Wish I/O Routing Matrix

As a recording guitarist who doesn't gig, it's usually pretty quiet on the forum for me, with the topics of discussion rarely touching on recording. Maybe it's because of the pandemic, but it seems like there has been quite an uptick of questions the past few weeks about recording and I/O.

One frequent area of questions deals with I/O routing. In other words, "how do I get audio from point A in the chain to point B in the output?". With multiple simultaneous paths often in use, there are a lot variations on this subject. IMHO one reason there are questions like this is because the I/O options, while useful, can be confusing. For example, there are subtleties like the way the "Copy Output 1" setting affects processing audio, but not pass-thru USB audio. Another area of questions deals with I/O routing needs that can't be met. While the options are convenient, there are still routings that people have asked about that can't be done.

The current approach where the I/O routings are basically fixed, but there are a few convenient options, while it has good intentions, IMHO is causing more problems than it solves.

IMHO a better way to do this would be to offer an I/O matrix. Give the user a way to connect the input ports and input usb channels to input blocks and output ports and usb channels. Similarly offer a way to connect output blocks and usb channels to output ports and usb channels. I think this would be less confusing than the current system because it would make the routings explicit and understandable. And, of course, it would be more flexible.

The idea is to freely connect the various I/O points. Something like this:
View attachment 68809View attachment 68808

Provide a default configuration to get people started with a common setup of course. That way there's no need to force every user to use the I/O matrix. And offer presets of configurations so people can "re-cable" their AxeFX with the click of a mouse.

I think this is one of those cases where Fractal Audio is a victim of their own success. The AxeFX is so flexible that is has outgrown the way I/O routing is managed and something new is needed.
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I have 3 amps connected with 4CM (I use OUT 1, 3 and 4 because they are humbuster) and axe is also connected to PC via SPDIF (output 2). I have to change all factory presets to Out 2 to audition them on studio monitors. It would be great if I could just reroute that in settings. If we could somehow split outputs to double mono it would be even better (for example send left as mono to row 5, send right as mono to row 6). For amp setup I have separate presets and yes you can have 3 4CM signal chains simulatenously (see attachment)Zrzut ekranu 2021-03-02 15.55.03.png
 
I think it's a great idea. If this is to be implemented, I'd guess that it would be in a next hardware gen, because of its impact on the UI. But that’s really guessing.
 
There are many ways it could be done without imposing major demands on the UI. For example, a matrix UI like in Reaper. In AxeEdit of course, the UI wouldn't need to be so constrained.
 
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