The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Generic wrote:

Sober wrote: Also: wtf .bmp?

Yeah, I don't know. When I hit "Print Screen," that's what it saved as, and I was more interested in trying to get music out of my software than I was in uploading my screenshot in a more web-ready format. At least the durn things still work.

(well, in the interest of getting music out of your software you should try to make it easy for people to help you... .bmp isn't the best way to do that... just sayin'...)

Yeah, next time at least embed the .bmp file into a .docx file, sheesh. (Seriously, people do this to me all the time at my job. Now back to the topic...)

Wait. What are you saying Jon? Print Screen doesn't save a file...

A possibly little-known fact: Alt-Print Screen copies just the active window (in this case, the error message) to the clipboard. If you have to save as BMP this could help. But Paint now has the option to save as JPG (it didn't always).

AJOwens wrote:A possibly little-known fact: Alt-Print Screen copies just the active window (in this case, the error message) to the clipboard. If you have to save as BMP this could help. But Paint now has the option to save as JPG (it didn't always).

I never knew this. Thank you.

So here's a big one:

The thing has been working like a dream for the last two weeks, but a few days ago, I accidentally started up Cubase without my Lexicon plugged in. Cubase warned me that there was no audio interface plugged in, so recording would not be possible. I clicked OK, then closed Cubase back out. Plugged in the Lexicon, restarted Cubase, and started to record something.

When I plugged in my headphones, I heard a loud static floor. When I tried to play back (anything), it came out as static. Or maybe heavily overdriven distortion. Point is, I'm completely unable to monitor and record through the Lexicon. I've tried changing the VST inputs to reflect the re-added audio interface, but it didn't change anything. It seems no matter what I do, I either get horrible distortion or total silence.

I have found a workaround: If I go into "VST input" and set my ASIO input back to my internal soundcard. So now I'm recording through the Lexicon, but monitoring through my internal SigmaTel card. Aside from the fidelity loss when monitoring, it's just a hassle when I have to monitor from my old device.

Sounds like you just need to go into device setup and make sure the lexicon is selected as your vst audiobay. Cubase likes to do that.

Otherwise, maybe check out vst connections and see if anything is wrong there.

Starting up Cubase with my audio interface off causes me all sorts of headaches, too. I try to never do that. If all else fails, reboot.

Lunkhead wrote:Starting up Cubase with my audio interface off causes me all sorts of headaches, too. I try to never do that. If all else fails, reboot.

Yeah, get this: rebooting didn't work. In fact, I rebooted, uninstalled the audio drivers, uninstalled Cubase, went into my Windows Registry and removed every key that Steinberg created, rebooted again, reinstalled the audio drivers, and then reinstalled Cubase, and that didn't work.

That's about when I gave up and came here. I'm just going to assume that it's irreparable now.

Dang, that sucks. Do you have another computer you can test your Lexicon with to make sure it's not a hardware problem with the Lexicon? Have you tried different headphones? Are you sure it's not some other piece of the puzzle, like the mic/instrument cables plugged in to the Lexicon, or the mics/instruments, etc.?

I had a problem with noise when I tried to use my new Tascam 122 Mark II. You could describe it as like static. It was clearly processor noise. The reason I mention it here is that I discovered the noise was much reduced if I used the USB ports on the front of the machine.

So, on a random chance, is the Lexicon connected via USB, and if so, are you using the same port?

Lunkhead wrote:Dang, that sucks. Do you have another computer you can test your Lexicon with to make sure it's not a hardware problem with the Lexicon? Have you tried different headphones? Are you sure it's not some other piece of the puzzle, like the mic/instrument cables plugged in to the Lexicon, or the mics/instruments, etc.?

Good points, all. I don't have another computer handy for experimental purposes, though I may be able to borrow one from a friend...

Here's some other information that may or may not shed some light on it:
1.) The Lexicon can monitor its own input ("Direct" mode) perfectly well.
2.) The full-duplex recording never worked at all when I used Audition. It always behaved the way it's behaving now. I had pretty much resigned to the idea of it never working. Then when I installed Cubase, it magically worked! For about two weeks, anyway.
3.) The fact that it conveniently stopped working right after I started up Cubase without the interface plugged in makes me skeptical that it might be something else in the chain. It might be the hardware itself, though the fact that it worked, however briefly, makes me skeptical of that, as well. Might as well try all avenues, though.

Nonetheless, I managed to record a song tonight on it, and I think it came out really well, so I guess I'll just suck it up for the time being.

So for my gift of music entry, I did some epic harmonies. There's five vocal harmonies at once, and I added the same compression and reverb to all five. This got pretty system intensive, so I set the outs on the five harmonies to a different bus, and applied the effect just to that bus. It sounded great on playback.

Then, when I went to create the audio mixdown, it only mixed down the first bus - the one without the harmonies. Sure enough, I noticed an option on the mixdown screen for which bus to mixdown, but I could only choose one or the other.

So I did first one, then the other, then imported each mixdown back in and did a mixdown of the two mixdowns. That seemed a little bit convoluted. Is there an easier way to mix down all buses at once?

I'm not sure what you mean by "bus". Do you mean like you routed those tracks to different outputs of your audio interface? Like you set up a new stereo channel that shows up in the right hand most section of the mixer? If that's what you mean, I don't think you want to do that. I generally only ever use a single stereo output channel. If I want to put the same effects on a bunch of tracks I send them out to a group track, and put the effects on the group track, which then goes to the stereo output channel.

Generic wrote:So here's a big one:

The thing has been working like a dream for the last two weeks, but a few days ago, I accidentally started up Cubase without my Lexicon plugged in. Cubase warned me that there was no audio interface plugged in, so recording would not be possible. I clicked OK, then closed Cubase back out. Plugged in the Lexicon, restarted Cubase, and started to record something.

When I plugged in my headphones, I heard a loud static floor. When I tried to play back (anything), it came out as static. Or maybe heavily overdriven distortion. Point is, I'm completely unable to monitor and record through the Lexicon. I've tried changing the VST inputs to reflect the re-added audio interface, but it didn't change anything. It seems no matter what I do, I either get horrible distortion or total silence.

I have found a workaround: If I go into "VST input" and set my ASIO input back to my internal soundcard. So now I'm recording through the Lexicon, but monitoring through my internal SigmaTel card. Aside from the fidelity loss when monitoring, it's just a hassle when I have to monitor from my old device.

I finally fixed this. For posterity's sake, here's how:

Apparently, there's two different drivers for my Lexicon. I went in to Devices --> Device Setup and clicked the VST Audio System option on the left-hand menu. At the top, there was a drop-down menu with two options: Lambda ASIO or ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Driver. The latter was selected, so I switched it to the former.

I knew I was on the right track when I got the message that said "The ASIO driver Lambda ASIO could not be started." A quick Google of this new error indicated that all I needed to do was click "Reset" at the bottom (Apparently, the patched version of Cubase, which I found at this site, fixes this error). Sure enough, it works exactly as intended again. And now I know how to switch between output from my Lambda and output from my computer speakers, just in case I ever need that.

Thanks for posting your solution to the problem.

I'd like to throw out a tip that I have found to be very helpful: Always use the same USB input for your audio device. I find that as long as I use the same one (of four) USB ports on my laptop my interface works great. If I try to use another, all hell breaks loose.

That's one to grow on.

Ken

ken wrote:Thanks for posting your solution to the problem.

I'd like to throw out a tip that I have found to be very helpful: Always use the same USB input for your audio device. I find that as long as I use the same one (of four) USB ports on my laptop my interface works great. If I try to use another, all hell breaks loose.

That's one to grow on.

Ken

Yeah, the same thing happens with USB thermal printers, so I see that issue at lot at work. My Lexicon lives as USB002. Not sure why some devices have this quirk and others don't, but it helps to be on the safe side.

I've had the same problem starting Cubase without my FireBox properly hooked up. Luckily it's easier to fix than what you went through. All I do is turn off my computer, make sure my firwire cable is secure and turn the computer back on. It absolutely will not recognize the FireBox again no matter what I do until I turn off/on the computer.