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