I have had extensive problems with my Axe-Fx II (original) syncing with my Mac. I will be switching over to a PC in the near future. I am in hopes this resolves the issues.
Extensive back and forth trouble shooting with Fractal support:
In short, most of the time when I power up the Axe-Fx, my computer sees it however, Axe-Edit and Fractal Bot do not. I get timeout errors. I tried various USB cables, various USB ports, various USB hubs. Same result every time.
Ryan at Fractal wrote:
"Sorry to hear about your troubles. This doesn't look like a hardware issue with the Axe-Fx or a driver problem on the computer. Check to make sure the Axe-Fx is sending sysex messages. You can do this by checking the SEND REALTIME SYSEX parameter under I/O->MIDI on the front panel of the Axe-Fx. It should be set to ON."
I replied:
"Thanks for the prompt reply. I have that parameter set to ‘All’, so I don’t think that’s what’s causing the issues. As I said in the original message, it’s failure to communicate with Axe Edit and Fractal Bot are intermittent. But - when it fails to communicate with those programs, it still functions perfectly as an audio device for my computer - Cubase sees the audio from the USB connection just fine, and I can send audio from my computer to the Axe-Fx II via the USB. What other ideas do you have?"
Ryan replied:
"Take a look at this knowledgebase article on how to verify the driver installation -
http://support.fractalaudio.com/ind...2/0/verify-usb-driver-installation-on-windows Let me know what happens with the "Midi messages parsed," "Midi bytes parsed," and "Sysex bytes" sections."
Me:
"I’m on a Mac/OS X. The article you pointed to seems to pertain to Windows. I’m still having the same problem intermittently with my Axe-Fx II communicating with Fractal Bot and Axe-Edit. I would like to get this resolved ASAP. I am not on e-mail too much, will you, or someone please
call me at the number below to help me resolve this issue?"
Ryan:
"Matt and I discussed the issue and we'd like you to try the following.
- If available, try the Axe-Fx and Axe-Edit on a Windows machine that does not have any other audio/MIDI software or drivers installed.
- Uninstall all MIDI drivers from your Mac. Re-install the Axe-Fx driver and try Axe-Edit.
- AppCleaner may come in handy - http://www.freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/
- Try a USB hub. Typically we do not recommend using a hub, however, in this case something may be up with the USB descriptors so the hub may help straighten things out.
- Try a 3rd part MIDI utility.
- You can download Sysex Librarian here - http://www.snoize.com/SysExLibrarian/
- The following link describes how to use Sysex Librarian to send preset banks.
- http://support.fractalaudio.com/ind...preset-banks-to-an-axe-fx-with-a-midi-utility
- You can receive a backup from the Axe-Fx using the following information that Matt posted on the forum (see the first post).
- http://forum.fractalaudio.com/legac...ackups-using-snoize-sysex-librarian-os-x.html
- Delete Axe-Edit's settings file.
- See http://support.fractalaudio.com/ind...icle/View/4/3/how-to-delete-axe-edit-settings
You can call the office"
And I called the office and we got nowhere. They said the unit might be defective. I'd have to pay shipping (which would be just under $200) plus the repair, so I deal with it, which means I have to restart the unit countless times to get Axe-Edit to recognize it.
Very frustrating. I hope your luck is better.