help before I go deaf with Sonar !

[techristian]

I use Sonar 2.0 to record and playback audio. For some reason it has become very QUIET after I reset my VM-3100. Now there isn't a problem when I use Logic-RPC to play music or COOL 2000 to hear waves through one of the 4 RPC devices. It is only Sonar that CHOKES THE SOUND by more than 30 or 40 db. If I turn the volume up on TRIM and Volume for ALL OF THE TRACKS too high, I get more distortion than volume. THE BITRATES ARE MATCHED at 44.1 24 bit. Now this becomes REAL SERIOUS when you use Cool Edit to work on the waveforms. It can be DEAFENING if you forget to turn down the SLIDERS ON THE VM-3100. This is now happening with ALL OF MY PREVIOUSLY RECORDED *.CWP FILES. Dan http://teachmedrums.com

[techristian]

Just an update here. The problem was with my BUFFER SIZES. I needed larger buffers because of LATENCY. I'm guessing that the waveforms were loosing most of their transients. (Quieting down before they ever hit their peak.) Now if I can just get the DDR MEM SPEED right! Dan http://musicinit.com/roland_index.html

[Anderton]

I always suggest using the WAVE profiler. It will give ultra conservative settings that are known to work. Fromt there, you can tweak until you find the right combination of number of buffers and buffer size. You are using WDM drivers, yes?

[techristian]

The tech from Cakewalk told me to check the BOX "always use MME drivers". I have always used MME, because it seems to be the only one that works with the Roland Studio Pack. I just needed to play with the buffer settings. For my other DDR memory problems a friend at work yesterday suggested that I reset my CMOS BIOS with default settings, rather than trying to play with the CAS Latency and other settings. AMAZINGLY THE BIOS DEFAULTS WORKED GREAT with no freezes or reboots!...but the Bios thinks that I have 200 mhz DDR ram rather than 266 mhz! How much extra time will I gain by speeding up to 266 mhz but rebooting every 10 minutes???? So as long is this config keeps me going, I'll be back to happily making music again. DAN Thanks for the reply Craig. Do you remember FASTFINGERS for the C64 ?

[techristian]

Correction: I may be using those drivers because of the SBLIVE card and not the Roland Studio Pack. DAN (On day 2 with the untweaked BIOS)

[E-money]

Why are you using a SBLive if you have a Roland Studio Pack? They're limited to 16 bit recording/playback, and they're converters are on the noisey side. If you using it for midi/soundfont playback, you should remove it from the list Audio drivers within Sonar.

[techristian]

There were a few MIDI sounds in the SBLIVE banks that I liked. The SBLIVE also has digital I/O which works with my old DAT. It also has a few unique effects. Most of the above have already been used and the SBLIVE drivers have been disabled in Sonar for the past month or so. Whenever I need to dump audio to DAT, the SBLIVE is the easiest way. The fact of the matter is that I have a bunch of old gear that should be put up on EBAY, but it is hard to let go. http://www.jesuspop.com/sblive.html

[techristian]

Update. I pulled the SBLIVE card out of my computer. I will only put it back in for NOVELTY space effects ,sounds etc. I'm now using WDM drivers and the real original problem was caused by a RIGHT JUSTIFIED bit pattern in the Sonar audio setup. Thank you all for your help. Dan http://teachmedrums.com/sonar2.html

[Anderton]

<> Can you explain a little more about this, and how you found out this was the problem?

[techristian]

Craig , suspecting that you may have already read this ,I copied this exerpt from my webpage at the address below. THE REAL CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM however, was wrong the type of bit pattern for the STREAM. Any selection of RIGHT JUSTIFY BIT PATTERNS will make the waves very QUIET because , as near as I can figure, RIGHT JUSTIFY will move the bits into the LEAST SIGNIFIGANT far right. To put it in simpler terms, imagine the number 100. If you keep moving the "1" over to the right it will become 10 and then only 1. If this is a volume level it will get much quieter because 1 is much smaller than 100. Both Cool Edit and Sonar can work with 32 bit numbers, BUT the Roland Studio Pack can play in 24 bit mode. So Sonar and Cool Edit must pad the bit pattern with 8 ZEROS. By default it seems that Cool Edit will play 32 bit PCM LEFT JUSTIFIED which would make its values 256 X greater than Sonar in Right Justify mode. If you want Sonars bit pattern to be compatible with Cool Edit, it should also be Left Justified, otherwise expect it to be VERY QUITE. There can be an advantage to Right Justify though. In theory, you could add 256 tracks without distortion. If that is what you really want , single tracks can still be heard with good headphones and the volume turned way up. BUT BE WARNED! This is how I worked for a few weeks, in fact and that's why I nearly blew my eardrums out every time I switched to Cool Edit. If you select 3 byte bit patterns the volume will also be much louder, because there is no padding with zeros. This will also work well with Cool Edit. Craig because I'm still learning with this thing, (RSP and Sonar 2.1) my techie webpages are not STATIC, but keep changing as I learn. The last time that you may have visited the page the above wasn't even there. And yes Craig, I even print stuff there that is completely WRONG, but I'm eager to correct it as soon as possible. So if I'm completely wrong here , then let me know. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure whether I'm using WDM drivers or what. I do know that I've found a another problem with Sonar 2.1 that I didn't have with 2.0. Right now MUTE doesn't always work! Find more of the same at http://teachmedrums.com/sonar2.html