What's the best way to record

mattseed

mattseed

Inspired
Hi guys just about to order an axe fx II and an MFC III foot controller.....can't wait!

Just trying to get things lined up that I might need to record with it. I use an Apple Mac with Logic pro9 I also have an RME interface.

From what I read there are different ways to hook up an axe fx. So What is the best way to connect the axe fx to the computer for recording into logic ?

Thank you guys
Matthew
 
I guess what I'm also asking is....what are the pros and cons of the different methods.

Thank you people.
Matthew
 
I have absolutely no problem connecting the Axe FX II to my MacBook Pro with a simple USB cable. Works a charm and I can't really appreciate any latency issues.

I record into GarageBand but can't really imagine any real complications with doing this through Logic.
 
I use Logic and Protools, personally. I think the pros far out weigh the cons as far as recording in the digital format goes. Cutting and joining tape and using reel to reel machines is a PITA. I don't subscribe to this "It's warmer and more organic with tape saturation" bull shit. I can get far better results in a fraction of the time.

The bread and butter is in your software and plugins, knowing what great tone sounds like and also the ability to distinguish between line, mic, and instrument levels to preserve gain structure and signal to noise ratio etc. If you record with the fundamentals incorrect, you'll never have a decent recording.

I would use the RME to connect into logic and run 2 XLR's out of the Axe into the inputs of the RME. Make sure that your signal is hot enough without clipping.
 
I always just plug the two output 1 jack cables in my Edirol sound card. Just seems more stable to me. Never tried to record digitally or with USB though. Is there any big difference in sound?
 
I thought about the SPDIF out into the SPDIF in on my RME my only snag is my axe is a good distance from my recording rig.....can you get (use) long SPDIF ?

Funny int it there's at least 3 different answers already on here. That's what I keep finding but it wish I knew pros n cons of : USB, SPDIF, XLR ?

Anyone know a definitive pros n cons ?
Thanks for any help
Matthew
 
If you just want to record your guitar, just use the USB out of the Axe works great, if you want to record vocals or other stuff use the RME.
There is absolutely nothing gained by going spdif out of the Axe into the RME and then into the DAW if you only want to record guitars.
 
Cons of using USB is if you have other stuff going on in your session (VST instruments, plugins etc.) you will run out of bandwidth very fast.
Also monitoring for overdubs is not very straightforward when you use the USB driver.
When you use SPDIF there is no loss of quality going thru converters but to be honest the Axe sounds so good that even analog sounds great as long as your sound card has good converters.
 
Thanks for all these comments guys. If you do use a USB is there some kind of driver to put on the mac.....how does it go into logic ? Must admit I'm still confused as to which to use. From the comments I read here SPDIF has no side effects but USB has some, when multi tracking etc.

Would I be right to say there is no difference at all between the two in quality of sound as long as your interface is good which my RME is I feel?

Thank you guys
Matthew
 
USB uses the Axe FX II to process your sound and in turn uses some of your Axe FX's CPU which if you have a pretty busy preset that pushes 90% CPU on its own, using USB will cause CPU overload and crackles. A lot of my patches use 2 amps and 2 stereo cabs, so I'm pushing that 90% quite often.

Other options are obviously direct into another interface, AES or SPDIF.

I actually just used SPDIF on Saturday to record my tracks at our bands rehearsal, and the quality is sick, 24bit 48k sample rate. I love this unit as the options are many and they all work perfectly. I was going into a delta1010lt PCI card and recorded into Ableton live 8.25
 
If you want to use the RME I'd go with SPDIF personally. If you use the USB on the Axe and you want to use the RME as well for other functions then you'll most likely run into some problems as you'll have to create an aggregate device within OSX audio/midi preferences. From my experiences this has always lead to issues with syncing, static, dropouts and crashing of DAW apps. However I have never used an RME interface, they may work better with aggregate devices in OSX than my piece of crap Presonus Firepod ever did as the RME stuff is light years better in terms of quality and driver performance. Since the Firepod I have moved on to a Motu interface and using SPDIF is a piece of cake and it leaves the USB port on the Axe for strict use of Axe Edit. I've never been a fan of audio over USB, lots of people have no issues but I've never had much luck. There's some threads kicking around that discuss the USB vs SPDIF vs......... Whatever floats your boat really.

They sell 50 & 100 ft SPDIF cables on monoprice, not sure if they'd work but for the price it'd be cheap enough.
 
Thanks guys I think with all your help on here I will go the SPDIF route.

Can I just ask one last question on this topic and that is.....is there a such a thing as a good quality SPDIF cable......is it case of get a decent one or are the high end cost ones really any better and do longer runs like 25 foot make any difference ?

Thank you guys
Matthew
 
mattseed said:
Thanks guys I think with all your help on here I will go the SPDIF route.

Can I just ask one last question on this topic and that is.....is there a such a thing as a good quality SPDIF cable......is it case of get a decent one or are the high end cost ones really any better and do longer runs like 25 foot make any difference ?

Thank you guys
Matthew
Click to expand...


Hey Matthew

I don't have a lot to add - except to say I do use SPDIF in a couple of places and I have always understood there to be serious issues with the quality of the cable you use for the spdif connection. Every manufacturer and book I have says don't use regular RCA cables as they are not high enough quality. I buy SPDIF designed cables, they are always short. They always have gold connectors, and the contacts are always beefy as hell. I am not an engineer, as you can very likely tell, but just inferring from what I have experienced, I think the quality and the length of the cable is pretty key. It would really suck to start to get loss and noise because your cable is too long. Those signals I imagine are highly susceptible to timing. You start screwing with long cable runs and you may screw up all kinds of things. I would keeps it as tight as I possible could. Find a way to keep it under 15 feet. Just my $.02 Hope it helps man.

JB
 
I bought mine from monoprice, very good quality and very reasonably priced. Works great, and as stated if you can keep it shorter it will probably work out better.
 
Cheers guys......just when I thought I'd got to the bottom of it I'm now worried it's going to be too long. Really I need it to be 25ft (8 metres) to reach round my studio to my RME is that too long. This is one of those things I can't figure out and it's an expensive trial n error.

Thanks again
Matthew
 
Connecting via USB:
Pros: Easy - when it works
Cons: Doesn't always work in my experience, and often does not 'play well' with other interfaces. In other words, if you want to record other stuff into your DAW simultaneously (vocals, a band etc.), this may be more trouble than it's worth (it is for me). CPU load is increased substantially - a problem with patches already near the 'redline' mark.

Connecting through a DI/converter setup:
Pros: works. And if your DI also has tone-shaping controls, like my Chameleon 7602 MkII Xmod preamp, you can also tweak the EQ on the way in, in a simple 'analog' way. If you have a multi-channel interface, you can also record several sound sources simultaneously without worrying whether your OS and/or DAW can handle multiple interface protocols.
Cons: a theoretical decrease in fidelity, since you are going analog again, before going digital again. I have not noticed any difference. Increased latency - which I find negligible.

All in all, if you've got the converters and a good DI, I think the USB interface is not as good a choice. I only use it for Fractalbot etc. Of course, this only applies if you've got GOOD QUALITY CONVERTERS...
 
Coaxial cables - I always use the cheap ones - for me in the digital domain if it works , it works.
Don't know if it's technically possible to sound different from one SPDIF cable to the next.
 
SPDIF is fine as long as you don't record anything else in digital, since AXE only does 48Khz, and my synth, for example, records only in 44Khz...

So mostly I use axe to interface and outa there: regular output. Didn't hear noticable differences in sound, comparing to spdif
 
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