#1 Newbie mistake for Guitar MFX with Windows PCs - Monitoring Sound

Started by admin, January 09, 2022, 08:10:45 AM

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admin

#1 Newbie mistake for Guitar MFX with Windows PCs.

Many have an existing working computer system with speakers that work for playback of music, YouTube Audio, etc.

Often these speakers are just the internal speakers on their laptop.

But countless folks after buying a Guitar MFX unit with USB Audio I/O capability fail to understand the basics of low latency ASIO USB Audio , complain they can not hear the audio output from their Guitar MFX unit on their Computer speakers or laptop headphone output.

Or if they do hear audio, they wonder why there is extremely high Latency

This is due to ASIO driver restrictions, which constrain USB Audio Input and Output to be the same physical hardware Audio I/O device.

This means when using a Guitar MFX unit which supports ASIO USB Audio (Roland /Boss /NUX/Hotone/Line-6/Mooer) , the Guitar MFX unit becomes your only active "Soundcard" Audio Interface for Windows.

Many units (Line-6 Helix) automatically reassign the default Windows Audio I/O to the Helix as soon as the USB cable is connected.

A few Roland/Boss units do the same.

But when you struggle to hear your Guitar MFX units audio output , remember to either:

A) Connect powered speakers directly to the Guitar MFX units Audio Output, or Headphone Output jack


Or

B) Use a separate low latency ASIO Audio Interface ( RME. MOTU, Focusrite, Presonus, etc. ) and connect your Guitar MFX unit Audio outputs into the line level audio inputs on that separate low latency ASIO Audio Interface. And connect powered speakers to the separate low latency ASIO Audio Interface's Audio Output.


Myself I work with a laptop at mobile locations , and always use the Guitar MFX unit as my Windows  ASIO Audio interface in my DAW ( Cubase,  Reaper) and always connect Headphones directly to the Guitar MFX unit headphone output when recording. Practicing to Youtube, or using old app like Riff Station Pro to learn songs
https://www.techradar.com/news/fenders-riffstation-pro-is-now-free-get-the-chords-for-any-song-on-your-desktop
I never connect Headphones to the laptop, nor do I use the laptop /Computer speakers to monitor my Guitar MFX units USB Audio Output.

I will connect my JBL Near Field Powered Monitors to my Guitar MFX Outputs when using same Guitar MFX as Windows ASIO I/O Audio Interface.

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/how-choose-audio-interface

adamlee011

It might be worth adding here that, if using a normal windows sound card, a device without USB, or whatever other reason one might want to use the windows sound device, asio4all can yield decent results. Only thing is you'll likely be restricted to one channel from the mfx as the line in is usually just a mono input for a microphone. And latency may or may not be a problem.

admin

The biggest problem is folks assigning separate Hardware device for Audio Input and yet another separate Hardware device for Audio Output on their Windows DAW application  then complain about the naturally resulting high latency.

This is one aspect where Macintosh computers using Core Audio excel. And can cope using separate audio interfaces for input and output

While windows PCs will inject high latency, or not work at all