M-Audio Delta 44 & 1010LT simultaneously

Well, I finally got around to investing in a M-Audio Delta 1010LT. Having used my trusty Delta 44 break out box for the past 5 years, when I began recording my first band a couple of weeks ago it became apparent that I was drastically lacking inputs.

Taking the plunge to invest in better hardware wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, or expensive either! Being happy with M-Audio, I decided to stay loyal to them, and check out the Delta 44's big brother, the Delta 1010lt. Surprisingly, the Delta 1010LT was almost half the price as the Delta 44 was 5 years ago! So after ducking in and out of my local music store, I was home in front of my PC with my brand new toy!

Thinking along the lines of uninstalling and removing my old Delta 44, I had a brain wave that these sound cards probably could be stacked and synced! I wasn't sure... I remember reading somewhere many years ago that you could stack some of the M-Audio PCI cards, including the 1010LT but not the Delta 44... WELL, one way to find out!

I took off the side panel of my PC tower, and there, hidden under my gigantic GPU was the last free PCI slot. I slotted in the 1010LT and bolted it down, hit the power button and all systems were go!

"New Hardware detected!!!" Excellent. It's working, and it looks like M-audio have new drivers for Windows SP3 to boot! After downloading and installing them, I opened up the driver panel, and whoa! Kick arse! You can select your sound card and everything! It's all tidy, and nicely finished too. Good work M-Audio! And, if I dig a little deeper, under the Delta 44 options, there's an option called "Sync Int", so I ticked it. And on the Delta 1010LT there are a few more options, but it also has the "Sync Int" option, which I also ticked... I could only assume that the two cards were sync'd and talking to each other. :D

Ok ok. So this is too cool. But does it work in the real world? To find out, I looked around my room, and realised that with out the band I'd been recording, I'm lacking sound making inputs! I did have my trusty old RM1x sequencer, and coupled with my electric guitar, I plugged one into the 44 breakout box, and the other into the 1010lt RCA input. I booted up Ableton Live, and double checked some settings, it all looked good.

I muted EVERYTHING in the M-Audio driver panel, and then created two stereo input channels in Live. Channel 1 I selected 1/2 44, and Channel 2 I selected 15/16 1010lt. Instantly I had sound from both! I hit record, and it was recording both tracks! Woo-hoo!

Ahh, but all is not smooth sailing just yet... All though I only played with the new setup for 5 minutes (I had to go sleep as it was getting late) there seems to be an odd sound distortion that kicks in once every 3-ish minutes for 2 seconds on the Delta 1010LT. I'm not too sure what it is. At first I thought the RM1X was actually producing the noise, being the ancient beast it was, but I swapped around the guitar and the RM1x, and low and behold the strange buzz randomly appeared on the guitar! It seems to kick in randomly when a noise is produced, and sustain for about 2 seconds, then just completely disappear to the normal clean sound.

Questions:

• What's that strange random distortion bug that pops in and out of my recording? It's not your typical pop-click, but instead it's a very strange distortion noise that appears, then mysteriously disappears 2 seconds later!
• Have you or do you know anything about buddying together a M-Audio Delta 44 and Delta 1010lt?
• What's a good solution to manage my inputs? I have the breakout box for the Delta 44, but the 1010lt only has loose RCA cables, plus the odd midi, sync and phantom power cable. Is there a decent RCA 1/4 patchbay you could recommend that would tidy things up? Or perhaps even a mixer?
• What's a good way to manage my sound? Although the sound cards are sync'd, unless I'm running Live, I can only hear sound from my Delta 44, as that's what my monitor speakers are plugged into. I can't seem to internally channel the 1010lt's mix to the Delta 44. Maybe I should physically plug one sound card into the other? Or, should I get a decent external mixer?
• Another problem I'm having is figuring out the best way to plug in my headphones. My old setup included a little $100 Behringer mixer, but it's ugly and noisy and it's faulting as we speak. It was perfect for managing the Delta 44 and powering the odd microphone, but now I've got the Delta 1010lt I really have no need for it.

So yes, that's the latest happenings with me! A big thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out with my current setup, it's much appreciated! And likewise, I'm more than happy to help anyone out with similar equipment if I can.

My System,

• E6600 over clocked to 3200Mhz, stable and low temperature at high loads.
• Asus P5B - Deluxe Wi/Fi Motherboard, onboard sound
• 4 gig of OCZ 800 Ram, 2.97 gigs utilised by windows.
• Asus 8800GTS 640 meg
• Delta 44
• Delta 1010lt
• USB Razer Keyboard & Mouse, Samsung LCD Monitor

Cheers,
BFM

EDIT: Added a quick example of this strange distortion bug. It's very random, pops in and out whilst recording every 3-4 minutes.

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