Wish A pile of small UI improvements

laxu

laxu

Fractal Fanatic
These mostly apply only to the onboard UI.

General
  • Let the user decide the granularity of controls. I don't need two decimal level granularity so I would be fine if one step on a knob would move from say 5.0 to 5.1 value.
  • Add a "disable tap tempo light" feature.
  • Add option to loop around lists or controls by pressing up on the first item or down on the last one.
  • Add option to select default tab for each block, e.g. with amp block I might want to go to Tone tab most of the time. I know it remembers the position after it has been visited but defaults back to the first tab when the FM3 is restarted. Alternatively save selected page of each block to preset data.
  • Change global "Speaker impedance curve" setting behavior. It should always override the selected impedance curve rather than only do it on amp model select. This makes the function much clearer and allows using the same preset with FRFR and poweramp/guitar cab setups by disabling cab sim and setting the desired impedance curve in global settings.

Layout grid
  • When adding a block, show a few options above and below the current value, sort of like scrolling a select list on an iPhone. This would let the user find their desired block easier and see what is available without scrolling thru them one by one. For example:
Code: 
SHUNT
Input 1
> Input 2 (current selected value)
Output 1
Output 2
  • Add color coding or colored bullet to this list matching the block color, e.g. amp blocks in red, cabs in green and so on.
  • Add a warning symbol for blocks that would make CPU usage go beyond allowed instead of telling you can't add it after you have tried to add it. Warning would be based on average CPU usage of the block.
  • Ignore current block CPU usage when swapping it for another block. Sometimes you cannot swap a block to a different type without first removing it from the grid and then adding the desired block.
  • Tools: Replace move block left/right/up/down with a "pick and move" where enter picks up a block, nav moves it and enter puts it down, moving block in its place to the right. Same can be used for rows/columns but limited to up/down or left/right movement.

Block editing
  • Add a "go back to previous block" feature so you can easily go between say amp and cab block. Maybe you could make it possible that Home does this by holding it or let the user decide that "Hold Home = go home, tap Home = go to previous block" or vice versa so it's sort of like Page buttons but for scrolling editable blocks. Implemented!
  • Make Reset button click reset only the current selected parameter to its default value. Hold reset to get the "reset all block settings" dialog.
  • Remove the 3 way toggle (e.g. Sat switch) switch type. It's impossible to tell its value unless it is highlighted. Replace it with the labeled list (like Input boost type).
  • Make it possible to click Enter to open a list of options on list type parameters (e.g. Input boost type) rather than needing to scroll through them. Modifiers cannot be attached to these so there is no conflict of function.
  • Change model selection to work like preset list: Nav moves cursor, Enter selects model. This helps prevent changing the model by accident and losing your settings. It also makes scrolling the list snappier as it's not constantly trying to apply a new model.

Amp block
  • Move the Input and Output EQ pages after the Tone page. The reasoning for this is that on amps with graphic EQs like Mesa Mark series you have to page like 6 times to go between Tone and EQ. You have less need to access advanced params regularly. Alternatively let the user decide the order of these tabs according to their preferences from Setup menu. Implemented!
  • Pressing up/down on Output EQ page works in a different way to the Graphic EQ block. Instead of selecting Output EQ type, up/down should move between sets of bands like in GEQ block for consistency. EQ type selection already exists on the Advanced page.
  • Fix sorting of speaker impedance curves. Now they seem to be sorted by ID rather than by name so they can jump between 1x12, 2x12, 1x12, 4x12 at some points.

Cab block
  • Enter should open picker view when you press it on the Bank row. Makes getting to picker faster.
  • Picker list filter should be possible to scroll back/forward with the C-knob instead of just cycling with the C-knob button.
  • Picker list should not show filters that do not exist in the bank. E.g. legacy bank does not have 1x4 cabs so it should not show 1x4 filter.
  • Picker list should be sortable also Z-A.

EQ blocks
  • Add the ability to bypass a band so you can try its effect vs no effect. The parametric EQ solo option kinda does this but it would be great to have off/on/solo as the options so you can compare your adjustments more flexibly and retain the sound effect of multiple band adjustments while you try to figure out the right setting for a particular one.
  • Add off/on/solo option to graphic EQ and global EQ as well.
  • Graphic EQ: Up/down should not be "move cursor 4 bands" but "move to next set of 5 bands". This would remap the knobs under the display, making it faster to work the EQ bands.

Delay
  • Add a scale selector of "short, medium, long, full" for delay time. Most of the time you need e.g delay that is short or medium so being able to limit the range of the control to a narrower range makes it easier to dial a precise "short" delay for example.

Multitap Delay
  • Rearrange Delay and Mod pages to use the same column format as cab block. It would be easier to edit when you have one row for Time 1,2,3,4 then another row for Tempo 1,2,3,4 etc. Easier to see and compare with less need to move the cursor.

Reverb
  • Add a scale selector of "short, medium, long, full" for reverb time. Most of the time you need e.g reverb that is short so having the knob scale have only a slice of the full time possible helps. Now it's easy to overshoot the reverb time.
  • Advanced page: Move reverb Quality to be the first item in the list so that it can be toggled quickly to the desired quality to save DSP.
  • Advanced page: Move Stack/hold early in the list because it's a bit of a special function, even if it's mostly activated with an assigned footswitch.

Input block
  • Add a "Noise gate bypass" toggle switch to quickly turn noise gate on/off.

Controllers
  • Scene Ctrl page : Show actual values of attached controls for selected row/column (e.g. scene 1 controller 1) above the row/column list so you don't have to rely on just a percentage value.
  • As above for Manual page.
  • Modifiers page: Show not only the blocks attached to the modifier but also the params.
Meters
  • Show scale markers for levels. -20, -10, -6 dB etc.
 
Last edited:
Hold function ring color. I have some scenes set to hold functions. When they are on, I can't add a ring color. Really frustrating.
 
Best answer, which I think isn't possible in the hardware, would be for the upper and lower halves of the ring to indicate press and hold states.

But I think maybe there's only one LED per ring.
 
unix-guy said:
That would be very confusing... How would you know which rings were displaying Tap and which were displaying Hold?
Click to expand...
Simple, look at the scene list. It shows the active scene. This is how I use it now, it's just that the ring color is off. Hey even if the ring can only have one color for press, press again and hold, that would be totally fine. For my use, each switch has something like this:

Press once for crunch
Press again for crunch with dotted 8th delay
Hold for lead

The "lead" ring right now is always off, which does me no good.
 
jwoertz said:
Simple, look at the scene list. It shows the active scene. This is how I use it now, it's just that the ring color is off. Hey even if the ring can only have one color for press, press again and hold, that would be totally fine. For my use, each switch has something like this:

Press once for crunch
Press again for crunch with dotted 8th delay
Hold for lead

The "lead" ring right now is always off, which does me no good.
Click to expand...
How does looking at the scene list tell you that the ring is being used to indicate a Hold function?
 
Zéx said:
Maybe if the rings blink.
Click to expand...
There have been a number of proposals for different ring behavior. This has been proposed before.

In any case, I think @jwoertz should probably create a separate thread for his wish as the LED behavior is not, IMO, a UI feature and this is someone else's wish thread ;)
 
jwoertz said:
You can name scenes, right? "HOLD FOR BOOST", etc...
Click to expand...
But that doesn't tell you which switch... And what if you have multiple hold functions?

The bottom line is this: create a new wish thread and write out in detail what you'd like to see. Then see if it gets any traction. Also, think about how your wish would work (or not) for others. Often, we have a very specific use case that is what we want but doesn't translate for other users.

However, I will say that there were a LOT of previous proposals when the FCs were first announced about how the LEDs could be used. The general response from Fractal was that the LEDs are designed to represent the Tap function.
 
Amazing report, congratulations!. Fractal is not perfect because nothing is perfect. There is a long way to go.
 
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