A better interface than the Fast Track,at half the price?

MattAttack

So lately I've been very lazy with my guitar (more pre-occupied, but still…), so I figured I'd just quickly through some money away to shock me into more pro-active behavior.
Well I have, and now I have no choice left now but to get off my ass and get my money's worth.

I've decided to buy an audio interface so I can start writing/recording on my pc, which seems a good way to get me to spend more time with my guitar.
The popular culprits as far as interfaces go, from what I've scrounged up, are things like light snake's, behringer guitar links and similar, m-audio fastrack's and all the PODs, I loose count of them.

Obviously I'd prefer the interfaces that take mic's and keyboards too, so that excludes those nasty guitar links and light snakes and leaves me with the others, which are all over a grand, some over two.

However I recently learned of the Lexicon Alpha, it's pretty much identical in features to the fast track.
Initial read-ups and reviews sound promising, and Lexicon has a good track record, so that is what I'm going with.

The Alpha comes with Cubase LE 5 and some reverb plug-in, but software isn't an issue with me as I'm going to be installing Ubuntu Studio on my pc again, and as far as relevant Windows apps go, such as guitar rig and such, well I've never really bought software anyway =P

I ordered the Lexicon from SoundSelect today for R749 =D
As a bonus, all orders over R500 are delivered for free.
Some other online shops had the Alpha listed, all over R1200 though, wtf!?
I should have it by next week and I'll let you guys know if it's any good.

Has any one here got any experience with these Alpha things, or any Lexicon interfaces?
I'm always too quick to pull the trigger, so I was hoping for some positive feedback to calm my nerves!

I'm not sure what the hyperlinking rules are, but here's the product link anyway...
http://www.lexiconpro.com/product.php?id=7

shaundtsl

Thanks, please let us know what its like. I would probably be quite interested in one of these.

Mo-Facta

Here's a review on Gearslutz:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/reviews/676707-lexicon-alpha.html

Cheers ?

symbolofmylife

It may be a bit different (and a tad more expensive) than what you picked up, but I have a Focusrite 2i2 and hell, it works like a charm (My review here http://www.guitarforum.co.za/reviews/focusrite-scarlett-2i2-usb-interface/)

MattAttack

So my parcel arrived yesterday =D will def buy from soundselect in the future.

Came with Cubase LE5 and a Lexicon reverb plugin. I have no use for these things, will swap the for beer if anyone's interested?

Got home and started figuring out how to use the thing.
I've never used an audio interface or any guitar applications before, but it wasn't too bad to figure out.

Fired up guitar rig 5, fiddled around with ASIO drivers and away I went.
At first there was a slight but noticeable delay, that went away after reducing the sample rate/buffer to 96.
Now it feels pretty snappy.
I can't tell you what the latency figures are though, how would I check that?
Also, what's the usual sample rate that is used for playing?

I just had time to check out a couple of presets, quite a lot of them so I'm still finding my way.
The sound is okay, but there is a noticeable scratch/crackle that appears momentarily, when the amp starts breaking up into distortion, it's not a constant thing, but always happens in the same scenarios.
So no crackle when playing a clean sound, or dirty sound, only when going from clean to dirty dynamically/dramatically.
It happens irrespective of the input level on the interface, so tonight I'll try fiddle with settings to sort it out.
Any suggestions on this crackle issue?

I'll also wip out the strat copy to see how it sounds with single's.
My guitar has some OLD 3-connector dimarzio humbucker in it, def not a hot pu.

I realise now that I was using the ASIO4all driver, not the Lexicon driver. I can't remember if I swapped them when I was trying to sort the latency issue out, or if it was when I was just trying get get audio out to the
interface for headphone monitoring.

So let me go get the proper driver working and I'll get back to you guys.
I don't have much else to say regarding quality, as I've never touched one of these things before, but i will do a recording for you guys as soon as I'm happy with the sound, and you can tell me!

Here's a pic:

Def not as pretty as the fastlink, seen worse though!
Any feedback will be appreciated.
Cheers.

shaundtsl

Thanks for letting us know.

Have you been playing around and getting more done on this yet?

MattAttack

I have fiddled around a bit. Haven't got rid of that slight crackle, but it's so minor it doesn't really affect playing, it just pisses me off coz I like getting things perfect.

Things I have realised though:
-The illusive crackle doesn't go away when maxing out sample rate, but also doesn't worsen when setting sample rate to lowest setting ?!
-neither the input level on the interface or on guitar rig itself is clipping (hitting redline)
-problem is present through other VSTi's through Reaper as well.
-ASIO4all yields lower latency than Lexicon driver (often the case)
-I get <10ms delay at 96 sample rate/buffer which sounds/feels fine
-There's another setting, I think bit rate? There are two options: 44thousand and something, and one a little higher. When the lowest one is selected, it ads 2ms to the delay? Just seems wrong way round.

Writing this now, I realise another possible problem: the whole time I've been monitoring the sound through my Phillips headphones. I think I'll try connect the audio-out to my pc speakers and hifi to eliminate the possibility of my headphones being the culprit. They don't crackle with music or games, but we'll see.

I'm also going to be setting up ubuntu studio again soon, i'm curious to see if I'll have the same issue.

MattAttack

So the verdict is:

Crackle was indeed the headphones fault. PC speakers are also a no-no. Now I monitor through the 10W practice amp that was laying around and it sounds great.
Been playing with Guitar Rig 5, Amplitube 3 and an Lepou Engl VSTi through Reaper, and I'm having lotsa fun.

Took my interface to my buddies place and after jamming for a bit he ordered one on the spot.
Def worth the money. Needn't spend more money on an interface that does the same thing.

Will post some recordings when I get a chance.