A Very Sad Story (You will cry)

N

Newbie-Doo

Member
I just purchase a Lexicon Omega and wanted to upgrade my PC to get the most out of it.

I upgraded from an Athlon XP 2000+ to an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and doubled my RAM from 512MB DDR PC3200 to 1024MB DDR PC3200. Add to that an 320GB SATA II Hard Drive (300MB/Second transfer speed vs. 133MB/Second for my old IDE Hard Drive). I'm using Sonar 2.2 XL on Windows XP, NTFS Format. I'm using ASIO drivers.

I was very excited to find that my latency is the same 10.2 Milliseconds as it was previously. :eek:

What am I doing wrong? Is the problem my Bus speed/RAM Speed? :confused:

I can't believe I just spent $500.00 and have no performance improvement to show for it. :(
 
Isn't the omega USB? If so you will always have latency issues due to the limitation of the USB interface. To get low latency times, you are going to have have a firewire or PCI interface....
 
Newbie-Doo said:
I can't believe I just spent $500.00 and have no performance improvement to show for it. :(
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Latency is not the only performance gain. What about plugin's? You should see an improvement there.
 
That is a huge step up so I wouldn't say you wasted your money. :)

I would switch from USB to FireWire. But the best, IMO is PCI. Then you can use ASIO drivers which provide almost 0 latency.
 
Take the Lexi back and try something else.

Lexicons' forays into soundcards has been an unmitigated disaster.
 
danny.guitar said:
That is a huge step up so I wouldn't say you wasted your money. :)

I would switch from USB to FireWire. But the best, IMO is PCI. Then you can use ASIO drivers which provide almost 0 latency.
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Firewire latency really isn't a huge issue these days. You won't get zero latency (prob. won't with PCI either) but you can get latency to a level where it won't affect your productivity - I know because I've done it with a Firepod I used to own. I love PCI, don't get me wrong (I'm using a Layla 3G right now), but Firewire has come to a good place IMO. I may be misinterpreting your post, but it seems the way you worded it is: Use PCI because then you can use ASIO drivers. You can use ASIO drivers with Firewire as well.

Get ready too - I'm sure someone will be along soon to point out to us that PCI is dead and we're all insane for even using an interface that uses it. :eek:
 
warble2 said:
I may be misinterpreting your post, but it seems the way you worded it is: Use PCI because then you can use ASIO drivers. You can use ASIO drivers with Firewire as well.
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I actually didn't know ASIO was for FireWire devices too. I've never used one myself so I wasn't sure.

But I would definitely choose FireWire over USB any day. :)
 
warble2 said:
Get ready too - I'm sure someone will be along soon to point out to us that PCI is dead and we're all insane for even using an interface that uses it. :eek:
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Haha...I'm waiting on the guy who will point out that "those Lexicon Omegas are awesome! And the USB is fine, just change the thingamabod to this and that and it will have 0 latency!"

Now where is THAT guy??? :D
 
I'm sorry to report that this thread did not make me cry. I used up this week's supply of empathy early. Sorry.
 
Don't forget to add a ms. of latency for every foot your ears are from your speakers, too. :p

Any digital doohickey is gonna have latency.
 
Do a search for the first Lexi converters. They crashed and burned in nothing flat.

USB is for wireless mouses and keyboards, and does a fine job with MIDI too.

But it's too much to ask it to do audio.
 
c7sus said:
Do a search for the first Lexi converters. They crashed and burned in nothing flat.

USB is for wireless mouses and keyboards, and does a fine job with MIDI too.

But it's too much to ask it to do audio.
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USB 2.0 does OK. And since it's a USB world, they will make it work somehow.

My new rig has Firewire 800 on it. Holy crap, the data just whizzes. I am already friggin' spoiled.
 
I would stay away from the lexicon sound cards as they have a funny habbit of abandoning them, motu style

Also I would mirror the PCI/FIrewire thing. I have rigs with both, easily able to run 64 samples if not using latent plugs

The PC you got is PLENTY strong
 
Newbie-Doo said:
Haha...I'm waiting on the guy who will point out that "those Lexicon Omegas are awesome! And the USB is fine, just change the thingamabod to this and that and it will have 0 latency!"

Now where is THAT guy??? :D
Click to expand...

THAT guy is a tech working for Lexicon.
 
well i hate to burst anyones bubble but i gotta say bullshit to the fw/usb differences... assuming there's nothing else on the bus usb should be fine for as few a tracks as most will want to do... the usb2 spec is actually slightly faster than the fw400 (420Mb/sec vs 400) and granted the fw800 spec's up to 3.? Gb/sec but there's little really using fw800 (even at the "crippled" 800Mb/sec)

and 10ms is not bad.... @ the time it takes for sound to travel 10 ft...
 
dementedchord said:
well i hate to burst anyones bubble but i gotta say bullshit to the fw/usb differences... assuming there's nothing else on the bus usb should be fine for as few a tracks as most will want to do... the usb2 spec is actually slightly faster than the fw400 (420Mb/sec vs 400) and granted the fw800 spec's up to 3.? Gb/sec but there's little really using fw800 (even at the "crippled" 800Mb/sec)

and 10ms is not bad.... @ the time it takes for sound to travel 10 ft...
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Myyyy Heeerooo! :D :D

That's what I thought after looking over the specs and Firewire vs. USB2 web reports. Maybe the delay I'm experiencing is configuration related? My lead part is coming up slightly behind the rythm. Not sure why or what I can do about it.
 
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