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I managed to record things once or twice from my keyboard.

However, in Ableton 6, in preferences, when I set the audio input device to "Line (Fast Track) DX" or "Line (Fast Track) Wave" (whats the difference?),,,it says "Failed to open the audio input device"...

Its frustrating because I know I've recorded before, and now its not working anymore!

I have an Acer laptop, 2.5 Ghz of memory, two hard drives of 40GB each. 1.86Ghz speed.

My keyboard connects to my audio interface through a black cable. Another black cable goes from there to my large speakers. A USB cable connects my interface to the computer.

I would really appreciate any help that you could provide!

Comments

Space Sun, 08/16/2009 - 16:07

MassiveNoob,

Wow...you really are ;) Just a few things to clarify and then someone else will come behind me and tell you what it is you may need to do, if anything.

Two hard drives, so one of them is external and it connects via USB?

Are you using a USB hub? Often these things never perform as expected with specific hardware.

Maybe it isn't a hub and you have a few USB slots to work with? This could be an issue as well as USB is more designed for computer peripherals and shouldn't be given the task of handling audio/video or anything that creates large data streams.

I realize they make a usb audio interface so it should be alright to use it, I'm just saying that USB, by and large, is not dependable enough as a stable "always on" type connection. Especially when you start adding more demanding pieces of hard ware like another hard drive, a usb mouse add to this the audio interface and it is a crap shot as to who gets what part of the processor and when it might even transpire.

If I were in your place, from a cold boot up of the laptop:

Unplug whatever usb hard ware is plugged in before starting the computer.
After the laptop is booted, plug in the audio interface.
Start the recording software and see if you can get recognition of the usb audio interface from within the software.

Then plug in the other hard drive.