recording via the USB

clarky

clarky

Axe-Master
all fkn night it has been soooo crashy it's been doing my fkn head in…

I totally get the USB and the work flow and everything… and yes it's really cool..
convenient, sounds great.. love it..

but there is no better killer of work flow, general playing mood and concentration
as having to power down and back up the Axe, and then in Logic having to switch AI to something else and back to reset it..

I don't know if it's my Mac, OS, the Axe, or something else….
but I know this.. I can't carry on like this.. it's made this session a real slog..
added soooo much needless time, wiped out so many good takes..
so frustrating and absolutely infuriating…

if I can't find a way of solving this, I'm going back to jack cables and a firewire AI..

apologies in advance for the rant…
but after all this, and finally completing the session, my lil' brain is not in a good place..
just venting I guess...
 
Oof... rough session clarky
mellow.gif


I don't know what the problem or solution is - can only comment that the only time I did a recording session with AxeFX & Logic via USB, it worked and continued to work without any hiccups
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Dang mate, really sorry to hear about your scenario. That does suck.

Any chance you might toss out the versions for OSX, Logic and your AxeFX? Of course, when you are ready again for that kind of stuff. ;) Also, is there any chance you've recorded with the same workflow before, and didn't get this result? I'm assuming you probably have, and if so, any thing that has changed (or is it too many parameters to isolate the problem)?

Hope something might jump out for someone on the forum, that would solve it (No disrespect to Genome, and he may just be right, that it just needs a simple cable swap).

Cheers,

Lee
 
right now, I can't say that I'm convinced that it's a cable problem..
digital stuff tends to either work or not work..
when this goes spazzy, I'm hearing very bad digital artefacts on the dry guitar tone
on occasion, the recorded dry turns out to be fine, power down / up Axe and reset the AI reveals if the recorded dry is good
so in that case, either the signal being sent from the Mac is bad, or the Axe chews up a good signal once it's received it.
on other occasions, the recorded dry is bad.. I can play it bad over a different AI [via firewire] to reveal this, and of course the power down / up Axe and reset the AI can't solve it..
so in this case, either the signal sent by the Axe is chewed up, or the Mac chews up a good signal once it's received it..

in the interests of science I will replace the cable with something newer / better [whatever that is in USB terms]..
if that makes no difference, I'll simply have a spare USB cable
 
is9582 said:
Dang mate, really sorry to hear about your scenario. That does suck.

Any chance you might toss out the versions for OSX, Logic and your AxeFX? Of course, when you are ready again for that kind of stuff. ;) Also, is there any chance you've recorded with the same workflow before, and didn't get this result? I'm assuming you probably have, and if so, any thing that has changed (or is it too many parameters to isolate the problem)?

Hope something might jump out for someone on the forum, that would solve it (No disrespect to Genome, and he may just be right, that it just needs a simple cable swap).

Cheers,

Lee
Click to expand...

I have used this workflow before many many times for quite some time..
this issue has happened many times before.. more than half of the sessions..
some sessions I never encounter it.. others just here and there.. and on occassion it's pretty bad..
one of the things I thought may be aggravating it was that I'm running everything on the Mac's Firewire / USB cct and didn't have a dedicated Firewire / USB for audio..
so I've just generally tollerated it
now [since last week] I do have an extra Firewire / USB card in my Mac that has the Axe and the AI connected to it.. so it's intended to be an "audio only" cct..
it made no difference.. which was dissappointing

Mac Pro 8-core, Mountain Lion, Logic Pro X [this issue existed when I ran Logic Pro 9 too], Axe fw 15.05 [the fw has never made a difference as I first noticed this issue quite some time ago]

most of the time, I just get one or two failures during a session.. nothing bad.. don't really do any harm.. which is why I've not really mentioned it..
last night, I had about 1 1/2 hours of trouble free / blissful recording.. after that it was failing at roughly 10 to 20 minute intervals..
which, when you're recording a riff in 15/16 time will make that lil' vain in your head start pulsating..
and of course once your brain is in the wrong place, you're just gonna play shite to add to it all..
so last night was really getting to me... you really don't need all that extra crap when you're wrestling with a part that is quite awkward to play..

but today is a new day and all the pixies and fairies are at peace again in Clarkyland

I'll be heading into the studio again a little later to finish this track..
my pixies and faries are now at gunpoint and under instructions to stay happy or else..
 
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I would suggest also to check your cable. I had some problems with my DAW (audio engine freeze) with the axe and a native audio KA6, and the culprit was the cable. I changed it to good quality cable and it is better.
There are some guideline on selecting a proper cable for music on the NI page:
Choosing the Correct USB Cable for Your NI Hardware Device | Knowledge Base | Support

Sound on USB uses a kind of isochrone protocol, to reduce latencies and enhance throughput, it means that it is a pretty low level protocol with potential packet lost (If I understood correctly, I am not an expert).
Packet loss causes click on sound and too much of them crashed my DAW.
It might not be the cause of your problem but it worth a try.
 
I was serious. The cable should have no effect on sound quality. On some forums, I read some guys hearing some tone difference between two cable and could not explain anything logically (beside the fact that you might tend to find a cable paid 500 bucks a little better, to rationalize you investment :).
But on low quality or too long cable, some data packets can be lost (we have this problem at work with the firewire isochronous protocol for streamed data). I just assume that USB might use the same kind of protocol.
So the sound quality is the same when all the packets arrive, but when some are lost, there is no re-emit protocol that would eat bandwidth and so some part of the signal is just absent. It can generate clicks or, in my case audio engine crash (Linux with Bitwig Studio).
I try with a cable following the Native Instrument recommendation and I did not experience this very frequent problem (happened every 30 seconds) from a few weeks.
Once again, I an not USB expert and may be completely wrong about the tech details on how the signal is transmitted from the Fractal to your PC, but it definitely happens with FireWire and video signal (packet drop and lost of sync) with a bad quality or too long cable.
 
hmm... I get how digital audio streams work.. and provided that the binary makes it to the far end in good shape, and without packet losses then the audio quality will be the same no matter what cable type is being used..

the NI article seems to be talking about degradation via skinny and / or long cables because the current draw is higher..
to be honest though, I'm not understanding why a higher current draw would cause packet loss / data corruption in general

that said, I do suffer with the symptoms they describe..
USB connection loss to the Axe on occasion which shows itself as AE not being able to communicate with the Axe, and also the audio dying completely..
The audio distortion that NI are talking about may well be due to packet loss causing the reassembled waveform getting totally fkd
I guess this may go some way to explain the "metallic" artefacts I hear when things start going tits...

so... before I go on a USB inspired rampage of death, I'm gonna go get me a big fat / short USB cable..
there is something in me that's not 100% convinced of this.. but I'll give it a go none the less..
 
Had the same issue - spoke with support - they suggested change the cable over and if no change I might need a new eprom - swapped cable for a quality USB cable and no issues since - running Macbook pro with snow leopard / mountain lion and mavericks over the time.
 
ok.. checks my cable.. the old one was 3m long and 28 gauge.. so according to NI it's too long and too thin..

just swapped to a 2m long 24 gauge cable

I will report back good or bad after my next session..
 
Can you try on another computer? I know no one wants to hear it, but this really sounds like a driver conflict or configuration issue on your computer, as if it was the cable it would just stop working in my experience not continue working and passing a degraded audio stream.
 
clarky said:
when this goes spazzy, I'm hearing very bad digital artefacts on the dry guitar tone
Click to expand...

Can you post a clip of the artifacts?

It is hard to know without hearing, but mismatched sample rates can cause "interesting" problems. The tell-tale sign for me is small amounts of digital noise that increase steadily until it sounds like it is going through a bit crusher.

Making sure your project is set to 48kHz and that nothing else on the mac is trying to push it into another sample rate. For example, if something else on the mac is using audio out (Safari playing YouTube, iTunes, etc.) it may put you into sample rate war.

I happen to have a clip of this - was trying something last night and was getting some sample rate issues - listen for the periodic pops/clicks:

Sample Rate Mismatch
 
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OK, I've been fighting this as well, I thought it was because I have a mac pro 2013... could be the case I suppose. When recording with the AxeFX XL via usb to Logic X, the session always crashes out... actually, I get a message that the AxeFX is no longer available. The only way to fix it is to either restart the AxeFX XL or sometimes* stopping and starting Core Audio in Logic X will bring it back. I'm set to 48K, running LogicX alone. I've tried changing buffer sizes, etc.. Interesting that someone else has the same problem. BTW, I'm on Yosemite, hoping that would fix it. I'm guessing I need an interface and have been looking at the new Apogee Ensemble.
 
Read the USB thread... changed the cable and Logic has been running half an hour now. May have been the cable, I'll post again if not. :)
 
so far it's only crapped out once on this session..
it means the prob is still there, but I've no idea if I've done something to improve things…

when I've completed this album and I have more time to play, I'm going to try reamping via the VG-99..
if the prob is the cable or Mac related, I should have grief with this too..
if the prob is the Axe, the VG-99 recordings will be clean and trouble free..

for now, I just need to keep going until I get to the end of this project and hope I don't have too much more agro
 
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