norfolkmastering

If I record the plugin's otuput back into Sonar as a .wav file, then use that .wav file as the master LTC source (as a track in Sonar), then my tape machines won't lock to it. Also what I noticed is: You know if you set a SMPTE/MTC time Offset in Sonar then that offset is reflected in the main Sonar NOW time display. However that offset does not affect the time shown in the TimeCode plugin's time display. So it makes me wonder where they are deriving their NOW time signal from?

I know that the plugin designers used Tracktion Waveform for all their Timecode plugin testing work, so yes there must be some difference between how Sonar and Waveform is handling the plugin. As you'll see from an earlier post, I tried all of Mark's suggestions but so far with no result. Hopefully the plugin designers will look into this as you would reasonably have expected them to test the plugin with all the major DAWs, Sonar included!

I'll give that a try. I did use the plugin's LTC output to stripe a tape and that tape would not lockup even when I used a high quality hardware LTC generator as the master to the tape machine's sync unit.

Disabling PDC made no difference. Changing the Timecode plugin to a temp based effect made no difference. I checked and Tracktion is reporting the same output buffer size as Sonar. It has no way to measure total output latency sadly. I have suggested to the plugin designers that they download the free version of Sonar and test with their timecode plugin. Meanwhile I'll work with the .wav solution which seems fine.

Thanks for the things to try out which I’ll work through. The actual latency shouldn’t matter as long as it is constant while the plugin is generating the LTC. So I’m looking for something which is causing latency drift or jitter either in how the plugin is ‘locking’ to Sonar’s clock, or in how the plugin is sending the LTC to the ASIO driver. All my tests using a .wav LTC file show an extremely stable LTC signal which the tape machines are happy to sync to. I’ll keep testing but this does look like a plugin issue.

I checked the LTC signal level at the ASIO output and it was fine. The generated LTC audio is being recognised by my tape synchronisers and when I try to sync you can see the time difference (between the plugin generated LTC and the off-tape LTC) reducing towards zero. But it never quite gets there. If it was a fixed time difference (offset) between the two LTCs, it would still sync okay, so it is looking like some kind of jitter or drift in the plug-in’s ability to lock to the Sonar clock. As I said before, it works with Tracktion (which I think the develops used for testing) but so far not with Sonar.

I tried a new project with just one blank audio track and one instrument track (for the LTC plugin) and it just won't sync to my tape machines. Today I tried using a digital LTC audio wav file from https://elteesee.pehrhovey.net/ When I pop this into the audio track and use that as the LTC output, then my tape machines sync perfectly to Sonar but only after I re-striped the tape from that .wav I think there is some kind of small drift happening between the timecode being 'captured' by the plugin and the Sonar clock (which is referenced to one of my ASIO outputs). They look the same on the two screen displays (the plugin display and the Sonar time display) but that is only showing to the nearest frame. I'll try to get more information from the plugin designers and suggest they try the plugin with Sonar. I don't think they have done that before. Any other ideas would be welcome.

I've been looking for a long long time to find an LTC timecode generator which can generate LTC to an ASIO audio output but locked to Sonar's clock. I thought I had found one! A company called TXL have a VST plugin called TXLTimecode which installs as an instrument within the DAW and allows LTC to be sent to any audio output which Sonar can access. So I bought a license for the plugin and tried it out. It operates but there is some issue with how it is locking to Sonar's clock. So when I use the LTC audio output to sync my tape machines, the tape machines get close to locking up to Sonar, then drift away again. TXL also offer an LTC clock generator which can be output to an ASIO output. It works fine and my tape machines sync to it with no problems. But of course I need to sync my tape machines to Sonar! I downloaded the free version of Tracktion and it doesn't have this problem. I inserted an instance of TXLTimecode with a Tracktion project and my tape machines lock to Tracktion just fine. I'd be really grateful for any ideas you have for a fix.

That’s a good idea! I’ll try it.

I'm trying to find a way to lock my track input gains in their current set positions. Once I'm finishing doing the bulk of the recording for a project and getting into mixdown, I set the track input gains to a sensible position so that the levels being fed to inserts and FX are sensible. This is particular important for me as I use mostly analogue FX. It's just to stop me accidentally changing an input gain, or maybe because I need to experiment and then go back to the previous setting. It would be great if I could simply right click on a control and a lock to current position option was available. Has this ever been considered? Is there any work-a-round?

Okay thanks for the advice

Thanks for the advice. I solved the issue by using an external video editor to move the video (and so also embedded audio) to the right in the video editor timeline, by the exact amount I needed to align with the correct temp point in the Sonar project song. A bit of trial and error but it worked fine.

I have enabled Snap to 1/16 which works okay when I move the time curser manually but I also want to snap to the nearest 1/16 snap position when I stop play. Is this possible? Thanks

I have imported an mp4 video (with audio) into a project. I really need to move the video (and audio) start point which I've read is only possible with the AVI format. So I found the instructions for using the export video option to do the conversion. Briefly they say: To convert a Video project to DV AVI format 1. Use the File > Export > Video command. The Export Video dialog box appears. 2. In the File Name field, type a name for your new video. 3. In the Save as Type field, choose Video for Windows. 4. Click the Encoding Options button to open the AVI Encoder options dialog box, and choose DV Video Encoder in the Video Codec field. Click OK. So I tried that and the 'Video for Windows' option does not appear. Nearest is 'Windows Media Video' and this does not offer the AVI format as an option. Can anyone help with this please?

I had a little challenge when there was a slower bridge in the middle of the song which I didn't do a very good job at the first attempt. By that time I had done the rest of the song! Ooops! So I had my first experience of having to edit tempo points in situ! I put SMPTE locked time markers at a few point along the slower bridge audio to mark where I was sure there should be tempo points and then played around with the tempos between these points until it was sorted, taking care to ensure that the tempo points I added/edited time ended up aligned with the audio markers. Not too difficult after some practice and it worked a treat. 'Set-Beat-At-Now' is a GREAT TOOL!!

I had a first try this morning and it seems to work really well. It's smart enough to know which measure I've clicked close to, even if that measure is not exactly aligned to the beat in the audio waveform. My method at the moment is to keep an eye visually where the measure (n the timeline) starts to wander away from the visual beat on the audio waveform, then pop a 'Set-Beat-At-Now' there. It will take a while to do the whole song but it's very stress free! I worked out what the initial tempo was and put a bar of silence in before the start of the audio. I need a tempo map for this particular song as we're doing a cover of a classic 70's song and want to match the original tempo. This makes it easy to programme a temporary drum track (and of course a click track) for the band to build up the parts from and also makes referencing to the original track easy as it sits in its own track on Sonar.

I will give it a try tomorrow. Thanks so much for the explanations.

That is great news! How does Sonar know how many beats to put between the points I add? Let’s say I add a point then another point 5 beats later, then another point 7 beats later, basically wherever I see a clear beat in the audio waveform. Thats the bit I don’t understand.

Rather than having to tap the tempo along with the song is there any way to set tempo points based on the waveform? I'm creating a tempo map from a CD track right now and I can see where the 'beat' points are. If I could somehow use these as anchor points (say every 5 bars) and then get the tempo map gizmo to calculate the correct temp between the anchor points then it would be really easy to do. I tried the two automatic methods and found them pretty poor.

How about the Soundcraft Ui24R? I realise you are mixing on a tablet but if it's mostly about setting record levels then maybe it has some advantages. It would also make monitoring in another room a lot simpler.

Yes the Tascam Model 2400 ticks a lot of boxes. The lack of metering per channel alongside the faders is for me the biggest issue. Yes you can use tiny onboard screen (not really!) or the app, but nothing beats channel metering next to the faders when you are trying to keep an eye on recording levels. Nevertheless, food for thought! Are there any other mixer based contenders apart from the Model 24 which can record to an SDXC card?

The location recording is a bit of a mixed bag; Last week I recorded a folk-punk group in the pianists front room. Mixture of acoustic and electric instruments. Yes I was in the front room too! I had a mixture of DI and mic'd sources. Some percussion but no drum kit! Typically no more than 8 to 10 sources. Some fan noise was okay in that situation but if it had been an all acoustic folk group (which I've done as well) then a laptop fan would have been a problem. Occasionally it's possible to get the recording gear set up in a different room but it makes comms difficult when there is so much going on. I usually have to do a fair amount of 'herding sheep' as is often the way with musicians (surely not??) I would never use VST type effects when recording, so its just getting the audio recorded. If a singer must have a little reverb on their voice then I would do that using the DSP in the audio interface, so no load on the computer. I like the idea of the MeLE Quieter PC 4C. Am I right that it can mount to the back of a monitor via the VESA system? And does it have an internal SSD or do you need to use a USB connected hard drive?

I’m putting together a mobile recording set up. Ideally, it would be great to find a fanless Windows laptop but it doesn’t look like they exist at the moment. Next best is a low fan noise machine. So if you have recently bought a laptop for use with Sonar and it’s super/almost super quiet, can you share the spec please. many thanks

I came across this MTC to LTC converter on Amazon, https://www.amazon.co.uk/DOREMIDI-LTC-MIDI-Timecode-MTC-20-synchronize/dp/B0CSFGCYZV It's reasonably priced so I will probably get one and see helps with the issue.

1. Yes the Windows Audio settings are the same as Sonar/Cakewalk 2. I have disabled the Realtek audio in device manager. HDMI audio doesn't appear on the list. 3. Windows 11 doesn't have exactly the same options (that I can find anyway) but all the 'Audio, Allows apps and Windows to use this device for audio' are set to Don't allow'. I don't think the problem is timing variations in the Sonar external insert sends. I've tested these extensively today and they are very consistent. I've done some more testing and think the problem may be slight timing variations in my sync system. I use Sonar's MTC output as the timing master. This gets converted to LTC using the Show Cockpit MTC to LTC convertor app. Sadly this PC based convertor only supports native Windows audio drivers (so not ASIO). I've been using my PC's Realtek digital audio output via a D/A convertor to get the LTC in analogue format. It's been okay up till now and tight enough 'timing wise' for my use. So I'm not sure why I'm getting this variation now, although I did update to Windows 11 recently. So what I'm saying is that the path from Sonar MTC output to Show Cockpit's MTC input (happens inside the PC) to LTC conversion (still inside the PC) to LTC emerging from my PC's digital audio output, is varying in the path time delay, a little bit from session to session. That it's worked okay up till now is a miracle! I can pull 'the system' back into sync by putting a frame or two of offset into Sonar's SMPTE/MTC Offset. This (I think) slightly advances or delays Sonar playback timing compared to Sonar's MTC output. It's tedious but it works. I probably need to find a master MTC/LTC generator which I can sync the tapes machines and Sonar. That would still rely on a constant time delay getting the MTC into Sonar (so via a MIDI interface), or perhaps easier would be to find a high quality MTC/LTC unit which I can sync from Sonar (so bypassing the Show Cockpit app). All suggestions welcomed!