WHY does Sonar Record in the wrong place???

[John Vere]

Well Cakewalk Next is miles apart from Sonar but what you described is exactly what was happening to me. To prove the bug I recorded myself saying the count alongside the metronome. You could visually see that when I said “1” that it recorded were 9 belonged. 

And I also tested Next a few times as I found the bug in early Dec 2023 and they released a few updates into 2024. It took 3 months to get a reply from support thanking me and saying that it was easily reproduced. 
 

I found it very odd that I was the only one who noticed such a huge bug. 
But your issue seems like nobody else has the problem? 
I personally don’t think it’s an audio driver problem because at worst it would only be a few milliseconds out. 
Sorry I no longer have Sonar installed so can’t try and reproduce the problem. Perhaps a detailed description of what hardware you are using and if you have any mastering effects in place. 
 

 

[chamlin]

1 minute ago, John Vere said:

I found it very odd that I was the only one who noticed such a huge bug. But your issue seems like nobody else has the problem? 
Perhaps a detailed description of what hardware you are using and if you have any mastering effects in place.

Thanks, John. Kind of you to reply given you've left Sonar for greener pastures! Not sure anyone else seeing the post has tried the process. For me, punching is a much cleaner, faster approach that minimizes editing later on.

No effects are being used at all. Just raw recording through my Focusrite Scarlett.

[John Vere]

Check. 

Ya Im old school. I learned punching in on tape. Later when I got the Yamaha MD8 digital recorder I had the ability to set automatic punch in and out. I really never took to this chomping thing. If I make a mistake I fix it. If I don’t like a take I delete it. Tape workflow for sure. 
Automatic punch in might be old school but it’s my preference and it works better for me than recording a bunch of sloppy stuff and then spending hours sorting through it.  
 

Trouble is a lot of these new Daw’s are now optimized for copy pasted content and not real recording anymore. Probably why I was the first ( possibly the last) one to use Cakewalk Next in a traditional way so discovered that it was busted. 
 

[David Baay]

On 5/19/2025 at 4:46 PM, chamlin said:

1. Loop was set, then punch record was set within the boundaries of the loop.

2. Made sure the NOW time was set to the beginning of the loop

3. Looped 6 times (6 takes)

4. But instead of the vocal sitting where it was sung, SONAR has again offset the vocal.
     A. The beginning of the vocal is cut off
     B. The vocal in the clip should sit later in the clip than it does

I can't reproduce this after multiple attempts with loop/punch at differet places in the timeline with different lengths (not always snapped to beats) and at various tempos. I still suspect this is related to your particular interface and driver mode; what is it?

Maybe try enabling/disabling UseHardwareSamplePosition in Preferences > Audio > Config File (AUD.INI), depending on what is currently set. You should also try re-booting and/or power-cycling your interface if that isn't happening regularly.

Your original post said offset was 7 measures while your last screenshot shows offset is two measure or less if I'm interpreting correctly. Is it that variable?

 

[chamlin]

18 minutes ago, David Baay said:

I can't reproduce this after multiple attempts with loop/punch... I still suspect this is related to your particular interface and driver mode; what is it?

Maybe try enabling/disabling UseHardwareSamplePosition in Preferences > Audio > Config File (AUD.INI), depending on what is currently set. You should also try re-booting and/or power-cycling your interface if that isn't happening regularly.

Your original post said offset was 7 measures while your last screenshot shows offset is two measure or less if I'm interpreting correctly. Is it that variable?

 

Thx for taking the time to explore this, David.

1. Yes, I can't reproduce it either. It just happens.
2. I've ruled out the possibility that it could have been if I hit record with the Now Time not set to the beginning of the Loop. That seemed a good possibility as suggested earlier. But not it.
2. Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 (2nd Gen)
3. What is the UseHardwareSamplePosition? It's set to True.
4. Yes, it appears to be variable based on the length of the Punch or Loop. Can't figure that out yet.

[David Baay]

UseHardwareSamplePosition tells Sonar to use the position reported by the driver to determine the Now time rather than just keeping track internally. I don’t know details of the implementation but there can be conflicts

[scoco]

I'm having this problem using a MOTU 8Pre ES. Didn't used to happen. Like someone said, it happened after going to the paid version of Sonar. I haven't noticed it happening except when I'm recording inside a loop. Like someone else also mentioned, I make the loop wider than the record punch-in range. And I do NOT want anyone telling me I shouldn't be doing that. I need an audible cue in order to play in time as the punch starts. And I want to extend the loop past the punch-in range so I have time to hit Stop before the loop returns to the start and creates an unwanted new take and mutes the take I really wanted to keep. That's how I work. That's how I've always worked. @David Baay did you resolve this problem?

[chamlin]

1 hour ago, scoco said:

did you resolve this problem?

Still happens on my end, maybe 1 out of 8 times. So annoying.

[Chaps]

12 minutes ago, chamlin said:

Still happens on my end, maybe 1 out of 8 times. So annoying.

I had this kind of timing error while loop recording a few years ago and it turned out that using the audio metronome was causing the problem. I created a click track on an audio track, turned off the metronome, and the problem went away.