I just picked up and installed my Alesis IO 24. I like it a lot, it really makes a difference with the sound. I was using a FastTrack Pro, but now I keep getting drops with Sonar. Very frustrating. And sometimes the Alesis won’t even work for the sound on my laptop (i.e. playing MP3’s using iTunes). Does anyone have any experience with the Alesis IO 24?

Re: Alesis IO 24 wiht Sonar

jFled, I had the same issue with my M-Audio Firewire....  Try changing (probably increase) the size of the ASIO buffer in the HARDWARE.  (and make sure you’re using ASIO drivers in Sonar, but you shouldn’t have to make any other changes there.)

The M-Audio defaulted to 256; I changed it to 512 and it works like a charm.

Re: Alesis IO 24 wiht Sonar

Tony, I did do that, increase the buffer. Shoot I increased itto 3034 and I would still get audio drop outs. Some other post said that I would need to change my FireWire card to a Texas Instrument one so I can use it’s drivers. That’s crazy. I have a laptop so that insn’t an option for me. Others said to use the WDM drivers instead of the ASIO. I really don’t want to return it that is why I am trying to see if others have had this problem.

Thanks

Re: Alesis IO 24 wiht Sonar

Ya know, I had the same issue with my laptop (a Dell.) I just simply could not get the Firewire to work well.

I wound up getting the cheapest desktop I could find (a $339 special at Best Buy) that FAR outperformed the Laptop…

Don’t want ya to go spend money unnecessarily, but try it on another computer if you have access to one and see if you can at least narrow things down.

Are you having problems recording, or just with Playback?

Since you say that you have problems OUTSIDE of Sonar, too, I would think that Sonar is just amplifying the issue.

ASIO is ALWAYS preferable to WDM.  Not sure why someone would recommend that, unless it’s for troubleshooting purposes…

Check to make sure that your Firewire port isn’t sharing an IRQ with any other hardware that might be competing.  (On my laptop, the Firewire competed with the Ethernet port and one or two other things.) If there are conflicts, you’ll have to work those out.

Re: Alesis IO 24 wiht Sonar

Mainly where I was getting the problem was with Session Drummer. I would load it, start sampling the drums and then get and audio drop out. I can kind of deal with that, but what I can’t deal with is the sound not working with other apps on my laptop. I just bought the Alesis IO 26 Firewire at Guitar Center and I have about 4 more days to decide whether or not I should return it. Do USB Audio interfaces have less issues? If so, what is a good one that can support at least 4 devices, i.e keyboard, drum machine and mic.

Re: Alesis IO 24 wiht Sonar

Hmmm.  When you say dropouts, are you saying just glitches and pops, or that sonar STOPS and gives you the big red banner “AUDIO DROP.”

If it’s the latter, that’s usually a CPU issue.  Mine only does that if my PC does something CPU intensive at the time, like when Norton decides to start a background scan.  BLINK!  AUDIO DROP.  And it’s dead for 15 minutes or so until Norton goes back to sleep…

There’s a troubleshooting guide in SONAR that can step you through other causes of that.

Now, when you say it doesn’t work to play MP3 from iTunes, what do you mean?  Get noisy audio?  Pops & Clicks, or just NOTHING?

Re: Alesis IO 24 wiht Sonar

No pops or glitches, just no workey. And with iTunes there is no sound. It’s working now, but maybe tomorrow it won’t be. I never know.
So here is the thing. I was messing around recording two tracks, a bass track and a drum track. I successfully recorded them then at some point during a playback, BAM ,red banner, AUDIO DROPPED. I closed Sonar and opened it again and then it worked. I increased the buffer. But here is where I am a little unclear as what to do. It says to make sure the Alesis and Sonar are set to the same buffer size. I am not sure where this setting is. Do you think you could look at my Alesis Firewire Control Panel settings and Sonar settings below and let me know if something is not configured correctly.

-------------- Alesis Firewire Control Panel --------------

Clock Master Setting ---
Master Device: IO 26
Master Clock Source: INTERNAL
Sampling Rate: 44.1hHz

Buffer Setting ---
Buffer Size in Samples: 1024

Applications allowed to change the sample rate ---
Rate Control: Asio Only

System Sounds ---
Enable

System Sounds Configuration ---
Input— MultiChannel Config: stereo
Output—MultiChannel Config: stereo

System Latency Compensation:
Medium

---------------------- Sonar ----------------
Options > Audio

General ---
Sampling Rate:441000

Advanced ---
I/O Buffer size: 1024
Driver mode: ASIO
Dithering: Triangular
Share Drivers with other programs: checked
Use Multi-processing engine: checked
Everything is else is unchecked.

Re: Alesis IO 24 wiht Sonar

I’m not too familiar with the Alesis’s inner workings, but one difference in my config is that SHARE DRIVERS WITH OTHER PROGRAMS is UNCHECKED.

I sync mine to my MOTIF’s S/PDIF output, so that’s different too.

If you’re not getting audio out of your PC’s apps, I would check your mixing settings in the control panel, and also make sure that Windows is actually USING the output you think it is.

On VISTA, if you hover over the VOLUME icon in the task tray, it actually tells me I’m using my MAUDIO410 Output1/2.  I can’t remember where it shows up in XP, but you need to verify that.  It’s NOT automatic.  If your PC’s audio card is still enabled, it’ll likely default to it, whether you can hear it or not.

As to why it might work sometimes and not others, The M-Audio provides pretty clear indication if it’s not mated to the PC.  Ocassionally I have to REBOOT just to get it to activate.  Annoying, yes, but it’ll exhibit the same symptoms you describe if yours isn’t actually synced up.  Try rebooting (don’t actually SHUT DOWN, just do a restart.)

Go through the SONAR’s “AUDIO DROPOUTS” troubleshooter start to finish, if you haven’t already.