Latency and all that stuff

Stratman68

Axe-Master
So, figured since I may not be playing for 6 weeks come Aug 31st, I figured let me download the Helix Native plug and check it out. Should only take a minute to download and install. Which it did.

Problem is latency. I have a PCI Audio interface.... Echo Layla 3G...still highly regarded. Never have latency issues ever. Of course, never used a guitar VST before either. I have increased buffers, etc. No help.
Without input monitoring I get NO SIGNAL to the plug in-zero. I know it's there because the input meters on the audio track it's in is pushing real high.
So, why do I have to turn "input monitoring on" in that track to hear the plugin? Even if I cannot hear it otherwise it still should be getting input (the plug I mean) Definitely gets it with input monitoring on. Also gets a delay that allows me to play chord, go to the kitchen, grab a beer and come back to studio just in time to hear the chord played back. OK I exaggerate. But it's unusable this way.

Setup= guitar into Input one of audio interface and out the same input (by default. Output goes to my mixer btw, thats how I monitor everything when recording.

So what am I doing wrong.
 
You forgot to mention what DAW you are using.

Your right...I actually was coming back hear to tell what I found and did. First, it's sonar platinum. I have been using Sonar since the 80's. So I am used to it and for a home Studio for myself, it's great. That said, my pc's are all put together by me. Presently An Asus MB with an i7-3770/32gb ram/ 3 hds...OS drive is SSD. Pretty high endish on all parts.
I did lower the buffers to 64 samples (1.5msec) and it is , acceptable. The plug in does not impress me at all. But 2112 mentioned in his vid I believe that he changed the ir. I didn't get that far.
I did however playback a 31 track project, loaded with VST fx and softsynths. It played fine. So the PC and drivers are certainly ok.

I would add that I am looking and reading about the audio interfaces with dsp real time fx support. My echo layla3G is pretty old. Great drivers though. But old.2013, I think are the newest.

Any advice is certainly welcome.
 
Your right...I actually was coming back hear to tell what I found and did. First, it's sonar platinum. I have been using Sonar since the 80's. So I am used to it and for a home Studio for myself, it's great. That said, my pc's are all put together by me. Presently An Asus MB with an i7-3770/32gb ram/ 3 hds...OS drive is SSD. Pretty high endish on all parts.
I did lower the buffers to 64 samples (1.5msec) and it is , acceptable. The plug in does not impress me at all. But 2112 mentioned in his vid I believe that he changed the ir. I didn't get that far.
I did however playback a 31 track project, loaded with VST fx and softsynths. It played fine. So the PC and drivers are certainly ok.

I would add that I am looking and reading about the audio interfaces with dsp real time fx support. My echo layla3G is pretty old. Great drivers though. But old.2013, I think are the newest.

Any advice is certainly welcome.

Sonar Plat here as well. Been using it since Cakewalk Pro audio 3 or 4 on floppy disks. You may know me from the Sonar forum. At any rate, among my many interfaces, I have a Layla 24/96 that still works great. I'm able to run it at 64 buffers with Helix and 1.3ms latency....and I can't even tell. You have to use input monitoring so you can hear what you're playing. I believe the 3G came after the Layla 24/96 so you have later technology than me. I run all sorts of things at 64 buffers with Layla with no issues.

It looks like you got a slamming system, so you should be able to run everything without an issue and that interface is fine. Good converters and drivers etc...however, I don't know how good this will be with win 8 or 10. I'm still using 7 because I have a well oiled machine and am in business. I couldn't afford to be down messing with drivers and configurations when win 10 was offered to me. I'd rather build a new machine with it on instead of updating what I have.

Anyway, here are some things to try that may make a difference with latency and your Sonar experience.

-Disable wireless or bluetooth
-As a test, disable plugin load balancing
-Use Multiprocessing engine
-Use MMCSS


Other options to try

In config file, "thread scheduling model". If you have a multicore cpu, use thread model 2. Model 1 is for machines without multi core and 0 is the old thread model for Sonar. You can try them all to see what works. I you've never edited the config file, here's how to do it.

Go to the config file option in preferences. Click on "edit config file" and a .txt file opens. Scroll down until you see thread scheduling model=(whatever number). Change the number to the choice you want, click save on the actual text file, X out of it and then "reload config settings" Click apply, and ok and your new thread model will be active. This can sometimes help with overall project performance as well.

Sync and Caching: Set to trigger and freewheel. Full chase lock can cause a few hiccups unless you are using SMPTE or MTC.

Go down to file system on the same screen within Sync and Caching. You'll see enable read, enable write...etc. Leave the checks out of the boxes there. Under there...see Playback and Record I/O buffer sizes? Default is 128. You can try increasing to 256 or like me, 512. This puts more priority on your hard drives and allows you to record more tracks.

This may not help with latency, but it will take the cpu down considerably. You may pick up a little lag when tapping space bar....so little, it shouldn't matter. But you should get much better performance. It just won't react to play/spacebar instantaneously. Mine is fast enough for me. Like less than a quarter of a second to engage after spacebar where the lower number makes playback start right on the space press. That's up to you if you want to mess with this option. I do it due to extremely large track counts for my business.

The above is how my Sonar is set up. Worst case scenario, we have one more thing you can try. This can totally make your Sonar experience better, but you will need to reset anything custom directories you have created like for example...

I too have 3 HD's. OS drive, data drive where Sonar plays all the wave data etc, and my 3rd drive is for samples. Sonar defaults all directories and the like to your C drive. So if you have pointed anything to your data drive or sample drive, you will need to reset that upon doing this next change we're about to discuss. Audio drive, audio cache etc...they will need to be changes if you have pointed them to a drive other than C.

Ok, on to the change. Over time, Sonar can sometimes have a few issues due to updates or even installs that may have been weird...or even builds that may have been a little buggy. A good fix for audio issues, drop outs, crackles, pops, clicks and overall performance increase, is to allow Sonar to create another AUD.ini file.

To do this, make sure Sonar is shut down completely. Then find the file called AUD.ini and if you want to keep it, change the name to MUD.ini. This preserves the file but Sonar will not be able to use it unless you change the M back to an A. I selected M because...well, if it's a bum .ini file...it's all mud to me. LOL! Now, once you change AUD.ini. MUD.ini and open Sonar, it will auto create another AUD.ini file which will reprofile your interface as well as your whole system. This allows for any new tweaks that may have been added in newer versions of Sonar to be reset to the proper settings.

9 times out of 10, this eliminates audio issues and can improve latency because your drivers are reset and everything is in alignment. Remember to go and reset any folders or additional custom options in Sonar's preferences immediately after opening Sonar. Don't even open a project to try to play. Go reset your audio folders etc because if you don't, Sonar will revert back to the old directories in C drive for audio, audio cache, master audio folder etc. Over time, if you forget to make this change, your C drive will start to fill up both with projects and wave file cache files....and you don't want that, especially because SSD drives are smaller.

If you want to make sure where your drives are set, do a few screen shots of your folder options so you know what to change after the new .ini file is created.

So try some of that out and see if it helps you at all. One more thing.....

Bring up task manager and see how many running processes you have. Anything 60 and above will definitely hinder Sonar's performance. You want to be in the 40's. Never run anything that doesn't need to run. I don't allow anything to autorun on my system other than the necessities that the system needs.

And last of all last....this is risky, but is amazing since you're obviously a tech head that builds his own boxes. There is a site called www.blackviper.com that has every Windows tweak for every operating system ever made. The dude walks you through all the things you need to run, and tells you what you can have disabled. Just about all the PC builders I know have gotten their setups from that site. He helps you tweak for audio or anything else you may want. He has all sorts of options you can try. I've been using his tweaks since Win 95 and to this day, I have every pc I have ever owned still in operation other than one that was taken out by lightning.

Remember people bragging how mac's loaded up so much faster and performed so much better? That's because Windows has way too many things running that don't need to be running. Mac's are starting to catch up now with bloatware and unnecessary crap. But with Viper's tweaks, you can make your box run like a banshee. It's amazing how much better mine runs after his tweaks. Just do one thing at a time and reboot so you see what may work, what may not, and you can always retrace your steps in the event something doesn't go right for your particular system. Good luck, be careful and I hope some of this helps you out. :)
 
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Hey Danny,
Yes I do know you from the Sonar forums. I started with CWPA 5. I remember the older forums with Glenn and Susan G, etc.....I also am familiar with Viper, but haven't been to his site in years. I am on win 8.1x64 and plan on staying here. Win 10 does not interest me. I appreciate all the tips and will go thru it. I also can go to 64 samples. Tried it with a 31 track project with lots of soft synths and VST's. No problem.
I have a few things to try to hear only the processed signal (Helix Native) when I plug guitar directly into Audio Interface.

I printed out your reply.
BTW, yup, I am a techie.....Use to make a living that way but it got too stressful. But I still tinker.

Thanks for the extensive reply.

Frank
 
Hey Danny,
Yes I do know you from the Sonar forums. I started with CWPA 5. I remember the older forums with Glenn and Susan G, etc.....I also am familiar with Viper, but haven't been to his site in years. I am on win 8.1x64 and plan on staying here. Win 10 does not interest me. I appreciate all the tips and will go thru it. I also can go to 64 samples. Tried it with a 31 track project with lots of soft synths and VST's. No problem.
I have a few things to try to hear only the processed signal (Helix Native) when I plug guitar directly into Audio Interface.

I printed out your reply.
BTW, yup, I am a techie.....Use to make a living that way but it got too stressful. But I still tinker.

Thanks for the extensive reply.

Frank

You're very welcome, I hope some of it helps. Ok, I may have missed this before in your original post...you mentioned 31 tracks at 64 buffers. That's probably pushing things. I don't think I can do that with my system. We do have an option in Sonar called PDC if you've never used it. That stands for "plugin delay compensation" and at times, this is a huge help when you have a large project going where you decide you may want to use a plugin after you've gotten deep into mixing.

I disable all plugins except what I'm using in that situation. It's just too much to ask out of the system for where we are today, unfortunately. I don't know too many people that can even run 31 tracks and use a plugin in real time with other plugs and modules running. Like for example, if I were running BFD drums, some East/West string libraries and some NI stuff along with 31 tracks that also had plugin processing, I'd probably be cracking and popping and having latency issues if it even allowed me to record anything. Now, straight audio....I can run tons of tracks and still record plugs like Helix or anything else. It's the plugins on other tracks and modules that can really bring you down.

That said, certain plugins can cause latency through your project. For example, I have this issue with an older plug from Voxengo called Pristine Space. No matter how I set the options up for the plug, just having it on a bus gives me latency when I try to play using a plug in real time. It delays any drums I use through V Drums into sampling modules as well as guitar plugins. Some of my UAD plugs do this also as well as some Sonar plugs. So the issue *may* be a specific plug that is causing the latency. Here's another option for you that can work wonders...

Since it sucks playing clean when you want distortion from a plug etc, you can always bounce your project down to two tracks of audio with your plugins printed on the track, and then import into a new project and record your guitar through Helix. Save plugin settings on the sound you like inside the plug, export the audio you created and close out. From there, just import the DI track that was created into your old project, launch Helix and you should be golden. These are some of the tricks I've had to do when playing with plugins and especially VSTi plugs where you need to hear things in real time.

So before you go through any of the extreme stuff I mentioned in my first post, this stuff above may very well help you and is less to worry about. Good luck, Frank! :)
 
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