Are these Axe-Fx 2 hardware limitations?

[chris]

People are doing what people do....setting their hopes based on their personal needs.

Agreed, and I want to reiterate that asking and hoping is totally great! It’s what leads to new ideas and features. There is a limitation at some point though.

 

[Severed]

If you want Axe FX III features, it stands to reason you will need to buy that product.

F'n sad how everyone wants, but no one is willing to pay these days.

 

[deathbyguitar]

I think it would be nice to have one last updateufor the II and explicitly state that it's the last one. You'd keep weirdos like me from constantly wondering about new updates and we'd have a finalized, stable platform to work with. I think it might shut up a good amount of people. I agree with Cliff's statement that it doesn't make sense to Port everything over. It doesn't make business sense and businesses have to make money .

 

[seclusion]

Yes, I would rather see development of the next gen Ax8 with some more horsepower.
If there was a paid upgrade, I wonder how many updates people would expect to be covered for?
Never ending cycle.
Like asking for a side of gravy, does nothing for ya, nice to have, but sometimes they run out.

 

[raymitchell]

@FractalAudio and @chris

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The "$100" figure is just a starting figure/argument. I'm a web developer, so coding, testing, testing, and testing and ultimately deploying in digital is how I've made my living for many years.

Essentially, all I was asking for was a dialog and a theoretical price for said/desired upgrade. I NEVER once said I wanted all that went into the III to be ported to the II - not once. I did say port all that you can which, implies "within reason". I understand how things work, both from a developer standpoint and from a business standpoint.

Again, all I asked for was to port over what can be ported as the FINAL firmware upgrade and as a final and proper farewell/send-off for the II (minus any little bug fixes).

If the price is too low, then so be it. I wasn't piching it as a "real" price anyways. Just tying to get a discussion rolling and making it clear that I don't think anything being ported from Ares should be free as you guys have already given us countless firmware updates over the years as it is.

Forgive me for being an advocate of the first ever paid firmware upgrade at FAS.

The funny thing is that I also made it clear that I'll be upgrading to a III as soon as feasible. I could buy a III right now if I wanted to, but I don't want to until the new FC controllers are out and I see how they're going to work. In the live environment, the foot controller is something I'm really picky about and, to be honest, the MFC-101 is my favorite controller - ever. I love having all those switctches to work with and I love the bi-directional communication as far as having preset names, tuner display, etc on the floor in front of me. But anyways, that's a whole other discussion.

In essence, I don't want to jump on a III until I know if I'm buying the new FC, or an RJM controller (16 or 22) to go with it. Of course, the RJM thing could go sideways depending on whether it'll be able to display presets/scene names, tuner and whatnot from the III at some point in the near future.

So, all that being said, put a starting argument/hypothetical price on a theoretical and feasible FINAL firmware ugrade for the II's. If it's $500, if it's $1000, or whatever.

We all know it is impossible to port everything from Ares to the II. We just wanna know what's possible and how much it could cost.

Again, I'm here waiting with my credit card to pay in advance either a 50% deposit or the full amount up front if I can stand the price. If not, then I'll simply wait for the new FC controllers and get a new III rig together.

Cheers!

 

[chris]

The "$100" figure is just a starting figure/argument.

I guessed that, but just commented on the concept as presented. *thumbsup* and as I tried to make clear, I wasn’t singling you out nor was I attributing everything (or anything) I said to you specifically.

 

[raymitchell]

I guessed that, but just commented on the concept as presented. *thumbsup* and as I tried to make clear, I wasn’t singling you out nor was I attributing everything (or anything) I said to you specifically.

It's all good. The way I look at it, the II will never be a III but, it could sure serve as a "gateway drug" to the III with a splash of Ares goodness. My guess is that it would get some customers off the fence as far as upgrading to the III goes. Oh, not to mention it could also help stop the freefall on used II prices for a while as well.

Again, to be honest, I'd be happy if I could just have channels, the tri-chorus, and the updated pitch algorithm from Ares. The modelling from Quantum 7 up has all been fantastic and isn't obsolete in any way to me.

 

[chris]

Again, to be honest, I'd be happy if I could just have channels, the tri-chorus, and the updated pitch algorithm from Ares. The modelling from Quantum 7 up has all been fantastic and isn't obsolete in any way to me.

Channels is literally “WXYZ” switching, and any increase in speed is definitely due to hardware improvements. I would guess tri-chorus could be ported. Pitch algo update is probably hardware dependent too. Just trying to be realistic. But I could be wrong too, so we’ll see.

 

[Dogstarr]

You can't port the hardware, I have no doubt there'll be future upgrades ported to the II and AX8, they'll just be fewer and come after updates to the III.

Cliff says (with many hours work), they could likely port all the current software improvements to the II, but it's a discontinued unit, so time constraints would put development on the back burner, a fair upgrade price might be more like 500-700 usd. but even then the III will surpass the II in a year, or so and you might feel like you'd have been better off using that 500-700 towards a new III (I mean if you sell your II you'll get around 1500, so to upgrade to a III is only a bit more then a major update to the II...

This line of thought would not even be considered if FAS hadn't created a new business model with free updates and major improvements over the past 6 years with the Axe II, let's try not to give them so much grief for doing it, ok?

 

[raymitchell]

Channels is literally “WXYZ” switching, and any increase in speed is definitely due to hardware improvements. I would guess tri-chorus could be ported. Pitch algo update is probably hardware dependent too. Just trying to be realistic. But I could be wrong too, so we’ll see.

As far as channels go, I'd be happy to be able to load four amp blocks on the II and flip between them as scenes even with the usual gap when switching amps per scene. I say that because, depending on the configuration of the preset, the gap when switching amps between scenes (XY) can be smaller than when switching to a new preset.

 

[Clockwork Creep]

Well, the only UI port i really care for on the Axe 2 is the Input/Output blocks. I had quite some frustation setting up presets with multiple inputs with the current UI...
Personally, it doesn't hurt me that all new UI features aren't comming to Axe 2.
Lots of them are just nice-to-haves, but not essentials. And lots of them, like the mini tuner, i don't really care for... Though Axe 3 is better, and I might buy it sometime in the future, I am really ok with Axe 2.
The main reason why I asked was curiosity on how the axe works.

I fully understand that developing Axe 2 is not economical anymore, and it makes sense that it wouldn't get any updates (Though, it would be nice to have some amp modelling stuff to be ported every once in a while),
But even when Axe 2 was the king of the hill, the UI wasn't updated for the longest time. All updates were just to Amp modelling.
There were a lot of UI wishlist items, that were not addressed for the longest time, until Axe 3, where many of them finally were.
Which is why I was wondering whether that was a hardware limitation.

 

[unix-guy]

Well, the only UI port i really care for on the Axe 2 is the Input/Output blocks. I had quite some frustation setting up presets with multiple inputs with the current UI...
Personally, it doesn't hurt me that all new UI features aren't comming to Axe 2.
Lots of them are just nice-to-haves, but not essentials. And lots of them, like the mini tuner, i don't really care for... Though Axe 3 is better, and I might buy it sometime in the future, I am really ok with Axe 2.
The main reason why I asked was curiosity on how the axe works.

I fully understand that developing Axe 2 is not economical anymore, and it makes sense that it wouldn't get any updates (Though, it would be nice to have some amp modelling stuff to be ported every once in a while),
But even when Axe 2 was the king of the hill, the UI wasn't updated for the longest time. All updates were just to Amp modelling.
There were a lot of UI wishlist items, that were not addressed for the longest time, until Axe 3, where many of them finally were.
Which is why I was wondering whether that was a hardware limitation.

I'm confused... How are input and output blocks UI? Firstly, you don't have input/output blocks. You have the input and output of the grid... That is a fundamental difference. That means that the routing, etc must be changed... THEN the UI could be changed to work with those changes.

 

[Clockwork Creep]

I'm confused... How are input and output blocks UI? Firstly, you don't have input/output blocks. You have the input and output of the grid... That is a fundamental difference. That means that the routing, etc must be changed... THEN the UI could be changed to work with those changes.

As far as I understand, How the user is allowed to rout the the digital audio, is completely a matter of how the UI is designed.
Theorically, we coud rout the audio anywhere from anywhere, if the UI allowed it.
All blocks are static, the grid layout is just a GUI representation for routing.

 

[unix-guy]

As far as I understand, How the user is allowed to rout the the digital audio, is completely a matter of how the UI is designed.
Theorically, we coud rout the audio anywhere from anywhere, if the UI allowed it.
All blocks are static, the grid layout is just a GUI representation for routing.

I don't think so... But I'll defer to Fractal to comment.

 

[Billbill]

No ports for the axe2 sorry. I been trying to get a Fuantum update for my Ultra forever now

 

[brianv4]

I'd love it if some things from the III were ported to the II but if it's not worth the effort I'm more than ok with that. I'll just enjoy my III and keep my XL+ unless/until a full blown floor unit is announced ;-)

 

[Clockwork Creep]

No ports for the axe2 sorry. I been trying to get a Fuantum update for my Ultra forever now

The situation with the Ultra is a bit different.
There was no room for updates for the Ultra, which is the reason why Axe 2 was released.
In this case, there is still plenty of space in the Axe 2, and Axe 3 was just released all of a sudden without anyone expecting it...
Though, theorically, the Ultra could lose a lot of features to get room for amp modelling. It's pretty much as powerful as AX8, right?...

 

[Billbill]

The situation with the Ultra is a bit different.
There was no room for updates for the Ultra, which is the reason why Axe 2 was released.
In this case, there is still plenty of space in the Axe 2, and Axe 3 was just released all of a sudden without anyone expecting it...
Though, theorically, the Ultra could lose a lot of features to get room for amp modelling. It's pretty much as powerful as AX8, right?...

Actually I was just being facetious but I do thank you for educating me further. I didn't know there was plenty of room in the axe2 for this. At what cost, internally, is a good question.

 

[Rex]

...there is still plenty of space in the Axe 2...

How do you know this?

...the Axe 3 was just released all of a sudden without anyone expecting it...

So was the Axe 2.

 

[mnemonic]

Wasn’t the Mk. 1 and Mk. 2 pretty much out of space like almost a year ago?

I remember a firmware update that was only for XL and XL+, since it didn’t fit in the memory of the older units, until cliff managed to compress it more or something, and remove a few things such as previous modelling versions.