hello guys, i really improved the sound of my interface 100% connecting the headphones out of an amp through my lexicon alpha, but i want to know what's the volume and gain that the amp must set up, because i can't rise up the input level of my lexicon 'cause it increase the hiss a lot but, turning down the input knob to 0 it sounds good. i Hope you understand my poor english

 

I think that you are trying to gainstage so that you can monitor at a volume which is loud enough to work with. I guess you should turn up the gain of the Alpha till it starts to hiss, come back a tiny bit and then continue with the amp until it is loud enough. I think that is where you are headed.

 

The Lexicon Alpha is a pretty cheap interface so the converters and preamps probably aren't the best. You can always try using a powered USB hub, one you plug into a power outlet, as the interference might be coming from your USB port on your computer. Try different USB ports on your computer also as one might give less interference than the others. Sadly you are probably either going to have to live with the noise or shell out $100-200 at the bare minimum to upgrade your audio interface.

I purchased a Presonus Audiobox for my first audio interface many years ago and even at three times the cost of your device I still was annoyed by the noise and ended up returning it. Sadly you get what you pay for with budget devices.

As for levels, you can always try setting your preamp to so it averages around -18.0 dBFS and peaks around -6.0 dBFS at the most. That tends to be the optimum range for most analog to digital converters. I would experiment though; depending on the type of noise, you may want to record at a higher level so you don't notice the noise as much. I would do some comparison tests recording at different levels, normalize them all to -1.0 dBFS, and see which one sounds the best to your ears.

 

i set the amp volume to 10 and the master to 4, and in the lexicon i set the input gain to 0, when i reise the level of the input knob in the alpha no matter what value is in the amp up to 0 makes a hiss but in 0 the sound is reallt good

 

"0" on the Lexicon is probably unity gain so that is what you want to leave the Lexicon at when you are recording line level signals; just adjust the levels on your (guitar?) amp so you are recording at an average level of -18.0 dBFS like I mentioned in my previous post.

When you record you might want to try leaving a section of just noise at the beginning or end of the recording so you can try the denoise plugin included in your DAW or some third party plugin. That high frequency cheap preamp/converter/USB noise often lies in the same part of the frequency spectrum as the high end sheen/air harmonics that give instruments life so removing it, even with the best plugins, may make your tone sound a bit flat or dull.

You can always try just using a gate also. Most guitar amp simulators like Amplitube have this built in so you can get rid of all the noise when you are not playing. If you add a lot of distortion to the signal afterwards you probably wont even notice the hiss as much. If you aren't using a amp simulator then I would consider purchasing a gate pedal.

 

Last edited: Jul 4, 2017