Instruction Manual

854 Improving Audio Performance
System Configuration
the Buffer Slider, which controls mixing latency. The Wave Profiler is
unnecessary if you are using an ASIO driver.
The DMA settings are used to ensure that a project that contains both MIDI
and digital audio plays back in tight synchronization. If SONAR is not
configured properly with your audio device’s DMA settings, MIDI and digital
audio material may not play back correctly.
Note to users of previous Cakewalk products: The DMA settings in
versions of Cakewalk prior to SONAR 1.0 were displayed in bytes rather
than samples. Using your previous DMA settings in SONAR will not work.
Try the settings that wave profiler displays, and if you are not satisfied, only
then attempt to optimize your settings.
The Wave Profiler utility runs automatically the first time you run SONAR.
The wave profiler determines the best DMA settings for the supported bit
depths and sample rates of your sound card.
Note: It is possible to load a 48 kHz project when you are using a sound
card that does not support 48 kHz. SONAR does not warn you when you do
this. Your project may crash, or it may appear to record audio when your
project is not actually recording.
All of your audio settings are listed in the Audio Options dialog box, which
you open with the Options-Audio command. The following list summarizes
all the settings that the Wave Profiler sets. You can override all of them
except what audio drivers are listed in the Drivers tab:
• Input and output drivers
• DMA buffer sizes (in samples)
• Mixing latency
If you experience MIDI and audio synchronization problems during
playback, before contacting technical support, run the Wave Profiler and try
the default settings.
To Manually Run the Wave Profiler
1. Choose Options-Audio to open the Audio Options dialog box, and
click the General tab.
2. Click Wave Profiler.
The Wave Profiler examines each of your sound cards in turn, makes
default settings in the Audio Options dialog, and displays the name of each
sound card and the sample rates that each card supports.