Hi there. Just got my MADI FX up and running and I'm having a very strange issue that I've never encountered in any DAW setup. Definitely a bug... but after playing with it for hours I can't determine if its on the Cakewalk or RME side. Likely Cakewalk... but unfortunately I have no other software to try it with.

System in question is RME HDSPe MADI-FX set to sync from MADI, Burl Mothership (16 channels in, 16 out, set to internal master clock) on MADI 1, Ferrofish A16 MK-II (16 I/O, sync to MADI) on MADI 2. Intel 3930k running Windows 7 x64, Sonar X3c with ASIO driver. RME driver 1.17 with Firmware 89 and DSP 19.

Problem also verified on Sonar X2b. WDM driver exhibits no issues across the board.

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Ok... this is hard to explain:

DURING PLAYBACK:

If I reassign any track or bus hardware output in a manner that the old output WILL BE LEFT EMPTY (no other tracks feeding it) and the new output WAS EMPTY (before the reassign) I am left with an infinite, skipping loop of audio in the original hardware channel. The junk audio is composed of approximately the last 100 milliseconds of playback information from the track I reassigned.

For instance:

Guitar    -> MADI 1-2
(Empty) -> MADI 3-4

I reassign the guitar *during playback*...

(Empty)  -> MADI 1-2
Guitar     -> MADI 3-4

The guitar is successfully reassigned, but I am left with a short, infinite loop of guitar in MADI Out 1-2.

There will be no issue / effect if either the original or target hardware output has other content feeding it. For instance:

Vocal     -> MADI 1-2                      Vocal  -> MADI 1-2
Guitar    -> MADI 1-2   |Reassign|  Guitar -> MADI 3-4    (OK!)
(Empty) -> MADI 3-4                   

or

Guitar -> MADI 1-2   |Reassign|  Guitar -> MADI 3-4    (OK!)
Vocal  -> MADI 3-4                      Vocal  -> MADI 3-4

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Further observation:

The looping sound remains even after stopping playback and even after closing / reopening SONAR. It IS silent while Sonar is closed and / or while in ASIO configuration.

The junk audio is clearly visible in Totalmix (playback channel pegged at whatever level the audio was when the reassignment happened)

Analysis with DIGICheck shows the audio looping in the respective channels' ASIO playback and hardware. This, however, is STILL VISIBLE when Sonar is closed or has otherwised released its ASIO control. It is like a short audio buffer is trapped somewhere in a rogue thread.

It can be stopped by reassigning any track or bus to the glitched hardware output while playback is stopped.

During playback it can also be stopped by re-routing any track / bus to the glitched output, but (as noted) if the hardware output that bus was on is now orphaned, it will become a glitched output itself.

It has a similar, odd relationship to other tracks in groups of 8. If I reassign from an empty/silent group of 8 buses, to another group (MADI 1-2 to MADI 9-10 for instance) there will be no AUDIBLE loop and it will not appear in TotalMix. However, the looping audio can still be seen in DIGICheck, and it will be heard as soon as any other output from the original group of 8 is used (for instance, MADI 3-4).

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Confused? Me too. =\

Thanks for your time,
-ewb