Latency reporting to DAW

GlennO said:
Oh no! I think there might be a fundamental misunderstanding here. Jitter is not the problem. The problem is: when you record audio from the Axe-Fx, it is misaligned with previously recorded tracks. It might vary a few samples here and there, but there is a large fixed lag of dozens of milliseconds. Nobody cares if it bounces around a couple of samples. All audio interfaces do that. The problem is the large fixed lag. See any of the many threads where this problem has been reported. I believe @Admin M@ understands the problem, so you might want to check with him.
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I think perhaps my mistake is that I was describing what I believe to be the root cause of these symptoms reported here and elsewhere. I've worked with @Admin M@ and a couple of users here to better understand the use cases when I was initially debugging this. BUT once I can shift my attention back to this issue I don't doubt I might need a refresher.
 
amandio said:
While I'm not new to usb audio (different field of audio in my former life), I am new to music production. I don't doubt that any use cases I've described might be wrong. But that's why I'm here - to learn from you guys.
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I think many people who record with the Axe-FX are quite familiar the problem and just assumed that FAS already understands it. To help avoid misunderstandings, here's a description of the problem (copied from the recording guide):



There is an inevitable latency that comes with computer audio. This latency will be present when you record your guitar into your DAW. However, all DAWs are smart enough to deal with this and apply a latency compensation so your guitar audio is aligned properly with tracks you are listening to, for example drums, while recording. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not clear, the amount of compensation that is applied when recording an Axe-FX is incorrect. The result is your recorded guitar audio will be delayed in relation to other tracks in your project. This lag is substantial, often in the 10-20 millisecond range (far greater than the internal processing latency). This problem does not occur with other audio interfaces, only the Axe-FX.
 
GlennO said:
I think many people who record with the Axe-FX are quite familiar the problem and just assumed that FAS already understands it. To help avoid misunderstandings, here's a description of the problem (copied from the recording guide):



There is an inevitable latency that comes with computer audio. This latency will be present when you record your guitar into your DAW. However, all DAWs are smart enough to deal with this and apply a latency compensation so your guitar audio is aligned properly with tracks you are listening to, for example drums, while recording. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not clear, the amount of compensation that is applied when recording an Axe-FX is incorrect. The result is your recorded guitar audio will be delayed in relation to other tracks in your project. This lag is substantial, often in the 10-20 millisecond range (far greater than the internal processing latency). This problem does not occur with other audio interfaces, only the Axe-FX.
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And to add a further layer of clarification, the concern isn't that there is 10-20ms of latency present, it's that the latency isn't compensated for.
 
amandio said:
While I'm not new to usb audio (different field of audio in my former life), I am new to music production. I don't doubt that any use cases I've described might be wrong. But that's why I'm here - to learn from you guys.

You're right, in the first setup you mention the AXE FX III should behave like a regular audio interface. My testing shows that my updated firmware nearly gets us there. Again, not 100% resolved but an improvement.
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Is the updated firmware you are referring to here the USB 1.11 firmware? The USB firmware included on the downloads page for the Axe FX III is 1.10. is there a reason the 1.11 firmware isn't yet on the downloads page?
 
Watt McCo said:
And to add a further layer of clarification, the concern isn't that there is 10-20ms of latency present, it's that the latency isn't compensated for.
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The actual amount of latency over USB is more of a concern for me (+perhaps others) right now, rather than whether it can be reported to DAW or not - it's higher than the latency over usb of my audio interface with same preset. Seems these issues need to be separately logged:
  • Incorrect Latency Reporting.
  • Amount of Latency over USB.
  • Latency consistency depending on active blocks inline.
  • Latency Jitter.
  • USB buffer losing default value.
imo, these are all distinct and noted at various places in this thread.

Also, as mentioned above, updated USB fw (1.11) is news to me and not on the downloads page - clarification needed on if it is still in beta or not, and, specifically which USB latency related issues it addresses.
 
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amandio said:
Late last year I release a new version of the USB firmware (v1.11) for the AXE FX III that significantly improves the latency. It does not completely resolve the issue but it does offer an improvement. Maybe some of you have tried it and found that it doesn't resolve your issue. But I'll put a link here where you can download it in case some of you haven't tried it yet:
AXE FX III USB Firmware V 1.11
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I'm also confused. The download page shows a different version, 1.10. This is the first I've heard of a 1.11.

Anyway, I installed 1.11 into my Axe-FX. It made no difference at all. I suppose if you've been focussing on the wrong problem, that shouldn't be too surprising.
 
GlennO said:
Oh no! I think there might be a fundamental misunderstanding here. Jitter is not the problem. The problem is: when you record audio from the Axe-Fx, it is misaligned with previously recorded tracks. It might vary a few samples here and there, but there is a large fixed lag of dozens of milliseconds. Nobody cares if it bounces around a couple of samples. All audio interfaces do that. The problem is the large fixed lag. See any of the many threads where this problem has been reported. I believe @Admin M@ understands the problem, so you might want to check with him.
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It used to jump around quite a bit more than a few samples (wasn’t aware all interfaces did that), IIRC hundreds of samples. I couldn’t use the Axe as the interface for Studio One’s IR Maker plug-in, cus I would click its “delay compensation” button and it would report wildly different figures every few clicks. I haven’t checked lately but glad to hear it’s improved as of late. Hopefully the latency reporting to DAW gets resolved.
 
Glad to see this issue finally seems to be getting some attention. Here's hoping it will be put on the frontburner very, very quickly though.

The point about, that even when using the AxeFX III (same with the FM3 btw) as a simple audio interface (input 1 -> USB), and it still can't report latency correctly to the DAW, makes it useless for re-amping purposes via USB. THAT is a major problem in my book! I would expectit to be quite simple to fix, as this is achived by even the most inexpensive soundcard from Behringer or who-ever - but then again, I am no software developer.

But - as far as I can recall, all this was never an issue with the AxeFX II...right?
 
USB Problems Summary Post
Latest USB driver/firmware as of 2022-02-21
  • 5.30 is the latest USB Driver version (can be found from the Fractal homepage > support > Axe-FX III > downloads)
  • 1.11 is the latest USB Firmware version (can be found in a post by @amandio in this thread).

I think it would be beneficial to summarize all of the reported problems as well as known workarounds. If I miss anything, let me know and I can update this post.

I will say that I have been using driver 5.10 and just found out that there is a driver 5.30 released in December. And @amandio also posted Firmware 1.11. Everything I've tested so far has been confirmed with AxeFX firmware 19.01, USB Driver 5.10, and USB Firmware 1.10.

I plan to test Problem 4 using USB driver 5.30, firmware 1.11 ASAP and I will report my findings.

USB Buffer Size resets to 128 after power down

Documentation of USB is lacking
  • What does "Safe Mode" do under the FASUSBAudio Control Panel?
  • What is the difference beween ASIO Buffer Size (FASUSB Audio Control Panel) and USB Buffer Size (Setup > I/O > Audio > USB Buffer Size)?
    • Basically...what do these two things do specifically and how do they interact with each other (if at all)
  • No forum sticky that there was a new USB Driver (5.30) released on December 10, 2021. The latest forum sticky is for 5.10 and I've been running that for awhile now.
  • USB Driver download/install doesn't contain a changelog
    • What changed between 5.10 and 5.30?

USB does not properly report latency to DAW

Reamp offset is unstable even with the workaround from the previous problem applied
  • Edit: After some more testing, I think it's the "USB Buffer Size resets to 128 after power down" bug that causes this
  • Even with the workaround from above, there is still significant amounts of "jitter" in the reamp offset, making it unpredictable and unreliable
  • Not everyone reports having this problem--so it may not affect all units--or it may be more widespread with people assuming that the workaround from the previous problem will take care of the issue and not pay any more attention
  • Workaround 1: manually slide your reamped tracks to match up with the DI
  • Workaround 2: Route to/from another interface using SPDIF and let that handle the timing: https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/latency-reporting-to-daw.177908/post-2215561
 
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sixtystring said:
  • These remained the same after two shut downs of the Axe-FX with the front panel switch. First time with Axe-Edit open, second time closed.
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How are you verifying it remained the same? It will reset to 128 on reboot, but the display will continue to show the most recent value you set. I tested it last week and it was still broken.
 
GlennO said:
How are you verifying it remained the same? It will reset to 128 on reboot, but the display will continue to show the most recent value you set. I tested it last week and it was still broken.
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I had forgotten about that and have updated my post accordingly.
 
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sixtystring said:
I wasn't aware of the display vs setting discrepancy, I've updated my post to reflect that. Will update when I have found the posts to better define the issue. Have you confirmed that it is still a problem?
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It is still broken in the latest release firmware, 19.01. I don't see any mention of a fix for this in the release notes for the 19.02 beta.

I can't help thinking these problems would get more attention if the descriptions included words like "excursion bias" and "b+ voltage" :).
 
I have updated my post to remove the inaccuracies and add more info about the 128 Buffer Reset.

To be fair, I should mention that not too far back @Admin M@ and @amandio both communicated and worked with me trying to isolate the unstable/jittery offset thing, so I definitely don't think these things are being ignored.

For better or worse, I've been doing my best not to let threads die...but often times it does seem like only a handful of people use this thing to reamp...which seems crazy hahahah
 
sixtystring said:
For better or worse, I've been doing my best not to let threads die...but often times it does seem like only a handful of people use this thing to reamp...which seems crazy hahahah
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FYI, this audio misalignment problem has nothing to do with re-amping. It's a recording problem. If you do any recording using your Axe-FX as your audio device, you'll run into this audio misalignment, regardless of whether you do re-amping or not.

As for how many people notice the problem, I suspect a lot of people notice something is wrong when they record their Axe-FX, but instead of pursuing a solution, they simply give up trying to record it :).
 
sixtystring said:
I have updated my post to remove the inaccuracies and add more info about the 128 Buffer Reset.

To be fair, I should mention that not too far back @Admin M@ and @amandio both communicated and worked with me trying to isolate the unstable/jittery offset thing, so I definitely don't think these things are being ignored.

For better or worse, I've been doing my best not to let threads die...but often times it does seem like only a handful of people use this thing to reamp...which seems crazy hahahah
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I use it to reamp but use it via spdif and another interface. I’m not seeing any of this behavior. I’m of the belief use you gear to do one thing it does well. Deviate from that at your peril.
 
sixtystring said:
I have updated my post to remove the inaccuracies and add more info about the 128 Buffer Reset.

To be fair, I should mention that not too far back @Admin M@ and @amandio both communicated and worked with me trying to isolate the unstable/jittery offset thing, so I definitely don't think these things are being ignored.

For better or worse, I've been doing my best not to let threads die...but often times it does seem like only a handful of people use this thing to reamp...which seems crazy hahahah
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I'm using usb to 4CM with ampsim plugins so happy if there's latency savings to be had along with any changes.
 
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sprint said:
I'm using usb to 4CM with plugins so happy if there's latency savings to be had along with any changes.
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The I/O is already pretty efficient. It never hurts to ask, but I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect a noticeable improvement. All you can do is reduce buffer sizes, both in the Axe-FX and on your computer.
 
Fotukito said:
Or think 'wow my timing sucks!' and fix it in the DAW with timing nudges. :p
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Man, you folks just made me realize why I was having so many issues while recording some covers using midi drums and bass. I swear my timing is not as off as I could see in the recordings and I was scratching my head as to why I seem to get worse at playing using the axe vs my helix. Now I know!
 
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