Adventures in Accuracy

[SinglecutGuy]

It's a product line logic.
Fender sells tube amps and live on its legends. If its modeler becomes too good, it competes with the main products and probably reduce the operational margin. So business executives lower the quality of the modeler to keep a step in quality with the higher end stuffs of their own.
Fractal is aiming to the best possible quality and delivers.

Wrong. Fender developed the Tone Master Pro because their tube amp sales have declined over the past decade (quite drastically, actually), so they are investing in the future with new, less traditional options.

 

[Amsz]

Whatever..
All we do is pure conjecture.
The point is that fractal’s still ahead

 

[tysonlt]

I’m not sure they’d sabotage one of their own products just to promote another one. That’s a pretty expensive marketing campaign. Perhaps there’s a just a bunch of frazzled engineers somewhere who were pushed on a tight timeframe and a limited budget. Can you imagine being on the engineering team told to compete with fractal?

 

[skolacki]

The writing is on the wall. If they don’t keep up they will be buried. Smart move to get in now but there’s a lot of catching up to do.

 

[tysonlt]

It must suck owning such an iconic amp brand and nobody wants to buy them, even though we love them, because we can get the sound out of a little black box.

 

[Dave Merrill]

The writing is on the wall. If they don’t keep up they will be buried. Smart move to get in now but there’s a lot of catching up to do.

Perhaps, but Fender has somehow survived a lot of changes in the industry and musicians' tastes over the years.
They may be the Ford or Chevrolet of MI companies, not Ferrari or Tesla, but they've stayed at least somewhat relevant longer than many of us have been alive.

 

[skolacki]

Perhaps, but Fender has somehow survived a lot of changes in the industry and musicians' tastes over the years.
They may be the Ford or Chevrolet of MI companies, not Ferrari or Tesla, but they've stayed at least somewhat relevant longer than many of us have been alive.

Definitely. But modeling is going to surpass tube amps sooner or later. They’re doing what they need to do to stay relevant.

 

[jaycal6]

Definitely. But modeling is going to surpass tube amps sooner or later. They’re doing what they need to do to stay relevant.

And yet a lot of people still have nice mechanical watches. I can get pretty much any sound I want out of my Fractal, but I still have a nice Hiwatt clone that I use quite a bit.

 

[touch33]

Definitely. But modeling is going to surpass tube amps sooner or later.

Not until Cliff gets the SMELLS right.

 

[laxu]

I’m not sure they’d sabotage one of their own products just to promote another one. That’s a pretty expensive marketing campaign. Perhaps there’s a just a bunch of frazzled engineers somewhere who were pushed on a tight timeframe and a limited budget. Can you imagine being on the engineering team told to compete with fractal?

Fractal honestly isn't Fender's competition. Line6 and NeuralDSP are more like it, because both are much more easily available around the world.

I fully expect Fender wanted to get this out for the holiday season and that has probably meant a lot of long nights for the Fender engineering team - and cutting corners. There's a good bit of "we plan to add this" talk, which is very similar to what NeuralDSP said when the QC was released. The only difference is Fender reps aren't confidently saying "soon" and "it's easy to fix/add".

It's honestly tough to go against Fractal or Line6 when both companies have over a decade worth of development and experience. I'm all for more competition and more options that are in the same ballpark because that means every company needs to push harder to be the top dog. And that's great for us end users.

 

[∞Fractals]

Any cool quotes from Fender on the PCB?

Like: “Behold my works and despair…”. lol

 

[Greg Ferguson]

Definitely. But modeling is going to surpass tube amps sooner or later.

There’s “modeling” as in the industry and technology as a whole, and then there’s “modeling” as in a particular company’s ability to digitally reproduce the sound of a particular amp.

The industry and technology are on par with the sound of tube amps now because of Fractal. Other companies not so much, and it will take years for them to approach where Fractal is now having had years of refining their code, and in the meantime Fractal won’t have been twiddling their thumbs doing nothing.

They’re doing what they need to do to stay relevant.

To try to stay relevant. I think the handwriting is on the wall and they see it, but merely coming out with a product and some cabs isn’t a guarantee they’ll remain relevant. We’ll see what happens in a couple years when they need to have delivered on their promises of updates to expand the capabilities.

Fractal has built the company into what it is partly because of its rapid release of updates that continue to improve the products. Fender has no such history so we’ll see if they can walk the talk; So far, the talk from Fender regarding the flaws in the design of the amp in their 12” cabinet has been babble so I’m not expecting much from them.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

Fractal honestly isn't Fender's competition. Line6 and NeuralDSP are more like it, because both are much more easily available around the world.

There are two areas of competition: technical prowess and advertising.

Fractal is the top of the heap as far as modeling excellence and that’s a hard hill to climb because so much of it is based on experience.

Advertising is tied to having deep pockets, and creating a perception of excellence in the eyes of the consumers, but people talk and wake up and realize the perception was not the reality. We’re proof of that.

 

[Immanuel]

Fractal honestly isn't Fender's competition. Line6 and NeuralDSP are more like it, because both are much more easily available around the world.

Yes! Fractal is to Fender (Digital) what Olson is to Martin. The later you can go into any shop and try out in your hands. Therefor, they are much more known brands with a larger potential user base. With the former, you get to try out an item by luck or by putting some effort into finding one you can try, or you buy based on expectations/rumors. You may have to choose between buying used or getting on a wait list.

 

[LerxstFan]

So happy I made the move from my Eleven Rack years ago to an AXE8 and now the Axe-FX III. The tones, flexibility, features (continued amps and pedals added), and relentless pursuit of being the best is second to none. Thank you Cliff, and team!

 

[Daveporter33765]

There are two areas of competition: technical prowess and advertising.

Fractal is the top of the heap as far as modeling excellence and that’s a hard hill to climb because so much of it is based on experience.

Advertising is tied to having deep pockets, and creating a perception of excellence in the eyes of the consumers, but people talk and wake up and realize the perception was not the reality. We’re proof of that.

So true!

 

[yyz67]

their tube amp sales have declined over the past decade (quite drastically, actually), so they are investing in the future with new, less traditional options.

It must suck owning such an iconic amp brand and nobody wants to buy them, even though we love them, because we can get the sound out of a little black box.

I think the handwriting is on the wall and they see it, but merely coming out with a product and some cabs isn’t a guarantee they’ll remain relevant.

There are also millions of Fender amps circulating in the used market: vintage, reissues and modded (along with boutique competition), with relatively high resale value due to their iconic brand.

Also the upcoming generations of musicians are digital natives & screen-oriented often with their own desktop/laptop apartment studios.

They may be the Ford or Chevrolet of MI companies, not Ferrari or Tesla, but they've stayed at least somewhat relevant longer than many of us have been alive.

True and kind of amazing given that other very successful consumer products companies like Atari, IBM, Polaroid and Kodak failed to thrive over the long run.

 

[elvtnedge]

As someone who is a relative newcomer to fractal (just over 2 years), the attention to detail is so appreciated. Although I don’t get alot of the technical aspects of graphs, I see the result and hear it. Gone are the days of having a discrepancy forum post about how I’m a little disappointed about a modelled effect pedal type not sounding close to either of my real pedals and being blasted by members telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I would have loved to have a graph to compare it to. The findings would have been blatantly obvious.

 

[Frodebro]

It must suck owning such an iconic amp brand and nobody wants to buy them, even though we love them, because we can get the sound out of a little black box.

They are still doing pretty well, and they also have their guitars. but the 800lb gorilla in the room is the future availability of vacuum tubes. Look at where they come from, and look at how things currently are with those countries. That’s not a reassuring situation for any of the major tube amp manufacturers, and the small guys doing the boutique stuff are probably crapping their pants as well.

 

[spikey]

To me, it's kinda like a tire with raised lettering & good tread on the outside but bad steel-belted design issues on the inside. There are a lot of people who just won't care about the inside of that tire because it looks so good on that hotrod of theirs...