Need advice re: using Axe Fx in home studio

I second Cliff on the monitors. That's the one area where going cheap will have a substantial effect on your enjoyment and ability to make good recordings. You've already got everything else you need to get started.

You can get all kinds of monitor recommendations here, but that's just our opinions. The best way to choose monitors is to head down to your local Guitar Center (or similar store) and compare them yourself in their studio room. Bring along a CD of music that is well-recorded and that you know *really* well. Let your ears be your guide.

My advice is to avoid monitors that shape the sound too much in one direction or another. My M-Audio BX-8 monitors, for example, are a bit on the trebly side, and I've had to learn how to mix around that, not to mention how to dial in sounds in the Axe-FX on that system. If I get big fat guitar sounds on my BX-8s, it's likely they might sound a bit dull on consumer speakers.

That said, my speakers do a wonderful job of highlighting every detail of the sound--both good and bad. And that's a very important thing to have from studio monitors. They aren't supposed to make you jump up and play air guitar, they are a tool to assist you making great recordings. And sometimes that level of detail can sound harsh, but it's necessary.

Also, realize that whatever you buy is going to be a compromise. Professional studios spend gazillions of dollars on both their monitoring systems and on acoustic treatments for the control room. Your little studio in the corner of the man cave isn't going to reach that level, but you should be able to get a sufficient monitoring setup for $1,000 or so.
 
I'd like to second profusions advice. Monitors are a completely personal choice. NO ONE can tell you what monitors are better than another - cheap or expensive. For example I don't like the Genelecs fun-polymath likes. I used to mix on those all day, every day for years. Now this is as a mixing/mastering monitor. It sounded great until I tried to translate them to other systems. This may or may not apply btw. Different applications of course. Hyped lows and mids gave me a different impression from what was there. No question they are great and well respected speakers. I love Adams in general, but this is in the studio. I use NHTPros and am happy with those but possibly no one else will be.
 
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In my experience, for mixing, the room treatment is more important than the speakers to a degree.

This, in my opinion, is what accounts for likes and dislikes of certain monitor brands. E.g. engineer X just mixed Green Day's new record using monitor Y.... but in my house they don't sound very good?

Unfortunately, properly treated rooms are really outside of the budget and capability of most folks though.

Richard
 
I demoed a number of monitor pairs with my Axe 2, and found the Adam A7X monitors to be the best full-range and flat-sounding(non-coloring) of the bunch, sound even better after a few months break-in (of course, that might be an effect of Cliff's great firmware upgrades, too). Picked up a pair new for little over $1K, little pricey but with the Axefx, you don't want your monitors to be a bottleneck for such great equipment. Also use Reaper-excellent software for killer price, with 30-day free trial and great online support.
 
I run Logic 9 with the Axe but I go analogue via an Apogee Ensemble. The Ensemble would be overkill for your needs I reckon but perhaps look to a Duet. With their Maestro controller you won't need to run Logic if you're just jamming.

Maestro is a software based mixer for Apogee interfaces.

Using the Axe as an interface ties you to a 48k sample rate. This won't be an issue if you exclusively use that rate. I get sent stuff in all sorts of sample rates and they're expected back at the same rate so the flexibility of analogue wins for me.
 
One thing that most people forget about is the accoustics in the room. I personally think that this is even more important than the equipment.
 
You will always hear "You don't need a mixer". You don't but you can get a mackie 8 channel for under $200 and then your monitoring and routing possibilities are endless. And the Mackies have decnet preamps for vocals mics if needed . More importantly they have direct outs on the first few channels-meaning the Axe does not go thru the busses on the mixer for your recording-only for your monitoring. Kind of depends what you want to do. If you are trying to open a studio to record others and make $$ that's one thing. But if your like me and it;s for yourself, family and friends cds maybe , etc My setup is perfect. Using the mackie the way I do does NOT, I repeat, does not color the sound of the axe-un less your a dog. .
So it all depends.I have recorded with the mixer the way I mentioned and without-NO DIFFERENCE I could hear and that's what matters. Just trying to expose you to all the options.
 
Thomas Larsson said:
One thing that most people forget about is the accoustics in the room. I personally think that this is even more important than the equipment.
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Absolutely. And even if you don't have the money to spend on "treatments" for the room (or the wife doesn't want foam thingies all over the walls :) ), you can still be careful in your placement of the speakers so that you can get the best sound out of the untreated room as possible.

I almost recommend staying away from sites like Gearslutz etc. There is good advice to be had there, but a lot of the participants are professional sound engineers, who are either making an actual living off their studios and can justify the $$$, or they are working in someone else's space where someone else spent the $$$ to create a professional studio environment. Unfortunately, you occasionally get a bit of attitude like "I would never dream of using [XYZ piece of reasonably priced gear]!!" Of course, the wiser heads know that a good sound guy can work with just about any gear setup--it's more about the user than the gear in most instances.
 
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