Portable Axe-Edit

steadystate

steadystate

Fractal Fanatic
Any chance that Axe-Edit could eventually be available as a portable application (to a single folder or a thumb drive)?

That would be the bee's knees.
 
I don't mean a version that can run on tablets or portable devices. "Portable" as in it can be installed into a single folder and is completely self-contained. No tentacles spread into your registry, no administrative permissions needed. You can put the folder on a thumb drive, stick the drive into any compatible computer, and run the program. Delete the folder, and the program is gone, completely, no need to uninstall.

Portable apps are so convenient. I don't know if it is possible with AE, but if Reaper can do it, I figured it's worth posing the question. Portable Reaper rocks.
 
I would guess you'd still need the USB driver probably, so that takes away some of the benefit.
But all for it.
 
I tried to build a portable EXE including drivers and AxeEdit but the connection did not work.
So yes a portable AxeEdit can be done but you still need the drivers to be installed...
 
I just bought the II, and have a tremendous amount of work to do in AE. A huge amount of this could be done without needing the II connected. If the II must be connected in order to even open AE 3, then a portable app wouldn't be of great use to me.

Someone, a while back, posted the means to make the old AE portable. I used this to great advantage during my lunch hours at work and while staying at my relatives. I got a ton of "up front" work done that way.

It may be that the AE 3 can do nothing without an active connection to the II. But if this isn't the case, a portable version would be very useful.

I guess I'll find out this afternoon. My II arrives today.
 
I wish that the current Axe Edit would work "off-line". Maybe when Axe-Manage is up and running again? You could build patches from what you know you want and load them into the Axe FX and tweak when you get a chance. Get all the grunt work done like, block layouts, scene setups, external controller assignments.

P.S. Can't wait to hear what you come up with Mark, both on-line and especially live in person. This one is a completely different beast than the Ultra.

Enjoy your new toy.........Moke
 
Thanks Moke. I'll still be using the Ultra live for some time to come. Rebuilding all of my patches will take a long time. This is why "off-line" editing with a portable version would be so great.
 
There was some discussion about offline editing not coming back for AE.

IIRC, it's because the AxeFx "owns the data", i.e. the AxeFx is the only place that changes the preset data.

All other programs "ask" (a remote procedure protocol) the AxeFx to make the changes. Or to give them a black box of the data for saving to the computer.
 
If that is the case, my II will never see the stage unless I quit my day job. I estimate that 70% of what I need to do to reconstruct my presets could be done offline.
 
steadystate said:
If that is the case, my II will never see the stage unless I quit my day job. I estimate that 70% of what I need to do to reconstruct my presets could be done offline.
Click to expand...
That's a sad conclusion.. sorry to hear that.
The concept sounds real simple from a user perspective but it's a developers coding/sync nightmare.
Sure, other vendors support this feature. In truth, most of them are nowhere near as prolific as Cliff at market-leading enhancements and firmware updates. Their "rate of change" is negligible, so they can support offline editing - as not much changes! Remember the old L6 Editors (before Monkey) that used to work great! My amp received ONE firmware upgrade in FIVE years.. it was a bug fix release. Nothing else changed. Preset format stayed exactly the same. That's an easy situation under which so support offline editing.

I've tried to think of a simple way to compare this situation to the Axe's challenges, but.. <shrug> so here's my attempt.

SCENARIO: Take a simple situation that many Axe users have.
You have saved multiple versions of the same preset to your PC but saved them under different firmware versions. Now you want to edit one of them offline.

  1. Which firmware version/format should AE use?
  2. Should AE use the current firmware version?
  3. If not, should AE determine (and limit) the features/artifacts set in AE to match the saved preset version? How would it track those? How should it handle removing a control in AE that exists in current firmware but not in the preset being edited? Would you want it removed and have a big blank in that area, or make the control inactive? Either way, can you say confusion? How many forums topics would that generate. And....how many firmware versions should it track? What if your preset was older (see #6 below).
  4. If convert to current firmware (see #2 above), how does an offline AE know which firmware is on your Axe?
  5. What if you want to load that older preset to the Axe after installing the newest firmware? You need the Axe connected to get current firmware to convert the preset. If not connected, see #1 above.
  6. Or, should AE tell you that your "a" version of the preset is incompatible with current firmware?
  7. What if you try to open versions "b" thru "n" of the preset and you get the same result? Incompatible. Multiply that by X presets on your PC and imagine the frustration levels.

I understand why FAS made the decision NOT to support offline editing. The old AE used internal tables to track all these variants... and I certainly recall user frustrations with bad/corrupt and incompatible preset versions!!!!

There's simply too many variables/scenarios to address with offline editing.
If we were still on fw v1.0, then I would see it being relatively easy to implement.
 
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Here is my blue sky idea (not enough time for me get this off the ground):

First, have a program that can convert a preset to a plain text human readable file.

This would be cool for me to "diff" block settings to learn how folks create presets and how their routing is setup etc. Also convenient for posting block settings to the forum etc.

Second make an offline editor that would edit the plain text file only.

Third be able to send the plain text back the AxeFx latter for the actual preset edits in the box.

All of this is blue sky and a lot of work so I'm not suggesting this for FAS. Just throwing out some design ideas I have been thinking about related to offline editing.
 
barhrecords said:
Here is my blue sky idea (not enough time for me get this off the ground):

First, have a program that can convert a preset to a plain text human readable file.

This would be cool for me to "diff" block settings to learn how folks create presets and how their routing is setup etc. Also convenient for posting block settings to the forum etc.

Second make an offline editor that would edit the plain text file only.

Third be able to send the plain text back the AxeFx latter for the actual preset edits in the box.

All of this is blue sky and a lot of work so I'm not suggesting this for FAS. Just throwing out some design ideas I have been thinking about related to offline editing.
Click to expand...
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-fx-ii-discussion/54638-axe-fx-ii-preset-report-generator.html
 
s0c9 said:
SCENARIO: Take a simple situation that many Axe users have.
You have saved multiple versions of the same preset to your PC but saved them under different firmware versions. Now you want to edit one of them offline.

  1. Which firmware version/format should AE use?
  2. Should AE use the current firmware version?
  3. If not, should AE determine (and limit) the features/artifacts set in AE to match the saved preset version? How would it track those? How should it handle removing a control in AE that exists in current firmware but not in the preset being edited? Would you want it removed and have a big blank in that area, or make the control inactive? Either way, can you say confusion? How many forums topics would that generate. And....how many firmware versions should it track? What if your preset was older (see #6 below).
  4. If convert to current firmware (see #2 above), how does an offline AE know which firmware is on your Axe?
  5. What if you want to load that older preset to the Axe after installing the newest firmware? You need the Axe connected to get current firmware to convert the preset. If not connected, see #1 above.
  6. Or, should AE tell you that your "a" version of the preset is incompatible with current firmware?
  7. What if you try to open versions "b" thru "n" of the preset and you get the same result? Incompatible. Multiply that by X presets on your PC and imagine the frustration levels.
Click to expand...

So... in the AE3/fw11 scenario, if I load a preset made using a previous FW, does AE update it to match fw11's format or does the Axe-FX do the conversion?
 
Moke said:
I wish that the current Axe Edit would work "off-line". Maybe when Axe-Manage is up and running again? You could build patches from what you know you want and load them into the Axe FX and tweak when you get a chance. Get all the grunt work done like, block layouts, scene setups, external controller assignments.
Click to expand...

Yes. I miss the days of being able to look at patches at work without having the axe with me. Hopefully we will get a "Off-Line" version in the future.
 
steadystate said:
If that is the case, my II will never see the stage unless I quit my day job. I estimate that 70% of what I need to do to reconstruct my presets could be done offline.
Click to expand...
We haven't updated yet because as using AE offline is critical.
I have to think that Axe-Manage will work offline, otherwise what's the point?
 
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