3rd party Dyna-Cab packs = Axe IV is coming?

Werpinater said:
However, don’t discount the number in the bedroom guitarist demographic that want a pro-level/highly tweakable device.
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I know more than one. One guy has amps and guitar noise makers most only dream of. He never leaves the house. I keep telling him at least join a band. Zero interest.

This is basically me with recording gear. I’ve amassed a Ferraris worth of recording equipment and the more stuff I get, the less I actually record. Never did much of anything serious or for real in recording. Who’s buying all these mics and outboard compressors? Guys like me, mostly. Bedroom and basement home studios.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
There’s no way this industry could survive on touring or even gigging semi professionals. There are hundreds of hobbyists who will never do more than play for beer money, most of the time never leaving the house for every musician who takes the craft seriously.
It’s great seeing the gear on stadium stages, but I’m betting that’s a small fraction of sales.
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Right, but I'm talking about the overall effect that seeing those AxeFX units in the big acts' racks has on sales. Most of the units sold aren't to big touring acts, but I'd wager that a large portion of overall sales are due to directly seeing those big acts using Fractal gear, or on the recommendation of somebody who got into Fractal because of those bigger acts.

Again, armchair speculation. Only Fractal knows for sure, and they don't have to explain any of this to us :) it's just a fun mental exercise to me.
 
rossipedia said:
Right, but I'm talking about the overall effect that seeing those AxeFX units in the big acts' racks has on sales. Most of the units sold aren't to big touring acts, but I'd wager that a large portion of overall sales are due to directly seeing those big acts using Fractal gear, or on the recommendation of somebody who got into Fractal because of those bigger acts.

Again, armchair speculation. Only Fractal knows for sure, and they don't have to explain any of this to us :) it's just a fun mental exercise to me.
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Oh no doubt seeing big names using gear sells gear.
 
Is there something wrong with marketing and exploiting consumers need for purchase confirmation? I want to see FAS do well. If someone thinks buying an AxefxIII will make them sound like Steve Vai than by all means, scream it from the rooftops steve uses one.
 
Deasnutz said:
Is there a successor dsp chip/platform in mass production that would justify the performance increase?
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There are TI chips that just bundle more of the DSP cores that the Axe-Fx 3 uses. But they cost several times more than the chips Fractal users atm, like massively more. And that's for 1000+ unit quantities so that's a lot of money to tie into just one part.

Would it be nice if next gen Fractal lets you cram in 3 or 4 amp and cab blocks into a single preset? Sure, but I can bet the majority of users don't even make use of the 2 you have and very few run their whole band through the Axe-Fx 3. At least I have a hard time running into processing limitations on the Axe-Fx 3.

Another product that might be significant for future digital modelers is the Analog Devices SC594. Depending on availability and pricing of course. The Quad Cortex uses the SC587 afaik and the SC594 pretty much doubles the speed of both the DSP and ARM cores. I don't know enough of other architecture differences to say how they stack up.

To me the next gen modeler "battle" is entirely fought on usability rather than processing power or higher sound quality. That's where real advancements can happen.
 
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I wouldnt expect a new model until 2027. Consider the 2-3 years of offset COVID and shortages caused + increasing prices + no significant DSP innovation + the current competitive product stack + Dyna-Cabs and room for updates on the current platform. Definitely not something you can resolve within a year or two.

The next unit has to be really groundbreaking to make sense, eg somehow involve AI in the modeling, extensive UI upgrades like a simplified mode with pre-made artist tones (since thats what the average user wants; just pick the tones of you fav bands and go), peripheral and connectivity upgrades, etc. The old release cycles are no longer relevant, I reckon we'll only be seeing a new gen every ~10 years from now on.
 
Hobbyist with good paying day jobs have better gear than like 98% of professional musicians, because 98% of professional musicians can barely make ends meet these days, much less rock high end processors. The other minority of well to do arena acts still have that luxury but even for them things are getting tighter.

The typical bluez lawyer/dentist types are probably going to be richer than most rock “stars”
 
lqdsnddist said:
Hobbyist with good paying day jobs have better gear than like 98% of professional musicians, because 98% of professional musicians can barely make ends meet these days, much less rock high end processors. The other minority of well to do arena acts still have that luxury but even for them things are getting tighter.

The typical bluez lawyer/dentist types are probably going to be richer than most rock “stars”
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I guess whether someone takes this as a problem or just accepts it as a fact of life really depends on our individual views.
I had a very good chance at going professional once in my very early years. I decided against it because all my professional friends told me if I don't feel so very drawn or feel like I'm gonna die if I don't make a living out of music then I should just outright avoid it. Granted, I live in a very small Eastern European country where only the top acts get to make a decent living out of music and I wouldn't really call the current top acts music anyways.
So I didn't pursue the opportunity and ended up in IT Sales and just like you've mentioned I'm able to afford much better and much more gear than my professional friends. I absolutely love guitar playing, it's one of the most important things in my life and most of the time I'm actually thankful I didn't take the professional route. But still, sometimes I feel like I've given up on something that maybe would have made me happier? Every once in a while I have the "what if" thought in the back of my head and sometimes I have an urge to find a way to go professional, even if it's just a side gig and not my main source of income just to get an experience with that, too.
So yeah... I guess it really comes down to perspective. My professional friends couldn't imagine any other other life for themselves and while I have the better gear, they are the real musicians and I'm just an enthusiast. So in a way even though I can imagine they would be happier if they made enough to afford the same stuff I can, they are still content with their life choice as they didn't feel like they had another one.
And yet... even some of my professional friends had to take second jobs they aren't really content with just to literally stay alive and have something to eat because music doesn't even pay the bills here. So honestly - it's just a huge mess regardless of perspective.
Or something like that anyways...
 
lqdsnddist said:
Hobbyist with good paying day jobs have better gear than like 98% of professional musicians, because 98% of professional musicians can barely make ends meet these days, much less rock high end processors. The other minority of well to do arena acts still have that luxury but even for them things are getting tighter.

The typical bluez lawyer/dentist types are probably going to be richer than most rock “stars”
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im a metal software engineer but close enough.
 
Happy Mtv GIF by INTO ACTION
 
You asked, I think some people are missing out on a lot of joy just utilizing what they have and playing, instead, going into space in search of the next revision or additions that require a new unit of simply steals everything from you. Cliff will do what his inspiration desires and when it comes. You’re wasting your time and anyone else’s that reads it.
 
lqdsnddist said:
Hobbyist with good paying day jobs have better gear than like 98% of professional musicians, because 98% of professional musicians can barely make ends meet these days, much less rock high end processors. The other minority of well to do arena acts still have that luxury but even for them things are getting tighter.

The typical bluez lawyer/dentist types are probably going to be richer than most rock “stars”
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I'm lucky to still tour enough to make a living out of it, but it's getting harder and harder.

And yes it's hard for your everyday pro player to buy high end gear.
 
Joshua_L said:
I'm lucky to still tour enough to make a living out of it, but it's getting harder and harder.

And yes it's hard for your everyday pro player to buy high end gear.
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I was a pro photographer for about a decade and my daily used gear was so out of date compared to the well to do hobbyist, but I had to make ends meet to keep a roof over my head etc, and money wasn’t coming from anywhere else so couldn’t update the gear much….

Contrast that to some well to do enthusiast who can drop $12k on a new super tele photo lens they will take on their African photo safari or just birds in their backyard lol

The animals they take picture of don’t even buy the photos, it’s just a rich man’s hobby, which is fine and good, but different set of tools
 
There are a number of posts in this thread that discuss a “rich man’s” hobby use of premium gear like it’s a distasteful waste of good equipment that would be better used by “professional” players who are attempting to make a living playing music.

I would not be surprised if many of us “hobby” Fractal customers were once professional players who had hopes of having a lucrative career playing music but realized early on that few musicians are able to make a good living doing so. However, that does not mean that we did not continue to play professionally during our lifetimes even though we built other careers to make our living. Playing guitar became our much loved hobby.

If we “rich man hobbyists” did not buy expensive guitars, Fractal modelers, audio interfaces, and all the other premium gear used by musicians, the market for all this gear would be much smaller, resulting in the cost of premium gear being much greater than it is today.
 
Daveporter33765 said:
There are a number of posts in this thread that discuss a “rich man’s” hobby use of premium gear like it’s a distasteful waste of good equipment that would be better used by “professional” players who are attempting to make a living playing music.
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Nobody said that.
 
Being a former avid smoker, I judge the cost of my guitar obsession hobby by the pack-a-day smoking habit yardstick. By this yardstick, though I have amassed 10s of k$ of guitars and related gear, and though used only in my basement man-hole, and despite limited proof that said gear has actually helped to improve my playing skills in any way, guitar costs me less per annum, on average, than smoking would.

So I got that goin for me - which is nice.
 
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