I thought I'd add a few words here about this story to provide some background as to why new labels were needful in the middle of a tour! Now, I know a lot about this rig, and a little about the experience of working with Steve, Dave, and Thomas, so here's my own short story.
Steve called me last summer from a rehearsal space. Whenever that name comes up in the caller ID, I get excited. I actually took his call from the end of a jetty off a quiet beach in Maine, water on three sides of me! After we solved a volume pedal problem, he told me that while he was thrilled with the sound of his Axe-Fx II, there were lots of things that needed to polishing in the programming... Steve knows tone/effects as well as anyone on earth. He creates his own Axe-Fx II presets and knows the unit well -- but this was stuff that's outside the realm of art and more towards engineering. (Moving things from the latter to the former has generally been Steve's advice as an unofficial product strategy consultant to Fractal.) The issues were familiar to me: spillovers needed work, levels needed to be normalized, and there were certain preset changes where the transition was too jarring, with a sudden jerk or a gap.
I'd go on to work virtually (thanks GoToMeeting!) with my all time favorite "guitar warlock," (hi Thomas) getting MOST of the issues solved, but from my virtual replica of the rig, I knew there was still room for improvement both in terms of sound and in ease of use/maintenance, especially given how complex my MFC-101 setup had become. Cliff and I brainstormed a few ideas. We talked about maybe adding new intelligence and features to the MFC. Then we came up with the idea for SCENES. At first, it would have been bypass states only, but I knew that in Steve's rig changes like this would also sometimes require small tweaks to MAIN level. Cliff then did the firmware magic that only he can do, and in initial tests, it was obvious that we were on to something really big.
Meanwhile, I had promised to meet up with Steve and Thomas to show them something "really cool". In what was now about 11 days, with an Amp Show and Axe-Fest West also looming! Enter Cliff's superhuman productivity and our team of trusty beta testers. Together, they raced through revisions until things were working smoothly to our shared satisfaction. I got on a plane. Flew out and did Axe-Fest West for 4 days straight. Next morning, another plane, another taxi, and I am in a hotel room with Steve's stage rig on Thomas' day off with an early beta of what would later become 9.0. Thomas and I worked for approximately 24 of the next 28 hours. I began by documenting what I saw (pencil and paper) then ERASING the unit and reprogramming from scratch (I'd do one preset per song with scenes). Prime guitar nerd moment: using iPad apps to convert between mix % and db to keep wet levels the same as multiple "leaky" dry signals in parallel were eliminated.
Steve played a show (San Francisco!) on the first pass of the revised rig. Things were "better" but even from the audience I could see and hear my own mistakes(plus a few bugs) in action! Not to mention that without a clear sense of ALL of the old problems, I'd precisely recreated some of them in the new system! Steve, always an inspiration, gave me some reassurances but intoned that while the light was visible, it might be better to stay where things had been rather than to introduce such big departures AND add new issues. We'd meet again "tomorrow" and work closely together again. I'd show him something new when he arrived. If he didn't immediately love it, I told my self, I'd restore all the old backups and then go out back and hang myself with a 7-pin MIDI cable.
As I crashed on the tourbus I created a new concept and emailed details to Cliff. (insert firmware magic sound.) >poof< 6 hours later I downloaded a new build to my laptop (over free wifi and proper Genmaicha... gotta love northern CA). Cut to a small room sidestage with 7 hours until soundcheck. Got out my notes. AGAIN I erased both Axe-Fx and MFC and Thomas and I went to work... The new plan was to compact the ENTIRE show into just THREE PRESETS. We'd use the brand new "Program Change to Scene Mapping" feature (it ended up being four presets though... at the time, X-Y had not been added to scenes and we needed too many delays in the final set). Work. Sweat. Breathe. More tea. More work. Steve showed up early and I must say that this was the saving grace. He stepped through the show, called out revisions and we polished that rig to perfection. Soundcheck. Now the real test: our new sounds will be heard in the context of the band and at gig levels. and.... IT WORKS!!! He'll try it out again tonight. (Last chance... the tour is en route to play a live streaming show into 13 million households!) Just as I'd seen struggles and sighs the night before I saw smooth sailing and smiles on night two. With two ~very~ small exceptions things seemed PERFECT. High five as he exits the stage for Dave's acoustic solo. At some point during the show, Steve asked me to come ON STAGE with him where he presented me with a generous personal thank you and gave Fractal a glowing public endorsement. (I also re-saved a scene where one effect should have been ON, but had been saved as OFF ;-) My second exception to perfection would later be solved by I/O:MIDI:SCENE REVERT ;-).
At the end of that night, after I told him how we'd solve the last wiggly-niggly, Steve Vai laid an arm around my shoulder, gave me a huge grin and said, "Matt, man... that was a 100% improvement. Thanks for all the love you guys put into this rig." I rode the tourbus to Anaheim, hopped off on the shoulder of the interstate to grab a taxi to LAX... my laptop bag still proudly bearing a STORY OF LIGHT: ALL ACCESS" pass.
PS: Facebook status summary re-cap: "Definition of Ambitious: erasing and re-programming Steve Vai's guitar rig with only 28 hours until show time. Definition of Insane: Doing it again the next day with only seven. From 40 presets to 4? Hello SCENES!"
PPS: Looking at pics in my phone on the flight out, I realized that I'd left THE most prestigious MFC-101 on earth labeled sloppily with sharpie on nasty looking gaffer tape...
