Axe-fx II lost it's balls (solved it myself - thought I'd share)

Speculum Speculorum

Speculum Speculorum

Power User
Fractalites,

Dudes and dudettes. I just had a brief 10 minutes of scary at the home recording station. I had... a loss of balls in my sound. For the first time since I became a more powerful user of the Axe-fx II, I started to worry. My guitar was plugged into the front instrument input.

Then I started looking at m input levels. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the input level into the red. OMG. Did I somehow fry my input? Did my guitar pickups take a crap? Change out for a bass. Same damn thing. Horrible sound. Switched back to guitar. Turned up drive. Holy crap it just got flubby and didn't really change the gain structure. Did my beloved black box just die on me? NOOOOOOOO!

Then I started looking at the audio settings in my input/output section. Lo and behold... my input 1 somehow got changed to L+R sum... Setting it back to left only... VOILA! BACK IN BUSINESS.

Sometimes people have been on here talking about this problem - out of nowhere they just couldn't get the Axe-fx II to sound like it had before. I am now seriously wondering if it wasn't this exact problem. Anyhoo... if you ever run into a thing like this... check that damn audio -> input 1 mode before you start with the nervous coffee sweating. LOL
 
Oh jeez. What I meant to point out is that there have been frequent posts (that were unresolved) where people have reported similar issues. Suddenly their axe-fx II sounded thin, and changing parameters just didn't do anything. I had never had this experience until just this moment. It was weird. I started wondering if I shouldn't reload the FW. I tried restarting, closing and opening my DAW, etc.

I have had my input volume dialed in spot on for a long time now, so I didn't really think about it until I had checked out a lot of other areas first. Then when I realized my input volume couldn't be clipped (didn't even tickle at 100%) I knew something was amiss. And for the record, I have no idea how the Input 1 Mode changed, because I haven't touched it in a while. I suppose somehow when I was fiddling around I bumped it while that parameter was selected. Either way, the whole point here was to let people know if they experience such a thing to check out that thing first. It wasn't meant to mislead anybody.
 
I had a similar issue like this several months back, only from the opposite end of the ball spectrum......everything was distorted and way too hot. Discovered I had somehow changed input 1 mode from stereo to left only. Weird. Dialing back to stereo brought the joy back into my Fractal life.
 
WW Audio said:
I had a similar issue like this several months back, only from the opposite end of the ball spectrum......everything was distorted and way too hot. Discovered I had somehow changed input 1 mode from stereo to left only. Weird. Dialing back to stereo brought the joy back into my Fractal life.
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Are you using input 1R for anything? "Left only" is the recommended setting for a typical mono-output guitar to front input or rear input 1L. If not using in 1R, choosing stereo just reduces level by 6 dB and adds (maybe unnoticeable) noise when input select of the first drive or amp block is Sum L+R.

If you switch to left only, a quick way to get the same drive/level as before would be lowering the input/noisegate block's "level" parameter by 6 dB.
 
I have my Input 1 mode set to SUM L+R so i can switch seamlessly between instrument cable and wireless (wireless goes to Input 1 right, at the rear of the Axe). I have Global Amp Gain set to +6 dB, and it works great.
 
Hmmm. Interesting. I've experienced balls dropping, but never getting lost. And that wasn't my axe fx now that I think about it.
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Just too many commodeians around here lately....
 
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Rex said:
I have my Input 1 mode set to SUM L+R so i can switch seamlessly between instrument cable and wireless (wireless goes to Input 1 right, at the rear of the Axe). I have Global Amp Gain set to +6 dB, and it works great.
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Well ok. I'm sure there are people who are doing that. I'm not one of them. I use this unit for recording, and never use a wireless rig. I did try turning up global amp gain and I still noticed some loss of heft even with that happening. Go figure. Nonetheless, my situation fixed it. I only hope other people will benefit from the information.
 
Weird. Adding 6 dB to the global amp gain should put you right back where you were.
 
spikey said:
Just too many commodeians around here lately....
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I'm not a vocab-master, so bear with me, but is a commodeian a custodian who services commodes?

com·mode
kəˈmōd/Submit
noun
1. a piece of furniture containing a concealed chamber pot.

If so, I would find their presence more beneficial than troublesome.
 
On a more serious note, I did see the value in the thread. The helpful hints are always ... well... helpful. And this particular issue has definitely caused me undue frustration in the past.
 
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