Output 1 CLIP!?

Billbill

Billbill

Power User
Need some help here. When jamming along to some tracks in iTunes via USB on my Mac to axe, through headphones I'm clipping output 1! The patch itself is fine when the track isn't playing but when I hit play, and start jamming it's clip city! Issue with using axe as soundcard or something? The Mac is set to audio devices AxeFx 2. Is there something I'm missing here? Could output 1 clip damage anything in axe or Mac? Thanks
 
Get your preset levels down around 0 on the built-in VU meters. If your preset is near clipping but not quite there yet, mixing in a backing track could push it over the top.

No, you won't hurt your Axe or your Mac.
 
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Billbill said:
Need some help here. When jamming along to some tracks in iTunes via USB on my Mac to axe, through headphones I'm clipping output 1! The patch itself is fine when the track isn't playing but when I hit play, and start jamming it's clip city! Issue with using axe as soundcard or something? The Mac is set to audio devices AxeFx 2. Is there something I'm missing here? Could output 1 clip damage anything in axe or Mac? Thanks
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reduce USB Output Level in the I/O menu, i believe bottom of the first page.
 
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Ready made tracks will hit the clip light, since they are already hitting -0db, the highest level possible in digital audio. The clip light comes on at -1db, so the sound doesn't actually clip when you play a mastered record through the Axe and the light is blinking red. However, you have zero room to include your guitar on top of the song, so if you play, it will clip and that sucks.

Solutions: lower the usb return level from the axe like chris said, or lower the music volume from your computer.
 
Thank you man for the detailed explanation, and others for guidance. I guess I need to read up on this digital guff a bit more haha. doesn't seem to be an actual quick solution. I tried the USB return lowered from 0db to -10db and she still clips. I wonder if I can get presets dbs lowered if it will help as Rex suggested. I will try that next!!!!
 
aziz said:
Ready made tracks will hit the clip light, since they are already hitting -0db, the highest level possible in digital audio. The clip light comes on at -1db, so the sound doesn't actually clip when you play a mastered record through the Axe and the light is blinking red. However, you have zero room to include your guitar on top of the song, so if you play, it will clip and that sucks.

Solutions: lower the usb return level from the axe like chris said, or lower the music volume from your computer.
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What he said. In other words - Lower the volume on the media player application on your computer - iTunes, YouTube, et cetera. Mine's usually down around 25-35% of the range of the slider.

Don't forget to first return all the stuff you manipulated in your preset to what you had before.
 
as mentioned earlier, the clip light comes on early. as long as there is no clipping when it's just your guitar, it should be ok.
 
Does this clipping affect recorded signals? IE: Recording a guitar track while monitoring the other tracks through the Axe FX USB? Or is it just a monitoring issue?
 
Synchronicity said:
Does this clipping affect recorded signals? IE: Recording a guitar track while monitoring the other tracks through the Axe FX USB? Or is it just a monitoring issue?
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Ehh not sure I'm still digging for a work around with this issue. Really sucks because patches that are high in CPU 89-90% will completely fart out and become useless, can't jam to them!
 
Billbill said:
Ehh not sure I'm still digging for a work around with this issue. Really sucks because patches that are high in CPU 89-90% will completely fart out and become useless, can't jam to them!
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USB uses CPU, so if you have high CPU usage, USB can push it over the same way another block might. note that this is completely different than Output Clipping.

as convenient as the USB audio is, i still just use a small physical audio mixer for the Axe and Music source and avoid all of these issues.
 
chris said:
USB uses CPU, so if you have high CPU usage, USB can push it over the same way another block might. note that this is completely different than Output Clipping.

as convenient as the USB audio is, i still just use a small physical audio mixer for the Axe and Music source and avoid all of these issues.
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Yes and external unit is what I want to set up. I have an M-audio USB 2 channel interface. Would that work? I think I could run axe into it and mac into as well then blend and jam. How would I connect this? It only has 1 USB port so I might need to run Mac audio to it then figure out how to connect axe to it. What ya think??
 
Synchronicity said:
Does this clipping affect recorded signals? IE: Recording a guitar track while monitoring the other tracks through the Axe FX USB? Or is it just a monitoring issue?
Click to expand...

Through usb, if your preset doesn't clip with the guitar alone, it's ok. Backing track doesn't affect that even if it clips the analog outputs.
 
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