About USB, Drivers, OS-X, etc.

Great info Cliff. My only objection (actually, more a plea then an objecton) is the lack of the official support for linux. I know there is a lot of posts on this subject, but those are more hacks&quirks than something that would work for majority, and not requiring kernel module modification and recompilation. AFAIK, concerning linux, there is only one major issue, and that is the unsupported clock rate info function call for usb audio module. Is there a major obstacle in providing this function call to usb chip firmware (and releasing it separatly)?
 
Great info Cliff. My only objection (actually, more a plea then an objecton) is the lack of the official support for linux. I know there is a lot of posts on this subject, but those are more hacks&quirks than something that would work for majority, and not requiring kernel module modification and recompilation. AFAIK, concerning linux, there is only one major issue, and that is the unsupported clock rate info function call for usb audio module. Is there a major obstacle in providing this function call to usb chip firmware (and releasing it separatly)?

This shouldn't be too difficult. The problem is that I am the only person here who can do USB firmware programming and I'm busy with other things. USB audio is very difficult. I hired a consultant a while back to help out and he was virtually useless (ironic because he actually helped write the USB spec but that shows you just how difficult USB is).

I will try to get some time to look into it. Please send me a PM and when I get some time I will try to make a test firmware with the clock request function.
 
This shouldn't be too difficult. The problem is that I am the only person here who can do USB firmware programming and I'm busy with other things. USB audio is very difficult. I hired a consultant a while back to help out and he was virtually useless (ironic because he actually helped write the USB spec but that shows you just how difficult USB is).

I will try to get some time to look into it. Please send me a PM and when I get some time I will try to make a test firmware with the clock request function.

That would be great! I already filed a ticket (#888 ) in the support center regarding this issue.
 
Can anyone help me, my post on the previous page. It will just take one second for someone who knows the know. Haha.
 
Sorry to add another new guy into this discussion. I'm so confused by terminology.
I have a MacBook Pro running 10.6.4, that's all I know. I have protools 9 and would kill to have USB audio so I don't need an interface. Will help my ground loop problems a lot.
What does this driver mean for me?
Please help me learn haha

Joe

You need to update your OS X in order to to use the Axe II as an interface. Per the support page:

Axe-Fx II USB Setup (167) for OS X Jun 21 2013 - Required for Axe-Fx II USB Audio and MIDI-over-USB functionality under Max OS X. Requires 10.5.7 for MIDI-over-USB and 10.7.4 for USB Audio.
 
This shouldn't be too difficult. The problem is that I am the only person here who can do USB firmware programming and I'm busy with other things. USB audio is very difficult. I hired a consultant a while back to help out and he was virtually useless (ironic because he actually helped write the USB spec but that shows you just how difficult USB is).

I will try to get some time to look into it. Please send me a PM and when I get some time I will try to make a test firmware with the clock request function.

Awesome!
 
This shouldn't be too difficult. The problem is that I am the only person here who can do USB firmware programming and I'm busy with other things. USB audio is very difficult. I hired a consultant a while back to help out and he was virtually useless (ironic because he actually helped write the USB spec but that shows you just how difficult USB is).

I will try to get some time to look into it. Please send me a PM and when I get some time I will try to make a test firmware with the clock request function.

Great! Thanks Cliff! I'm currently on vacation some 300 miles from my unit, but I'll be back starting next week - and be ready to start testing! ;)
Also, a big thanks goes to volt for all his efforts to make axe operable under linux in status quo!
 
Great! Thanks Cliff! I'm currently on vacation some 300 miles from my unit, but I'll be back starting next week - and be ready to start testing! ;)
Also, a big thanks goes to volt for all his efforts to make axe operable under linux in status quo!

Thanks, hdurdevic :)
 
USB into logic loses definition

There's seems to be some confusion so this an attempt to clear things up.

1. The Axe-Fx II is an Audio Class 2.0 compliant device. A class-compliant device requires no drivers. The drivers are provided by the OS manufacturer. Audio Class 2.0 also encompasses MIDI-over-USB.

2. HOWEVER... Microsoft does not support Audio Class 2.0. Therefore we provide a driver for Windows systems. It works great (flawlessly in my experience).

3. Apple DOES support Audio Class 2.0, but poorly at this time. Their driver is prone to clock drift. In an effort to mitigate this we now offer the user the ability to increase the buffer size ON THE AXE-FX II END OF THE CONNECTION. This is NOT the same as the buffer size you set in your computer. All peripheral devices also contain buffers to smooth the bursty nature of data transfers from the host computer. Normally this buffer size is fixed but we didn't want to make it unnecessarily large just to satisfy the needs of a poorly designed host driver as we hope the host driver will eventually be fixed.

4. The driver that we supply for OS-X computers is NOT an audio driver. It is a firmware installer. The Axe-Fx II uses a "soft" USB controller. It gets it's code from the host computer. When you turn the Axe-Fx II on it requests firmware from the host. This is superior to a hard-coded controller in that updates merely require a new host image rather than reflashing the controller.

5. The driver that we supply for Windows contains both the firmware installer and the audio drivers (as MS does not support AC 2.0).

6. In beta testing ALL beta testers were able to get artifact-free performance under OS-X by increasing the buffer size. The size of the buffer varied. All beta testers were able to get artifact-free performance under Windows (all versions) using the minimum buffer size.

7. We have had the OS-X clock problem independently verified by a third party. These results have been forwarded to Apple. At this time all we have heard from Apple is "the issue has been escalated".

Dear friends, I am not technical, and I would highly appreciate some guidance, is the issue described in the beginning of this post the reason why AXE USB into OSX Logic loses definition in a major way? I monitor through logic as well but Axe is also connected directly to stereo Roland Cube speakers so when I turn them on to compare the sound the difference is quite shocking. At first I thought it was logic but the vocals and backing tracks and everything else through logic is super, its just the axe with USB. rate is set to 48 but no joy. Has anyone come across this? Am I doing something wrong? thanks
 
Wow...this thread is getting very technical and complicated.
I just hope that somebody will do something that will make my alien-random-noise-crackle-robot disappear from my mac. Hope its not genetic related to Fractal-Bot ;)
In the meantime I'll just enjoy this fabulous piece of hardware and save my recordings for the winter :D
 
I have experienced same issue with other interface manufacturers like presonus.
Fractal audio is not alone in this matter.
 
Several people have reported that upgrading OS X to Mavericks has resolved USB recording issues they experienced previously.
 
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