Crashes & severe MIDI lag with Superior Drummer 3 – Sonar 2025.09 build 036

[Adam]

Since updating to Sonar 2025.09 build 036 x64 I’m getting constant crashes and extreme MIDI sluggishness with Superior Drummer 3 (a new issue; worked fine on previous version).

Editing MIDI (cutting/resizing) hangs for 20–30 s; saving takes minutes.

Crashes show Unhandled Exception C0000005 in CPumpOutputThread; audio keeps playing but I must force-close Sonar.

Happens even in a blank project with one SD3 instance and one MIDI track.

Audio-only projects are fine.

Tried: fresh RME HDSPe MADI FX driver/firmware, raised “Prepare Using” buffer — no change.

Is this a known regression in 2025.09 with MIDI/SD3?
Any workaround or should I roll back to 2025.08?

I've attached dmp files.

regards,

Adam

P.S. this was a nightmare for me today; I am a professional and my client was left waiting for probably 2 hours total in a full day of tracking; I was setting up drum loops for him to track acoustic guitar live, but, clearly, that was a massive headache with multiple crashes and super slow save times. I worked around it by bouncing out drum takes, but, even that was painfully slow going. 

Mystic Lady_09272025_135809.dmp Mystic Lady_09272025_135809.txt

Edited Saturday at 10:25 PM by Adam
a couple of errors

[Wookiee]

Is your GPU A Nvidia one? Is the driver upto date. Exception C0000005 tends to infer a video driver error for Nvidia cards.

[Wookiee]

Couple of questions @Adam

1. What Kit?

2. Are you editing the MIDI inside SD3 or in the MIDI track of Sonar?

Using SD 3 version 3.4.1 in Sonar 31.09.0.036 (installed today) New York Avatar Default Kit New project no other Instruments loaded. 

Groves from the N.Y. Avatar groove selection @ 115 BPM.

No problems cutting and dragging clips in both the Clip lane of SD 3 or In Sonar MIDI Track/Lane.

It should be noted I do use Split instrument tracks which gives me access to an individual MIDI Lane/Track and Audio Lane/Track

[Adam]

9 hours ago, Wookiee said:

Is your GPU A Nvidia one? Is the driver upto date. Exception C0000005 tends to infer a video driver error for Nvidia cards.

Yes: it is.  I'll check that.  Thanks.

[Adam]

9 hours ago, Wookiee said:

Couple of questions @Adam

1. What Kit?

2. Are you editing the MIDI inside SD3 or in the MIDI track of Sonar?

Using SD 3 version 3.4.1 in Sonar 31.09.0.036 (installed today) New York Avatar Default Kit New project no other Instruments loaded. 

Groves from the N.Y. Avatar groove selection @ 115 BPM.

No problems cutting and dragging clips in both the Clip lane of SD 3 or In Sonar MIDI Track/Lane.

It should be noted I do use Split instrument tracks which gives me access to an individual MIDI Lane/Track and Audio Lane/Track

I was using the Fields of Rock SDX and triggering it via an SPDSX Pro, which inputted midi notes into Sonar itself.  It doesn't matter which pack I'm using though; the default pack was just as slow.  I usually use SD3 in multitrack mode with each instrument sending to its own track (split mode) in sonar (so I had split 12 stereo tracks all with midi in them). This was causing crashes (doesn't usually).  But, even running just one track I was getting very slow performance and super slow saves.  It's definitely only happening after the latest update I installed that same morning. 

[Adam]

10 hours ago, Wookiee said:

Is your GPU A Nvidia one? Is the driver upto date. Exception C0000005 tends to infer a video driver error for Nvidia cards.

just updated the driver (was a year old); went back into a session, attempted to split a single midi track and I'm getting a 'this application is not responding' message.

[Adam]

some more testing this morning before my next session; if I open up a new session with SD3, no issues. I play a few bars into it, and, no problem. But, if I drop in, say a 7 minute loop into the midi, then, suddenly everything becomes sluggish.  As soon as I start dragging out the loop beyond a few minutes I can feel the lag introduced. I just found a temporary solution: I'm dragging the midi into the SD3 midi player, and, removing it from Sonar midi and the issue goes away. It appears there is some new code around midi that is buggy: again, I've been using Sonar the same way (using SD3 to create multiple loops) for years and this is the first time I've had an issue. 

[Wookiee]

@Adam I don't have access to a MIDI kit consequently can't help test that. I will try with the Fields of Rock pack though. Would I be right in thinking you are stretching the MIDI in change the feel.

[Adam]

3 hours ago, Wookiee said:

@Adam I don't have access to a MIDI kit consequently can't help test that. I will try with the Fields of Rock pack though. Would I be right in thinking you are stretching the MIDI in change the feel.

Nothing difficult in terms of testing.  Track some midi, turn it into a grooveclip loop, and, extend it.  When I do that I can feel my system start lagging around 2-3 minutes of extending that groove clip loop (I can tell, as, I notice the movement of the drag start stuttering, whereas usually, it just extends no problem.  No, I'm not stretching midi or anything like that; just extending grooveclip loops so they're running over a longer time period. Seems to be put huge strain on the system. 

[Wookiee]

@Adam is that an Audio groove clip?

Another thing you don't have to convert an audio clip to a groove clip to stretch it. Just hold down Ctrl + Shift and hover your mouse on one edge towards the bottom of the clip and the mouse will change to the stretch gadget you can then stretch a clip (audio or MIDI) by upto 400% in one hit. I am wondering if the conversation to groove clip and then stretching is actually the problem.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

5 hours ago, Adam said:

Track some midi, turn it into a grooveclip loop, and, extend it

What happens if, instead of doing this, you just copy & paste a range of notes?

[David Baay]

7 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

12 hours ago, Adam said:

Track some midi, turn it into a grooveclip loop, and, extend it

What happens if, instead of doing this, you just copy & paste a range of notes?

Or Bounce to Clip the MIDI after rolling it out?

EDIT: Also, did you sequence the MIDI or was it recorded from a drum controller? - if from a controller, possibly there are issues with the denstity of Hi Hat control messages or something like that...? What if the same MIDI track is assigned to a different synth or a hardware MIDI out?

Edited Sunday at 03:50 PM by David Baay

[Adam]

On 9/28/2025 at 5:06 PM, Wookiee said:

@Adam is that an Audio groove clip?

Another thing you don't have to convert an audio clip to a groove clip to stretch it. Just hold down Ctrl + Shift and hover your mouse on one edge towards the bottom of the clip and the mouse will change to the stretch gadget you can then stretch a clip (audio or MIDI) by upto 400% in one hit. I am wondering if the conversation to groove clip and then stretching is actually the problem.

Yep: I know this trick.  I'm talking about extending midi groove clips, not audio. 

[Adam]

16 hours ago, David Baay said:

Or Bounce to Clip the MIDI after rolling it out?

EDIT: Also, did you sequence the MIDI or was it recorded from a drum controller? - if from a controller, possibly there are issues with the denstity of Hi Hat control messages or something like that...? What if the same MIDI track is assigned to a different synth or a hardware MIDI out?

yep: I'll give that a try.  And yes, I am capturing midi via a drum controller.  The thing is, I've been doing this for quite a while; with the new update, I'm suddenly having all the issues I've mentioned.  I'm hoping @Noel Borthwick might chime in here.

[Wookiee]

3 hours ago, Adam said:

Yep: I know this trick.  I'm talking about extending midi groove clips, not audio. 

By extending do you mean stretching them? If so I suspect that is your problem. A groove clip already has much processing hidden. 

Have you tried disabling the groove clip and just extending the plain MIDI clip?

[Bristol_Jonesey]

Didn't we have a tool at one time, akin to a paint roller where you could drag a selection out?

[David Baay]

2 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

Didn't we have a tool at one time, akin to a paint roller where you could drag a selection out?

Yes, the Pattern tool in the PRV. But OP is converting MIDI to Groove Clips and. Rolling out iterations.

I should add it might be worth a try to increase the MIDI Prepare Using buffer from the default 50ms, but the symptoms don’t fully align.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

2 hours ago, David Baay said:

Yes, the Pattern tool in the PRV. But OP is converting MIDI to Groove Clips and. Rolling out iterations.

I should add it might be worth a try to increase the MIDI Prepare Using buffer from the default 50ms, but the symptoms don’t fully align.

Is it still there? I can't see it

[Adam]

10 hours ago, Wookiee said:

By extending do you mean stretching them? If so I suspect that is your problem. A groove clip already has much processing hidden. 

Have you tried disabling the groove clip and just extending the plain MIDI clip?

No: I’m not stretching the clip. I’m just dragging the groove clip so the loop is repeating across more bars. 

[Adam]

6 hours ago, David Baay said:

Yes, the Pattern tool in the PRV. But OP is converting MIDI to Groove Clips and. Rolling out iterations.

I should add it might be worth a try to increase the MIDI Prepare Using buffer from the default 50ms, but the symptoms don’t fully align.

You’ll see in the OP that I have already tried raising the buffer.