Help with Headphone & backing tracks playback

Maxsys

Maxsys

Inspired
Hi guys,

please help a brother out. Did a search found some stuff plugged in via USB, set my playback devices as AXE FX, plugged in headphones to AXE all good. I can hear the PC audio. Play the guitar on its own, i can hear that no problem.

Put the two together backing track sounds OK guitar sounds like ass and is clipping out.

All my presets are fine when played through monitors and live through PA, no clipping on any of them.

So what am i missing here?

I have an alternative that I may be able to set-up tomorrow using and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card which i have in the PC, their has Midi and S/PDIF in/out, is this an option?

Please note not totally clued up on this stuff, I want to be able to practice using headphones, and maybe record over backing tracks, more to listen to my playing than producing stuff. I have Reaper which I have used in the past no problem.

I used to have a POD XTLive that I used with Reaper and the M-Audio card before with headphones, and USB I seem to remember something about ASIO but its all gone from my head. It must be my age!!

So please guide me on the best way to solve my issues.

Thanks in advance!
 
2 possible issues......?

The two signals together are too much and causing clipping. lower the backing tracks and your preset level to match and see if that helps.

Your CPU might high enough so that when you add the burden of the 'audio over USB', it pushes it over the top?
 
Thanks Moke, tried lowering and makes no difference, the patch I am using is at 89% I guess the USB connection adds some, as does the USB audio, will try another patch but would like a solution where CPU isn't a factor.
 
I had the same issue with the USB levels. And I've never managed to make ASIO-for-all work with my system, so I cannot use two ASIO devices (Axe-FX & soundcard) simultaneously on my DAW. My solution is to connect the Axe-FX SPDIF I/O to my soundcard SPDIF I/O and control the levels separately to avoid that problem.


The PITA is that I have to switch back from the Soundcard to the Axe-FX USB I/O every time that I want to record both Ax-FX channels (clean and processed) for reamping.
 
Maxsys said:
the patch I am using is at 89% I guess the USB connection adds some, as does the USB audio, will try another patch but would like a solution where CPU isn't a factor.
Click to expand...
When you slam your CPU that high, it's going to be a factor. At 89%, you're on the verge of weirdness, even without USB audio.
 
Thanks guys, not had a chance to play with another patch, gonna give it a go later after work, and maybe try the SPDIF route as i have the connections available
 
Nothing wrong with experimentation but I find jamming is far more productive and enjoyable using a DAW and 3rd party interface. The Axe is doable and provides a quality sound but using it as your guitar pre-amp only and being able to 'easily' balance it on the fly, with the backing track, is just so much easier. Going in S/PDIF or analog both provide awesome sounds. Further, with your DAW, you can easily set up loops to rehearse breaks or leads and then, if you touch upon some keeper riffs, you can just hit record and archive them.
 
I've been using this method for working on improv stuff and it's great fun but as you mentioned it will clip.

I found that simply lowering the volume of both the git fiddle input and the backing track prevented any clipping
 
What Max-H said. lower the main output of the patch ( far right end of the chain) and output from the computer. For me using a Mac I don’t have an overall computer audio output level I guess the fractal driver takes over and doesn’t allow you to adjust it. But from my audio player (iTunes) I can back down the level on individual songs. I Find that not all songs need to be lowered just ones that are a bit hotter. Also my main patch volumes are all over the place from 0.0 db to -13 db. Make sure your guitar input gain is set correctly as well.
 
I know this doesn't answer your question, but just as an input. I bought a small 6 channel Yamaha mixer (< 100$, new) and that just made my rehearsal life so much simpler. Then you can control your backing track on one channel, and the Axe on another, send to headphones or monitors, or both etc etc. No clipping issues and just easy life...
 
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