Using Axe-Fx III and Sonarworks Reference 4

S

Steven Persson

Inspired
Hey folks!

Anyone here using the Axe FX III through the Sonarworks Reference 4 system?

I find it very hard to dial in sounds on the Axe because I cannot get the Axe to work through the Reference as it's currently only picks up computer audio and not my guitar input. My headphones are quite hyped so I want to flatten those with the Reference to get a more accurate representation of the sound. Using the Axe as a sound card watching YouTube or playing music from iTunes works with the Reference - but it does not affect my guitar signal.

In Logic Pro X, I have the Reference plugin on my master bus and it works great, but it's hard to dial in presets here as well since I can't record enable my channels in Logic without have the direct signal and the USB-signal from the Axe mixer together - making it impossible to hear the sound correctly - hence only hearing the unprocessed direct guitar signal from the Axe

Is there a solution to this?

At the moment, I hook my Axe directly to my Mac via USB. No audio interface in between. But will getting an audio interface and record the Axe via other inputs than the USB help to monitor the guitar signal through the Reference?

Cheers.
 
Yeah I wish reference 4 systemwide would work on input signal.
My way around this is to open my DAW and use the Reference 4 plugin, it adds a little latency but it's bareable.
 
rickgk said:
Yeah I wish reference 4 systemwide would work on input signal.
My way around this is to open my DAW and use the Reference 4 plugin, it adds a little latency but it's bareable.
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By using Reference in your DAW, how do you dial in your presets (or just playing) without having the USB-signal mixed with the direct signal?
 
I don't but I'm playing around with Sonarworks Reference 4. It adds between 20-40ms of latency which would be really annoying to play through.
 
I use it on the master bus logic which works great. You can use Systemwide with blackhole, but it has a lot more latency than the audio unit in logic.
 
Yeah, I used it on my master bus with Line 6 Helix and the latency was totally okay to play through. Had no problems in tracking regarding latency and that on a 2011 iMac. Latency wise it should be somewhat similar through the Axe if it only were possible to only have one signal on OUT 1.
 
I don't use USB so not sure how you would go about that.
i just open the plugin on the master in studio one and dial in my presets, the latency is not bad enough to mess with my playing so it's fine.
 
rickgk said:
I don't use USB so not sure how you would go about that.
i just open the plugin on the master in studio one and dial in my presets, the latency is not bad enough to mess with my playing so it's fine.
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So you have the Axe hooked to an audio interface I guess?
 
If you're using the Axe as your interface, you're not going to be able to do this because the audio itself doesn't actually make it into the computer unless you're recording, and Sonar works on the audio that's in the computer.

Your best bet is to try to replicate Sonar's EQ curve using one of the AXE blocks, or better yet the global output eq (which is basically for room adjustments anyways, so it's a good candidate).
 
rossipedia said:
If you're using the Axe as your interface, you're not going to be able to do this because the audio itself doesn't actually make it into the computer unless you're recording, and Sonar works on the audio that's in the computer.

Your best bet is to try to replicate Sonar's EQ curve using one of the AXE blocks, or better yet the global output eq (which is basically for room adjustments anyways, so it's a good candidate).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I used the values from the AutoEQ suggested by @jljesse and it works very good!
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/sonarworks-with-axe-fx-output.167772/
 
I just captured a couple IRs (for L and R) of sonarworks correction for my room and loaded them in a second cab block at the end of the chain going to out2, while non corrected signal goes to out1. This way I can record straight away without engaging/bypassing cab2.
 
DLC86 said:
I just captured a couple IRs (for L and R) of sonarworks correction for my room and loaded them in a second cab block at the end of the chain going to out2, while non corrected signal goes to out1. This way I can record straight away without engaging/bypassing cab2.
Click to expand...
Yeah, works great. I have a similar setup except I'm using an EQ block instead.
 
Chiguete said:
Someone do a video detailing how to do this :)
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Not hard at all.
  1. Initiate a GEQ-block and choose the 10 band Variable Q. Put it last in the guitar chain.
  2. Go to this page - AutoEQ for headphones - and choose your headphones in the list.
  3. Choose any of the EQ options. In this case, for the 10 band Variable Q in Axe FX, I chose the Fixed Band EQ
  4. In the Axe FX EQ-block you initiated in step 1, set the Q value and then enter the frequency values for each band.
  5. Set up an OUT 2 and order it above the EQ (or anywhere else as long it's not included in the chain for the OUT 2) and set up the input in your DAW to correspond to that output from the Axe.
  6. OUT 1 is what you hear when you play - with the EQ - to flatten the frequency spectrum. OUT 2 is what you record - without the EQ - into the DAW where you have your Sonarworks plugin on the master channel. Remember to disable Sonarworks when you export your tracks.
Screen Shot 2021-03-16 at 21.42.58.png

You can also read this thread where the same topic is discussed:
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/sonarworks-with-axe-fx-output.167772/
 
The Sonarworks corrections are quite a bit different than the GitHub AutoEQ corrections, though. At least for my headphones (Sennheiser 650 and 58x).
 
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