Audacity Forum

Hello,
I have contacted the support staff at Lexicon but they weren't able to solve my problem - I hope someone in this forum can!
The problem is when I am monitoring (through the Lambda unit) a previously recorded track in Audacity while trying to record a new one. The track that I'm listening to is badly distorted, beyond recognition - making precise multi-tracking impossible. However, when I listen back to the two tracks, they sound just fine - no distortion.
The support person at Lexicon said I should try a 3rd party ASIO driver (from ASIO4ALL.com) which I downloaded and installed - but the problem still persists. I'm not sure if something needs to be un-installed before this new driver will work.
I'm not a computer technician - I don't understand how all of this stuff works. Please help! I simply want to make good music using the equipment I can afford.
Thank you for your time.

Audacity does not support ASIO, so stick with the drivers that you already have (or any updated versions of them if available).

It sounds like there's a problem streaming data across the USB interface in both directions at the same time. If you also have an on-board audio device, you may be able to use that for monitoring while you record new tracks. This will not adversely affect the recording quality if you still use the Lambda as the recording device.

Selecting the playback device is in "Edit->Preferences->Audio I/O"

Having the same problem with Lexicon Alpha. however, I installed and used it with no problems on another computer so I am thinking it is a driver problem, have you figured out which one yet ?

mellofello wrote:however, I installed and used it with no problems on another computer so I am thinking it is a driver problem,

Not necessarily a safe assumption - there are many other things that it could be. The thing with USB audio interfaces is that they are great when they work reliably, but a real pain when they do not. For most USB devices (keyboards, mice, printers, scanners etc.) you can get away with a poorly performing USB interface, however this is not the case with audio (or video). In cases where large amounts of data have to be streamed across the interface in real time, the USB interface needs to work perfectly or there are all manner of weird and wonderful problems that will occur.

As with any interface, there are two sides to it - in this case you have the audio to USB converter in the Lexicon, and you have the USB interface in the computer, and both must work perfectly together.

Common causes of problems that are easily avoided are;
don't use a USB hub,
check that all cables are in good condition and fit securely in the sockets,
don't have any other USB devices connected at the same time as the audio device,
try using an alternative USB socket if you have one,
temporarily disable anti-virus and other security products (disconnect from the internet before you do this)
defragment your hard drive
ensure that you have plenty of free space on your C: drive (more than 10% free space is essential)
avoid running non-essential programs or processes while you are recording (if you have loads of icons in the sys tray, shut down any that are not essential).
Use USB 2.0 rather than USB 1
In a case where it works on one computer but not another, I would first check all of the above, and if the problem persists I would get a PCI USB card and use that.

thanks, I will be trying that. I am starting to think it may be the USB port on my computer.

mellofello wrote:thanks, I will be trying that. I am starting to think it may be the USB port on my computer.

That is a possibility, but check out the other things first.

This is to puffermcsmith,

did you ever figure out what the issue was with overdubbing with the lexicon/audacity. Playback is fime but when I listen to tracks while recording, they are distorted and garbled. help!

Dear friends,
It is strange that I am also facing the same problem while recording. The previously recorded track is highly distorted. I tried to route the output to the laptop speakers. I can listen to the track which is recorded on laptop and the track being recorded on Lexocon output through headphone. When I recorded like this, the newly recorded track had a lag and required to be shifted by editing.
I tried some of the suggestions (try other USB ports, check memory space etc).
Is there any update or comment from anyone that would be useful?
Thanks.
Hemant

i recently bought the lexicon lambda. I disabled my onboard soundcard and took out my old sb live audigy to make room for the lex. Well, i already had cubase installed previously. I use adobe audition and reason 4. I use to be able to sample what you hear from any audio source coming from within the computer. i cannot do that now. in fact i cant even have adobe audition up and running with reason at the same time, reason will tell me that there is no soundcard. I can only have one audio source running at a time. i used to be able to have multiple youtube windows open all playing audio for example, i could sample this audio into audition, same with reason i could sample what the computer would play and mess with effects and save it as a wav and put it back into the nnxt with reason creating whole new sounds. cant do anything like this with the lex. its either adobe is up and running by itself, with reason closed. or i'll have to close adobe to open up reason and reset the lambda asio for the sound source. what am i doing wrong? basically i used to be able to take full advantage of full duplex with the old sb audigy platinum. it was great one simple click on the playback/recording devices and i was full duplex being able to record my mic input and music in the background at the same time. now i cannot do any of this. If i have an mp3 playing, reason wont playback any sound. i'm at a loss. i dunno, i'm a newb. help

jcaso wrote:i cant even have adobe audition up and running with reason at the same time, reason will tell me that there is no soundcard. I can only have one audio source running at a time.

This may be a limitation of the Lambda drivers, or it may just be a minor configuration problem. I suggest that you contact Lexicon support, or the dealer where you bought it from.