Problems getting the TXLTimecode plugin to work with Sonar

[norfolkmastering]

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.

[msmcleod]

Have you made certain there are zero effects (e.g. Pro Channel etc) or other processing (e.g. in the hardware path) on the output of the track hosting the TXLTimecode plugin?   It could even be something as simple as the signal being too quiet or too loud.

 

[Bass Guitar]

23 hours ago, norfolkmastering said:

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.

Seems like you found the solution. 

[norfolkmastering]

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.

[norfolkmastering]

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.

[msmcleod]

A few things to try:

• Is there a difference in ASIO buffer size between Sonar and Tracktion?  A larger buffer size might explain the drift.  
• If you disable PDC in Sonar does it make a difference?   You can either disable PDC completely in the control bar using the PDC button, or disable it for the plugin only using plugin properties (you can get to plugin properties using the cog icon on the plugin UI's toolbar).   Be careful with this though - as other plugins are added to your project, the main project audio will sound "later" than time-code.
• Another thing you could try would be to set it as a tempo-based effect in the plugin properties page.  With this set, it stops being a synth and will need to be inserted as an effect on an audio track.
• If you're just using the SMPTE output, maybe try using an audio track with a WAV file of the SMPTE code on it. 

FWIW,  using the trial version, I tried recording via an aux track at an ASIO buffer size of 1024, then at 64...  the output was definitely different, as playing both together with one phase inverted didn't null completely.

 

[norfolkmastering]

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.

 

[norfolkmastering]

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.

[Xoo]

Can you bounce the plugin to audio to see if it jitters?

[Bass Guitar]

I’ve been using Waveform for over a year part time. One big difference between Sonar and Waveform that I noticed is that it only uses one type of  track. That track can be a Midi track, Instrument track or an Audio track. 
It also has a lot of built in tempo detection and mapping which is typically for people who use audio loops. 

So possibly looking at what is the difference between the track used in Waveform and the track used in Sonar might explain something. 

[norfolkmastering]

1 hour ago, Xoo said:

Can you bounce the plugin to audio to see if it jitters?

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.

[norfolkmastering]

23 minutes ago, Bass Guitar said:

I’ve been using Waveform for over a year part time. One big difference between Sonar and Waveform that I noticed is that it only uses one type of  track. That track can be a Midi track, Instrument track or an Audio track. 
It also has a lot of built in tempo detection and mapping which is typically for people who use audio loops. 

So possibly looking at what is the difference between the track used in Waveform and the track used in Sonar might explain something. 

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!

[Bass Guitar]

8 hours ago, norfolkmastering said:

would reasonably have expected them to test the plugin with all the major DAWs, Sonar included

Actually Im afraid Sonar has just about fallen to the bottom of the list of most popular Daw’s of 2025. It’s not even on most of them. Cakewalk at least used to make the lists. 

Oddly enough Bandlab the app is on the list. So that’s an interesting insight into where the cash flow is coming from. 

Edited Thursday at 12:33 AM by Bass Guitar

[norfolkmastering]

On 10/22/2025 at 3:12 PM, Xoo said:

Can you bounce the plugin to audio to see if it jitters?

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?