Orbm1
Inspired
I have had my XL+ for about a month now and I AM still learning to dial tones and presets for my (just for fun) neighborhood band.
Yesterday we had our first rehearsal after a few weeks of family things and I brought my XL+ and my MFC...everybody was very surprised to see that much being set up. My fellow band members DO NOT know anything about Fractal Audio (neither the other guitar player).
We rehearse with headphones using the Jamhub. I plugged to it and I sound thin and NOTHING like what I hear at home when I've dialing the presets... I could not sustain notes, no warm break up, no distortion, NOTHING!!!
Now, something that I am still puzzled about the Axe FX is the output options, I was going with a 1/4 inch stereo cable to a 1/4 inch stereo input in the Jamhub. the AxeFX was in output as Stereo, switched to Copy to L-R (the same), switched to L+R sum, the same thin sound...
SIDENOTE: I still have a question with my XL+ as when I use this same cable to my interface, the sound is washed out or sounds weird, warbly. I assumed that maybe the inputs on the interface or my monitor ARE NOT balanced or Stereo inputs. I have since switched to a regular 1/4 inch cable going from the left output (output 2) of the axe fx to my monitor and left XLR to my interface (output 1) with no issues. I am using sum L-R, is this correct?
ANYWAYS... I was frustrated as I have been practicing and I felt that it sounded horrible and I could even feel the expression of my friends getting like "so much equipment for this?".... 20 million ideas were running through my head, even the unthinkable one of just going back to my Firehawk FX and/or get the Helix (OH NO!)....
In a quick break I thought maybe it is the stereo cable to the Jamhub... so I used another regular cable to connect to the jamhub, still horrible. Changed cables for my guitar... the same!!!! I started thinking it is my guitar that it is not outputting enough sound, it is a Variax so I thought it failing or something..
Last song we practiced was an acoustic song and i dialed my acoustic patch and set up the variax in acoustic mode... ALMOST NO SOUND! I increased the output from the axe-fx and still, barely a sound!.... SOOOOOOOO I noticed that the input meters were not even hitting the second green light and I have set it up to "tickle the reds".... I decided to change my guitar cable ONE LAST TIME and guess what: PROBLEM SOLVED!!! My axe-fx started to sound like it usually does... off course it was too late as it was the last song, but I was able to show the keyboard player the difference and he was able to hear it! NOW, I can't wait until next practice...
Moral of the story: ALWAYS check your cables, in my case TWO GUITAR CABLES in a row were failing... if it doesn't sound good and you know how it should sound, it is usually something else (like cables) and NOT the AXE-FX!!!!!
Sorry for the long post...
Thanks for reading!
Omar
Yesterday we had our first rehearsal after a few weeks of family things and I brought my XL+ and my MFC...everybody was very surprised to see that much being set up. My fellow band members DO NOT know anything about Fractal Audio (neither the other guitar player).
We rehearse with headphones using the Jamhub. I plugged to it and I sound thin and NOTHING like what I hear at home when I've dialing the presets... I could not sustain notes, no warm break up, no distortion, NOTHING!!!
Now, something that I am still puzzled about the Axe FX is the output options, I was going with a 1/4 inch stereo cable to a 1/4 inch stereo input in the Jamhub. the AxeFX was in output as Stereo, switched to Copy to L-R (the same), switched to L+R sum, the same thin sound...
SIDENOTE: I still have a question with my XL+ as when I use this same cable to my interface, the sound is washed out or sounds weird, warbly. I assumed that maybe the inputs on the interface or my monitor ARE NOT balanced or Stereo inputs. I have since switched to a regular 1/4 inch cable going from the left output (output 2) of the axe fx to my monitor and left XLR to my interface (output 1) with no issues. I am using sum L-R, is this correct?
ANYWAYS... I was frustrated as I have been practicing and I felt that it sounded horrible and I could even feel the expression of my friends getting like "so much equipment for this?".... 20 million ideas were running through my head, even the unthinkable one of just going back to my Firehawk FX and/or get the Helix (OH NO!)....
In a quick break I thought maybe it is the stereo cable to the Jamhub... so I used another regular cable to connect to the jamhub, still horrible. Changed cables for my guitar... the same!!!! I started thinking it is my guitar that it is not outputting enough sound, it is a Variax so I thought it failing or something..
Last song we practiced was an acoustic song and i dialed my acoustic patch and set up the variax in acoustic mode... ALMOST NO SOUND! I increased the output from the axe-fx and still, barely a sound!.... SOOOOOOOO I noticed that the input meters were not even hitting the second green light and I have set it up to "tickle the reds".... I decided to change my guitar cable ONE LAST TIME and guess what: PROBLEM SOLVED!!! My axe-fx started to sound like it usually does... off course it was too late as it was the last song, but I was able to show the keyboard player the difference and he was able to hear it! NOW, I can't wait until next practice...
Moral of the story: ALWAYS check your cables, in my case TWO GUITAR CABLES in a row were failing... if it doesn't sound good and you know how it should sound, it is usually something else (like cables) and NOT the AXE-FX!!!!!
Sorry for the long post...
Thanks for reading!
Omar