Track view update lag problem

[John T]

So... among my audio jobs is audiobook and podcast editing. It's probably about a third of how I make a living. 

One of the things I do (in Cakewalk bB) is scan along a *very* zoomed in waveform looking for bumps and other messy sounds *before* even listening to the thing. This is many orders of magnitude faster than just doing it by ear, starting and stopping for every fix. Of course, you still have to do a full listen, but the amount of stuff you can knock off in better than real time with a method like this is enormous. 

Looks like this:

In that view, I'm using CTRL+PgUp / PgDn to flick through a couple of seconds at a time. 

Anyway, since I'm not going to have the option to work in CbB from some time in August, I've been testing out what the impact of the switch to Sonar will be. 

For most use cases I have, and certainly for music mixing, I'm fine with it. However, for the specific case above, Sonar is significantly more laggy than CbB. CbB is more or less instantaneous, where there is a tangible lag in Sonar. This is genuinely going to impact my efficiency and work rate. 

Anyone got any ideas as to why this difference exists? Is it something I can fix with a setting somewhere?

[John Vere]

Try using a Wave Editor. They are the right tool for this workflow. 

By the way. Your track looks way over compressed?  A wave editor will also automatically search for digital errors. 
Also I see you are using Isotope that would definitely cause audio lag. 

Edited 4 hours ago by John Vere

[Jorge Tata Arias]

Try this: Disable GPU acceleration in "display." In the audio file settings, reset the settings to default. It worked for me

[msmcleod]

@John T - I'd advise unchecking "Show Waveform Outlines" within the Track View's   View->Display menu.

@Jorge Tata Arias - AFAIK, GPU acceleration only affects the PRV for the time being.  It shouldn't affect Track View audio waveform display performance.

[John T]

19 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Yep. Use a wave editing software. Daw’s are not as efficient because they are designed for multi track recording. Wave editing in most Daw’s is clunky. 

Wave editing programs are designed for this workflow so have optimized tools. 
 

I have worked with 100’s of hours of narrative content. 
 

Learning curve is like any software but once you’ve up to speed you will see the difference. It’s what Mastering Engineers use. 
By the way. Your track looks way over compressed?  A wave editor will also automatically search for digital errors. 
Also I see you are using Isotope that would definitely cause audio lag. 

With respect, I'm not asking how to do this. I've worked with thousands of hours of narrative content, and have been doing what I describe successfully in Cakewalk for nearly a decade. The track is not compressed; as I mentioned, it's very zoomed in. 

[John T]

18 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

@John T - I'd advise unchecking "Show Waveform Outlines" within the Track View's   View->Display menu.
 

That's not the issue. With them on or off, the difference between CbB and the new Sonar is still there. 

I tried making a video, but it doesn't really look like anything; you kind of have to feel it. 

[msmcleod]

19 minutes ago, John T said:

That's not the issue. With them on or off, the difference between CbB and the new Sonar is still there. 

I tried making a video, but it doesn't really look like anything; you kind of have to feel it. 

Are you using any clip gain envelopes - also what is your screen resolution / scaling?

[John T]

No, and not really doing anything much display wise. The waveform is zoomed in vertically, and that's it really.  

[John T]

Display scaling is 100%, so presumably native. 

[David Baay]

The longest audio file I have handy is two hours and 15 minutes. I just opened the project over WiFi from another PC where it's saved, figuring that would be worst-case. It took some time to draw the waveform, but even before that completed paging back and forth by measures was instantaneous as expected.

So unless the audio has to be a lot more than two hours to demonstrate the issue, whatever is happening seems to be peculiar to your system or Sonar configuration.

You might try turning off/disabling your interface to see if it has something to do with Sonar's interaction with the audio driver.

[John T]

6 minutes ago, David Baay said:

The longest audio file I have handy is two hours and 15 minutes. I just opened the project over WiFi from another PC where it's saved, figuring that would be worst-case. It took some time to draw the waveform, but even before that completed paging back and forth by measures was instantaneous as expected.

So unless the audio has to be a lot more than two hours to demonstrate the issue, whatever is happening seems to be peculiar to your system or Sonar configuration.

You might try turning off/disabling your interface to see if it has something to do with Sonar's interaction with the audio driver.

Ah, thanks, that's useful data. I do think (and hope!) that it's a config problem.

 

 

[sjoens]

Curious if bouncing the clip 1st or importing the clips into a new project would make a difference?  Probably not but it can't hurt.  My experience with migrating projects to "different" versions of Cakewalk have resulted in numerous anomalies, some of which have no solution other than those.

[John T]

Ah, that's an interesting point, yes. I'll try creating a project from scratch rather than just testing an existing one.