colartz blog

I have been really happy with my Lexicon Lamba unit since posting a review of it (below), and have found that most of my problems relating to it are actually with Sonar.

What I mean there is that if I unplug the Lambda, then Sonar 7 seems to require me to go through a number of iterations (start, change audio settings, close, re-open) before it can settle down and work again (with MME or WDM). If I then plug the Lamba in again, to work with ASIO, I have to do it all over again. I cannot see why it should be so difficult. The other gripe I have with Sonar (perhaps only related to the Lambda) is that when I am using another app with the Lambad (e.g. Media player), then I get no noise out of my monitors. But, as soon as I load Sonar, I get some nasty background low level continuous whine/noise. I have no idea why.

Anyhow, I hope to upload one or two of my new efforts soon. The vocal and demo quality is still poor, but then I do not claim to be a good singer or even a good lyric writer. And it seems my playing and arrangement skills are not so hot either. Hmmm. So, why am I bothering? Go figure!

My Lexicon Lambda review (posted at Dolphin Music):

“This is a great looking unit, and broadly does what I wanted it to do. It lets me record a Mic and an instrument at the same time as a MIDI input - the reason I wanted that was to be able to record the MIDI from a Roland GR-33 MIDI guitar unit, at the same time as a direct out from the the guitar and a separate (phantom powered) mic. The bonus for me was that it also has 2 line ins, so I can record old tapes to MP3.

I intially had some big problems with the ASIO drivers. Although I could record (with Sonar), whenever I played anything back I just got bad noise. I had the same problems with MME, but I got it working with WDM. Thankfully, whatever it was now seems to have resolved itself, but I don’t know what it was I did (so I hope it does not go wonky again).

Aside from that, I found that when I hooked up my Sontronics STC-2 Mic I had to wind the Mic knob up to maximum to get a decent level, but I was getting quite a bit of noise from the Lamda the very last 1/10th turn.

I run Windows XP on a Macbook, and the installation CD would not recognise the Windows drivers - which luckily I was able to download from the Lexicon website (www.lexiconpro.com).

It is not that easy to see when the red clipping and peak LEDs comes on, as they seem pretty faint.

If you are not in the US, you can only get tech support from a dealer, not from Lexicon.

All in all, a nicely packaged and presented unit, that sits well on my desk. And, I think it is going to do the job.”