Sonar 8 Midi Latency bad, Audio Latency good

[Anderson]

Hello everyone, newbie here. I have Sonar 8 Producer and have followed many of the DAW tweaks that you can find online. I got my Audio latency down to 5msec, so I think I'm doing everything well. My "soundcard" is a Zoom H4 and I'm using it's ASIO driver. I was able to record my guitar just fine. Turn on the metronome, record the guitar, everything's in sync.

I then fired up Session Drummer2, pick a few grooves and insert them. Again, everything seems fine.

I then plug in (USB) my Ediraol PCR-500 to control Dimension Pro 1 (to get a good bass sound), but there is a delay of about 200msec or so between then time I press a key and I get a sound. I tried freezing the Session Drummer Tracks to no affect. I've tried messing with various IO buffer sizes and that ini file fix you can find online - again to no affect.

Both the Zoom H4 and the Edirol PCR-500 are plugged into their own USB root with no other devices shared. The computer is a pretty hefty desktop (both the CPU and disk usage show less than 1% while playing/recording - 2GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo 6600, WinXP SP3).

I think the PCR-500 is working fine because I can see the meter change when I hit the key, but the audio output is substantially delayed. It sounds like this is an audio latency problem yet I've got the ASIO buffer set as short as I can (221 samples = 5msec).

Does anyone else have any ideas that I can try? Thanks, Paul

[bitflipper]

I've never heard of MIDI latency being anywhere near 200ms. 200 samples, maybe, but not 200ms. Unless your MIDI interface is malfunctioning, it sounds like what you're experiencing is not technically MIDI latency, but audio latency.

The ASIO buffer size isn't the sole determinator of audio latency; it determines the approximate minimum latency, assuming no other processes will add additional latency. Any DSP applied to any tracks will add latency, so make sure you're recording the bass part with all plugins removed (not just bypassed).

[frshtrx]

Sonar's got a couple different adjustments for 'latency'.
one is the playback's latency in reference to adjustments made while listening vs. the system stability - that is the 5ms you are referring to - which is *NOT* the same as the playback monitor latency *offset*, also found in the same options panel.
Setting the ASIO *buffer* is not the same as setting the *offset*. Read the Help file included with Sonar for further explanation. I had to read it several times to understand it...but I'm kind of a hands-on learner... good luck adjusting your offset, not your buffer...

[idelica]

I'm having the same problem. I've got Producer and a Yam KX8 controller. The controller works fine with other synths, but all soft synths in Producer lag a key strike by about 5 ms, just enough to drive me nuts! And make recording impossable.

stnd PC, M audio USB interface (the controller is USB direct, so it does not use the interface). I can see on the channel meter that it Producer is recieving the key strike late. Any thopughts?