IV anywhere on the horizon?

laxu said:
There really should be a one button shortcut to access it from any view. I miss some of the dedicated buttons of the Axe-Fx 2.
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The whole idea behind Performance Mode is to have your most commonly used controls in one place. Do you really foresee needing to navigate away from the Perform screen frequently?
 
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Piing said:
That sounds more like grumpiness and laziness to RTFM rather than geekness ;)
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BTW, sometimes you don't even need to RTFM. As an adventurous geek that I am, I had the courage of pressing the 'Perform" button without RTFM, and easy instructions magically appeared in front of me 🤓

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same, and it was my first day on the axe, its super easy to drag n drop what you need in there
 
For those so inclined, Axefx's flexibility, wrt modifiers on most if not all of the controls one would need to adjust on the fly, allows for hooking up one's preferred midi control surface - knobs, sliders, buttons ... whatever you want. I have some stuff hooked up that way here for easier access adjustment of frequently used parms - works great.
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Jason Scott said:
The whole idea behind Performance Mode is to have your most commonly used controls in one place. Do you really foresee needing to navigate away from the Perform screen frequently?
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Actually the opposite. I see the need to go to the Perform view from something else as quickly as possiblen if I know the param I need is mapped there. With the big knob button being the only place left for shortcuts I have put in a wish list item to make that more configurable, including making it go to Perform view.
 
The one other thing I'd say would make the Axe better would be backlit labels for all the buttons; I think someone mentioned something similar. Playing in low-lit places, you can't see the buttons or their labels at all, so I'm relying on my memory for the position of Enter, Exit, Page back and Page forward.
 
sprint said:
For those so inclined, Axefx's flexibility, wrt modifiers on most if not all of the controls one would need to adjust on the fly, allows for hooking up one's preferred midi control surface - knobs, sliders, buttons ... whatever you want. I have some stuff hooked up that way here for easier access adjustment of frequently used parms - works great
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Nah it has some major deficiencies in this use:
  1. Mapped controls become unadjustable with Axe-Edit or front panel knobs. This is a big deal because if your controller fails, you forget to bring it or connect it then your only option to restore control is to unmap these controls one by one, on a per preset basis. It's a stupid way to handle this as there is no issue that Axe-Edit, front panel and your MIDI knob controller can't work together at the same time.
  2. No support for relative values. Relative values mean that MIDI CC value <64 decreases the current param value and >64 increases it. On the MIDI controller you posted there isn't support for this anyway as it's just regular sliders and knobs, but with MIDI controllers that have infinite encoders, relative values would make a lot more sense because they retain the Axe-Fx param values as source of truth. Otherwise you end up with issues like your Bass is at 5.0 but your encoder at 7.0. You want to reduce bass to 4.5 so you turn the mapped encoder, only for Bass to first jump to 7.0 and then start reducing the value, losing your stored value in the process unless you checked it first.
  3. No global mapping. So you have to replicate the mappings on every preset instead of mapping them to all presets and then if the param exists it just works and if it doesn't, you have a knob that does nothing.
 
About MIDI parameter control, I think I’d be cool with that if 14-bit MIDI was being used, but not 128 steps. I’d not want to lose the excellent subtlety the knobs on the unit allow for!
 
laxu said:
Nah it has some major deficiencies in this use:
  1. Mapped controls become unadjustable with Axe-Edit or front panel knobs. This is a big deal because if your controller fails, you forget to bring it or connect it then your only option to restore control is to unmap these controls one by one, on a per preset basis. It's a stupid way to handle this as there is no issue that Axe-Edit, front panel and your MIDI knob controller can't work together at the same time.
  2. No support for relative values. Relative values mean that MIDI CC value <64 decreases the current param value and >64 increases it. On the MIDI controller you posted there isn't support for this anyway as it's just regular sliders and knobs, but with MIDI controllers that have infinite encoders, relative values would make a lot more sense because they retain the Axe-Fx param values as source of truth. Otherwise you end up with issues like your Bass is at 5.0 but your encoder at 7.0. You want to reduce bass to 4.5 so you turn the mapped encoder, only for Bass to first jump to 7.0 and then start reducing the value, losing your stored value in the process unless you checked it first.
  3. No global mapping. So you have to replicate the mappings on every preset instead of mapping them to all presets and then if the param exists it just works and if it doesn't, you have a knob that does nothing.
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ya - the bits I've done work for me here, but, good points - not gonna work for gigging / shouldda thought that one thru better before posting
 
laxu said:
Actually the opposite. I see the need to go to the Perform view from something else as quickly as possible
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Why would you need to frequently go to the Perform screen from another view? Do you need quick access to more than 20 parameters?
 
Jason Scott said:
Why would you regularly need to go to the Perform screen from another view unless you needed to assign more than 20 parameters? Do you need quick access to more than 20 controls?
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I'm thinking of it more as a "I have mapped some useful controls here that are faster to access than going to several blocks to adjust e.g. mix" type deal. I'm not using them for live use as I don't gig at the moment. But I still prefer having fast access to what I need.

Ideally I'd just use a MIDI knob controller for all this but as detailed above the support is lacking.

When I have time I'll try to develop a middleman app that can translate MIDI CC to Axe-Fx 3 Sysex param changes as that would get around the built-in support. I made one for the Axe-Fx 2 in 2018 and it was basically like a no holds barred version of the Perform view before Perform view even existed. I could swap between sets of 16 knob mappings on my Arturia Beatstep at the push of a button. Unfortunately the same methods don't work with current gen Fractal and I haven't had the will to investigate how to fix it.
 
laxu said:
When I have time I'll try to develop a middleman app that can translate MIDI CC to Axe-Fx 3 Sysex
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I've gotten great results using Bome Midi Translator Pro to turn a basic midi controller (PodHD) into a much more functional one - might be worth a look for this type project also.
 
…So, those who FAS about UI, how would you like your lV to look like after all?
Just a little bit of concept image will tell us a lot about your intentions, more than words.
 
I know 4 is not on the horizon, but I wish the floor model had the same effects and DSP power. They could call it 4 on the floor. I know it would cost more. Have 9 switches and all the power. Huge presets then with multiple amps and more pitch blocks.
 
laxu said:
I'm thinking of it more as a "I have mapped some useful controls here that are faster to access than going to several blocks to adjust e.g. mix" type deal. I'm not using them for live use as I don't gig at the moment. But I still prefer having fast access to what I need.

Ideally I'd just use a MIDI knob controller for all this but as detailed above the support is lacking.

When I have time I'll try to develop a middleman app that can translate MIDI CC to Axe-Fx 3 Sysex param changes as that would get around the built-in support. I made one for the Axe-Fx 2 in 2018 and it was basically like a no holds barred version of the Perform view before Perform view even existed. I could swap between sets of 16 knob mappings on my Arturia Beatstep at the push of a button. Unfortunately the same methods don't work with current gen Fractal and I haven't had the will to investigate how to fix it.
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Personally, for recording/playing at home, I don't need quick access, though Performance Mode would be more than adequate for my needs. However, for gigging, Performance Mode is a Godsend.
 
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I have often complained about people complaining about the UI 🤔 but it is a bit fiddly squinting at the screen in a dark venue trying to find the right performance page/row, now where did I put X… a hardware control surface would just be ace. Nothing like physical knobs… 🤔🤔

It comes down to the issues laxu mentioned. There is a wish for this. With relative value support and the ability to send sysex to read and write any parameter on any effect, we could make our own control surfaces with nice ring LEDs, without ‘hogging’ those parameters.

We know that Axe can do this, more or less, since axe edit works via sysex. But the protocol is not public.
 
Joel.Brown333 said:
I'm waiting for Fractal to come up with things real amps can't do, which they do in some cases now. Don't just emulate, go beyond what's possible with real amps. Set a new level of tone and feel that real amps can't do. A fundamental shift of power in the galaxy.

Until then, I'm good. I still haven't figured out half of what I have now.
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Check the FAS amps in your unit, they are exactly what you are suggesting.
 
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