recording with audacity and lexicon alpha

[web]

I have used lexicon and audacity once with no issues. It worked great! I loaded audacity and lexicon software to a different computer and it works fine except; I record one track and when I go to overdub for another track, the first one (s) I hear while recording are all distorted and garbled. If I just put up with it and record something, the playback is fine. I was told the USB port on the different computer may be bad of not compatible. Any ideas?

web

[steve]

Try using Audacity 1.3.6 and see if that is any better.

If no improvement, check out the things in this post: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic ... 802#p13796

If still no joy, look up "USB" in the Audacity wiki: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?search=usb&go=Go

(I've deleted your duplicate post to avoid confusion)

[web]

Thanks for giving me an answer. I had this on the forum for a while now. I had seen that post before and have tried most of those things with no success. The problem definately happens when info is going both ways. If I record a track, say for 20 seconds and then record another one for 40 seconds, there is noise and garble only until the first 20 second track is done, then it is normal.

Isn't 1.3.6 the beta?

[web]

Stevethefiddle:

Can we email directly about this?

[steve]

... I had seen that post before and have tried most of those things with no success...

Could you tell us what things you have tried - it will allow us to rule out a lot of possibilities.

Isn't 1.3.6 the beta?

Yes, it's the beta - that means it still has a few minor bugs in it, but it is quite a late beta, which means that it is pretty stable. It is also a lot more up to date than 1.2.6 which is pretty old now. Version 1.3.6 has many improvements for handling modern hardware and a lot more improvements for editing audio.

Can we email directly about this?

I'd rather deal with it in open forum. It could save a lot of time if someone else has the same issue.

[web]

Thanks. Lets see. I have tried every configuration of settings possible with the audacity edit preferences and the main windows sound settings in the control panel. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling lexicon and audacity and I had my computer guy check out the USB port and the computer drivers. I have used the lexicon in the first computer where it worked well before and it still does. i have recorded directly without the lexicon into the main windows soundcard and it works fine with just the audacity, minus the quality and latency reduction of course. So it doesn't seem to be the computer or the lexicon. It is just when they are together in a certain computer. If you watch the wave form of a track or two while recording, the noise continues as long as the is a recording wave and a play back one. As soon as one or the other runs out (the shorter one) the noise stops. When I put audacity in the new computer I did it from a disc. Should I download it on the actual PC that will be running it?

Web

[steve]

When I put audacity in the new computer I did it from a disc. Should I download it on the actual PC that will be running it?

That shouldn't make any difference, though it would do no harm to try downloading it again.
Note that to do a "clean" install, you must remove Audacity's preferences (manually) as these are not removed by uninstalling. See instructions here: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... references

If you have not tried Audacity 1.3.6, give it a try.

At the moment, it sounds like you guessed the problem in your first post - USB port. Just because a USB port has the correct drivers and "works" does not necessarily mean that it can accurately transfer data in both directions at the same time at the rate necessary for uninterrupted audio data transfer. However, before you give up on it, make sure that your computer is as optimised as possible for audio recording. There are loads of optimisation tips on this page: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Tips and also some trouble shooting guides that may help.

Could you upload somewhere on the internet a short clip of the noise and post a link to it (if you don't have your own web space, use one of the free file sharing services). Noise that is caused by data bottlenecks is usually quite distinctive.

Have you tried recording through the lexicon and playing back through your sound card?

[web]

I will try all of this. If it is a USB that "works" what more can one do to it? I have recorded through the lexicon but when recording with playback through the sound card, you can't hear yourself while recording.

Thanks much so far,
web

[steve]

but when recording with playback through the sound card, you can't hear yourself while recording.

You can hear the other tracks - why do you need to hear yourself through the headphones? A lot of professionals use just one headphone (or a pair of headphones adjusted so that only one side is over an ear), so that they can hear the other tracks through the headphone and hear themselves acoustically.

[web]

yes, I have done that before with the one ear thing but I'm just basing this interface issue on the fact that the record and simultaneous playback should not be noisy, regardless of how I hear them. I guess also if I was a professional I wouldn't need your help