PC Audio through the AXE II > What am I missing?

S

Soma

Experienced
Hi all,

I have my Axe II hooked up to my PC with USB. I have the USB driver installed and Axe Edit is working perfectly. I monitor at the moment through headphones.
When I switch on my Axe the PC recognises that a USB device is attached, and it even appears to switch to the Axe FX Speakers as the output method, but I get no PC sound through either my PC speakers or the Axe. USB in IO is set to Output1. I've had a look at the manual but I don't see much on what needs set for this, my impression is that you hook it up like I have and it 'just works'. Alas this isn't the case for me :(

Please help! I'm gassing to play along with some backing tracks. I'm also keen to start dabbling in recording and think this will be a hinderance to that as well.

Thanks heaps :D


Cheers,
Steve
 
You either need to be monitoring through something like reaper, but you will probably run into latency problems that way, or, just plug your pc speakers into the hp jack of the axe which would probably be best...if plugging into the hp jack, you will also want to choose the axe as your playback device in the pc so you can hear the backing track as well
 
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It works for me. I'm using Windows 7 (works for me both on a notebook running 32-bit and an x64 desktop).

You need to go into Sounds, from Control Panel, and select the Axe as your playback device. Then make sure in your volume control mixer that that Axe is turned up.
 
Hi guys,

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tone Seeker said:
Do you have Volume 1 turned up?
Click to expand...

If you mean output1, then yes, otherwise I wouldn't be able to hear the Axe through my headphones ;)

RandyVanMartini said:
You either need to be monitoring through something like reaper, but you will probably run into latency problems that way, or, just plug your pc speakers into the hp jack of the axe which would probably be best...if plugging into the hp jack, you will also want to choose the axe as your playback device in the pc so you can hear the backing track as well
Click to expand...

If I have to use a DAW for just for listening to backing tracks I'll be pretty bummed. When I turn the Axe on my PC automatically switches to 'Speakers (Axe FX II Audio)' and the volume is up. I assume this is correct (?)

AdmiralB said:
It works for me. I'm using Windows 7 (works for me both on a notebook running 32-bit and an x64 desktop).

You need to go into Sounds, from Control Panel, and select the Axe as your playback device. Then make sure in your volume control mixer that that Axe is turned up.
Click to expand...

See above. Forgot to say I'm running Win7 64. Apart from trying a DAW it looks from what you guys have said like I have everything set up right. Frustrating, as I'm not sure what to try to fix this.

Thanks!

Cheers :D
 
Sorry if I've misunderstood but it sounds like you haven't hooked up the main outs of the axe fx to your PC speakers and are still have the PC connected to them? If you can hear the PC audio through the headphones on the axe then it's all working as it should.
 
beyondreazon said:
Sorry if I've misunderstood but it sounds like you haven't hooked up the main outs of the axe fx to your PC speakers and are still have the PC connected to them? If you can hear the PC audio through the headphones on the axe then it's all working as it should.
Click to expand...

At this point I have no speakers hooked up to my Axe other than my headphones. When the Axe is on I get no sound out of my PC speakers (attached to my PC) which is what I'd expect, but at the same time there is no PC audio out of the headphones. It's like the Axe is becoming the PCs soundcard but refusing to actually play any sound.

Thanks and sorry if my earlier posts were unclear.

Cheers.
 
Steve, it will not work the way you have it configured. You will only get playback via the Axe phones (audio via USB) if you set Axe as default audio device. Sound will not route to your PC speakers. If you want sound out of your speakers with that config, you will need to connect your speakers to the Axe OUTS.

If you make your sound card the default device you then have the challenge of routing the incoming Axe audio to your PC-connected speakers. ASIO does not "share" devices well. ASIO4ALL will help, but I have found the latency (Win7x64 8GB RAM) to be a deal killer.
 
Since you hear the Axe through your phones, the setup is working properly. Seems like a mixer/volume control problem.
 
s0c9 said:
Steve, it will not work the way you have it configured. You will only get playback via the Axe phones (audio via USB) if you set Axe as default audio device. Sound will not route to your PC speakers. If you want sound out of your speakers with that config, you will need to connect your speakers to the Axe OUTS.

If you make your sound card the default device you then have the challenge of routing the incoming Axe audio to your PC-connected speakers. ASIO does not "share" devices well. ASIO4ALL will help, but I have found the latency (Win7x64 8GB RAM) to be a deal killer.
Click to expand...

+1 to s0c9's comments.

My setup is a Vista ( :roll ) PC hooked via USB to my Axe. The Axe balanced outs run to a mixer (although not required, but I need a mixer for other reasons) which then run to my studio monitors. With this config I have no issues getting sound from any PC software (iTunes, ....) sent to my monitors while I am playing along. No latency doing this either. Just make sure that your PC sound / speakers setting switches to the Axe (sounds like OP already verified that).

FWIW - I have found that I need to set the "volume" in Windows to about 50% for the background stuff to be roughly at the same volume as the processed guitar coming out of the Axe for most of the presets.
 
Sorry guys. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong explaining myself. I'm not trying to get anything out of my PC speakers, I'm just trying to get PC sounds i.e. backing tracks through my Axe and out the headphones plugged into the Axe. Thanks though.

AdmiralB said:
Here's the two things I had to do:


First, make the Axe is the default playback device in Control Panel>Sound


View attachment 9205

Then be sure the volume is turned up on it in Mixer:

View attachment 9207

I plug my headphones into the Axe's headphone jack, and I can hear PC audio mixed with the guitar.
Click to expand...

Thanks AdmiralB. I'm pretty sure that I have done both those things which is why I can't figure out why it isn't working. I'll double check later tonight though (after the kids are off to bed :) ). Thanks again.

Cheers :D
 
Soma said:
Sorry guys. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong explaining myself. I'm not trying to get anything out of my PC speakers, I'm just trying to get PC sounds i.e. backing tracks through my Axe and out the headphones plugged into the Axe. Thanks though.



Thanks AdmiralB. I'm pretty sure that I have done both those things which is why I can't figure out why it isn't working. I'll double check later tonight though (after the kids are off to bed :) ). Thanks again.

Cheers :D
Click to expand...


Any luck?
 
It works for me (PC audio through Axe-FX II headphones), and I pretty much went the same route as you.
Is Axe-FX II set as "standard playback unit" (I don't remember what it's called in english) in Windows sound mixer?
Have you tried rebooting?
 
I checked and the Axe was set as the default device and the volume was up. I tried a different USB port thinking it might help but if anything it made it worse, now I have both sets of speakers in the mixer/volume control regardless of which one is default. It's confusing. I think I'll remove and reinstall the USB driver tonight and see what I get. The only other thing I can think of is if there's a setting in the Axe I'm missing, like a USB mix control that's turned down or something. I've hunted high and low for something like but haven't found anything.

Thanks guys.

PS: I work in IT so this stuff is pretty simple for me, but this is just baffling me why it won't work. (Not a criticism on the Axe but) when I had my GSP1101 I just turned it on (after installing the driver of course) and it 'just worked'. I expected the same of the Axe and it sounds like it is that way for everyone else.

PPPSSSSSSSss: Thanks, yes, I've rebooted several times ;) I've had the Axe about 4 weeks now but just decided to pursue this issue recently.


Cheers :D
 
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It does sound like a driver issue if you have the Axe set as the system audio device and your sound isn't muted or all the way down on the sound panel.

Your idea to remove and reinstall the driver sounds like the right path to me. I'm on a Mac, but it should work more or less the same. Install usb driver. Assign system audio output to Axe. Set levels for proper blend. Watch next several months go by wondering where time went.
 
don't feel bad it took me almost a week to get mine running the way I wanted it to with USB. (on Windows 7)
this is what I did. I have 2 scenarios. #1.
I have an entire Technics sound system plugged into my sound card, set as my Default playback device.
I have my Axe II plugged into my M-Audio Bx5A's for playback.
When I turn on the Axe I get my guitar thru my monitors (and headphones) and my backing track/mp3 coming thru my Technics /Polk audio sound speakers.
When I want to run everything thru my monitors or my headphone jack, I unplug my sound system and use a Y cable from the unbalanced line inputs on the back of my monitors and plug that into my sound card.
this routes everything thru my monitors/headphone jack. Now I set my default playback device to my Axe (actually window does this automatically for me but you should check it anyway.)
if you want to bypass the monitors plug the Y cable into the output 1 connection son the back of the axe and connect to your sound card
now you should hear everything thru your headphones. I had to remove my M-audio Asio drivers to get this to work. for some reason Asio drivers compete with each other
on Windows 7.
You need the Output 1 outs connected to something, just plugging in the USB doesn't do it.
 
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Well I reinstalled the driver and it's exactly as it was before. Might be email support time. Thanks guys.

Cheers.
 
Strange.

I have a W7 64 Laptop. Just installed the drivers, switched to "AFX" for my sound playback and that was it. Play backing tracks on media player, and I hear the backing track through the phones connected tot he AFX and play along.
 
Just want to let everyone know I finally got this resolved, and hopefully help others who might be having this issue.

Last night I fired up Axe Edit and no go, it wouldn't detect the Axe at all. Turned everything off and on again and still no go. Even though I was 100% sure everything was plugged in I decided to check the connections. Axe USB, check. PC USB, check. So I decided to try a different USB port on the PC. PC detected the Axe, changed over the playback device to the Axe and hey presto! PC sound through the Axe FX! Sure I'd tried this before, but the difference here was I plugged the Axe into a USB 2 port rather than a USB 3. Apparently, for em at least, it made a difference.

Thanks everyone for the help on this thread, it helped me to know that I wasn't doing anything wrong, and hopefully this will help someone else down the road.

Cheers,
Steve :D
 
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