need help! please, if you use an external sound card with a laptop.

so i bought a dell inspiron 1500 series lap top with a standard sigma tel internal sound card (piece of shit) and the computer uses XP. i have a lexicon alpha external sound card that i was going to use to record with... i used the cd and loaded the drivers with no problem. i have cubase and sound forge to record my mixes and both programs list only the sigma tel sound card and the microsoft sound mapper as options to pick from, but no lexicon :( i go to my device driver and the lexicon is listed and working properly. any idea why the lexicon alpha isn't an available option on these programs although my computer seems to be picking up the lexicon? this is driving me nuts!!!!! thanks in advance... :what

Re: external sound card question

you might have to disable the other soundcards to get the lexicon one to work. Try this....turn your laptop off, plug in the lexicon, and then turn it back on and see if it works...sometimes that would help with my tascam when I had it hooked up to my laptop. Now that I have it on my iMac I don't have to worry about it. I can easily choose which soundcard i wanna use.

Re: external sound card question

Jeff lets really be honest with the poor boy, he should of bought a Mac! Ha ha!

Re: external sound card question

get over your mac ken. i swear i bet you slap your dick against it every night before you go to bed. whole new meaning to the term hard drive.... ;)

thanks jeff. plugging in the lexicon before turning on my laptop worked. ken actually tried that after i posted this message and cubase (only) recognized it. i still think it's odd that sound forge doesn't recognize it. guess i'm gonna have to learn cubase!

Re: external sound card question

[quote=dante_k;571423]Jeff lets really be honest with the poor boy, he should of bought a Mac! Ha ha![/quote]

ahahahaaa!

funny but your problem most likely woulden't occur with a mac. audio driver recognition....

Re: external sound card question

No problem bro on the help.

Yeah when I first got my mac...i was wondering how in the hell I was to switch back and forth between soundcards...took me a while to find the place where I could switch the two.

Frankly I think the Mac stores should have a DVD that they give out with each new Mac showing the differences when trying out your new mac and how to get in and around those differences.

And now they JUST set about doing that....I want my copy you bastards!!! LOL.

Re: external sound card question

ok well i got everything up a while ago and i can record but i get bad feedback. a lot of noise on my recordings which is driving me nuts! just a bunch of humming at various volumes that lays fervently over the tracks if you listen... . i have not any idea what it would be except maybe my settings are jacked? thought maybe i could get some feedback with recording feedback.

right now i'm using a new dell inspiron with soundforge 7.0 (old school, i know) and it has plugged into it a lexicon alpha. i checked all the lines except for the usb line to the laptop which i don't have an extra for. the external soundcard goes to a djm 800 master. i can take pictures if it helps. i really have no idea if the levels are just all wrong on the sound card and/or laptop or if something like a cable could maybe be bad.

going out of town for a few days, but i'd like to see if maybe i'm just overlooking something stupid. thx.

Re: external sound card question

Dell...thats probably the problem. From my experience if dell is involved its the source of everything that goes wrong.

Re: external sound card question

well first of all it might MIGHT be your cables. that's where a lot of your hum usually comes from.

Re: external sound card question

^^^ good point...check your cables....sometimes cheaper cables do the job better....gd luck