For those struggling with FW18 - my own experience...

Im struggling with 18. But thats normal for me. I whined about 17.04 being 'stiff' but after starting from scratch i loved it.

Im also a IT nerd/pro so the idea that a reload could pass the crc and still be broke really seems dubious. Also i imagine that cliff and the beta team doa zillion more loads than the average enthusiast and would have seen this happen.

When i loaded 18... it was a startling difference. But there was something odd. Every amp sounded the same.

i did a reset parms and now its a bit thin and less gain. I just plan to beat on it until i figure it out. Im confident that its gonna be great.
 
Hey folks! Sukh here, hope you're all well.

I normally stay well out of 'this FW has borked my tones' discussions, and I know this has been mentioned somewhere in the 20+ page thread on FW18, but thought I'd put this here, where it's easier to find, just in case it helps anyone having the same issues I did.

I've been an Axe user since 2010 and have loved every single FW update - my tone has just gotten better and better. It took me time to find a cab mix that I loved (I use a stereo cab with 2 IRs) and I've just stuck with it. So much so that when FW8 rolled around, I couldn't imagine wanting any other tone from the little box, as it was EXACTLY what I had been hearing in my head since I started playing guitar 26 odd years ago.

Now, because of this, I just stuck with FW8. It did what I needed and, as cool as all the updates sounded, I knew that 9 onwards was accepted by the majority as being one that really changed tones and required more rework of presets than usual. Now, 2+ years later, along comes FW18 and the RAC12 (which I LOVE, btw) and it was time to update. I did so, knowing things would be different, but I was in for a shock as to how much things had changed, as my once lovely presets now sounded totally 'broken'. Not in a 'things have changed, you need to tweak' broken, but spectacularly beyond belief FUBAR.

No matter how much tweaking, restarting from scratch, trying different amps and IRs etc, it just sounded horrible, thin and boxy (and I'm not averse to setting things up and tweaking like mad - I'm used to it). After a week, I rolled back to FW8 (I'd backed up, of course!) and everything sounded right again. I still couldn't accept that FW18 could make things sound worse though (and there are plenty of sound clips out there that are mind blowing), so I reinstalled it and tried again. It sounded bloody awful still. Massive amounts of noise (that I had to gate EXTREMELY aggressively to keep quiet) and still the horrible plasticky sound I heard before. I checked all global parameters, I/O, reset amps etc etc - the basic drill when updating FW.

So I left all alone for a few days as I was out of town with work (my day job).

This morning, I tried one last time, but this time re-downloaded the beta FW and reinstalled it. Nothing else was done differently - nothing else connected / disconnected / moved / labelled / washed / same underpants etc etc. Basically the same as I'd done twice already and..... Bob is now a very close relative indeed... MASSIVE DIFFERENCE!

Now, with a lot less tweaking that I expected, I'm hearing FW18 as I expected it to sound. It's absolutely CRUSHING - waaaaay beyond the tones I got from FW8, and worth every bit of the acclaim it's been getting. I'm happier than I've ever been with my tone. But the point of this post isn't to tell you that. It's to say that I've now experienced, first hand, the phenomenon of 'this FW sounds wrong'. I am a computer scientist by trade and an old-school programmer (many years ago) so I understand 1's and 0's and I cannot fathom why this would even be possible ... but I've now, personally, heard a 'broken' update and would say to anyone else experiencing this oddness, please please please, try to re-download and re-install the FW. If it still sounds buggered, try, try again.

I cannot explain why, but it worked, and I'm (again) a very very happy bad guitar player.

Cheers!
Sukh

Did the same today. Fixed the Mesa's and some others that sounded and felt hard. Including Mark and recto. All is well in paradise again.
 
Never thought I'd say this about a Fractal firmware up date, but at least for me, 18 just sounds bad. I'm sorry but something is not right. I tried the reload suggestion and I think it even got worse. Headed back to 17. Wow! Hope it is working well for everyone else. I just do not understand but based on some of the comments above, something is not right in some of our machines. Even my other guitar player noticed it immediately.

Peace,

Mj
 
Something is wrong then. It does not sound worse. It may sound different but it should not sound worse.

Please describe the sound and what happened to it.
 
It's just flat, no life. Has the traditional sound of a blanket over the speakers or something. I can't really put my finger on it. I was very happy with 17.xx but after hearing the rants about 18 I could not wait to get to it. I've loaded it twice now and neither sounded very good. No where near 17.xx. Our other guitar player look at me and said can you get the previous version back. I have not tried to get back to 17.xx, but I sure hope it works. I was very happy with 17.xx. Don't get me wrong, I love this machine but it scares me every time I update as the reactions tend to be all over the board. Some say it's great, other just do not care for the update. I just can not understand the extreme difference in opinion. There has got to be something to this. It's probably just me doing something wrong.

Peace,

Mj
 
Just catching up with this thread and I thought I would add my experience to it.

I had 17.04 and have all my presets in bank C (#256-). downloaded Public Beta 18 and before installing, backed up all banks and system using Fractal-Bot. Loaded FW18b with no errors and MFC not attached. Rebooted with MFC attached.

First impression of FW18b was that it was thin so I started playing with my presets. Not much success even reset amp blocks and disabling blocks, changing cabs. Got a little better but not as expected from the postings on the FW18b thread.

Decided to reset my presets only (Bank C) and start again. Sounded better so it appears that if the FW is loaded without error, it's possible that there something else not initialised which causes the initial loading to be "incomplete".

With such a significant update, may I respectfully suggest that the FW update following this procedure:-
1. FW update include all banks that have been tested with the new firmware.
2. Users must backup all their own or modified presets either by bank or individually and acknowledge that this has been done by responding to a prompt on the front panel.
3. The load of the new FW, resets the machine entirely just as if it were a new machine leaving the factory.
4. User restore their presets as and when required.

That process guarantees consistency except for user presets. If global settings need to be restored, then a separate backup and restore process is needed for that task.

I'm enjoying FW18b and looking forward to the remaining amps to be G3'd. Thank Cliff and everyone at FAS.
 
I may try this, just for fun. I did struggle, although I think I'm ok now. Honestly, I don't trust my ears. I feel like they fatigue easy. But I worked with this firmware right up until a few hours before my show last night and did get something I liked. It just was far from quick and easy. I reset things, tried from scratch, etc. I even tried a few new amps that everyone raves about, and just couldn't figure out why anyone liked them. I do realize there is a chance that those just could be amps I wouldn't even like in the real world. None the less, it does seem to sound ok now. But I'm just very curious now to see if it would be any different if I reloaded the firmware. It would be nice to know if there was some logic behind it.
 
I have no special modified presets. I use the presets just as they come from Fractal with no mods what so ever. So I am not concerned with presets I've spent many hours tweaking. I pretty much use just the stock Freidman BE and HBE presets. However, after this update, something just isn't right. It is just not there. I'm sorry, but I can not hear what the rest of you are hearing. I love this machine, I've almost come to blows over it. I just do not understand what I'm doing wrong. I sure do want to hear the 18 goodness the rest of you are hearing. I'm not giving up, just a little disappointed. Thanks for your time and patience.

Peace,

Mj
 
So i had a similar thing happen. After installing 18b a few weird things have happened here and there.
The amps started out sounding like a wool blanket over the sound (as other have reported) - then later some presets started sounding very 'mid range', almost comb filtered, and the distortion was very unusual - choppy or 'lumpy'.
Thought my guitar battery was going dead, but all seems OK today after simply turning the AFX off for the night and back on this morning.
I'll post a complete report in the bug forum.
 
Last edited:
So, just wondering how many folks that are having an issue have the MFC-101 plugged in? I disconnected my gen 1, loaded the firmware, and bamm there is was. Tonight I plugged in the MFC-101 again, and for some reason, the patches didn't sound as good. Could this cause some interaction that is making the patches go south?
 
I have no special modified presets. I use the presets just as they come from Fractal with no mods what so ever. So I am not concerned with presets I've spent many hours tweaking. I pretty much use just the stock Freidman BE and HBE presets. However, after this update, something just isn't right. It is just not there. I'm sorry, but I can not hear what the rest of you are hearing. I love this machine, I've almost come to blows over it. I just do not understand what I'm doing wrong. I sure do want to hear the 18 goodness the rest of you are hearing. I'm not giving up, just a little disappointed. Thanks for your time and patience.

Peace,

Mj

I saw that you put earlier that you've reloaded it twice. Was it the same file from your computer or have you tried to re-download the file from FAS.?

I've never had this phenomenon happen but I've always suspected that the few that do experience troubles may have a bad file. I always figured that sometimes during the download process a few 1's and 0's might have missed the boat.
 
I totally down loaded the new file and tried again. If I'm correct, the OP said it took 3 tries. Little confused and concerned based on having to try 3 times. I've done it twice but intend to try again after I have several shots of Crown. Never had issues before and I'm on my second Axe Fx. Best piece of gear I ever purchased and if you saw my studio that is significant. Guess it's just my turn.

Peace,

Mj
 
I totally down loaded the new file and tried again. If I'm correct, the OP said it took 3 tries. Little confused and concerned based on having to try 3 times. I've done it twice but intend to try again after I have several shots of Crown. Never had issues before and I'm on my second Axe Fx. Best piece of gear I ever purchased and if you saw my studio that is significant. Guess it's just my turn.

Peace,

Mj

I can go on my video live stream in a bit so we can chat and you can compare how your axe sounds with a new preset built from scratch etc if you want. Let me know and I'll get it going.
 
BTW - when my sound messed up on the Recto Modern Red it sounded almost like a wa pedal fixed at a lowish mid frequency. Though i never engaged the wa block. It also had that funny put-put distortion. And the 65 bassguy was sputtering as if the cable was faulty but a tiny bit was still getting through. I was using Axe-Edit quite a bit at the time... Seems OK now.
 
I still am a computer scientist, and just yesterday I downloaded an .ISO image of SUSE Linux for a client, and it appeared to be OK, and when I went to install it as a virtual machine, it had all sorts of problems.

I had downloaded it with chrome. I downloaded it again with the same results. This is a 3 gig ISO image. So, on a whim, I downloaded it with Internet Explorer 11, and then it was fine.

This illustrates that sometimes downloads can appear to be OK, but may still have some corruption that wasn't initially detected.

Just another observation. So if your update doesn't perform as expected, and is completely terrible, it may have had just a little corruption that caused a problem. Download it from the web again, and maybe use a different browser, and then perform the upgrade again.
 
Very strange that some are having to load the FW file several times, and others aren't.....

I loaded it once and it's working fine.
 
I got on board @ FW10 and have made every update, each time amazed at how much better things have gotten. Your mind must really be blown right about now!
 
Back
Top Bottom