Reference Guide

1028

New features in SONAR 8.5

Live Input PDC override

While working with virtual instruments and live input monitored tracks, it is important for audio to be

streamed at low latency in order to minimize delay.

Although SONAR supports streaming audio at very low latency, there are cases where internal

buffering can cause additional latency. The most common scenario is when using plug-ins that

require Automatic Plug-in Delay Compensation (PDC). PDC is the process of delay compensating

other normal tracks so they are synchronized with the delayed audio produced by the plug-ins.

Whenever delay compensation takes place on a track that has a live input (an input monitored track

or synth track), it is delayed by the required amount to synchronize it with other tracks. In some

cases, the delay can be noticeable and make live tracking difficult.

The Live Input PDC Override toggle lets you disable delay compensation on live tracks, thereby

removing the latency during playback and recording of such tracks. Since it's a toggle, you can

quickly turn it on to complete your tracking at low latency, and turn it off when finished to hear the

track compensated as normal.

Regardless of whether Live Input PDC Override is enabled or disabled, recorded audio is placed

on the timeline at the correct position as recorded.

Live Input PDC Override is ignored during a bounce/export or freeze operations.

To enable/disable live input PDC override

• Do one of the following:

• On the Transport menu, click Live Input PDC Override.

• Press CTRL+D.

Delay compensation is enabled/disabled on all live input tracks in the project. All other tracks have

normal delay compensation applied.

When Live Input PDC Override is enabled, the status bar shows an orange “D” indicator in the

engine status area.

You can also disable Live Input PDC Override by clicking the D indicator.

Tip:

You can control which tracks are delay overridden by enabling input monitoring only for those

tracks. For more information, see Input Monitoring.

Note: If the live track being monitored also contains track data (or MIDI data in the case of a

synth track), the streamed track data will not be delay compensated. As a result the recorded

track data will not be in sync with other tracks. You should either mute any clips on the live tracks,

work with an empty region of the track, or use an entirely new track while recording.