Fast Track USB into Audacity please?

[pott]

I'd like to setup my home recording system this way:
Guitar --> pedals --> POD --> amplifier
And then the POD as weell into Fast track USB --> Audacity

But I have NO clue as how to make this work I'm affraid... I tried the headphone output of the FTUSB into the mic output of the laptop (no line in) and I couldn't really get it to work. So any help is welcome... thanks! I don't want to have to bring the POD into the mic input of the PC or else I'd have bought the FSUSB for nothing

[Inazone]

Does the FastTrack have a mic preamp, or only a line in? You should only be connecting the FastTrack to the laptop using the USB connector, definitely NOT the headphone output to the mic input. Even if it "works" to a degree, that would be a sure recipe for terrible audio quality.

[pott]

Hence why I don't want to do it. I figured out how to get it working, but there is terrible latency even with the FT setup for fastest speed

[Inazone]

What are the laptop's specs? Any other apps running while you're recording? I haven't done any recording via USB, so I don't know what you should expect for latency, but I do know that both my laptop and desktop (P3 1.2 GHz and AMD Athlon XP 1800+ respectively) have old USB 1.0 instead of newer 2.x standard.

[pott]

It's a 2GHZ pentium M with 256MB of RAM. USB 1.0 only too, but so is the Fast track USB I believe.

AHHH Crap this is pissing me off...
Basically what I'd like to do is be able to record using audacity while hearing my sound from the amplifier. So for this I need no latency. And also I need to match the output of both devices. Problem, the POD only seems to have enough output if I actually crank up the output level, at which point the amplifier is out of the question if I want to hear the sound. So I could instead have it so that I get both guitar AND backing track/sound from Audacity on the PC, but I can only seem to use the Fasttrack USB as a standalone soundcard and I'd have to plug the speakers into it. But then the sound would come from the laptop's speaker (for some reason, songs don't play when I select the FT as the PC's soundcard. No idea why).

Would any other free recording softwares be better suited for this? I'd need it to be able to read and play normal songs and backing tracks of most formats so I can play on top (AND hear myself) and record directly from there...any help with the existing Audacity/FT usb setup is welcome too, thanks...

[Inazone]

I assume you're using Windows XP, in which case you need to go to Control Panel and check the Sound and Audio Devices settings. You'll need to tweak the input and output levels (Advanced section) and make sure you have your default devices set correctly. However, if you're using XP, 256MB is really scraping by for something memory-intensive like audio recording.

I'm not familiar with Audacity, but I use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 on both my laptop (input to onboard line-in, output to headphones) and desktop (input to Mia Echo card, output to speakers thru onboard soundcard line-out) and do all my monitoring through the PC rather than an amp. Both machines have slower CPUs than yours, but more memory, and I don't notice any latency. Again, that's NOT via USB though.

[pott]

I think the wisest thing for now is to sell the unit and get Line 6's tone port or guitar port. It'd cost me almost the same and feature more I guess... I did try to setup the input and output levels, but since the FT is connected via USB, it's not changeable on the PC's settings, and I couldn't tweak it otherwise.