Odim's Audio Engineering Corner

[Homicidalheathen]

I'm using Sonar 4 on a laptop. I'm trying to use it to play live using it's internal sounds and effects. I can use the internal sounds without any trouble, but am having trouble with the effects.

1. I can't figure out how to get the effects to go through the same output as the sounds. Only the clean sound will come through (only when I play live). It works fine if I've pre-recorded something and then added effects. I've tried using the monitor and it creates some additional problems.

a. I can only get the sound to play back with effects through the computer speakers. I can't get the sound with effects out of the regular output jack.

b. There is a significant delay between the time that I strike a key and when the sound happens (about 1/8 of a second or so, pretty noticable and extremely annoying - again, this is just for live playing).

c. I get a lot of feedback when the effect comes through the computer speakers. All the book says is that it has something to do with my mixer configuration, however, that is all internal to the computer.

Anything you could suggest on these would help. I've already checked the book and it doesn't help much. Do you or can you use the effects in Sonar for live playing without the delay? That's really what I'm trying to get to. Thanks.