Sonar Questions (thinking of moving from Cubase)

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Over 65% CPU isn't exactly the best scenario for recording at low latency, you might want to consider freezing/bouncing something at that point.

And I hate this PCI Latency bullsh*t. I mean, come on: it's 2005! How much longer do we have to put up with this crap? It's getting harder and harder to track down PC problems the faster and better they get. We should be way past IRQ/Bus/PCI conflicts. It's just embarassing and frustrating.

Oops, rant!

Good luck, fots.
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cubase rox, but I think you need a rme-soundcard ;-)!

like I said, Cubase rox! (and Sonar too) !PEACE! :-)
! - P - E - A - C - E - !
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TOTALLY agreed !! I actually bought a PCI interface since they are the fastest (PCI is actually supposed to be faster than Firewire 800 & USB 2.0) but I probly should have just gone for a Firewire interface.

My only other options are the EMU and the Motu 828 which have the same feature set as my card. But I heard that Motu drivers suck more than Echo lol and the EMU wasn't out when I bought my card.

It may be that your right bduffy, I'm probly pushing the PC too hard, the reason I can't bounce or freeze much is because I'm using ReWire, can you freeze Rewire chans ?? .. i actually thought u couldnt but i'll check again tonight :D

Working on a pop punk / emo / rock project with Cubase SL3, Voxengo / Kjaerhus plugins, Reason 3 & Reason drum kits. Got a little sample up ...

http://www.users.on.net/~djbros/The%20Edge%202.mp3

This one doesn't have the vocals in the verse. I used a Line6 GuiarPort (same sound as PodXT) to record the guitars, not so happy with the distorted sound of guitars, damn its so hard to get a good distorted tone ! lol

PC is ready to be formatted tho, I'll clean things up and defrag & tweak my butt off and hopefully we will see no dropouts at least.

The dropouts even happen on smaller projects which is a concern :S

Cheers
Fots
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hey kaufi, yep I considered RME for sure, but it was 3 times the price of the Echo ! lol and since I'm not profiting from my music, it was a bit too much to spend to be honest :(

Thanks anyway

Cheers
Fots
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I forgot you were using ReWire. No, you can't freeze tracks. You can bounce them though. And if you're getting the dropouts even with low CPU (like I do with Echo), then it's not the high CPU load anyway.

Hey your demo sounds really good! I really like it, like to hear the full tune sometime. Your GTR tone sounds pretty good to me too! If you're looking for more definition, try doing a track with a more dry GTR tone. I use a POD too and it took me awhile to find its sweet spots, but now I swear by it. What drums are those? The kick sounds really familiar...Reason Drums?
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hey bduffy, thanks for the comments and i'll try out the guitar suggestion. Currently the guitar is just 2 takes (1 left and 1 right) with the Soldano amp, i think 2 more takes might help fatten things up.

Yep drums are Reason Drum Kits 2, just bought it a week ago, lovin it ! I squashed the snare with Kjaerhus GCO1 so it could cut through the mix. The kit you hear there i put together using my favourite hihats, cymbals .etc I'm pretty sure its identical to one of the rock hits provided except for the hihats.

What do you think of Reason Drums btw ?

I know this topic is going WAY off course, but ... who cares :D lol

Cheers
Fots
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arke wrote:Sorry for stealing the thread, but...

I got to try Sonar5 the other day which I absolutely loved, except for the piano roll. Is there a way to turn off auto-following? That would seal the deal for me! (and mean that I'd have to save up even more money).
Hit the 'scroll lock' key... At least, that's how it worked in Sonar 4...
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OK, I have reinstalled Windows XP and only installed necessary music apps. Also tweaked Windows and Services using the guide presented below this message. I put this guide together after going through several places which talk about tweaking XP.

So far, I see a massive improvement, still not perfect though. First and foremost, the dropouts "seem" to be gone. The CPU usage is a lot more stable except when I'm using Pristine Space Light (which I probably should replace with AA Reverb when I get some cash). Convolution is way too unstable for big projects and realtime use.

CPU spikes due to GUI activity is also not apparent however ... if I switch to my GuitarPort (USB Audiocard) ASIO driver and back to my Echo ASIO drivers, I get spikes with GUI activity. Is the USB device annoying the Layla ? Also when running the GuitarPort software, CPU usage starts getting unstable again ... how will I record guitar ? :| lol Looks like I'll have to buy a freakin PodXT.

So without the GuitarPort, all seems well except for one thing. Even though a large project (using over 80 % CPU plays perfectly ... if I close Cubase and open the project again, the CPU meter shows 100 % CPU usage and I get no audio for about 10 - 15 seconds. After that, the CPU meter goes back to where it should be and the project plays fine.

Has anyone ever experienced this with Cubase & large porjects ? It doesn't do it with my GuitarPort ASIO driver so I assume it's Echo's fault :(

I'm using Ecoh Drivers 6.13 and I'm about to roll back to 6.11 to see if that helps.

Cheers
Fots
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Well my friends, I have news but it's not good ... I found out why my CPU maxes out at 100 % for 10 - 15 secs and I also found out why my Cubase CPU meter spikes when I save my project ...

Kjaerhus Gold

I tested this out properly ...

1 new project, 50 GlissEQs ... no problem at all ... no CPU spikes when saving, project loads back with no problem.

another new project, 50 GEQ7 ... HUGE waiting time at 100 % CPU usage and then MASSIVE (beyond 100 %) CPU spikes when saving.

I'll report this to Torben but unfortunately, Torben doesn't tend to release fixes immediately ... which means that I'll be stuck with this problem for a while.

I'll try to test this setup for several more days to confirm that Kjaerhus was one of the troubles all along.

I couldn't live without those plugins ... here's the proof... that track ahs...

4 GCO1s -> worked wonders on drums :)
13 GEQ7s
6 GPP1s

then

1 GlissEQ
2 Marquis Compresors
1 Pristine Space Light (disabled until mixdown)
2 Voxformers

I will attempt to work on a huge project with only Voxengo plugins and see how I go. Of course it does also appear that many other people have experienced the GUI stealing CPU cycles bug and it is apparently related to PCI Express video cards which hog bandwidth ... no solution for that yet though.

This is turning out to be quite an eye opener ... although I was hoping it wouldn't be my trusty Kjaerhus plugins that were at fault.

Anyways, I'll stop talking now

Peace
Fots
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sorry to hear not all the troubles have gone.
soundpalace wrote:Of course it does also appear that many other people have experienced the GUI stealing CPU cycles bug and it is apparently related to PCI Express video cards which hog bandwidth ... no solution for that yet though.
pci latency tool ahem... could be a solution, maybe not? worth a try.
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Wow, that's some crazy stuff going on there, soundpalace. I haven't used Kjaerhus' premium plug-ins extensively, so I have't had that problem. I don't know if they're programmed with analog-style algorithms that eat up CPU or not. It all depends on the plug-in; I mean, one instance of Minimonsta with unison turned on can cripple a song on a 3.06ghz P4! I'm sure Torben & Co. could shed some light on the situation. I know it's hard to not use your favourite plug-ins, but there are lots of options available these days, maybe it's time to explore. Hell, I've been using Cubase's default plug-ins more and more these days, and some radically important free/cheap compressors and equalizers have come out in the last year or so. Just a thought.

I meant to test this: you can't freeze the effects inserted on a ReWire track?

As for Reason Drum Kits, yeah they sound great, an amazing collection for the price. Personally, I kind of gave up mixing drums in Reason/ReWire because it's just too complicated compared to something like Kontakt. The Mono ReWire tracks drive me insane, and I have to create Group Channels for each instrument/Subgroup, blah blah. Just not my style.

But I knew I recognized it! Ha ha.
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orangenut wrote:pci latency tool ahem... could be a solution, maybe not? worth a try.
Tried it with no noticeable difference I'm afraid but again, thanks for the suggestion.

bduffy thanks for help. I have emailed Torben but he doesn't believe there is a problem. I have just sent another email trying to explain the problem further as there obviously is a problem in my opinion since Voxengo plugins never do that.

I wish I could switch but to be honest, I just love those plugins ... haven't found anything to match the clean sound of the GCO-1 which works fantastic on drums. On top of that, I'd lose a lotta cash by selling the plugins. It's crazy when you have just paid over $2,000 just on software to produce music (even though you aren't making any profit from it) and find that your system is still not totally useable. Pretty upset ... :(

Regarding Reason & Cubase, I'm going to pm you some info that may change your mind :)

Take care
Fots
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soundpalace wrote:
orangenut wrote:pci latency tool ahem... could be a solution, maybe not? worth a try.
Tried it with no noticeable difference I'm afraid but again, thanks for the suggestion.

bduffy thanks for help. I have emailed Torben but he doesn't believe there is a problem. I have just sent another email trying to explain the problem further as there obviously is a problem in my opinion since Voxengo plugins never do that.

I wish I could switch but to be honest, I just love those plugins ... haven't found anything to match the clean sound of the GCO-1 which works fantastic on drums. On top of that, I'd lose a lotta cash by selling the plugins. It's crazy when you have just paid over $2,000 just on software to produce music (even though you aren't making any profit from it) and find that your system is still not totally useable. Pretty upset ... :(

Regarding Reason & Cubase, I'm going to pm you some info that may change your mind :)

Take care
Fots
Man, I hope you can get to the bottom of that. Those are exellent plug-ins, maybe someone else here has experienced similar? Do a forum search? Doesn't sound that familiar, though. They're known for being good quality/good consumption. Maybe a dual-cpu thing???

Thanks for the Reason info, that might help me out! :)
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yep pretty tricky one, could even be denormal issue related. I'll await a response from Torben and test further this weekend. I really gotta get this sorted so I can continue that track lol

Cheers
Fots :D
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