Disabling/Not Using Axe for USB Audio.

[joe1871]

Hey Guys,

When I got my Axe a few years ago, I rushed in and installed anything and everything I could find related to the Axe on my PC. I may not want all that now. I could use a little help.

Briefly - my setup for my home studio is a Windows 10 PC with lots of RAM and disk space. I have all the popular DAWS, I tend to use StudioOne Pro the most. I also use a Presonus 24.4.2 mixer as my soundcard. I have a very nice set of studio monitors, as well as a Matrix GF1000X and two Boogie Rectifier 2x12 cabs I run in stereo in my music room that Output 2 is using oin the Axe. Output 1 goes to the PC..

At some point I added the AxeFX drivers that apparently ID the Axe as a potential sound processing device. It comes up as an option in my "Playback Devices" and "Recording Devices" in the sound card admin screens. I am sure you understand what I mean.

I would really like to get rid of the "sound card" aspect of the Axe. Not that it is a bad thing - I am sure it isn't, but it competes for resources and it more importantly uses CPU on the Axe. However I do still want to have the Axe available as a source of input and as a resource. What is the best overall setup for me considering I don't necessarily want to use the Axe as a sound card, but want to have it available to my DAWs etc? Is there a document or instruction that covers this somewhere? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Joe

 

[Bakerman]

I don't necessarily want to use the Axe as a sound card, but want to have it available to my DAWs etc?

What does "have it available" mean?

The driver is needed for MIDI or audio over USB. Loading it increases Axe CPU% regardless of any audio over USB use. (Once it's loaded even unplugging the USB cable won't make CPU% drop to previous levels.)

If you don't need MIDI over USB you could disconnect the USB cable or uninstall the driver (or keep it & set to run manually only). MIDI in/out could be used for editing etc. to avoid the CPU increase.

 

[chris]

the "soundcard aspect" is what makes it work with your DAW too. so it will appear as an audio source in your computer settings - that's why it appears as an option in your DAW.

just don't choose it as your computer soundcard/device. this is pretty much how any audio interface works.

 

[bondsong]

Or just plug it in through the analog outs to your sound card inputs.

 

[Bigtim]

This question has 'bugged' me too. My understanding is that if in your DAW / PC you have the Presonus selected as your input device, then as long as you haven't aggregated the two devices then you will not be consuming axe CPU.

Similarly if you close down axe edit you gain a bit back.

So there is no penalty as such for having the drivers installed and the usb cable plugged into the axe (as long as you are not using them it seems)

This appears to be borne out by some simple experiments (albeit not in exactly the same set up as you describe.) I use reaper. Most of the time I have reaper open and using the axe as my soundcard. If I close the audio device in reaper then I gain back 4-5% cpu usage. I am assuming that this would stay available were reaper using a different soundcard (eg your presonus) and the axe were feeding this using analogue or digital inputs on the presonus.

If this is wrong, then I too want to know how to truly disable the axe audio interface functionality as I need those few cpu points on a few presets under FW8.0whatever it is we are on now.

 

[joe1871]

Hey Folks - Thanks for your help!

The consensus seems to be that if I don't actually route audio through the Axe then it does not matter if it is connected and available in my sound stack. That was what I suspected, but like BigTim, this question had been nagging at me.

Hey BigTim - how "Big" are you? Is that your stage presence, or are you a BIG guy? I am the latter - 6'10 and 400 plus lbs. I am a tad large.

Thanks again folks - this continues to be the best "forum" support anywhere. And it is for the best processing device ever invented, thank you very much Cliff! Cliff - if you ever need a leg breaker... Let me know. Tim and I will show up and look ominous. (Wont actually hurt anyone - I am a firm pacifist along those lines...)

Joe

 

[Paperjace]

Unless you're using Axe Edit to edit your patches while recording, there's no need for your Axe to be hooked up to your PC's USB port. Just run from Output 1 into your Presonus Mixer.

If you DO want to use Axe Edit, but don't want Windows recognizing it as a sound card, you can "disable" the Axe FX as an output/input device. Just go to your list of (sound and recording) devices, right click on the "Axe FX" and click "disable". It's as simple as that. To reenable in the future, just right-click on anything in that window and click "Show disabled devices" and just reenable them. https://helping-squad.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/sound_playback.png

Just to be clear, this only disables it on Windows and probably doesn't do anything to free up CPU on the Axe FX. My assumption is that when the Axe FX is hooked up via USB and the drivers are installed on the computer, the Axe FX is sort of sitting in an "armed and ready" state (for lack of a better term) in case it's chosen as an audio device. Again, I could be wrong about that... If you're concerned about CPU usage that much that being hooked up via USB is affecting your patch, you should simplify the patch or lower the quality on the reverb or something.