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...while I'm recording in Cakewalk Sonar X1 I hear no signal from the Line Input. It's being recorded and plays back after I record it but there is no live input monitoring. Sometimes it'll randomly be heard but then when I go to arm or disarm a track for recording in Sonar it mutes it. So I figured that somehow Sonar was taking control of the sound device and muting it as a kind of feature. So I disabled exclusive volume control on the device but it still mutes it. I'm sure this is something that's different in Windows Vista/7 as opposed to XP and earlier with how it operates its audio devices (I hate how that works, by application instead of device source) but I can't find any way to disable this feature and I've tried all the obvious options. Sonar doesn't seem to have an option for it at all anywhere. Any ideas? Anybody have any similar issues in Vista/7 when recording a signal? There is the option to "listen to this device" but it must send it through the driver instead of just listening to the signal from the device because it's horribly choppy and delayed. Any ideas?

I think the live monitoring is more of a matter of the sound card driver features than Win7. I am still using my old Audigy card so I can use my SoundFonts (hate the crappy MS Synth) and for the MIDI out for my MT-32. With the Win7 drivers it still has the "What you hear" that allows it. If you go to the Control Panel Sound applet > Recording > Properties > Advanced, you can try unchecking the "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device", but I'm not sure if it will help. there is also a check box for "Give exclusive mode applications priority" there.

I'm also using my old Audigy (2 ZS). I mentioned that I tried checking/unchecking that flag. Didn't make any difference. I've found a temporary way around it for now but it won't work when the system is under a lot of strain. It would just be plain easier if I could just listen to the input my sound card has! Worked fine in XP. Vista/7 had to muck everything up. It's not a sound card issue.

You don't get the "What you hear" option in the program's input options? I have it in my old SoundForge with my Audigy, but mine is the original Audigy. I will say that there is a bug with the Win7 driver for the Audigy that can corrupt recording. Creative is not going to fix the driver for such an old card. This bug is apparently absent from the drivers for Creative's newer cards.

I do have What You Hear but it doesn't make any difference. No matter what recording device I use it silences it when I arm/disarm a track for recording in Sonar. Everything is recorded fine. No audio glitches at all. I just can't hear it as it's happening. And What You Hear isn't really a viable option when recording a sound source that must be pure. There is excess noise (actually there's noise either way on internal cards, but it's worse) and there's always the chance that a sound in Windows will be captured which is a no-no.

The Microsoft Sound Mixer also works for me, but it would have the same disadvantage of also capturing incidental system event sounds. What is your playback device set to in Sonar?

I have Sonar using the Creative ASIO driver. It must be something under the hoods of both Sonar and Windows 7, whether it's an option in Sonar to silence inputs when arming tracks or whether it's Windows 7 for allowing Sonar to silence the input in such a way....either way there doesn't seem to be any option for either scenarios to disable it that seems to work at all. Anyway, like I said I have a work around for now. Sonar can enable input echo which has a tiny delay set by the sound driver which works for now but on a fully loaded session with lots of tracks, effects, buses, etc it bogs memory down and I'd have to increase the delay to compensate for audio stutter....delay which isn't good for live recording. But it's all I got for now. At least until I can buy a proper external audio interface.

Since it works for me with SoundForge, it is not solely a Win7 issue. Is this a recent copy of Sonar? If not there may some Win7 compatibility updates with the latest version. It may also be worth while to check with Sonar's site. Maybe see if they have a message board. What external device were you thinking about?

It's the latest Sonar. Specifically designed for WIn7. Not sure what interface I'm going to get yet.