Reference Guide

930 Mixing
External Insert plug-in
The round-trip time for the signal to return is measured and displayed on the button.
10. Press Play in SONAR again.
You should hear the track play significantly quieter and thinner sounding.
11. To confirm if the delay is measured as accurately as possible, adjust the manual offset by one
sample in either direction. Press Play after each adjustment and note if the sound gets louder or
quieter.
In almost all cases, the sound will be quietest with no manual offset. In some rare circumstances,
you may have hardware that requires an offset of a sample or two. If this is the case, you will want to
always add that offset when you use the External Insert plug-in.
If your hardware requires a manual offset, you will only need to adjust the offset once for any
particular sound card.
When to measure the delay
Several things can change the delay of the External Insert, including:
• Changing audio ports.
• Changing audio driver model.
• Changing audio device.
• Changing SONAR's buffer size.
When the current delay setting becomes invalid, an asterisk (*) is displayed next to the delay value.
If you notice the asterisk, it means something has changed in your system and it's time to measure
the delay again.
Loading a project that uses the External Insert plug-in
When you load a project with the External Insert plug-in (or select a preset in the External Insert
interface), SONAR checks to see if the exact same ports are assigned as when the project was
saved. SONAR’s port assignments can change if you load the project on a different hardware
configuration or change driver models. If there is any discrepancy between the port assignments that
were saved and the ports that are used in the current configuration, the ports are set to “None”.
Doing so avoids accidentally loading projects and having audio routed in an unexpected way.
Bouncing or freezing audio that uses the External Insert plug-in
The External Insert is a simple way to use real outboard effects as if they are inside SONAR.
However there are several good reasons why you should consider bouncing or freezing the audio
that passes through the External Insert in order to capture the result of the external hardware
processing:
• If the outboard effect's settings are changed between sessions, your project will sound different.
• If you change SONAR’s buffer sizes often, you will need to re-measure the delay on all instances
of the External Insert each time.
Tip: The manual offset can be saved in a preset for the External Insert plug-in.