Axe-Fx III Firmware 1.19 Public Beta

The latency feels much better. I still "hear" the short delay which imparts a sort of really small room ambience for lack of better term and is more prevalent to my ear when pitching up as opposed to down. Block Mix at 100% doesn't eliminate it. It's barely noticeable with a clean tone but with a distorted tone its very much there. In all fairness though I hear this same thing with my Eclipse and Whammy and the III is easily holding its own to improving on those devices. That delay must be par for the course with this type of effect. I used to pitch up my guitar with the Whammy to play Little Guitars but quickly ditched the Whammy for a capo because pitched up pick scrapes just don't sound good at all. Nice job Fractal!
 
What other weird things are occurring?

Beside what I mentioned, I noticed few more things coming / going:
A 150ms (aprox) single delay repeat on every preset (even if the preset has no delay block), after rebooting the Axe it stopped.
There was aprox' 500ms latency oh the pitch block and the lower down tune (-5, -6 step etc) didn’t work, I got a standard E tune like the block was in bypass.
I tried another thing, I selected a different preset, set a new pitch block and suddenly it did work and there was no "pop" in the background or down / up with the tune (as in the clip I attached) but the latency was there, just a little more than on 1.18.

I would be so happy to see this working.
Thank you so much Cliff.
 
Beside what I mentioned, I noticed few more things coming / going:
A 150ms (aprox) single delay repeat on every preset (even if the preset has no delay block), after rebooting the Axe it stopped.
There was aprox' 500ms latency oh the pitch block and the lower down tune (-5, -6 step etc) didn’t work, I got a standard E tune like the block was in bypass.
I tried another thing, I selected a different preset, set a new pitch block and suddenly it did work and there was no "pop" in the background or down / up with the tune (as in the clip I attached) but the latency was there, just a little more than on 1.18.

I would be so happy to see this working.
Thank you so much Cliff.
i haven't experienced any of that and just did a 2 hour preset build session. can you recreate this or did it only happen before you rebooted?

do you have any DAW or similar program that could somehow change the sample rate or something like that?
 
Huston, we have a problem,
I use a pitch down tune up to 4 steps.
It was working ok with 1.18.
If I now set the tracking to "0"' there is a "pop" sound in the background.
If set tracking to aprox' 5 (00:16s), it goes E to D to E like it can make up noise, mined.
Block and sound clip attached.
What am I missing...?
I had a go with your block.

With Tracking at 0, I get a single pop on low notes, about 50 ms (guessing) after thee note begins. I can't get it to make the string of pops in your clip.

With Tracking at or near 5, I don't get the pitch hunting in your clip; I just get a single pitch. (I'm guessing "can make up noise, mined" means "can't make up its mind.":))


Any idea how much CPU your preset was using?
 
The Eclipse has a more colored tone though. This is due to an aggressive lowpass filter on the input to the pitch shifter. The Axe-Fx uses less aggressive filtering. For upward pitch shifts this aggressive filtering produces a bell-like quality that might be considered desirable by some, I suppose, but I find it too colored sounding.
I love both of them. If you can add a "bell mode"... it will be Virtual Heaven. :)
 
Now that you know what's going on, couldn't you do this yourself?

Austin
I will try. I tested various filter in the past by hears... none of them was quite right.

I was against the "type" approach, now as I grow older I think is faster and more user friendly than DIY approach. IE, the amp type could be reduced to 10/20 type, with advance parameters to match any real amps. But with 200+ types that resemble brand and model every player could have a reference without advance knowledge and start with familiar sound and feel.
Furthermore, Cliff's readers could easely use the filter tip: other Fractal User (many of them don't surf the forum) no.
Last consideration... I don't like deal with an additional filter as I use a "pedalboard" approach and I like to engage/disengage the block as a real stompbox. There are workarounds, but simpler is better. ;)
 
do you have any DAW or similar program that could somehow change the sample rate or something like that?
No, I had this going on when plugged to my live rig, no DAW running in the background.

Tracking at 0 is much too low. Weird things are to be expected.
Sure, but when I set it to aprox' 5. I get this up/down weird tune, so I tried all the way to "0", just to see if it helps.
On FW1.18 I run it at aprox' 5 and its ok.

Any idea how much CPU your preset was using?
On FW1.18 it takes 52.4%.

I have a feeling the FW update wasn't 100% ok, maybe I will try later to go 1.19b again, just to compare.
 
Interesting because one of the products I used in my comparison was an Eventide Eclipse. The Axe-Fx stability and tracking was superior. Perhaps the H8000 has better algorithms than the Eclipse. From what I've been told, though, the algorithms are identical. The Eclipse has a more colored tone though. This is due to an aggressive lowpass filter on the input to the pitch shifter. The Axe-Fx uses less aggressive filtering. For upward pitch shifts this aggressive filtering produces a bell-like quality that might be considered desirable by some, I suppose, but I find it too colored sounding.
I've owned the eclipse also and the H8000 pitch shifting sounds superior. Not sure if it's the the algorithms or the analog design. I'm definitely likeing the beta update .
 
You're welcome !

A made a quick video to test the pitch block.



My expression pedal (2nd part of the video) is not sweeping perfectly though, it misses a cents or two at the higher end of the range so it sometimes sounds a little out of tune


That to me sounds awesome on the harmonies and drop tuning
I think it’s surely one of the better harmonizers I have heard
Definitely should get the Drop pitchfork off people’s boards

Dig it
 
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