of Sonar and all or most your plugins are 32bit, then valuable CPU cycles go to the conversion process. Then it's far more efficient to switch to the 32bit version of Sonar. It then still can access 4GB of RAM, which should be quite sufficient to hold all data for one song, don't you think?

jimlau · Post by **jimlau** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:57 pm

I'm mostly using Kontakt 4 with virtual electric guitar (strawberry, shreddage) and Guitar Rig 4, and EZDrummer. About 8 tracks, 6 VST's. My CPU and RAM loads are not maxed out. And when I run just 1 or 2 at a time, no problems.

Audio seemed to be the only variable left.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:45 am

You can't rule out the CPU totally. Maybe it looks like the processor can cope fine, but if all is concentrated on just one core then well...

jimlau · Post by **jimlau** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:00 pm

i monitored ther cpu and ram during play, and neither looked anywhere near overloaded.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:37 pm

You did look at the individual cores?

Also worth a try is to run the DPC Latency Checker. Sometimes things like wireless network adapters make it impossible to have a stable enough system for real-time audio processing.

jimlau · Post by **jimlau** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:07 pm

yes, i watched all 4 cores. also used that latency program you mentioned and it showed all was fine.

bluelife · Post by **bluelife** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:33 pm

Try the ESI card, saw one I think it's called Julia for €119.
ESI stuff is quite good.

Kaboom75 · Post by **Kaboom75** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:33 am

Are you using the 64bit version of Windows 7?
IS Sonar X1 64bit?

I had the same problem with ableton live 8 running sampled guitars electri6ity and Steven Slate Drums 4 on my set up :-

Windows 7 64bit
i7 920 3.4Ghz
6GB Ram
X-fi Titanium
GTX 260

Live kept hitting 3.2GB usage = loss of audio and crashes. 3.2GB is Live's max ram usage on Windows 7 64bit because it is a 32bit DAW.

I cured it by installing Jbridge this app runs plugins as a seperate process so they have their own memory adress space so your DAW does not use much ram and your sessions can use upto 14GB Ram on Windows 7 64bit Home Edition. Your plugins will still open in your DAW and the use is the same.

Installing a 64bit OS and a 64bit DAW is the ideal solution. If you'r using Windows 7 32bit then you can only use 4GB in total.

jimlau · Post by **jimlau** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:51 pm

yes, i'm running windows 7 64-bit.

i have another project which uses 5GB of RAM and it works, so apparently RAM is not an issue. i even used the same plug-ins as the 1 that crashes. will try to narrow it down to which track is causing the crash. maybe 1 too many guitar rig 5 effects.

thanks.

LBN · Post by **LBN** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:00 pm

If you're still looking for a new card with simple needs, I also recommend the M-Audio Audiophile 2496. I'm running mine with Windows 7 x64 and it's rock solid. It's hard to believe I've had this card for over ten years now. It's now in its third machine.

Kaboom75 · Post by **Kaboom75** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:49 am

Tried a few more Kontackt instruments on mine till Im nearly filling 6GB and Im getting sound problems before I get near CPU overload. I think it's all the samples coming from one hard drive. I'm going to try changing the preload buffer size. I read on a few forums that some Kontakt users use three hard drives to split the hard drive load so a sample library on each.

If you do get a sound card the M-Audio Audiophile 192 is designed just for DAWs and very low latency.

Kontakt performance optimising http://www.proaudiosupport.com/a44177/o ... mance.html

Need Sound Card Without External Interface-Considerations?