The ways to do this are:
- You assign the parameters you truly need to the Perform page for each preset. There is no super quick way to get to this page though with one button but it's a few pages away from the home screen. This requires planning ahead to have the controls you might need assigned as these can only be assigned from the Axe-Edit software.
- You use the doubleclick shortcut functions on the 5 knob buttons to access Amp, Drive, Cab, Delay and Reverb blocks.
- You use the Edit button to cycle through blocks in a preset. Doubleclick Edit to go to previous block.
However there is absolutely no way to have as quick access to different blocks as Helix does. I can't overstate how effective the capacitive footswitches are at this and how having a dedicated amp block button helps. Similarly the Pedal Edit mode is something that simply does not exist on Fractal and cannot be replicated in any reasonable manner.
I think this is an area where Fractal honestly does not do particularly well. Can you live it it? Sure, but it's not great. Those double click shortcut buttons are a pretty recent development and they remove a lot of annoyance and aggravation from using it from the front panel. I think they could do more, for example I have put a
wish list item for making the value wheel button configurable to other options than Layout since that dedicated function is no longer needed as double clicking Home does the same thing. Other than hold functions and configurable onscreen button options I don't see how Fractal could add much more one click shortcut functionality to its onboard controls.
The Perform pages are too limited for the controls you can map, you just quickly run out and then have to compromise. I would prefer if you had sets of controls that you could switch between here so you could build a more comprehensive customized control panel for your needs. I built such a system using a middleman app on my computer for the Axe-Fx 2 and it worked pretty great and was controllable with a MIDI knob controller, another thing that Fractal system
does not do well. But to be fair MIDI knob control on Helix is not that great either with the way it forgets mappings if you change e.g an amp model in the block.
Both Helix and especially QC are still faster to operate directly from the front panel. QC is the closest to working like a pedalboard because you just tap a block on screen and start turning the knobs/switches. Helix gets close by using the capacitive footswitches for the same thing. Unfortunately there is no reasonable way to replicate that behavior on Fractal so the next best thing is those shortcut keys for the most common blocks.
The knobs on the QC have just the right feel for my tastes whereas Helix is too unresponsive (requires lots of turns for big value changes) and Fractal is somewhere in between.
Another caveat is that Fractal does not have a "reset this parameter to default value" functionality in the onboard UI. In Axe-Edit you can double click the control to do this but it's not always good as it might reset to 5.0, zero or something other than saved or model default value. In the onboard UI there is only "reset the whole channel" which is useless 95% of the time. Helix supports this by doubleclicking the knob of the parameter. I think QC does this by doubletapping the onscreen control? I have suggested in this
big pile of small things that the reset functionality should be repurposed to "reset currently highlighted parameter" because that's what users actually need 95% of the time.
