configuring Terratec EWS88MT with Sonar

[grob2]

After upgrading to a new computer and Sonar, my audio hardware with the EWS88MT is running worse (more crashes even with unusable latency settings of ~50-100 ms) than on my old Pentium 2 with ProAudio 9. Any advice about configurations would be greatly appreciated, especially since Terratec hasn't bothered to return my emails or call over the last 3 weeks.

I'm running XP on a 1.7 GHz P4 with over a GB of memory, so I doubt the computer is my weak link. Notes are echoing (and the echo rate changes with the Sonar buffer size) and audio dropouts are frequent. I've been trying to use the most simple possible setup - the VSC DXi softsynth with the Oxygen 8 USB controller.

Whenever I start Sonar, it makes me disable the Terratec SystemWave driver (the 1/2 - 7/8 and S/PDIF are still enable) - I wasn't quite sure what to choose for the control panel audio driver since the driver that Terratec suggests in their manual (MonitorWavePlay) isn't on the newest control panel/drivers (I'm using 5.00.2000.125). If someone has a stable setup, please let me know what drivers you have set in the Windows control panel, what drivers you have enabled in Sonar, and which Sonar drivers are your master timers. Also, I am pretty new to configuring all of this audio gear, so if there are other basic things that I should be checking, please let me know because I probably haven't checked them.

Thanks,
Greg

[dirtlover]

Hey grob2, I have the same card and software and it has been driving me nuts too. For the most part it works fine now (it will occasionally mess up for no reason what so ever but restarting the machine ussually helps). You can try what I did and see if it helps. under settings in the terretec control panel set the dma buffer transfer latency to 1 msec. Then go to you C drive>program files>cakewalk>sonar 2. and delete: AUD.INI and TTSSEQ.INI folders (Don't worry you will get new one in a few). Restart sonar and it will profile your machine. If you are running 24 bit audio you system sound driver will not work so disable it. Drivers 1-8 and spdif and digital mix record drivers should all be there and functioning. I use ews 1/2 as my timing master for both recording and playback. bit depth at 24 and my sampling rate at 44100, 3msec buffer size in sonar (enough to use the input monitoring). Wave playback mode set to multitrack in the control panel of the terretec. I hope this helps. For the most part i have no problems. I have noted that when I increase the buffer size in the control panel I get poor audio perfomance. It is kind of backwards. I really hope this works for you. Let me know if I can help you in any way.

[dirtlover]

Also make sure that you have xp installed as standard pc. THis disables acpi and yeilds better performance. (I personally came close to going crazy trying to do this because my computer would continually freeze up because of a bad pci slot)You, however, should have no problem. also check out http://www.musicxp.net/ IT is a great site about win xp and music (the name says it all).

[dirtlover]

Also page 569 and 571 in the sonar user's guide might help with the echo.

[grob2]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I reinstalled XP under the standard PC setting and used most of the suggestions on xpmusic to get more garbage out of the way. It's fixed my dropout problems even with the most aggressive buffer settings, so now I just need to kill the echo (well, it just sounds like distortion now with the faster settings). When I finish re-installing the rest of my system software, I'll dig through the Sonar website and the Cakewalk board for possible problems.

[grob2]

Well, my echoing problems are gone now as well as my original latency problems. Thanks for leading me through all of the things that I needed to do get this up and running. The setup's running better than I expected it to on my bascially mass-market, stock P4 that has too many non-music applications on it already. The PC optimizing link and your driver setup saved me from having to try to pull teeth from Terratec again. You saved me a ton of time that would have been spent slowly stumbling upon the problems. I haven't optimized everything yet, but it looks like I'll be able to run it fairly aggressively. If Sonar's rating is accurate, it's been stable with a 4 msec latency, so I'm very happy with how it's running.

[dirtlover]

I have a question for you. Have you ever been able to get micrologic av working under windows xp? And, Have you ever been able to get samplitude working with 32-bit float precision under win xp? I never could. That is what lead me to buy sonar. Just curious.

[bluehat]

Dirtlover:

This is the poster previously known as grob2 in the above thread. Did you ever get Logic or the other programs working on your system? I found a couple of threads that you had about that redoing the search on the EWS88MT.

I gave up on my system after reinstalling windows without ACPI, reconfiguring, and everything. I thought I had it working smoothly, and then I crashed by maxing out my processor with one soft synth and nothing else running in Sonar. So, I unplugged from the computer for a few months and did everything the old-fashioned way. I'm probably going to build a computer up from scratch over the holiday break to hopefully not fight with my EWS88MT anymore. If you are still trying to get those apps to work with the EWS88MT, email me in a few weeks and I can try them out. Definitely won't run on my current system that seems to fight itself over everything, but hopefully the build from ground up will let it work smoothly.

Thanks for your help earlier. I was so pissed with the system after I spent a weekend reinstalling/reconfiguring everything that I just unplugged and never followed up on this board after my Sonar crashes.

[dirtlover]

Hey hat. That sucks. I had hoped all was working fine. My system starting acting strange after a few months, I installed a lot of games. After I unistalled them It works fine now. I gave up on the bundled stuff. Sonar and sound forge are all I really use now. I was owndering though I you, or anyone for that matter, Had any problems with the ac-3 pass through for the dvd's. I can play digital audio without a hitch through the digital outs. But dolby digital stutters. Just curious? and good luck with your system.

[bluehat]

Actually, I don't have a DVD player on my PC, so I don't think I can answer your question. I've only run CD's and MP3's on my computer.