Lexicon Lambda Studio USB Audio Interface - Product Review

When you want to record your musical instrument or your voice to your computer, you need an audio interface. An audio interface is something that you can plug your microphone and/or your instrument into that will take the sound from your microphone and/or your instrument and convert it to a digital signal that will be recorded on the hard drive of your computer. I chose the Lexicon Lambda Studio USB Audio Interface. Let's go over the unit.

The Lexicon Lambda Studio USB Audio Interface has the following features.

Stereo line inputs for keyboards, drum machines or analog output of a CD or MP3 player.

A 24 bit rate which is perfect for most recordings.

Filtered active-balanced inputs accept either balanced or unbalanced signals.

Two low-noise mic pramps with phantom power for studio condenser mics.

A high-impedance front panel input for electric guitar or bass.

A separate mic and line level input controls with individual peak indicators.

A monitor mix control for balancing an audio source between a live input and playback mix level while recording. This can be switched to stereo or mono.

A 2-channel, 4-segment bar graph meter to monitor exact levels of the analog-to-digital converters.

A headphone amp.

Filtered and balanced Line outputs for monitoring through powered speakers or recording to an analog source such as a cassette deck.

Inserts for your favorite outboard processors to either mic input channel.

Fully isolated MIDI input that will eliminate ground loop hum and MIDI talk-through noise.

The unit comes with a USB cable that will transfer the data to your computer but ALSO power the Lambda. This allows you to use the Lambda even on the road with your laptop. No batteries, no DC adapter.

When I got the Lexicon Lambda, I immediately hooked it up to my computer. I installed the drivers for the unit with the included CD. The unit was 100% compatible with my Steinberg Cubase SX recording program.

I started by recording a guide track playing rhythm guitar. Just something to let me know where I am in the song. Then I recorded a kick drum track with my drum machine on the next track. The third track, I put in my snare drum, then I put in the hi-hat and the ride cymbal both on the fourth track. I repeated the process several times, adding a double tracked acoustic guitar, a bass guitar, a guitar solo, drum fills, lead vocals, and two separate background harmonies. It was all very time consuming but I got it all done. During the recording, I had no latency problems when monitoring while recording. The Lexicon Lambda did exactly what I wanted it to. I'm quite happy with it.

The Pros:

It's a great unit to use at home or for a solo performer like myself, you can record your vocal and your guitar both simultaneously. I use it to record my live shows from time to time.

It comes bundled with Steinberg's Cubase LE recording software which is a decent recording program AND Lexicon's Pantheon Reverb effect.

It includes a USB cable.

The Cons:

I occasionally do some duo performances with another musician. I would love to be able to record those shows too but my voice, plus his voice, plus my guitar, plus his guitar equals four. One can only record TWO things at a time.

That's about it. The Lexicon Lambda has a street price of $149.95 making it affordable for almost anyone. The only system requirements as far as your computer goes is that you should have at least 1 GB of RAM, an available USB port, Windows XP or above or Mac OSX operating system. Pretty simple. A definite good buy.