Question

I just got my AudioBox USB today and amp trying to demo some things out.  I plugged my guitar directly into the interface and there was clipping almost immediately, even with the gain turned very low, and whenever I turn the mixer over to the playback side, all I get is terrible noise, and nothing gets loud at all from the main output even with the knob turned all the way up.  I am using a Macbook Pro retina display with Mac OSX El Capitan, and using Logic Pro X.

Comments

Does your guitar have active pickups?

Answer 1

I think you may have two problems. Input too hot (see ZDirect below) and USB or ASIO driver or buffer issues on the playback side.

I was getting something similar sound trying to get recording/playback with AudioBox and my DAW software. I was using a USB hub and when I plugged the AudioBox directly into the USB port this resolved. I would say in addition to your input maybe being too hot, your issue is also with your computer side of things like the driver or ASIO buffer size. I think the default buffer size is 2K. If your guitar gain is too high you could get a direct interface box like an Art ZDirect (artproaudio.com) like $25 that has two stages of -20db attenuation and you could feed that with a balanced connector from the DI into the AudioBox. I have found the AudioBox audio interface to be better than my mixer, so I am feeding the AudioBox with the analog out of my mixer via an Art DualXDirect but in your case with guitar only in I think a ZDirect would be better to allow you to attenuate and match your guitar signal.Also on playback make sure the AudioBox mixer knob is turned all the way to the right to playback and not left to the input side. Hope this somehow helps.