Axe-Fx III Firmware Version 3.02 Public Beta #2

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For those of you long-time Axe Fx users, perhaps you're unaware of the reputation Fractal and the Axe Fx have. As a recent convert to FAS, I witnessed it plenty before I jumped on board and joined the forums. People see it/us/them as cold, curt, rude, condescending, complicated, pretentious, expensive, inaccessible - you name it - while at the same time basically recognizing that there is no better machine when it comes to tone and features. I'm not suggesting these are accurate descriptions, but that's the impression I got from various forums and groups for the last few years. That's why I never adopted Axe Fx until the III came out and the features were too good to resist.

This update makes the amps and drives more accessible, more approachable, more friendly; this update is a move in the right direction. This is the update I've been waiting for, for sure. I think some of my first posts mentioned me wishing there was an easier way to tell what controls made the model behave like the real amp/drive/etc.

I'm very excited for the full release of this. i think it's a brilliant move.
 
Back in my amp days, there were some that sounded wonderful out of the box...others, we hot rodded by messing with the tone stack, bias adjustments, tube swaps, speaker swaps, etc. Many fellow musicians did not experiment this deeply... Now, we can support both types. Great!
 
Fro said:
I do appreciate that you are trying to understand the thought process on this. Especially since you help a lot of us out with using the Fractal products. Here is one analogy that could be applied.

Did you know that fast food restaurants sell more burgers and fries just by having salads on the menu? Some people never purchase the salads, ever. By seeing the salad on the menu, they think about eating healthy for a moment, and feel like they have done so. Then they don’t feel guilty buying the burger or fries, and may even purchase more.

The point being, having something visible to a user can and will impact their decision making process. Even if its something they don’t touch or use. Add to that, there is a certain level of confusion you can have with high end gear like this. Sometimes organizing the controls a certain way will change the perception just enough to make the user experience a little more relaxed and appealing. It’s just as simple as that.



At least for me with this example, it's not so much that I would consider it "Advanced" but rather I just want to know if it was on the amp being modeled. I guess if that means they move to the advanced tab, then that works for me, for now. Maybe that will change when a switch or setting is added, not sure.

Authentic is an ideal place to start, for me. And as others have mentioned earlier, authentic amp design and controls may inherently be flawed or limited. If that's the case, and we can't get the sounds we like, flip a switch and move into a wider array of tweaking. I think some of the unwanted nastiness you can get with limited controls is fun to explore. And honestly, it prevents me from subconsciously dialing in every amp to sound exactly the same, which I sometimes do, lol.



Good point! I haven't tried them yet. So off I go...
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again, thanks for the discussion.

as with your last post, i think you're mostly describing displaying only authentic controls to help create a more authentic tone. i completely understand that part. i also understand that to a point, having even a few less controls can make dialing in seem easier. i do get that.

i think what i'm finally honing in on is the specific phrases like "all the advanced stuff is now hidden." the word "all" implies certain things, and truly none of the actual Advanced Parameters have changed.

that's why i'm trying to hash out what exactly do people consider as "advanced"? this helps me when communicating with customers.

so far, there's the concept of anything NOT on the original amp is considered "advanced."

i don't necessarily agree with this, because is the Mid considered advanced on one amp, but not advanced on another? that's using the word "advanced" as a concept. also, as mentioned above, all of the controls appear on the tab labeled "Advanced" - because they're all there, are they all Advanced? that's using the word "advanced" as a label specifically due to what the Axe3 shows.

to me and many (most?) others, "Advanced controls" are things that you absolutely couldn't adjust easily on any amp. things that basically no amp has a knob for. Negative Feedback, Sag, Transformer Match. all the stuff not in the "Basic" tab in Axe-Edit, for example:

Screen Shot 2019-02-25 at 10.15.01 AM.png

to me, those things are Basic, and mostly everything else is Advanced. that seems like a logical way to describe it. most amps have Bass Mid Treb, Drive, Master Volume, etc. just because it disappears on some amps, doesn't make them conceptually advanced.

so again, i think i'm having trouble understanding how "all the advanced stuff" is suddenly gone on the Axe front panel. just one tab has some things gone depending on the amp.

again, if this does it for everyone, awesome! perhaps i'm just confused about the semantics and word choice... yet i think people think more has changed than actually has.

i'll have to figure out what words to use now with customers when discussing amp parameters.
 
chris said:
again, thanks for the discussion.

as with your last post, i think you're mostly describing displaying only authentic controls to help create a more authentic tone. i completely understand that part. i also understand that to a point, having even a few less controls can make dialing in seem easier. i do get that.

i think what i'm finally honing in on is the specific phrases like "all the advanced stuff is now hidden." the word "all" implies certain things, and truly none of the actual Advanced Parameters have changed.

that's why i'm trying to hash out what exactly do people consider as "advanced"? this helps me when communicating with customers.

so far, there's the concept of anything NOT on the original amp is considered "advanced."

i don't necessarily agree with this, because is the Mid considered advanced on one amp, but not advanced on another? that's using the word "advanced" as a concept. also, as mentioned above, all of the controls appear on the tab labeled "Advanced" - because they're all there, are they all Advanced? that's using the word "advanced" as a label specifically due to what the Axe3 shows.

to me and many (most?) others, "Advanced controls" are things that you absolutely couldn't adjust easily on any amp. things that basically no amp has a knob for. Negative Feedback, Sag, Transformer Match. all the stuff not in the "Basic" tab in Axe-Edit, for example:

View attachment 52804

to me, those things are Basic, and mostly everything else is Advanced. that seems like a logical way to describe it. most amps have Bass Mid Treb, Drive, Master Volume, etc. just because it disappears on some amps, doesn't make them conceptually advanced.

so again, i think i'm having trouble understanding how "all the advanced stuff" is suddenly gone on the Axe front panel. just one tab has some things gone depending on the amp.

again, if this does it for everyone, awesome! perhaps i'm just confused about the semantics and word choice... yet i think people think more has changed than actually has.

i'll have to figure out what words to use now with customers when discussing amp parameters.
Click to expand...


At any rate i believe Cliff mentioned a new option for the original Tone page view, so the Advanced thing is not a problem anyone will have to deal with. Am i correct?
 
Quick question:
Is the porting of the original controls into the new view complete or in progress? Reason im asking is that certain amos still dont show the correct controls, Like the Fryette i mentioned earlier where there should be Gain I and Gain II and, in case "Overdrive" was one of the 2 gain stages, it is now completely gone from the Tone page controls..

Just hoping that it is a work in progress...

Thanks again, Im loving the AxeFx more than ever!
 
dumbeat said:
At any rate i believe Cliff mentioned a new option for the original Tone page view, so the Advanced thing is not a problem anyone will have to deal with. Am i correct?
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it is for me, when i need to discuss amp parameters with customers in emails and DMs. so i'm asking this community for its opinions and explaining why i'm asking.

oh boy this should be fun, i just thought.

"so just adjust the Mids knob in your amp"
"i don't see one"
"ok... go to Advanced"
"i don't want to do anything 'advanced'"
...

haha. oh joy. honestly, a lot of time spent in consultations is psychological convincing of what is actually happening, compared to what they want to see or hear.
 
dumbeat said:
Quick question:
Is the porting of the original controls into the new view complete or in progress? Reason im asking is that certain amos still dont show the correct controls, Like the Fryette i mentioned earlier where there should be Gain I and Gain II and, in case "Overdrive" was one of the 2 gain stages, it is now completely gone from the Tone page controls..

Just hoping that it is a work in progress...

Thanks again, Im loving the AxeFx more than ever!
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this is a beta. a beta typically by definition isn't complete.

that said, i don't think every single thing will match 100% exactly even when it's done. that's arduous, and potentially unnecessary. but we'll see what the process and goal is when it's done.
 
chris said:
it is for me, when i need to discuss amp parameters with customers in emails and DMs. so i'm asking this community for its opinions and explaining why i'm asking.

oh boy this should be fun, i just thought.

"so just adjust the Mids knob in your amp"
"i don't see one"
"ok... go to Advanced"
"i don't want to do anything 'advanced'"
...

haha. oh joy.
Click to expand...

I hear you Chris, just saying that soon will be a choice for Legacy view and Original view to my understanding, so no "Advanced" page scrolling.
 
chris said:
this is a beta. a beta typically by definition isn't complete.

that said, i don't think every single thing will match 100% exactly even when it's done. that's arduous, and potentially unnecessary. but we'll see what the process and goal is when it's done.
Click to expand...

It is only important in cases where the Gain I and Gain II are half the idea of the amp and that control is completely gone, not just named differently...
 
chris said:
it is for me, when i need to discuss amp parameters with customers in emails and DMs. so i'm asking this community for its opinions and explaining why i'm asking.

oh boy this should be fun, i just thought.

"so just adjust the Mids knob in your amp"
"i don't see one"
"ok... go to Advanced"
"i don't want to do anything 'advanced'"
...

haha. oh joy. honestly, a lot of time spent in consultations is psychological convincing of what is actually happening, compared to what they want to see or hear.
Click to expand...
As I've said, I think this is something for you to take up with FAS if you don't want to deal with that situation. It's in the Advanced tab, so some people are naturally going to refer to those controls as advanced parameters.
 
yeky83 said:
As I've said, I think this is something for you to take up with FAS if you don't want to deal with that situation. It's in the Advanced tab, so some people are naturally going to refer to those controls as advanced parameters.
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i agree, and thanks. not to beat a dying horse, but regarding this statement specifically, the same parameters can be considered Advanced and Not Advanced since they appear and disappear per amp. that's the confusing part about this concept.

we'll see.
 
yeky83 said:
lol if you want to I guess, I wouldn't. Just trying to explain to @chris why people have called some simple parameters "advanced parameters."
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Yeah, I get that. For me, it's not that they could be called "advanced parameters", it's that they are buried in the last page & makes it logistically illogical & a more cumbersome workflow to have BMT in the advanced page IMHO. In authentic mode, you have to go to the last page to adjust parameters that are commonly found on amps while parameters that are not found on any amps are right next to the tone page. I'm glad there will be a global option to choose how you want to work but I would rather have an authentic tone page with an ideal tone page right after it. This would make more sense to me as it would dispel the whole "what is an advanced parameter" thing. It would be a more ergonomic workflow if you want to go back & forth between authentic & ideal. The controls end up being duplicated either way. Why not put them in a more user friendly & nomenclature friendly place.
 
chris said:
i agree, and thanks. not to beat a dying horse, but regarding this statement specifically, the same parameters can be considered Advanced and Not Advanced since they appear and disappear per amp. that's the confusing part about this concept.

we'll see.
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This could be resolved by simply renaming the "Advanced Controls" to "Additional Controls" and the authentic amp controls as "Front Panel Controls" or some such naming convention.
 
dumbeat said:
Got ya. But IIRC, the controls that are not on the original design are bypassed when in default, so nothing supposedly goes through them by means of "Circuitry" until you change them. I personally think this revision is revolutionary no less, because of the human factor. Only few of us here might be scientists who know what each control that was not on the original might do to the complete circuit and not go on a goose chase for 2 days only to find out that the amp sounded better 2 days ago before the fiddling.
But again, thats me...
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These controls are not bypassed, they are set to a default value that represents the particular component value in the amp's original circuit.
A read through Axe Fx Wiki 'Amp Block' explains this.
http://wiki.fractalaudio.com/axefx2/index.php?title=Amp_block#Tone
 
With the new user interface it seems a natural progression to have "user friendly" controls. Whether it's a good idea or not seems a moot point though since Fractal said they're looking to add a global option to use them or not.
 
I am a great supporter of the "Show knobs that are actually on that amp" page.
However, putting the rest of the knobs so far out of reach is probably not a good idea.
I'd say - First page for "Front panel", second page "Tone", which displays all the knobs as they were before the change.
 
notalemming said:
Yeah, I get that. For me, it's not that they could be called "advanced parameters", it's that they are buried in the last page & makes it logistically illogical & a more cumbersome workflow to have BMT in the advanced page IMHO. In authentic mode, you have to go to the last page to adjust parameters that are commonly found on amps while parameters that are not found on any amps are right next to the tone page. I'm glad there will be a global option to choose how you want to work but I would rather have an authentic tone page with an ideal tone page right after it. This would make more sense to me as it would dispel the whole "what is an advanced parameter" thing. It would be a more ergonomic workflow if you want to go back & forth between authentic & ideal. The controls end up being duplicated either way. Why not put them in a more user friendly & nomenclature friendly place.
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I rather like @jasonmauer's suggestion of a toggle in the Amp page to flip between the two modes. But who knows what FAS will implement, I'm quite happy with it as is. Whichever page, it's pretty easy to get to.
 
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