Axe-Fx III Firmware 31.04 Public Beta #2

Shahar said:
Cliff: I'll group Reverb, seems simple and intuitive
Forum:
Angry Gary Oldman GIF
Click to expand...

All I got was...

1000002967.gif

Verbs done.

One. Done. Its on'ta the next One...

(oldman rUlEz... always has... always will!)

Screenshot 2026-01-28 211826.png
 
fremen said:
Indeed. The only grouping that would make sense is by brand, not sure if it's feasible for legal reasons though.
Click to expand...
Fender == Felix (Leo) <- get it... cat?
Marshall == Marcia (Marcia, Marcia)

Possibilities are endless...

...lean heavily into Matt here. <--slays... effortlessly!
 
fremen said:
Indeed. The only grouping that would make sense is by brand, not sure if it's feasible for legal reasons though.
Click to expand...
The trademarked brand name and model could be hidden from display but still participate in searching and sorting.

On topic: Beta works fine here. I love the reverb grouping more than the HM-2!
 
In the beginning, there were tube amps.

They were heavy, they were moody, they glowed like campfires in dim rehearsal rooms. Everyone who owned one suffered chronic back pain but felt deeply spiritual about it. “Yes,” they said, sweat dripping, vertebrae weeping, “but listen to that breakup—it’s holy.”

Then came solid-state amps. They were lighter, cheaper, and disturbingly practical. Guitarists eyed them with suspicion, like someone trying to offer kale at a barbecue. “It’s… fine,” they said flatly, secretly missing the warm hum of glass bottles threatening to explode mid-solo. The solid-state revolution quietly fizzled. Only jazz players seemed unfazed—they didn’t need distortion anyway. Most guitarists insisted jazz players didn’t really count, since they spent half their gigs sitting down and the other half playing 74 chords per bar just to annoy drummers.

Then came digital modeling, and hope resurfaced. Early units promised to capture the soul of a raging tube head. Instead, they mostly sounded like underwater farts recorded on a flip phone. Some players pretended they liked it (“It’s the future, man”), while others sprinted back to their glowing, unreliable tube rigs, proudly declaring, “This hiss? That’s tone.”

But then—ah, then—Fractal Audio emerged from the algorithmic mist. The heavens opened, firmware updates rained down like blessings, and guitarists across the land declared, “Behold! The tone is reborn!”
Tube-like saturation, sag, warmth—it was all there, shimmering on a screen. You could store 512 amp models and still have room for your dentist’s contact info. The joy was indescribable.

Years went by. Firmware evolved. One day, in a small but miraculous act of curiosity, Fractal modeled solid-state amps.

And suddenly, the same players who once scorned those “cheap, lifeless boxes” were weeping with joy. “They nailed it!” they cried. “It sounds just like the real thing!”
Somewhere, in a dusty pawn shop, a humble transistor amp blinked its red LED and whispered, “I told you so.”
 
Spent some time trying to sort em out. I have no doubt missed some amps and misplaced some amp models, but this is how I imagined the categorization being laid out.

Vintage American

American designs from the 1950s through early 1970s. Clean headroom, early breakup, wide lows, scooped mids, dynamic response.

5F1 Tweed
5F1 Tweed EC
5F2 Princetone
5F2A Princetone
5F8 Tweed Bright
5F8 Tweed Jumped
5F8 Tweed Normal
6G3 Deluxe
6G4 Super
6G12 Concert
59 Bassguy Bright
59 Bassguy Jumped
59 Bassguy Normal
59 Bassguy RI Jumped
65 Bassguy Normal
Band-Commander
Deluxe Tweed
Deluxe Tweed Jumped
Deluxe Verb Normal
Deluxe Verb Vibrato
Double Verb Normal
Double Verb Silverface
Double Verb Vibrato
Jazz 120
Princetone AA964
Princetone Reverb

Vintage British

British designs from the 1960s and early 1970s. Mid-forward voicing, power-amp distortion, classic crunch.

1959SLP Normal
1959SLP Treble
1959SLP Jumped
1987X Normal
1987X Treble
1987X Jumped
AC-20 12AX7 Bass
AC-20 12AX7 Treble
AC-20 EF86 Bass
AC-20 EF86 Treble
Brit JM45
Brit JM45 Jumped
Brit Silver
Brit Super
Class-A 15W TB
Class-A 30W
Class-A 30W Bright
Class-A 30W Brilliant
Class-A 30W Hot
Class-A 30W TB
Hipower Brilliant
Hipower Jumped
Hipower Normal
Plexi 50W 6CA7
Plexi 50W 6550
Plexi 50W High 1
Plexi 50W High 2
Plexi 50W Jumped
Plexi 50W Normal
Plexi 100W 1970
Plexi 100W High
Plexi 100W Jumped
Plexi 100W Normal
Plexi 2204

Hot-Rodded / Boutique

Vintage American or British foundations pushed further. More gain and sustain, still dynamic.

Atomica Low
Atomica High
Blankenship Leeds
Bludojai Clean
Bludojai Lead
Bludojai Lead PAB
Bogfish Brown
Bogfish Strato
Brit 800 2203 Low
Brit 800 2203 High
Brit 800 2204 Low
Brit 800 2204 High
Brit 800 #34
Brit 800 Mod
Brit 800 Studio 20
Brit JVM OD1 Green
Brit JVM OD1 Orange
Brit JVM OD1 Red
Brit JVM OD2 Green
Brit JVM OD2 Orange
Brit JVM OD2 Red
Budda Duomaster
CA3+ Clean
CA3+ Rhythm
CA3+ Lead
Cameron CCV 1A
Cameron CCV 1B
Cameron CCV 2A
Cameron CCV 2B
Cameron CCV 2C
Cameron CCV 2D
Capt Hook 1A
Capt Hook 1B
Capt Hook 2A
Capt Hook 2B
Capt Hook 3A
Capt Hook 3B
Carol-Ann OD-2
Carol-Ann Triptik Clean
Carol-Ann Triptik Classic
Carol-Ann Triptik Modern
Carol-Ann Tucana Clean
Carol-Ann Tucana Lead
Citrus A30 Clean
Citrus A30 Dirty
Citrus Terrier
Comet 60
Comet Concourse
Cornfed M50
Diamante Fire
Dirty Shirley 1
Dirty Shirley 2
Div/13 CJ
Div/13 CJ Boost
Div/13 FT37 Low
Div/13 FT37 High
FAS Brown
FAS Buttery
FAS Class-A
FAS Express
FAS Hot Rod
Fox ODS
Fox ODS Deep
Friedman BE 2010
Friedman BE C45
Friedman BE V1
Friedman BE V1 Fat
Friedman BE V2
Friedman BE V3
Friedman HBE 2010
Friedman HBE C45
Friedman HBE V1
Friedman HBE V1 Fat
Friedman HBE V2
Friedman HBE V3
Friedman Small Box
Fryette D60 Less
Fryette D60 More
Gibtone Scout
Hot Kitty
JR Blues
JR Blues Fat
Matchbox Chieftain 1
Matchbox Chieftain 2
Matchbox D-30
Matchbox D-30 EF86
Mr Z HWY 66
Mr Z MZ-38
Mr Z MZ-8
ODS-100 Clean
ODS-100 Ford
ODS-100 Ford PAB
ODS-100 Ford PAB Mid
ODS-100 HRM
ODS-100 HRM Mid
Shiver Clean
Shiver Lead

Modern High Gain

Purpose-built high-gain amps designed for tight low end, controlled bass, preamp saturation, and modern metal articulation.

Angel Severe 1
Angel Severe 2
Archean
Archean Bright
Das Metall
Energyball
Euro Blue
Euro Blue Modern
Euro Red
Euro Red Modern
Euro Uber
FAS Modern
FAS Modern II
FAS Modern III
FAS Rhythm
Herbie CH2+
Herbie CH2-
Herbie CH3
Herbie MK3
VH4 CH1
VH4 CH2
VH4 CH3
VH4 CH4
PVH 6160 Block
PVH 6160 Block Crunch
PVH 6160+ Clean
PVH 6160+ Clean Bright
PVH 6160+ Crunch
PVH 6160+ Crunch Bright
PVH 6160+ Lead
Recto1 Orange Normal
Recto1 Orange Modern
Recto1 Red
Recto2 Orange Vintage
Recto2 Orange Modern
Recto2 Red Vintage
Recto2 Red Modern
Revv Gen Green 1
Revv Gen Green 2
Revv Gen Green 3
Revv Gen Purple 1
Revv Gen Purple 2
Revv Gen Purple 3
Revv Gen Red 1
Revv Gen Red 2
Revv Gen Red 3
Solo 88 Clean
Solo 88 Rhythm
Solo 88 Lead
Solo 99 Clean
Solo 99 Lead
Solo 99 Lead Bright
Solo 100 Clean
Solo 100 Rhythm
Solo 100 Lead
Spawn Nitrous 1
Spawn Nitrous 2
Spawn Q-Rod OD1-1
Spawn Q-Rod OD1-2
Spawn Q-Rod OD1-3

Again, there’s undoubtedly some errors, but I’m tired of looking at the Wiki 😅

If not a category feature, I’d love the ability to hide some amp models in the Amp Type List in editor.
 
biggness said:
Spent some time trying to sort em out. I have no doubt missed some amps and misplaced some amp models, but this is how I imagined the categorization being laid out.
Click to expand...
I appreciate the effort, but I have questions. If all of the JCM800 circuits are together under hot-rodded, shouldn’t all of the Plexi circuits be together.., wherever they land? …and all of the Vox/Vox-adjacent ones?

I guess I’d just draw the lines differently, which is the difficulty in trying to do this kind of grouping. Brand would be cleaner.
 
FractalAudio said:
Grouping the Amps is next to impossible in the hardware. The editor could possibly have metadata allowing filtering.
Click to expand...

Metadata filtering would be great.

Loving the new update though. The midrange is more pleasing to me now.

I do have a few questions though about the newly added transistor type power tube:

-What anticipated effect does master volume have with transistor type now?

-What frequency response does Depth and Presence have now?

-Any other changes behind the scenes when selecting transistor type, like disabling Cathode Follower, Sag, Bias, etc)

-Any plans to add different transistor types?

I’m really excited about this and eager to learn more about it to help me get closer to some tones/feel that have eluded me and others for the past twenty years with the AxeFx. 🤘
 
Having fun playing this beta! Hadn't noticed any issues for about an hour. But then the USB audio to my Mac Studio stopped working (from any source, not just Logic).
Hadn't had that happen in a long time. Not sure if I can reproduce, but I had to reboot the Axe-Fx III to bring back audio.

Mac Studio M1 Max, running Tahoe 26.2.
I had just updated Logic Pro to 12 yesterday, so I was playing with a simple recording to explore some new features there. Recorded a guitar track no problem. Added some drums and studio instruments. Paused to answer a call. And silence from any playback.
Will see if I can reproduce, but checking Mac settings (audio, audio midi, etc) didn't do anything nor did unplugging and replugging usb cable.
 
FractalAudio said:
Grouping the Amps is next to impossible in the hardware. The editor could possibly have metadata allowing filtering.
Click to expand...
What about a consistent naming by brand? Like adding "Brit" as the first word for all marshall models (not all of them currently have it iirc), something like "Fnd" or "Fullertone" for all fenders, "USA" for mesa, "Vx" for vox, etc.
This would already make much easier/quicker navigating thru them imho.
 
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@biggness thats a great start! I may add one more differentiation between boutique low gain vs higher gain amps but not sure how you do that exactly.

This type of list is really useful because I honestly forget some of the exist or don’t really know some of them.
 
@FractalAudio

THANK YOU CLIFF FOR THE BOSS HM-2!

I am one of the users who always wanted the HM-2 on the Axe-Fx 3.
I remember you saying something along the lines of "there's a ton going on with the mid-frequencies there" about the pedal.
I also wondered whether this would cause it to be challenging to replicate the pedal in the digital realm.
Last evening, I compared the Swedish Metal side-by-side will the real thing. A BOSS HM-2, which was a Christman present in 1990. It runs on 12v, not 9v, so I stuck a square battery in it and off we go! Bork, Bork!

The Fractal version is fan-tast-ic, thank you.
The only real difference I could find [with my ears] was the Fractal version had a tiny bit more 'body.'
All I did was turn the bass down a tiny bit on the Fractal and bingo! I would put that down to... [I don't have your technical vocabulary], a difference caused by the cumulative effect of components having different tolerances?
After that, I became confused. A few times I lost track and couldn't tell if I had the physical pedal on or the Fractal version.

Guys, you get all these derivatives of the HM-2 out there, right?
Roll your own. Experiment, do odd stuff, see what happens, you can have your own modded HM-2.
I kept the diode type as the original, but increased the number of diodes to four [on the left] and replaced the diode on the right with a single white LED.
Different flavour of HM-2!
No soldering or inhaling of the fumes required.
 
1234 said:
@FractalAudio

THANK YOU CLIFF FOR THE BOSS HM-2!

I am one of the users who always wanted the HM-2 on the Axe-Fx 3.
I remember you saying something along the lines of "there's a ton going on with the mid-frequencies there" about the pedal.
I also wondered whether this would cause it to be challenging to replicate the pedal in the digital realm.
Last evening, I compared the Swedish Metal side-by-side will the real thing. A BOSS HM-2, which was a Christman present in 1990. It runs on 12v, not 9v, so I stuck a square battery in it and off we go! Bork, Bork!

The Fractal version is fan-tast-ic, thank you.
The only real difference I could find [with my ears] was the Fractal version had a tiny bit more 'body.'
All I did was turn the bass down a tiny bit on the Fractal and bingo! I would put that down to... [I don't have your technical vocabulary], a difference caused by the cumulative effect of components having different tolerances?
After that, I became confused. A few times I lost track and couldn't tell if I had the physical pedal on or the Fractal version.

Guys, you get all these derivatives of the HM-2 out there, right?
Roll your own. Experiment, do odd stuff, see what happens, you can have your own modded HM-2.
I kept the diode type as the original, but increased the number of diodes to four [on the left] and replaced the diode on the right with a single white LED.
Different flavour of HM-2!
No soldering or inhaling of the fumes required.
Click to expand...
How did you do this? I don't have the option to change the diodes.
 
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