This explains a lot about Cakewalk/Sonar

[lfm]

(Oh - and btw - Sonar is not "gapless". Try inserting a vsti while the transport is running. Yes, I know about the playback buffer fix).

I never understood why that is important?

So you get a crackle n pop if inserting an VST instrument while transport is running - and problem is?

Some VSTi, like XLN Audio stuff, insert latency - and that is supposed to be adjusted, possibly delaying all other tracks a bit - without a pop in audio?

Why even do that while transport is running in the first place?

If doing live work certain things are important, no crackles and pops - but are such inserting operations really part for live work?

Just trying to understand why some expect gapless in any situation.

[Jace-BeOS]

(Oh - and btw - Sonar is not "gapless". Try inserting a vsti while the transport is running. Yes, I know about the playback buffer fix).

I never understood why that is important?

So you get a crackle n pop if inserting an VST instrument while transport is running - and problem is?

Some VSTi, like XLN Audio stuff, insert latency - and that is supposed to be adjusted, possibly delaying all other tracks a bit - without a pop in audio?

Why even do that while transport is running in the first place?

If doing live work certain things are important, no crackles and pops - but are such inserting operations really part for live work?

Just trying to understand why some expect gapless in any situation.

When working on a signal change, with our bottomless pit of optional VST plugins, it would be nice to swap things and reorder them without serious artifacts. What would be even nicer is to not have the audio engine stop entirely.

But that's not even the complaint I am making here about Gapless audio. My complaint is that the damn playback, when I'm just sitting there listening to my Sonar project playing, and I'm doing nothing at all... it clicks, pops, and even just stops. Inconsistent. Unpredictable.

Eliminating glitches in plugin rearrangement would be a total luxury compared to that.

[flugel45]

... My complaint is that the damn playback, when I'm just sitting there listening to my Sonar project playing, and I'm doing nothing at all... it clicks, pops, and even just stops. Inconsistent. Unpredictable.

...

No, this is not normal, even on an older version of Sonar. There is some component causing trouble - maybe a chipset or video driver that needs updating, or a troublesome plugin.

Which O.S./ Sonar version are you running?

[whyterabbyt]

Just trying to understand why some expect gapless in any situation.

When working on a signal change, with our bottomless pit of optional VST plugins, it would be nice to swap things and reorder them without serious artifacts. What would be even nicer is to not have the audio engine stop entirely.

Weird, I find it hard to create any kind of 'serious artefacts' swapping and reordering plugins (or clips) in Sonar. If there's anything, its a barely-perceptible volume dip on some plugins, and that's about it. I get more intrusive artefacts/volume dips in Tracktion and Live.
To me 'gapless audio' was one of those silly legacy complaints that came from fanboys of other DAWs which didnt actually have full PDC across the board to deal with.

[arkmabat]

At least with the old mobile i7 I have, FL12 is NOT gapless when inserting a VST like Diversion. Nope.

[arkmabat]

This thread is tearing Sonar to pieces. X3 works fine for me. Only issue I had was exporting *.mp3 straight to desktop doesn't/didn't work. Any other folder was fine lol. They took three months to get back to me on that and still had no answer for me.

[Jim Roseberry]

But that's not even the complaint I am making here about Gapless audio. My complaint is that the damn playback, when I'm just sitting there listening to my Sonar project playing, and I'm doing nothing at all... it clicks, pops, and even just stops. Inconsistent. Unpredictable.

Eliminating glitches in plugin rearrangement would be a total luxury compared to that.

This is certainly not normal/expected behavior from Sonar.
The audio engine is very solid here (no dropouts/glitches/etc).
If you're hearing glitches and experiencing drop-outs, I'd have a look at your system's DPC Latency.
Also, what about bridged 32Bit plugins?
There has to be a reason for that type of (poor) performance.

[vespesian]

(Oh - and btw - Sonar is not "gapless". Try inserting a vsti while the transport is running. Yes, I know about the playback buffer fix).

I never understood why that is important?

So you get a crackle n pop if inserting an VST instrument while transport is running - and problem is?

Some VSTi, like XLN Audio stuff, insert latency - and that is supposed to be adjusted, possibly delaying all other tracks a bit - without a pop in audio?

Why even do that while transport is running in the first place?

If doing live work certain things are important, no crackles and pops - but are such inserting operations really part for live work?

Just trying to understand why some expect gapless in any situation.

I was merely responding to the poster who claimed Sonar was gapless; but, I agree - it's a 'nice-to-have', but not totally necessary feature. At this point, better compatibility with 3rd plug-ins would be a more important area to focus on. Oh - and again, and perhaps just as importantly - ban/reprogram the self-appointed forum bouncers...they're not doing Cakewalk Inc. any favours image-wise.

[lfm]

Oh - and again, and perhaps just as importantly - ban/reprogram the self-appointed forum bouncers...they're not doing Cakewalk Inc. any favours image-wise.

The Forum Hosts are a PITA at least, they do more harm than good.
I don't spend any time on Cakewalk forum anymore.

But I really like what devs are doing with Sonar.
A pity still some Waves stuff like Tune is not supported properly - have to move those tracks to Cubase for processing.

But instruments, like Vienna Ensemble, with multiple event inputs(midi ports) are supported which is good.

[planetearth]

This thread is tearing Sonar to pieces. X3 works fine for me. Only issue I had was exporting *.mp3 straight to desktop doesn't/didn't work. Any other folder was fine lol. They took three months to get back to me on that and still had no answer for me.

You're right, this is starting to get stupid.

And you can use the LAME MP3 encoder with Sonar. Many prefer it to the commercial one Cakewalk wants you to pay for, anyway. If you want tips on where to get it and how to configure it, just PM me. The whole process may take you 10 minutes.

Steve

[planetearth]

Just trying to understand why some expect gapless in any situation.

When working on a signal change, with our bottomless pit of optional VST plugins, it would be nice to swap things and reorder them without serious artifacts. What would be even nicer is to not have the audio engine stop entirely.

Weird, I find it hard to create any kind of 'serious artefacts' swapping and reordering plugins (or clips) in Sonar. If there's anything, its a barely-perceptible volume dip on some plugins, and that's about it. I get more intrusive artefacts/volume dips in Tracktion and Live.
To me 'gapless audio' was one of those silly legacy complaints that came from fanboys of other DAWs which didnt actually have full PDC across the board to deal with.

But that's not even the complaint I am making here about Gapless audio. My complaint is that the damn playback, when I'm just sitting there listening to my Sonar project playing, and I'm doing nothing at all... it clicks, pops, and even just stops. Inconsistent. Unpredictable.

Eliminating glitches in plugin rearrangement would be a total luxury compared to that.

This is certainly not normal/expected behavior from Sonar.
The audio engine is very solid here (no dropouts/glitches/etc).
If you're hearing glitches and experiencing drop-outs, I'd have a look at your system's DPC Latency.
Also, what about bridged 32Bit plugins?
There has to be a reason for that type of (poor) performance.

I don't have either of these problems, and I don't see them mentioned often in other forums (except for the popping/glitches, which is usually related to ASIO/sound card settings).

Jim, I know you know Sonar inside and out. I've seen where you've helped many others in the Cakewalk forums for years. You might want to be careful what you say here, though--at least in this thread. Some people will construe you saying that what they're experiencing is "not normal/expected behavior" as a personal attack.

And Whyterabbit, thank you for saying what I've been saying: that this is not normal behavior for Sonar. Good luck, however.

I'm not pointing fingers. But some people seem to have many problems with Sonar (or Cubase, or FL Studio, or whatever), and instead of taking an honest look at their system to see what may be causing the problem they're having, they simply blame the DAW and dismiss (or attack) everyone else who says they don't have those problems.

I am no Sonar fanboi. All I can say is that my Win7/Sonar DAW runs cleanly and efficiently. It is not perfect, but it does what I need it to do. Here and on the Sonar forums (and elsewhere), I have happily offered my time to help anyone who had problems with Sonar or their system in general. As a computer consultant, I know how to tweak a system to make it run efficiently. But for those who would rather dismiss the problems they're having as "problems with Sonar", that's fine.

The rest of us will go on with our day and make music.

Steve

[Jace-BeOS]

Here we go again. Of course it's not normal. Other software is fine. As I've said. If you don't experience the same, well, that's part of the problem: the inconsistency.

The troubleshooting suggestions are nice and all, but it's all stuff that has been examined already and shown to have no impact (or no improvement to offer). Besides, it's not the only problem I've experienced regularly in Sonar. Just one example that irks me due to repeated marketing claims.

This is why i gave up on Sonar. No answers. Very frustrating. Not trying anymore.

I joined in on this thread at various times because marketing at Cakewalk, and most recently other people's experience with weirdness that seemingly wants to be reported as "user error", triggered my ire. I'm in a minority on this stuff, but not alone.

[flugel45]

Here we go again....

Indeed.

[Jace-BeOS]

It sure taught me a lesson about throwing money at bug problems. When Cubase 4.5.x failed to ever become stable on Mac OS X 10.6.8, I didn't go "maybe Cubase 5 will be better". I stopped right there. Just this week I revisited it, it crashed again, and i finally deleted it from my Mac. Everything else on the Mac runs spectacularly. Cubase couldn't even browse presets without crashing. Why would I bother to learn its poor GUI? Sonar, though, I stuck with for about four computers, various professional and cheap audio devices, and 7 paid upgrades.

If it works great for you, stick with it. If it's problematic, don't expect throwing more money at it will help.

[trimph1]

OK...I get it now. I will assume that the computer must be at fault first.

Then we will have to assume that it is the sound/video cards are not set properly and then we need to check the settings then uninstall/reinstall Platinum to see if that does anything....

All this on a computer that works really fine on Presona's S1v3 . And Audacity.