I am trying to get around a peculiar hardware limitation of the Axe FX (I have the XL).
The issue is there apparently is no way to independently control the volume level of backing tracks when using the Axe as a USB sound card with a computer. I need to be able to adjust the volume of various backing tracks in order to maintain the right balance relative to my patch volumes (note, some of the programs I use on my Mac don’t have a volume control and the tracks can have noticeably different volume levels). Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability in the Axe to balance, mix, or control the USB audio in any way. I think this is a straightforward feature that should be included, but I’ll move on to my actual question.
The internal work around that I have found would be to route an analogue audio signal into INPUT 2 and run this in a parallel chain with no effects in all of my patches. This would then provide the ability to use the mixer block to do the balancing that I am looking for. The downside to this solution is I would need to buy a separate DAC, and high quality ones are not cheap plus I would like to minimize the cables and hassle. The external option is to get a mixer/audio interface with a good DAC built in, but this has the same issues as before.
My question is is there perhaps a way to use the SPDIF IN as an alternative option to the INPUT 2 approach above? Said another way, is there a way to integrate the SPDIF input into the signal chain the same way you would the INPUT 2? This would allow me to actually use the already good DAC in the Axe and all I would need is a relatively cheap Toslink/optical digital to SPDIF converter to make this work. Again, it would be even better if you could do this with the USB audio instead, but I was told that was not a possible option when I asked this question previously.
The issue is there apparently is no way to independently control the volume level of backing tracks when using the Axe as a USB sound card with a computer. I need to be able to adjust the volume of various backing tracks in order to maintain the right balance relative to my patch volumes (note, some of the programs I use on my Mac don’t have a volume control and the tracks can have noticeably different volume levels). Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability in the Axe to balance, mix, or control the USB audio in any way. I think this is a straightforward feature that should be included, but I’ll move on to my actual question.
The internal work around that I have found would be to route an analogue audio signal into INPUT 2 and run this in a parallel chain with no effects in all of my patches. This would then provide the ability to use the mixer block to do the balancing that I am looking for. The downside to this solution is I would need to buy a separate DAC, and high quality ones are not cheap plus I would like to minimize the cables and hassle. The external option is to get a mixer/audio interface with a good DAC built in, but this has the same issues as before.
My question is is there perhaps a way to use the SPDIF IN as an alternative option to the INPUT 2 approach above? Said another way, is there a way to integrate the SPDIF input into the signal chain the same way you would the INPUT 2? This would allow me to actually use the already good DAC in the Axe and all I would need is a relatively cheap Toslink/optical digital to SPDIF converter to make this work. Again, it would be even better if you could do this with the USB audio instead, but I was told that was not a possible option when I asked this question previously.