Axe I/O Monitoring Confusion

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Axe I/O Monitoring Confusion

Postby nnishizaka@gmail.com » Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:35 am

Warning. This is a long post!

I see lots of posts in here that talks about how they hear the dry sound along with the sound from Amplitube or some other plugin. I have been noticing the same thing, so I did some analysis to figure out what the heck is going on.

So up to this point, I had outputs 1/2 connected to my mixer and to my near-field monitors. I decided to also hook up outputs 3/4 to another channel on my mixer and sort through the various scenarios. I had the Axe I/O control panel opened to see which outputs displayed audio activity.

So when everything was routed to outputs 1/2 including inside the plugin (should not matter which plugin since they act pretty much the same as far as routing audio to outputs), as expected I hear the plugin sound, albeit with what I assume is the direct/dry sound every-so-slightly in the background. I also see activity in the Axe I/O control panel on outputs 1/2. I of course only hear something on the mixer to which outputs 1/2 is connected to. Nothing for outputs 3/4, since nothing is routed to it at the moment. So at least from that perspective, this is all expected. However, the plugin sound, with its latency (buffer size set to 32), sort of "conflicts" with the dry sound which has no latency, causing this slightly odd sound...enough so that I've always been bother by it. This is the issue I am trying to solve...

So next up, I change the routing from using outputs 1/2 to using outputs 3/4 within the plugin. As expected, I see audio activity in the Axe I/O control panel for outputs 3/4. No surprise there. However, I also still see audio activity in outputs 1/2, albeit at lower levels. Additionally, regardless of where the Monitor knob is on the Axe I/O itself, I can still hear a little bit of audio. Of course, turning it towards Direct makes it louder. But it's there regardless of the position of the knob. Very odd. Since both outputs 1/2 and 3/4 are connected to the mixer, sure enough, I can hear audio from outputs 1/2 and 3/4.

So based on the above, my assumption is that there will ALWAYS be some level of the direct/dry sound coming through outputs 1/2. This would explain why after switching to outputs 3/4 and muting the channel on my mixer for outputs 1/2, things sound a lot better. I no longer heard this strange combo between the Plug-in signal with its latency and the direct sound with no latency. I only hear the pure plug-in signal. This to me is very strange and convoluted.

Is this how it is designed?

I am tempted to leave things hooked up like this. At least it sounds like it should now. However, the monitor knob doesn't work when using outputs 3/4, so that's a negative.

Any thoughts?
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Re: Axe I/O Monitoring Confusion

Postby Peter_IK » Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:44 pm

No that is not by design. I'd recommend looking at what you have "Direct Monitoring" set at in your AXE I/O Control Panel. That is likely it. If that doesn't help (along with the MONITOR knob being turned all the way to "DAW") then IK Support would be happy to assist you and get you up and running with your AXE I/O as intended.
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Re: Axe I/O Monitoring Confusion

Postby nnishizaka@gmail.com » Mon Nov 28, 2022 5:00 pm

Hi Peter,

The Direct monitoring is set to MONO and yes, the Monitor knob on the unit itself is always turned all the way to DAW. My assumption has always been that the Monitor knob acted as an "On/Off" for the direct monitoring audio. Despite that, I can still hear audio from outputs 1/2 if I unmute the channel to which they are connected to on the mixer. I also see the level meter in the Axe I/O control panel showing activity. Now granted, they are much lower than the sound from the plugin, but loud enough to be distracting. This is more pronounces the louder the volume is.

Again, using outputs 3/4 and then completely muting 2/4 either in the control panel or at the mixer resolves this. In fact, I can just leave outputs 1/2 unused, but then the monitoring knob becomes useless. Not the end of the world for me since I always had in in DAW anyways. Still, I'd like to find out exactly what is going on.

-Nick
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Re: Axe I/O Monitoring Confusion

Postby Peter_IK » Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:06 pm

In that case please open a ticket with IK Support as suggested and they will happily assist you. Thank you.
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