Sonar 2.0 help recording :(

[tricky311]

Hey guys,

I'm using Sonar 2.0 and I have a question that I need help on!

I'm hooking a drum machine up to my line in on my computer. I set all the levels and armed to record in Sonar. But when I play the drum machine while it is armed for recording, it makes this terrible echo sound (kind distortiony)... so I did a test and recorded a 10 second clip.. I Then exported the clip as a WAV and listened to it in winamp and it sounds PERFECT!! But for some reason when I play it in Sonar, i get a terrible echo / delay making it impossible to do a sync recording because I can't hear where the beat is actually hitting!

thanks a lot for the help!
tim:banana:

[TeeCee]

You may want to trace your cabling and audio input settings. If it sounds like it's playing in a tin can, you may have a feedback loop in your cabling. Like perhaps the output of SONAR is getting routed back into SONAR or just your audio card and is either getting mixed back into the output via hardware or software, with latency = extremely tight echo that sometimes sounds like a phaser. I don't monitor with SONAR or through my sound card at all, so I can't tell you if this is a possible SONAR setting.

One other thing just popped into mind, is the drum machine attempting to also play back when you play the audio recording in SONAR? If SONAR is sending a MIDI start playback command that your drum machine is responding to, the drum machine and SONAR may be playing back simultaneously, but slightly off to make it sound like an echo. Which, depending on your audio routing, could be summing for distortion as well.

[tricky311]

Hey man,

Thanks for the help. But I still can't seem to figure out what the prob is. I have no midi cable hooked up at all... ok to make it easier here is my set-up


drummachine <out mono> ==> line in on soundcard

its werid, because I do think its a setting in sonar somehow, because when I play back my recording it sounds all echoy and screwed up.. but when i EXPORT the audio its PERFECT and sounds GREAT! I just want to play guitar over my drum track but its impossible to even hear the BEAT in sonar!

oh yeah... my guitar does the same thing.. I plug it in the soundcard and it sounds fine.. but when I arm sonar for recording it sounds all ecohy... someone PLEASEEEE help!!! ahhh

thanks a lot
Tim

[TeeCee]

How are the rest of your connections? How do you listen to the drum machine while recording it and how do you listen to SONAR when it plays back?

[tricky311]

I listen to the Drum Machine through my computer speakers. It sounds perfectly fine until I arm sonar for recording.

I'm listening to Sonar through my speakers also..

I really have no idea whats wrong with it. Could is be SONAR itself? A bug?

[TeeCee]

It's software. It could have a bug. I doubt that this is a bug, though. I too use SONAR.

First, have you now told me about every single audio cable in your setup?

1x Cable from Drum Machine to Audio Interface (Sound Card)
1x Cable from Audio Interface to PC speakers

And NO MIDI cables at all.

What audio interface are you using? Does it have a special configuration applet like a control panel? Something is definitely set up to monitor or you would never hear your drum machine live. Does your sound card allow for a monitor channel? How about software routing to hardware outputs (i.e. you can assign several software settings to your physical wave out 1 port)? Finally, can you monitor your Drum Machine when SONAR is closed?

[tricky311]

Hey,

I did a quick test... I IMPORTED a short 20 second wav file and that TOO got distorted.. so I'm thinking I need to reinstall Sonar. What do you think?

[TeeCee]

I'm thinking that it's either a setting in SONAR or a setting in your sound card's control panel. SONAR uses WDM drivers when available, where as WinAmp probably does not. The questions I asked you are pretty important for me to help you. Additionally, what operating system are you running?

If you re-install SONAR over itself, any bad settings will be preserved. You can try running the Wave Profiler in SONAR's Audio Settings. Did you play with your buffer, bit depth, or sample rate settings after you installed SONAR?

[tricky311]

I'm using a soundblaster live card, it does have its special little control panel, but I've looked in that and everything is switched 'off'. When sonar is closed I can hear the drum machine in the 'left justified' part of my headphones. But when I open sonar and put the input on 'left j' it sounds all messed up. I don't think that there is any additional things going through port 1, since I Just instaleld it I hadn't really made any changes to the programs settings at all, all I did was run Wave Profiler and thats it so far.

[TeeCee]

OK
You have an SB Live
The SB Live has a control panel applet
You can monitor your drum machine through the card with no software open
You didn't tweak SONAR, you just ran the Wave Profiler

What OS are you running? What are your track settings for the audio you are playing back? What about the bus settings?

I have never used any SB product so I have no idea exactly what options you have in that control panel. By default, your drum machine should not play through your SB Live unless for some reason your SB Live defaults to monitoring an input which would be odd. Find the setting that is allowing you to monitor your drum machine and change it. Try SONAR again. If you're still having trouble, re-run the Wave Profiler and try SONAR again.