Could we be on the verge of SONAR 4 Producer Edition?

[LoRez]

my typical 'big'-projects have about 10 channels with audio-recordings, then about 3-4 audio-loop-tracks
(Sonar takes them from ram) then about 10 vsti/dxi tracks. On most of the tracks there are about 3-4 automation curves. Then there are about 20fx.

What you're doing seems to be quite similar, LoRez
- I'm wondering what could cause the difference.

It does seem quite similar, I agree. RAM definitley effects Sonar with lots of loops as you are correct that they run from RAM. 1-2GB seems to work best if you use lots of loops. I'm really not sure what could account for the difference. Anyone else wanna chime in here? I'm pretty sure we've thoroughly comandeered this thread

[WillieJenkins]

It seems 95% of the people use it with no problems at all, and 5% can't get it to work at all.

in my tests, on 4 separate computers, 2 desktop, 2 laptops, Sonar has been (until I bought ableton live) hands down the most stable reliable app I have.

Any crashes were caused by faulty vst/dx plugs, never the sonar engine.

The coders at Cakewalk are some of the most intelligent guys I've dealt with, they're geeks about this stuff and it shows. (this was in reference to roberts statement that its poor coding, not disputing his opinion, but adding my own.)

I have several projects on this machine that run at about 80%+ (on a athlon 2700+ xp) and it runs flawlessly, sometimes there is mixer view 'meter' slowdown, but its acceptable imo, cause its making sur e the audio engine stays alive. You can also turn these meters off to conserve cpu.

I consistently run at 512 buffers on ASIO. I could go lower, but my cpu would die out on the projects I have .

I've had friends who've had sonar issue, but in all cases it was 'user error'. I doubt thats the case here, as I know at least Robert is pretty experienced with this stuff.


-edit-

An example of one kind of project I have here is a sonar <-> reason rewire project, with 60 rewired tracks, about 35 busses, a trilogy instance, kontakt instance, eq's on most of those buses (either soft or UAD eqs), maybe 3-5 random other soft effects (the rest of effects are from UAD cards) then voxengo curve eq, elephant, soniformer, and polysquasher

This project runs at about 80-90% consistent.

-edit-

[LoRez]

I dont see why you need to raise the latency so much.

There's no way I could stand mixing with such a latency, that would drive me nuts! Hum...

Anxious to see if there's any breakthroughs in v4

Well i would have to raise to 12-20 if I have let's say a number of big virtual instruments loaded and lots of cpu hungry effects. I will generally bounce these to get to final mixing. The same load requires roughly the same settings in everyhing else I've tried so I really don't think this is unusual. Now if I wasn't using virtual instruments I could easily stay at ~5ms...depending on what effects are being used of course. But this is standard fare...

[LoRez]

I dont see why you need to raise the latency so much.

There's no way I could stand mixing with such a latency, that would drive me nuts! Hum...

Anxious to see if there's any breakthroughs in v4

exactly my main problem. a fully loaded sonar project cannot be mixed at 2-6 ms which is what i'm used to with other hosts, without droppping out constantly.

But this is not really host dependant. You're telling me if you push Logic with instruments and effects and you have reached the max of your CPU that you can still mix? Your latency has to be raised to get more CPU if you are pushing the limit. I don't believe you get magic headroom ou of logic or any other application. It all has to do with how much you are asking your system to do. On a fster machine I can stay at lower latencies while doing more...am I missing something here?

[jens]

I've had friends who've had sonar issue, but in all cases it was 'user error'. I doubt thats the case here

you can rely on that.

[j_T]

On the whole I've always found Sonar to be quite reliable and stable - with one exception:

With a midi track routed to DR008 and Slicy Drummer and FillIn Drummer used as midi effects Sonar would always disappear from the screen after a few "Drag from here" actions. Strange ...

But apart from that I think it's a great sequencer.

Regards,

Tommy

[WillieJenkins]

thats the other thing, the sonar forums are pretty much clear, again, most problems are 'RTFM' or 'user error' solved.

The only obnoxious bug I can really thing of right now is the last bugfix 3.11 broke the quantize mfx plug (and possibly others), so that it doesn't move stuff forward properly.

But thats the only obnoxious bug I've dealt with since Sonar 1.31.

Also, there was a envelope problem with vsts that was a problem with the vst-dx adapter, but that has been subsequently fixed.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Robert Randolph]

same here with tracktion and SAW as ttoz.

64-92 samples, 100% cpu not even slightly sluggish. Im spoiled.. why cant sonar do it!

[BitFlipper]

EricRichmond wrote:

The only obnoxious bug I can really thing of right now is the last bugfix 3.11 broke the quantize mfx plug (and possibly others), so that it doesn't move stuff forward properly.

Yes, that's the bug I was talking about before. Some genius programmer at Cakewalk decided that MIDI events outside of the current buffer's From and Thru range needs to be filtered out, and in the process broke all MFX plugins that moves MIDI event forwards or backwards in time, including their very own quantize plugin as well as 3rd party plugs like Rhythm 'n 'Chords.

Cakewalk's response is that they won't fix this in 3.3.1 until they ship 4.0, then only will they considder a patch to fix it in 3.1.1. . At least there's hope that it could be fixed in a 3.1.2 patch without having to shell out big bucks for a 4.0 upgrade.

BitFlipper

[LoRez]

same here with tracktion and SAW as ttoz.

64-92 samples, 100% cpu not even slightly sluggish. Im spoiled.. why cant sonar do it!

What are you using to see your CPU usage? How can a computer be at 100% of its CPU and not be sluggish? If it is really at 100% then you have nothing left so if you do anything something has to give, no? I've never in my life used a computer that is maxing its CPU and still has plenty of zip left. It defies logic doesn't it? (no pun intended).

[Stupid American Pig]

I have a USB2 audio interface(edirol UA-1000), that gives me 3 ms latency if I want it on all but the *largest* (>32tracks of audio + plugins) tracks. I run 6ms comfortably which is considered as good as hardware.

Quick ? for Robert- if you are not doing anything but multitracking, why would you need 2ms latency? I wouldnt notice any latency for a live mix unless it got over say 20 ms. in your case it seems that 2ms would be a waste of CPU power. Is this how you work? I only like the low latency for my vsts...

[sluggo]

And what about the audio stutters during midi editing (that is also reported on the Cakewalk forums)? And you can't add a synth without stopping the transport... Don't get me wrong, I think Cakewalk makes great products and their product development is much much more interesting that the other big players. But the audio playback in Sonar kind of sucks. Project5 doesn't have the same problems as Sonar, its audio seems to work quite well. (To back up some things that Robert has said, I've noticed that playback in P5 starts to "choke" a bit when the cpu meter reads 80%. I don't know how accurate the cpu meter is, but you'd like to think that the audio would perform flawlessly upto 95%+).

If Sonar4 has improved audio playback and some streamlined features, I would consider selling Live4 and getting Sonar. (I kind of wish that I didn't upgrade from Live2 to Live4 because I already have a couple of good midi programs in P5 and Muzys. I should have saved my $$ and just kept Live2 because it handles audio very nicely).

[Robert Randolph]

I have a USB2 audio interface(edirol UA-1000), that gives me 3 ms latency if I want it on all but the *largest* (>32tracks of audio + plugins) tracks. I run 6ms comfortably which is considered as good as hardware.

Quick ? for Robert- if you are not doing anything but multitracking, why would you need 2ms latency? I wouldnt notice any latency for a live mix unless it got over say 20 ms. in your case it seems that 2ms would be a waste of CPU power. Is this how you work? I only like the low latency for my vsts...

When I compose I sometimes use live effects through the software. That's changing, starting to use more stompboxes and such...

When I do work with clients, they often want feedback into their phones with reverb or delay or whatever. And I also do live work, using saw as a console in a box. Works very well, live feedback like a real console, and can record everything as well same time.


Also, anything above 10ms really f**ks with me head when I do mutes and solo's (which I do A LOT). It's not like working with a real console where you can "feel" when it clicks in... you click and wait to HEAR it click in. It's just strange If you're using to working with hardware. Perhaps if you are really used to working with software, but It's only been recently that Ive turned 100% software for recording.

[christianmusicmaker]

It seems 95% of the people use it with no problems at all, and 5% can't get it to work at all.

in my tests, on 4 separate computers, 2 desktop, 2 laptops, Sonar has been (until I bought ableton live) hands down the most stable reliable app I have.

Any crashes were caused by faulty vst/dx plugs, never the sonar engine.

The coders at Cakewalk are some of the most intelligent guys I've dealt with, they're geeks about this stuff and it shows.

Agreed.