Does FF800 work fine with other programs (with asio)? The delay you both describe seems weird. Have you noticed dropouts on playback while this delay comes in?

It's true man.  I have a hot rodded machine.  I have tried all kinds of work arounds and even tried different firewire chipsets at this point.  My Firestudio Project outperformed this thing as far as stability is concerned.  I didn't notice the issue at first as I wasn't doing much.  It didn't become really noticeable until I hit a bigger project.  ASIO is unusable.  WDM is usable but sucks. 

For what it's worth I am a technical analyst that has worked for many large companies and even the Department of Defense.  I'm fairly certain at this point if I can't get this working right then it's definitely the drivers.  All other factors have been ruled out for the most part.   Sure I could have missed something but tried different drivers, different firewire chipsets (Via and TI), different cables, different audio mode (asio, wdm), and as you can see multiple people's machines are having this issue.  So after all of that I don't know what other conclusion to assume unless there is another part of the actual mobo chipset that hates the RME.  In any case test it hard during your return period.  I missed my window by a few days so I am stuck.

Hi,

Just out of curiosity (pls don't jump on me, I'm new user - but new FF800, latest drivers, I assume latest firmware) - since I do not experience *yet* these problems (and I have only tried it with simple projects...) : are you running with all updates (Sonar patches, latest drivers, and so on ?)

This may sound stupid questions, and I read others who have had problems but seems to say it was corrected. I assume you have gone through these steps, but just in case... Once again, maybe I will join the club with more experience, I hope not at such a price tag...

Rob

Hmm. I just recently upgraded from Sonar 8.5 to Sonar X1.  I have not been encountering any issues with the latest drivers in Sonar.  Reading this thread, the issue occurs when you have a large number of tracks?  Is this correct?  What is the number of tracks needed for the issue to occur?

A couple of other bits of info regarding my config: I use 64-bit Sonar X1 configured to use ASIO. My buffer size is 256 samples. I use hardware midi synths and do not use the Fireface's built-in MIDI I/O. I am currently using an Edirol UM-2 MIDI interface running in enhanced mode (soon to be replaced with a MOTU MIDI Express 128). I have an Intel motherboard DX58SO that includes a TI firewire chip (so states Sandra).

I'm starting to feel responsible for more upheaval than may be necessary. Let me start by saying that I am not expert in Sonar and audio settings. I never had trouble before, but started having issues with 8.5 and then X1. My issues are distortion on trcks at low gain settings and a delay when arming tracks, not signal delay, delay from the time I click the button to when it is highlighted. This is both the Record and Input Echo buttons. My Fireface 800 has firmware 2.77, driver 3.034. I have a Supermicro motherboard with 2 dual core Xeon 5160 procs (3GHz), 8GB RAM, 3Gb/s SATA drives, GeForce X1300 dual monitor video, Ti chipset Firewie (I use 1394b). I run SONAR X1b (the latest patch) on Windows 7 x64. I have had the distortion problem occur with only one track recording with no effects loaded. I usually have no other programs running when I record. These problems have been intermittent, however, and since they began I have done my research and been much more careful in setting up SONAR. I have had less trouble, but I sometimes still get the arming delay and "crackling" distortion, which to me is digital distortion. The problems occur more frequently when I have put a drum track (usually Session Drummer) or other soft synth in before recording audio. I almost always record 24 bit, 44.1 and buffer size 64 samples. Sonar has an enable read and enable write to cache option which I have experimented with to no effect. I have seen other threads on Cakewalk and RME with similar problems and I believe they are slowly being addressed. X1's b patch seemed to make the frequency of problems diminish. I have seen a claim on RME's board that a new driver is coming because of a known issue with Win7.

All I have done at this point is to be very careful with audio settings, ASIO is still better than WDM but settings must be made first in the FF 800 and the set to match in the SONAR project. I know Sonar has been playing with enabling changing sampling rate on the fly but I don't wish to pretend I know what the causes of these issues are. I wish I could remember where I saw some of the info I have given here, like the new FF driver, but I don't. Maybe someone from RME can jump in here and tell us if they know of any issues and if a new driver is indeed coming.

At this point, I am still able to usually get things working nicely, but sometimes I get distortion at low levels and load and sometimes have to wait a few seconds for a track to arm. I also Audacity and haven't had these problems, but I use that mainly to learn about the code behind this technology and I just compiled ASIO support with Audacity last week, so the sample size of use is very small. I will search for the other threads with info on this and post them here.

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My guess is the reason I do not have this issue is that this is soft synth processing related. I lowered my FF800's buffer size to 64, and I still encounter no delays in arming nor distortion. But then, my synth hardware handles gain processing and not any software installed on my computer.