Hi guys, I've just signed up to the forum &, as I'm shortly going to become an Ultra owner, I may well be dropping in here regularly over the coming months.
Anyway, I need a little advice if anybody would be kind enough to help? Basically, I'm about to piece together a home studio setup & I'm trying to plan in advance the best way to hook up the axe-fx. It's important to me that I get everything sorted out up front so that I can ensure that I make sensible choices when ordering the various bits.
It's going to be a Pro tools Digidesign 003 system & I like the idea of hooking up the Axe via S/PDIF & I'd ideally like to record the dry signal so that I can get straight to recording & then piddle about tweaking the Axe to my liking (as I'm sure I'm going to need to have to do) in my own time without it having to get in the way of going ahead & putting tracks down. I have been doing some digging on the forum & have seen that it's possible to do internal routing via the FX blocks & send the dry signal out. However, this all seems a little fiddly for me in terms of having an intuitive workflow & I'm a little concerned about flexibility with only having an instrument level signal to work with as opposed to a proper line level DI.
So, here's my main question:
If I was to use a DI box such as an Avalon U5 & have a DI signal recording in the DAW & using the thru on the DI to hook up the Axe for monitoring purposes, would I then be able to run that DI line level signal back into the Axe via S/PDIF for reamping, without sacrificing the tone & dynamics that the Axe would give with the guitar plugged straight into the front of the unit? I know it'll feel exactly the same when tracking as I'll be monitoring through the front of the Axe, my concern is about the final recorded result if the Axe is acting on a line level signal rather that an instrument level signal. I guess analogue reamping through the front would be an option, but I don't particularly like the idea of converting to digital, back to analogue & then back to digital again. I'd rather stay digital after the first conversion has taken place.
Also, in terms of listening back to the tracks while recording & dropping in etc. would it be possible to monitor the recorded dry signal back through the Axe (kinda like a plugin I guess)? I see it as pretty important that, when tracking, I can listening back to the takes etc. before committing to whether or not they're keepers & this might be hard to do if I can only listen back to the dry signal prior to reamping for the final completed track.
Anyways, thanks in advance for your help guys, I look forward to any insights some of you seasoned Axe users may have.
Anyway, I need a little advice if anybody would be kind enough to help? Basically, I'm about to piece together a home studio setup & I'm trying to plan in advance the best way to hook up the axe-fx. It's important to me that I get everything sorted out up front so that I can ensure that I make sensible choices when ordering the various bits.
It's going to be a Pro tools Digidesign 003 system & I like the idea of hooking up the Axe via S/PDIF & I'd ideally like to record the dry signal so that I can get straight to recording & then piddle about tweaking the Axe to my liking (as I'm sure I'm going to need to have to do) in my own time without it having to get in the way of going ahead & putting tracks down. I have been doing some digging on the forum & have seen that it's possible to do internal routing via the FX blocks & send the dry signal out. However, this all seems a little fiddly for me in terms of having an intuitive workflow & I'm a little concerned about flexibility with only having an instrument level signal to work with as opposed to a proper line level DI.
So, here's my main question:
If I was to use a DI box such as an Avalon U5 & have a DI signal recording in the DAW & using the thru on the DI to hook up the Axe for monitoring purposes, would I then be able to run that DI line level signal back into the Axe via S/PDIF for reamping, without sacrificing the tone & dynamics that the Axe would give with the guitar plugged straight into the front of the unit? I know it'll feel exactly the same when tracking as I'll be monitoring through the front of the Axe, my concern is about the final recorded result if the Axe is acting on a line level signal rather that an instrument level signal. I guess analogue reamping through the front would be an option, but I don't particularly like the idea of converting to digital, back to analogue & then back to digital again. I'd rather stay digital after the first conversion has taken place.
Also, in terms of listening back to the tracks while recording & dropping in etc. would it be possible to monitor the recorded dry signal back through the Axe (kinda like a plugin I guess)? I see it as pretty important that, when tracking, I can listening back to the takes etc. before committing to whether or not they're keepers & this might be hard to do if I can only listen back to the dry signal prior to reamping for the final completed track.
Anyways, thanks in advance for your help guys, I look forward to any insights some of you seasoned Axe users may have.