Sonar tweaks

From Sonar

Revision as of 15:56, 28 September 2006

Introduction

SONAR has quite a few customizable settings that can be made via its various .INI files. These files may be edited with a simple text editor such as Notepad.exe which comes with Windows. Most of this information is gleaned from the supporting readme files that are included with a SONAR installation. Be sure to make backup copies of these files before you edit them.

AUD.INI

Since the most common suggestion (to solve problems) is to delete aud.ini and re-profile the soundcard, it's probably a good idea to save any custom aud.ini settings in a separate text file so they can be easily incorporated into the new aud.ini file.

[Aud]

DefaultEqPosition=<0 or 1> (default=0) 

The integrated channel EQ can be either pre FX bin or post FX bin. The default position is pre FX bin, but you can change the position of any channel EQ by right-clicking the EQ plot and choosing the desired position from the context menu. The ‘DefaultEqPosition’ AUD.INI variable lets you specify the default EQ position for all new tracks/buses. Note: this variable only applies to SONAR 3/4 Producer Edition, not SONAR 3 Studio Edition.

GapDezipperUsec=<0-1000> (default=500)* 

In SONAR 4.0.1 the audio engine will now render a smooth fade in whenever audio playback is interrupted and there is a abrupt transition in gain. The purpose of doing this is to dezipper (smooth out) the gain transition due to the discontinuity. For example, if you click on the time ruler to jump to a new time location during playback, the engine will smoothly render the transition to the new gain level as a fade in. This smoothing also takes place whenever playback gapping occurs. You can control the fade in time via the GapDezipperUsec variable. This new AUD.INI variable is expressed in microseconds per dB and controls the speed of the fade in to the new gain value. ( default = 500 microseconds. i.e the fade will take 500 microseconds per change in dB at the transition point). You may increase or shorten the time of the fade by increasing or decreasing this value. The normal legal value range for this variable is 0 to 1000 microseconds. A value of zero turns off dezippering on gapping completely.

MixDezipperUsec=<0-1000> (default=50)* 

This variable is similar to GapDezipperUsec except that it controls how the mixer itself renders abrupt gain transitions due to envelopes in the project. This variable is expressed in microseconds per dB and controls the speed of the fade in to the new gain value (default = 50 microseconds). The normal legal value range for this variable is 0 to 1000 microseconds. * IMPORTANT: Changing the value of this variable will affect how envelopes are rendered by the mixer and may cause your mixes to sound slightly different. Setting MixDezipperUsec too low can cause clicks while rendering abrupt gain changes due to envelopes.

PicCacheMB = XX 

Sets the maximum size of the folder that holds the pictures of your waveforms (.wov files). The default is 20MB, which is too small. This causes Sonar to have to frequently recreate the waveforms which can take a long time when opening a project. Recommend you set it to 100MB - 200MB assuming you have sufficient hard disk space available. On a related note, make sure the picture cache folder is on a different drive than your audio (assuming you have a separate drive for audio).

[Wave]

EnableLiveADCRecalc=<0 or 1> (default = 1) 

When set to zero, SONAR will bypass nearly all of the expensive work that needs to get done to recompute PDC after an audio signal routing change. Your audio will be slightly out of sync -- imperceptibly if you are running at very low latency -- but there won't be a gap. Regardless of how this variable is set, PDC gets recomputed when you stop and restart playback.

ExtraPluginBufs=128 or 256 or 512 

It is necessary to incease this extra plugin buffer size if you are using a plugin which requires delay compensation e.g. Linear Phase EQs, convolution verbs, look-ahead limiters etc. The only negative is a trivial increase in memory usage.

KsUseInputEvent=<0 or 1> 

You should notice better perceived latency in WDM with MOTU audio device drivers using this set to 1. Without this tweak, WDM is noticably more latent than ASIO with the same apparent settings. With the tweak, they seem about the same.

MeterFrameSizeMS=<10-200> (default=40)* 

Meters in SONAR show peak (or RMS) values at a given instant in time. The actual peak value displayed by a meter is the highest peak recorded in an interval of time referred to as a "Meter Frame". The default size for a meter frame is 40 milliseconds, which is an accuracy of 25 FPS. Use this setting to change the size of this interval. Setting this value to a lower value will make the meters record peak info for smaller time slices. However this can also increase the metering CPU and memory cost (although SONAR doesn’t enforce a fixed value range, the recommended range should be between 10 and 200 milliseconds).

CAKEWALK.INI

[TV Header Tools]

In SONAR5, a track view toolbar button--or related buttons--is defined as:

TFn=name

where n is the sort order, and name is the button(s) name (not case senstitive).

The default layout is displayed below:

[TV Header Tools]
TF0=NewTrackBus
TF1=separator
TF2=select
TF3=envelope
TF4=separator
TF5=snap
TF6=crossfade
TF7=meter
TF8=separator
TF9=split
TF10=mute
TF11=zoom
TF12=scrub
TF13=separator
TF14=inspector
TF15=navigator
TF16=video

In order to customize the toolbar layout order, you can copy the section above and paste it into CAKEWALK.INI. The layout above mimics the hard-wired layout. To reverse, for example, the Select Tool and Envelope Tool(s) order, set TF3=select and TF2=envelope.

Note: the layout order will revert to the hard-wired list if any of these scenarios are true:

1. Any section is missing
2. Any individual key is missing
3. False value or name for a key
4. Duplicate keys

All sections and keys must succeed, or SONAR reverts to the default hard-wired layout order.

[WinCake]

EnablePluginCancelButton=<0 or 1> (default=0) 

In SONAR 4.0.2 and earlier, opening the property page of a VST plug-in during playback could result in a slight disruption in playback. The cause for this problem has its roots in the little "Cancel" button that sits in the top right corner of the plug-in's property page. The purpose of this button is to allow the user to cancel out of any changes they might have made to the plug-in, restoring back to whatever state the plug-in was in before they opened the GUI window. To make this work, SONAR would need to take an initial snapshot of the plug-in's state, and this first state was expensive and could lead to hiccups during playback. To address this issue, SONAR 4.0.3 (and later) does not take a snapshot of the plug-in's state by default, and the Cancel button is not available. There is a new CAKEWALK.INI variable to bring back the Cancel button if desired, but be aware that this may also result in hiccups when opening VST plug-ins during playback.

JogPosTimer=<milliseconds> (default=120) 

JogPosTimer is the period of the now time throttle. When a jog message comes in, SONAR sets the transport time immediately but will not set the transport time again for this length of time. During the time, SONAR just remember the latest jog time received.

PauseDuringSave=<0 or 1> (default=0) 

By default, when saving a project file during playback, SONAR saves the file asynchronously while playback continues. While this is not a problem with most projects, complex projects under high CPU load conditions (particularly while running under low latency) may take longer to save than if the transport was not playing. The new CAKEWALK.INI variable ‘PauseDuringSave’ (SONAR 4) changes the default behavior and pauses playback temporarily for the duration of the file save. This allows the file save to proceed as fast as possible before playback resumes. When set to 0 (default) the file is saved asynchronously while playback continues and the save operation may take longer than if the transport was not playing. Wgeb set to 1 the playback is paused for the duration of the file save operation. This allows the file save to proceed as fast as possible, resuming playback when completed.

PauseOnJog=<0 or 1> (default=0; off) 

PauseOnJog is the main switch. 1 does a pause and invokes the throttle timer. 0 just sends the now time with no pause and no throttle timer. If 0, the setting of JogPauseTimer is "don't care".

ShowClipShadow=<0 or 1> (default=0) 

By default, a drop shadow is not displayed on clips in the Track view. This is different from previous versions of SONAR. SONAR 4 has a CAKEWALK.INI variable that allows you to always display a drop shadow on clips. When TRUE (value=1) clips display a small drop shadow.

TVWidgetsStickInHeader=<0 or 1> (default=0) 

By default, Track view controls (widgets) will only appear in the track header bar if the track is minimized and there is enough room to display at least one control. SONAR 4 has a CAKEWALK.INI variable that allows you to always display controls in the track header bars, regardless of whether a tracks are minimized or not. When TRUE (value=1) widgets stay in the header bar regardless of the height of a track. Note: the following controls will never appear in the track header bar: Send widgets, Meters, and Vertical FX Bin.

WavePreviewSampleFrequency=<1-10> (default=1) 

By default, waveform previews take a meter sample for each meter frame. The default interval between meter frames is 40 milliseconds. The ‘WavePreviewSampleFrequency’ CAKEWALK.INI variable lets you specify how frequent samples are taken. The value can be an integer between 1 and 10, and represents the number of frames to sample. With the default value (1), every meter frame gets written to the history file. With higher values (2-10), frames will be skipped, causing fewer history frames to be written to the history file. Higher values may be desirable if the waveform previews are affecting playback performance.

TTSSEQ.INI

[Options]

IgnoreMidiInTimeStamps=0 

Set this value to 1 to tell Sonar to ignore Midi input time stamping, set to 0 to use Midi input time stamping.

MfxLookAhead=<ticks> (default=960*4) 

This new TTSSEQ.INI variable (Sonar 4.0.1) defines how much extra MIDI data is sent to MFX plug-ins, so that they have extra room to quantize events into the future.  Lower values mean MFX plug-ins can work more "just in time".

SendResetsToSoftSynths=<0 or 1> (default=0) 

This new TTSSEQ.INI variable (SONAR 4) controls (globally) whether SONAR sends MIDI controller resets to DXi’s. Setting the value to 0 (default) means resets are not sent to DXi’s. Setting the value to 1 means SONAR will send MIDI controller resets to DXi’s. This is what SONAR already does for hardware synths. If you are freezing synth tracks that have MIDI controller messages, setting this variable to TRUE (1) will ensure that synths will have their MIDI controllers reset before a freeze operation.