Axe-II, who's using what for a DAW interface?

I used the Digidesign 003 for a number of years... finally picked up the UAD Apollo and have been absolutely thrilled with the device. I love UA plugins and also the low latency has been working as advertised. The sound is a huge upgrade from the 003 so overall I am extremely pleased. I use both Pro Tools and Logic Pro as my DAWs. Also, I use the balanced outs from the Axe Fx.
 
I agree with everything below. Most people have no clue who Metric Halo is and they're really missing out. MH was doing this looooong before focusrite and others jumped on board, and it shows. Gigging live with a ULN2 and axe-fx leaves any musician in the crowd scratching their head about my guitar and vocals, which makes it even easier to pay my bills with music.

By the time I add the DAW (digital performer) and the Gordius Little Giant, I'm triggering the entire show with my feet, the axe-fx is fully automated, and I have instant random access to any preset, any song. If they weren't confused and clueless before, that usually does the trick.

henryrobinett said:
Theres no perceptible latency in any of the metric halo stuff and its top of the line. RME is good too.
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Rocket Brother said:
I use a Metric Halo ULN-8.

Mostly AES out from the Axe to the ULN-8, Firewire from ULN-8 to MBP with Logic.
Sometimes I go analog into the ULN-8, when I need to work in another format than 48K.
No latency whatsoever with the ULN-8.
The Metric Halo's preamps and converters are extremely hi-end and the MIO console and MIO efx's (Character, Channel strip, Halo verb and others) are really great.
Metric Halo have rock solid drivers, frequent free software updates and keeps their interfaces hardware upgradeable to future technologies, something I've never seem other companies do and something that prolong their interfaces lifespan on the leading edge.
BJ Buchalter of Metric Halo is to interfaces what Cliff is to modelers IMO.
In fact Metric Halo has a giant summer sale extravaganza going on so there has never been a better time to get a MH interface.
If you don't need many preamps go with the ULN-2 (+DSP if you want the MH effects too), if you have cash to burn I can't recommend the ULN-8 highly enough.

Welcome to Metric Halo

Ohhh - and you better strap a couple of midgets to a treadmill to keep the electricity bill down, as you are going to love this and will spend a lot more time with your Axe and MH interface.
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Dr Buds said:
I've been running the AXE via USB straight into Reaper on a MacBook pro, which seems to work fine. I haven't tried adding plug-ins of any kind though which I believe is where some people have had trouble???
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Okay, are you running drums, keys, grooves in Reaper on which your playing and laying your tracks in real time in Reaper? Let me know. This is where it gets important for me to know.

Jakobscortum said:
I'm having constant problems with the latency in logic! i'm running usb directly into logic. It often drops out and having a massive latency!

I really don't know anything about how to configure the buffer size sample rate in logic.


and by the way, after 11.01 axe edit seems to work slower than before ? I need to wait for it to communicate. I really believe that the usb function should work better. (do something :D)
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Okay, this is less a function of fact than it is orientation. But thank you.

ztevie said:
Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP. Presonus Studio One.
I have audio outs/ins + spdif connected between Saffire and the Axe, so a lot of possibilities for routing the signal including reamping.
No latency that's noticeable. Remember that even when standing a few meters away from a real amp will give you several milliseconds of latency, so trying to get latency down to something like 1 ms is both near impossible and unnecessary. I think I'm around 5 ms...
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That's borderline OCD and a bit weird for me to accept. I'm sorry - I'm not challenging you on this whatsoever, but to read it, I can't easily accept it. I've run 25+ foot cables through a 30 pedal (with isolation loops) footpanel to a splitter to two heads running 2 pairs of 4x12 cabs. There is NO latency from the moment I drop my pick on the very first winding of the first phat string ready to make thunder ;)

loopie said:
.
.
That's why when I record I always ensure I only use a 1 foot guitar cable with the speakers connected to my "real amp" with 6" Super Deluxe Monster Dragon Cables. I also ensure the power cord is as short as possible to cut down on power latency also. Now I don't have to worry about latency any more.. Although.. If I move down close to our local Nuke Plant, it would cut down on the length of the power lines.. Hmmm...
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No comment.

Jakobscortum said:
Okay i tried garage band last night, but there wwere some issues and the axe wouldn't pop up as a sound card.

So what you say is, my 500 gb hard disk should be cleaned? There is like 194 gigs left :)
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Storage size has nothing to do with it - it's RAM and processing power that dictates the fluidness of resource-hungry program operability. Just sayin'

Rocket Brother said:
I use a Metric Halo ULN-8.

Mostly AES out from the Axe to the ULN-8, Firewire from ULN-8 to MBP with Logic.
Sometimes I go analog into the ULN-8, when I need to work in another format than 48K.
No latency whatsoever with the ULN-8.
The Metric Halo's preamps and converters are extremely hi-end and the MIO console and MIO efx's (Character, Channel strip, Halo verb and others) are really great.
Metric Halo have rock solid drivers, frequent free software updates and keeps their interfaces hardware upgradeable to future technologies, something I've never seem other companies do and something that prolong their interfaces lifespan on the leading edge.
BJ Buchalter of Metric Halo is to interfaces what Cliff is to modelers IMO.
In fact Metric Halo has a giant summer sale extravaganza going on so there has never been a better time to get a MH interface.
If you don't need many preamps go with the ULN-2 (+DSP if you want the MH effects too), if you have cash to burn I can't recommend the ULN-8 highly enough.

Welcome to Metric Halo

Ohhh - and you better strap a couple of midgets to a treadmill to keep the electricity bill down, as you are going to love this and will spend a lot more time with your Axe and MH interface.
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Will definitely check into the Halo good - thanks a million for this.

As for the midgets, man, if only I could keep a couple of them around without running into the usual legal issues. Wool socks, hardwood floors, and a sharpened stick? Hours of morning time entertainment with them lil' buggers.

Thanks ALL for your input.
Mo
 
I'm using USB into Reaper 4 under Windows 7 64-bit.

I just record guitar but I do run Superior Drummer as my only plugin. I do lay tracks as SD and other guitar tracks are playing at the same time.
 
Presonus Studio Live. Studio-Mixer, interface, DAW front end. Live-FOH mixer and recorder with Capture software.

Has worked great with ProTools although I really like the Studio One DAW.
 
loopie said:
I suspect you are running your USB into your laptop/workstation, and then running the output of the AFX driver into Logic.
Sounds like you need to drop Logic and use GarageBand. Latency issues are typically at the workstation/laptop end of the chain. Get rid of the slow disk drive. Free up as memory as possible. Use "Menu Meters" to review your system and ensure you have lots of available resources for receiving and playing audio in real time. The AFX is sending data in as fast as you play, if your system cannot keep up, then you have a system/app problem. If you want the AFX to send in data slower, you can't. Logic is a full featured Professional DAW. This app requires Pro Equipment. If you have a typical laptop or workstation, use Garageband. It's needs are much less and records with just as much definition. You will not sound "better" with Logic.
First step is to determine what is causing the latency. It's typically because your machine needs to do something else and needs resources to do it. I.E. Write data to disk, swapping memory around, etc. Close all other apps besides your DAW.
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you know what, I just tried garageband and closed all the other programs. Worked fine in the beginning but after a while the latency starts!
 
Just looked at the Halo goods. Bit pricey for my comfort level (says the guy with a warehouse of boutique amps, I know, I know....).
 
M-Audio Fast Track Ultra 8R, USB to motherboard, Cakewalk Sonar X1 running on Windows 7 64bit. I have the AxeFX II connected to the 8R via s/pdif. The 8R's drivers and hardware have been rock solid and no perceived latency.
 
I run axe-fx via USB into reason 7.

New pc so no problems with latency or drop out at all so far.

I've tried a focusrite Scarlett but it was causing problem so I went back to the USB.
 
ventura said:
Just looked at the Halo goods. Bit pricey for my comfort level (says the guy with a warehouse of boutique amps, I know, I know....).
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That's why people don't use them. They want something cheaper, but the same can be said for the axe-fx. I simply applied my axe-fx philosophy to justify Metric Halo. It's the axe-fx of i/o & live mixing, it even uses a shark processor.

Remember this is coming from a broke musician who gigs for a living. If I can afford it...

With the ULN8 out, the prices on used 2882s and ULN2s are better than ever.
Check these resources regularly.
https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/mobileio
Community

On the first link I found a ULN2 for $600 and a 2882 2D+DSP for $1,500. That was two years ago.
 
I have an Apollo Duo. Any help from the apollo guys on how to sync up the axe fx to a daw (i have Logic Pro 9)
 
AxeFX via AES to RME Fireface UFX to OSX via firewire for audio.

AxeFX via USB to OSX via USB for midi.

OSX runs many goodies as needed - Ableton Live, Reason, Logic Pro, MidiPipe and Midi Patchbay.

My audio latency ranges depending on the app from ~4ms - ~7ms.
 
I'm using Sonar X2 with a Motu 24i/o and all I have done so far is use the Axe Fx with a backing track and I ran the Ace through usb and it sounded great with no issues. Hopefully I'll be doing something a little more creative with it sometime soon.
 
ventura said:
That's borderline OCD and a bit weird for me to accept. I'm sorry - I'm not challenging you on this whatsoever, but to read it, I can't easily accept it. I've run 25+ foot cables through a 30 pedal (with isolation loops) footpanel to a splitter to two heads running 2 pairs of 4x12 cabs. There is NO latency from the moment I drop my pick on the very first winding of the first phat string ready to make thunder ;)
Mo
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it's not rocket science, it's just the time sound takes travelling through air. That is from your speaker to your ears. Sound travels approximately 340 m/s in air.
Some people worry about like 3 ms latency and wonder how they can get it lower, when 3 ms is the same as standing 1 meter away from a speaker.
Some claim its hard for the human ear to distinguish latency less than 10 ms...

But of course when for example cubase report its latency, other factors are not included in that number so latency is more than just the signal delay inside the equipment.
 
Webb said:
Very happily using an RME Fireface 800. Above average converters, great routing options, decent preamps, and rock-solid drivers. Plus, the Total Mix software is very useful. Maybe one day I will upgrade to the RME UFX, but for what I am doing the FF800 is a winner. I finally have a very stable setup with the RME and Pro Tools 10.
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Same as above but with a Fireface 400 and Cubase. The RME unit has been outstanding. No reason to upgrade but I am sure I will one day. I think I have had my 400 for 6-7 years now.
 
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