I have a dream, USB powered extender w/wireless = axe in one room, 'puter in another

MaxStatic

MaxStatic

Inspired
UPDATE, IT WORKS!!!!! I have a dream.....

******CHECK LAST POST FOR UPDATE******


Before I start, I searched, sort of found some things somewhat related but not really. Raised more questions than it answered.

Here is the deal, just got the II. Love it! My music room and where I record are two separate places i.e. I have a "toy" room with all my guitars, amps, and the like and a bedroom where the computer is. No biggie I thinks to myself, when I want to record something, I unplug the rack, carry it into the bedroom, plug a few cords, Bob is your step father, uncle, milk man, whatever.

I got to thinking though, about these powered USB cables I've seen. Supposed to pump out 480Mbps, that fast enough to stream audio from the II? I bet you are starting to see where this is going. I want to run a USB cable from the "toy" room to the bedroom computer when I record instead of tearing down the rack and bringing it in here. Now if that's what I have to do, I'll do it. Just looking for a sexier way.

Yup, I hear ya "Well how the h-e-double-hockey-sticks you gonna play guitar in the other room with the axe in here?" Way ahead of you. I have a wireless unit that I've used in the house for the last 6 months. I can crank an amp in the music room and walk about the house. Seems to work without any flubs....of course I'm not in the room with the amp to hear it perfect so....

Anyone try something this? In a perfect world, I would use AxeEdit to control the II on my computer with the guitar signal going to it via wireless, and the audio streamed via the extended cable. The unknown is will the cable have enough oomph to stream the audio. Not doing any reamping or anything two way, just straight up one channel audio(maybe stereo if it works) recording into a DAW. Anybody have the spec on how much data that is at any given time?

What you all think, crazy, stupid, genius, lazy, flabbergasting, <insert word that describes justification for getting out of bed in the morning here> or just plain silly?

I figure the cables are like $13 on Amazon, I may give it a try regardless, just wanted to see if anyone else has given it a shot. Thanks for the inputs.
 
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Hi
I understand where you're coming from, so I'm not trying to be smart here.
But could you hold out long enough to save up for a dedicated laptop for your toy room?
Cheers
G.
 
The cable in question has a mini hub repeater thingy in it to extend out past the 5m mark.

I had though about a 'puter for the toy room but there is no significant rf noise in that room now...would like to keep it that way.;)

The cables are like $13 so I think I'll give 'er at shot. Will report back.
 
With the low price of wireless network cards these days, I wonder if a future version of the Axe-FX would have it built in? For that matter, the MFC could be WiFi also. That way, there would not need to be any physical connection between your laptop and the hardware. And possibly, there could be a 100% wireless connection between the MFC and the Axe-FX.

The less wires, the better, IMO.
 
I've joked with the wife that I'm going to put in "Axe FX Outlets" in every room. Basically, I want a 1/4" jack, midi in/out, and XLR out in 1 outlet cover. Out one of those in my office and one of those in the living room and I'd never have to move my Axe from downstairs! I have 2 atomics, so I could set each of those in the rooms and plug my guitar and midi controller right into the wall!

Her ONLY objection was "When we sell this house, what are the next people going to think about that?"... oh, but the next house... the next house will have this...
 
I ordered the cable, should be here in two days....gotta love Amazon Prime.

I'll post an update if it worky or not.
 
Cable arrived, only had 5 min before work to goof around. Ehh, I have weirdness going on. So Edit works with no issues that I can find.

So then I launch Reaper. Playback of stuff already recorded was slowed down(with resultant pitch shift) and the program was not as responsive as normal. I tried to record some stuff and it works...but slow and low.

I turned off the II and reloaded Reaper and playback was normal......ehh what?

Now there could be several things going on. I am using the legacy option of having a different input and output. I know I should be using the aggregate device function but had nothing but trouble trying to get that setup before.

Could be the data rate of the cable limits something but given the output was still set on system built-in I dunno why....

Will play with of some more tomorrow and attempt to get it working. Still holding out that this cable will do the trick.
 
Data rate shouldn't be a problem. The published data rate of your cable (480 Mbs) is the standard maximum rate of USB 2, and is enough to handle about 50 Axe II's, each running all channels. There might be sample rate issues, or driver issues.

How far is your Axe from your computer? How many feet of cable would it take to get there? The specified max cable length for USB 2 is 5 meters, but USB signalling is pretty forgiving. You might try a plain old USB cable and see what happens.
 
As an FYI, i use a 33 ft powered USB cable to connect my AXE II to my computer, i haven't recorded that way (with protools it's been easier just using my normal inputs/outputs) but patch exchanges and firmware updates have worked very fast with no errors.
 
Ok so I had a chance to play with this some more today. Odd things abound.

The cable seems to work find as long as it goes into a powered bus before the computer, otherwise it looses signal and back-up/sync stuff will usually fail before it's complete. No biggie there, have a bus right next to 'puter, problem one solved.

Next up, if I have the input/output set to Axe II, it works just fine...except for the fact that I have to be in the other room to hear it as that's where the speakers/headphones are.....not practical. So I'm like, no problem, just need to use the input of the II and the built-in system output(which I had thought I would get a pair of monitors to run) and this is where the weirdness starts.

I have two options in Reaper to accomplish this task. Option 1, use different input/output(not recommended by the program) When set this way, everything works....with a catch. The audio is dropped down in pitch and is noticeably slower. This is what I described above. So that's a no go.

Option 2, set up an aggregate device. So I set one up using the inputs of the II(shows 4) and when I go to add the outputs of the system(should show 2) it doesn't update the outputs in menu. Still shows I have 4 in and 0 out. Umm what? So I try it the other way, start with the outs then ins....does the same thing only opposite i.e. shows 2 outs, 0 ins. I then setup a device that was just the system output to test if it would screw up the playback, yuppers low and slow. So something is up with it outputting to the built in system with the II plugged in. I unplugged the II, set it to built in system and it's fine. Only goes low/slow with the II plugged in.

Anybody have any ideas what is going wrong here? My only thought is it's too much to handle outputting the sound via the system....but that makes no sense as it's not that much processing power we are talking here and I'm not running a dog.

Running a 2.16GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro HD w/2GB of ram on system 10.5.8 and Reaper 3.75 for ref. Not a race car but should be enough for what I'm doing, recording one track at a time with playback of up to four more.

Sound like a problem any of you pro types run into?

My only other option at this point is to tear down the rack whenever I want to record(viable but a PITA) or repair my old MacBook(unsure as I know the hd is fried, don't know if anything else is toast or not) but who knows how expensive that would be.

Thoughts, opinions, weather reports welcome.
 
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just listened to the playback of the testing I was doing and my guitar sounds like shiiiaaatttt!!!!!!! Tons of digital artifacts.

I'm thinking bad cable at this point.

If there are any other insights or noticeable errors in my setup from the above, please feel free to share. I'll post more when I get the cable replaced. Thanks.
 
All right, so new, more expensive cable showed up. It records fine, sounds really damn good actually.

I still have a problem. When the input is II and the output is system(so I can listen on phones or monitor from laptop) the system gets really unresponsive and plays low and slow like I've explained above.

I just dunno, I guess my dream is done-ski if I can't figure out why and I will just have to haul the rack in here to record. The only other option I have is potentially sending off a broken MacBook for repair to keep in the "music" room.

So what you got gents, anybody have a clue what is happening here? System details above with the only change being I just upgraded to the newest version of Reaper.

Thanks.
 
DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT!!!!!!!!

I fixed part of the problem...but now another has risen in it's place, even worse than the first. The deal with the low and slow...I feel stupid for admiting to this one...but it was a problem of sample rate. The II was running at 48, the system at 44.1, with the going back and forth it got jacked up. I set the system to match what the II was doing i.e. 48000, 24bit and the "low/slow/sluggish" problem went away.

I can now input via the II and output the system using an aggregate device and everything is hunky doorie.....

which leads me to my next conundrum.

I had given up on the cable idea and brought the rack back in the bedroom, this is when I figured out the clock issue. BUT now I'm getting terible intermittent noise when I record. It's the same noise that I sent the other long USB cable back for, like the guitar is going into a really crappy digital distortion box or like it's totally clipping the output(which it is not, the light does not light up.) I shut everything down and reboot and it works for a take or two. On take 3 or 4 or 5 or in the middle of take 3 where I think I have it nailed and it will be final the noise busts in. :evil

I've just messed around with it for the last two and a half hours and the only consistancy I can get is it works(from a cold restart of everything in the right order) for two or three takes, then noise comes in and it's FUBAR. I'm sifting through all the "USB noise" threads but haven't found anyone with this issue.

I just don't know where to go from here now. It seems I get a min or two of heaven and then it's taken away. :|
 
Does the noise stop or change when you stop playing? The next time the noise kicks in, immediately unplug your guitar, and notice whether the noise changes.

It would help if you could post a clip of the noise.
 
I think I've track down the noise, which is present plugged or not, to the use of an aggregate device function in OSX. There was another thread about noise and mine is exactly the same as his. Like digital clipping which I think stems from some sort of sample rate mismatch.

For now, I think I have that under control. I will be attempting my cable idea again here shortly and I can't see a reason why it won't work now that I have a few other bugs worked out.
 
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