About the Axe-Fx II XL

FractalAudio said:
I doubt anyone would be willing to pay for an Axe-Fx with four TigerSHARCs in it. You'd be looking at $4-5K. Pros that insist on true spillover simply use two units. When they switch to the new preset the input to the one unit is muted and the other unmuted. You can orchestrate all this with MIDI CCs.

The bottom line is that it costs money and to implement properly is not economically viable. For those who can afford it using two units is the simple solution.
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Great. My wife doesn't like ti when you say things like this because my GAS has just kicked in for.... guess what? Another one of the units that sorted out my GAS in the first place! :D :D :D :D

The mind is a very strange place.... ;)
 
FractalAudio said:
Real spillover requires exactly twice the horsepower to do properly. The basic technique is you are always running two presets, the current and previous. When you switch presets the current becomes the previous and the new becomes the current using a ping-pong approach. The previous preset runs across program changes and has it's input muted at the point of program change.

If a processor is only doing one or two things then this is simple if you have the horsepower. Otherwise it's a nightmare. A delay pedal or reverb pedal has the luxury of only doing one thing so it can run two instances and ping-pong between them.

I doubt anyone would be willing to pay for an Axe-Fx with four TigerSHARCs in it. You'd be looking at $4-5K. Pros that insist on true spillover simply use two units. When they switch to the new preset the input to the one unit is muted and the other unmuted. You can orchestrate all this with MIDI CCs.

The bottom line is that it costs money and to implement properly is not economically viable. For those who can afford it using two units is the simple solution. For those who can't an outboard reverb or delay may be adequate.

Scenes were developed to address this but obviously scenes are limited in their capabilities. For most users scenes and/or the current spillover paradigm is sufficient. If those do not meet your demands then you'll have to look at other solutions. Engineering is all about choices and compromise and we feel we've made the best choices and compromises in regard to cost and performance.
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Thinking about buying an Axe no. 2 to supplement. Are there any white-papers about combining them into one rig ???
 
I think Cliff is right when he talked about using two units for this....Plus it would probably be cheaper than if he had to put 4 tiger sharcs in ONE unit! that things cost would be about $5,000.00 but for $4,400 (Less if you get both used)....you can achive true effects spillover.

It just seems to be a lot simplier solution if you are in the minority that HAS to have that partiucular feature. I do not need it.
 
SteveFireland said:
I would have been all over a floorboard version, for the fly-to gigs we do that would be absolutely perfect. Maybe next time, eh? ;)
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I don't think the Axe II XL is the next big thing they've been talking about. We may see a full featured floorboard yet...(fingers crossed)
 
FractalAudio said:
Let me clear up a few things:
...

The "Special Sauce III" uses a combination of things to get a lower noise floor. One of these things is new, premium Burr-Brown op-amps in the signal path which have extremely low noise and distortion (and are very expensive). As always I don't design stuff to be cheap, I design it to be good.
...

The XL is a higher-priced option for those who need the features and does not in any way obsolete the Mark II.
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Spillover, shamilllover ... as quiet as the AXE is now - I wanna know more about the new Sauce - the new, premium Burr-Brown op-amps in the signal path which have extremely low noise and distortion and the combination of other things to get a lower noise floor! :encouragement:

:( Sigh - then again ... I don't wanna see any lower-noise-floor trade secrets on a forum post (we are talkin about the "Secret" Sauce III after all). Especially, if there are secret techniques that set FAS far ahead of the modelling pack.

Guess I'll just have to be content to wait until I get the XL and crank both it and my CLR NEOs up (and my guitar volume way down of course), brush up against the strings with my thumb and fingertips, and wait for that Ol' FAS Magic(TM) to envelope me! :)
 
randolfo said:
I wonder if it will be noticeable in the sound, not the noise floor.
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I'd guess not. The underlying hardware philosophy seems to be to maximize transparency rather than to add pleasant coloration. I'd be surprised if the XL's signal chain provided noticeable changes in that respect. Cliff even noted that the noise floor changes weren't huge.
 
Yeah I'm hoping, not for coloration, but transparency with a lower noise floor for when I crank up the AXE & CLRs while rolling back the guitar vol to 2-3 and varying string attack,etc. Ya know, the subtle dynamic stuff we all like to squeeze out of our instruments. :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
claxor said:
Cliff,

If you had an extra processor for true spillover, like a G-Force for example, how would you connect it to the axe fx? Just currious.
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I believe the g-force only has one processor. However, for spillover to work you have to use the same subalgorithm and has many of the limitations as the Axe-fx II. The other product offering spillover will have different limitations. Either needing 2 processors (like the eclipse or 2120) or having fixed routing (like the strymon). As has been said, there is no free ride. If you really want seamless spillover, you could always use 2 Axe-fxs ;).
 
JazzMac251 said:
Ok, I'd like to say something here.

Instead of spending time, energy, money, and research power on:

1) a product that's marginally different/better than the current generation and, as OP said, really only targeted to a specific type of user (that is almost a minority by definition)
2) firmware upgrades that increase amp and drive sim realism by, what, a couple percentage points each on average (if one were to try to quantify such a thing)? Maybe 10% if we're being generous?

Why doesn't Fractal focus on one of the main issues that has caused AxeFX owners to tear their hair out - and has been the inspiration for many an angry forum post - for years.
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For me, point 2 is immeasurable in worth. There's a saying in development - "software is never finished, it's only ever released". Once it's released and people have paid, it is economically very tempting to leave it where it is, and start developing the new version that will have to be purchased again. Personally I'm delighted with the philosophy of FA.
 
mogvinda said:
For me, point 2 is immeasurable in worth. There's a saying in development - "software is never finished, it's only ever released". Once it's released and people have paid, it is economically very tempting to leave it where it is, and start developing the new version that will have to be purchased again. Personally I'm delighted with the philosophy of FA.
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I couldn't agree more - "point 2 is immeasurable in worth." :encouragement:
 
Rex said:
It doesn't take the whole processor to do spillover. But it does require the spilled-over effects to be duplicated in the next preset. If you do that globally, you have to reserve enough horsepower to run five of the most resource-intensive effects.
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Not true. It could be done on a piecemeal basis - as spacial blocks are added with spillover turned on, they are duplicated to be used upon PC request behind the scenes one at a time - and the box itself would tell you when you're crossing the line based on the preset you're currently creating (like it already does)

FractalAudio said:
Real spillover requires exactly twice the horsepower to do properly. The basic technique is you are always running two presets, the current and previous. When you switch presets the current becomes the previous and the new becomes the current using a ping-pong approach. The previous preset runs across program changes and has it's input muted at the point of program change.

If a processor is only doing one or two things then this is simple if you have the horsepower. Otherwise it's a nightmare. A delay pedal or reverb pedal has the luxury of only doing one thing so it can run two instances and ping-pong between them.

I doubt anyone would be willing to pay for an Axe-Fx with four TigerSHARCs in it. You'd be looking at $4-5K. Pros that insist on true spillover simply use two units. When they switch to the new preset the input to the one unit is muted and the other unmuted. You can orchestrate all this with MIDI CCs.

The bottom line is that it costs money and to implement properly is not economically viable. For those who can afford it using two units is the simple solution. For those who can't an outboard reverb or delay may be adequate.

Scenes were developed to address this but obviously scenes are limited in their capabilities. For most users scenes and/or the current spillover paradigm is sufficient. If those do not meet your demands then you'll have to look at other solutions. Engineering is all about choices and compromise and we feel we've made the best choices and compromises in regard to cost and performance.
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So, are you saying that proper spillover would require two ENTIRE presets be processed simultaneously? Amp blocks, cabs, modulation FX and all? if so, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Are the amp and cab blocks still processing the repeats happening in the delay blocks (I can't imagine that being the case...), or are the delay blocks just sampling and modifying the data coming into them (presumably coming FROM those blocks)? If they're just sampling and modifying, why would spillover require any more processing power than double whatever the spacial blocks in the preset use by themselves? In fact, if you programmed the spacial blocks to "go global" momentarily when a preset change request is sent then delete themselves after the spillover is completed, wouldn't you only be increasing processing power by the amount corresponding to the spacial FX in the previous preset (not necessarily double) and wouldn't it only be temporary at that? That would require more processing power than not having spillover at all, yes, but 4 TigerSHARCs worth? No.

I do see why the idea of a spillover buffer wouldn't work, though. I think...
 
It's really because of the grid concept, any block can be routed into any other block. So unlike some processors with more rigid routing, it's not just the delay and reverb effects that must continue to process audio.

Add to that the send and return blocks and the FX Loop block and you can create lots of complex post delay routes and processing; including feedback loops.

So true spillover requires the entire preset to continue to sound until the audio dies out. It is the equivalent of muting the preset input and letting it ring out.

E.g. Reverb -> Trem -> Chorus -> Multidelay -> Amp -> Cab -> Reverb -> Delay -> (Auto Wah) ....

That is why two AxeFx boxes are the only true solution. And use midi to mute the input of one while switching to the other one.
 
JazzMac251 said:
Not true. It could be done on a piecemeal basis - as spacial blocks are added with spillover turned on, they are duplicated to be used upon PC request behind the scenes one at a time - and the box itself would tell you when you're crossing the line based on the preset you're currently creating (like it already does)
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This is the misconception that refuses to die.

Read barhrecord's explanation above. I don't know how to put it more clearly than that.
 
Rex said:
This is the misconception that refuses to die.

Read barhrecord's explanation above. I don't know how to put it more clearly than that.
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Even if it was only within the delay block, that would cover many common uses and be a nice option.

Here's my idea of the most reasonable thing to hope for: Take what seems to be an unused delay line (what would be the right side in stereo mode) and use it for spillover in mono mode. This could be imitated now with a vol/pan or filter before one stereo delay block, but then you still need to plan if you're switching a preset from a "left" or "right" preset, and what the time/feedback settings should be for the spillover line. The same problem as using 2 delay blocks in each preset, really. Maybe this could be done with stereo modes too, cutting maximum delay time in half to 4 seconds.

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Rex said:
I think that's pretty much what we have today, only with more limitations, and more complexity for the user. :)
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No, it's not. I think you might not be understanding what I'm describing there. The added complexity wouldn't really be seen by the user, and there wouldn't be any more parameters to deal with. The Axe would handle the retaining of the last preset's parameters and the input toggling. That's how spillover works on some devices like the G-Major. It really has 2 delay blocks (or whatever you want to call them) and it alternates input between them. The one used in the last preset has its input cut but its output remains, with the settings unchanged from the last preset.
 
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