AITR

[SacredGroove]

I just find funny how suddenly nobody needs more than 12 User IRs and are perfectly comfortable with losing an entire bank when right before the launch of the AFX III Mk2 everybody and their mother absolutely needed much more than the 2000+ user IRs the MK1 currently supports.

I, for one, am absolutely OK with whatever Cliff chooses to do. In the end, he always figures the best solution possible.

Didn’t preset space double from the mk1 to mk2? IIRC, that’s what the “fuss” was about. Cab space may have increased too but I remember the chatter being about the preset space.

 

[AlbertA]

And where is that internal metadata stored? There isn't any additional memory available.

You can give up a sample or a few per slot to store more flags.

This approach mixes different types of IRs in a single bank, which means instead of doing a one-time conversion of presets/banks at firmware update time

One time conversion? Not sure what you mean here.

, the Axe-FX now has to check this stuff at runtime any time you're dealing with IRs.

It already has to for normal vs Ultra Res.

Additional user prompts/warnings when storing cabs... how is that better?

Because then a user has access to all the existing current IR slots, if they want to And other users that want FullResIRs can put them anywhere they want in User 1 or 2.

What happens when you have a preset that references user cab 12, and you later replace user cab 1 with a Fullres IR (overwriting the space in IR slots 1 thru 32)?

Covered above, the cabblock would know its a FullRes IR (just like it knows its Ultra Res or normal), not any different that overwriting a normal or UltraRES IR today.

Just think of how this approach complicates things, and the additional work it would take to address those complexities.

That's up to Fractal to consider, I'm just throwing an idea out.

Do you know how the NV RAM is addressed? Is it one contiguous memory space, or is it possible that a FullRes cab might span address boundaries? Etc. There are more examples of how this would be overly complicated or infeasible, but you get the drift.

Again up to Fractal to consider. If you attempt to put a FullRes IR at the end of User 1 and it doesn't fit, but there's space in the beginning of User 2 - I'm personally ok with the system rejecting that.

When Cliff says there's one way to do it, I believe him. Not necessarily because there isn't technically some other way that might be possible, but because this isn't an academic exercise -- Fractal is supporting a real-world product and have to contend with real-world constraints, including development time/complexity. I also believe him because he's undoubtedly the subject matter expert here, and he's done the best job of product support of any music company I've dealt with over the past decade I've been a Fractal Audio customer.

So the point is? I shouldn't even suggest any idea whatsoever? Yeah you do you, thanks.

 

[mr_fender]

Didn’t preset space double from the mk1 to mk2? IIRC, that’s what the “fuss” was about. Cab space may have increased too but I remember the chatter being about the preset space.

Yes, the MK1 has 512 preset slots while the MKII has 1024. Both units currently have the same number of cab slots. Cliff had hinted at its release that the MKII also had a bunch more unallocated storage for future use. That's where the new 64 FullRes slots will go.

 

[200man]

boiled down thinking: I like jazz and the larger ir’s seem like there’s more life to ’em…be a better fit for what I am doing….I really think giving up a user bank is the right way forward.

 

[200man]

Before PA systems, cabs from the stage provided the volume; amp in the room. The size of the room or venue determined whether you needed a 2X12, 4X12 or a wall of 4X12's. With the development and advances in PA systems, silent or quiet stages have become more and more the standard leading to a need to discover how to get guitars into the mix.

Close mic'ing has been a standard born out of necessity, not out of what's ideal. It results in cutting out a lot of a guitar's tone or feel. We've just become accustomed to it, now defending it as the ideal guitar tone. I've seen rig rundowns of players that use as many as 4 to 6 mics in a live setting trying to replicate as many nuances of a cab/speaker they can.

I've spent countless hours trying to find a single mic position that replicated what I heard while playing at home through a PA system. I eventually found a position that worked but it still lacks what the FullRes seems to provide which I'm very excited about. With the new FullRes IRs, getting the complete sound of a cab through a PA appears to becoming more and more a reality.

wrt: Close mic'ing has been a standard born out of necessity, not out of what's ideal. It results in cutting out a lot of a guitar's tone or feel.

yes…and yes…

 

[Daveis]

If Mk 1 users use their NVM today for FullRez IR’s what will they be giving up tomorrow when profiling needs NVM space?

The Mk 2 has NVM space for FullRez and future profiles and only Cliff knows what else. The Mk 1 doesn’t and I can accept that its not going to get everything the Mk2 gets forever.

 

[skategeezer]

Some answers:

1. This will currently only be available on the Axe-Fx III Mark II. Our other products do not have the NV memory to store the large IRs. I will look into ways of possibly supporting this on the other products. The Mark II has double the NV memory of the Mark I. All the NV memory on the Mark I is allocated. If the demand is great enough one possibility is to reduce the number of slots in the User IR banks and allocate the freed memory to FullRes slots.

2. The CPU usage is not too bad. A FullRes IR uses about 10% more CPU than a regular IR. I haven't done that much work on optimization so it may be possible to reduce this.

3. The primary use is for "room mics" and short-to-medium convolution reverbs. The two clips I posted were done using room mic IRs from Celestion. Those IRs were 500 ms.

4. I'm hoping IR vendors will embrace the technology and start offering room mic IRs with at least one second of response time. This assumes they use a suitable live room to do their captures.

5. We are going to our local studio in the coming months and will shoot a bunch of room IRs there. They have a very nice live room with good acoustics.

6. A new version of Cab-Lab is in the works that supports the creation of FullRes IRs.

So does this mean if we own 500ms 96k IR's we will be able to load those as well with FM 17.0?
Asking for a friend.

 

[AJ Vargas]

Didn’t preset space double from the mk1 to mk2? IIRC, that’s what the “fuss” was about. Cab space may have increased too but I remember the chatter being about the preset space.

That too... IIRC, the IR space was a thing too among people who loaded entire cab packs instead of just auditioning via Manage Cabs or Cab Lab. It was around the time the Mikko plugin was launched too which added to the discussion.

 

[TravisG406]

Some answers:

So does this mean if we own 500ms 96k IR's we will be able to load those as well with FM 17.0?
Asking for a friend.

48kHz 😁

 

[giantslayer]

Here is my non-scientific observation of Mk1 users chiming in:
95%: doesn’t use User2 bank and is eager to have new toy.
4%: uses User2 and it would be a pain to consolidate but doable.
1%: legitimately needs both user banks (probably should upgrade to MK2).

 

[artzeal]

I can't project much from just a finger in the batter. I'll wait until the cake comes out of the oven, then sample a few slices to establish how extensively I'll use it and what to pair it with.

 

[skategeezer]

48kHz 😁

So you know that FW 17 will only be 48khz that is fine ? What about the length 500ms?

 

[skydog]

Listened to clips more than a few times. played them live through my systems. For me, I guess it’s not reflections that account for AITR. It’s something different. It’s more of an amp pushing speakers, whether it’s loud or not. I know it when I hear it. In a small jazz venue, or a large blues and classic rock joint.

I can already get it, with my axe fx 3. I specifically don’t use the cab block for it. Instead, I have the main path (with cab block) going to FOH. The other path omits the cab block, is routed to my QMC ss amp, and into two 12’s. I get AITR, because I have an amp in the room.

I play out live, so this isn’t my use-case.

 

[Analog]

one possibility is to reduce the number of slots in the User IR banks and allocate the freed memory to FullRes slots.

+1 for trading user IR banks for FullRes slots in the MK1 hardware.

 

[Guit'rilla]

Here's an example of how producers commonly do it:
https://www.fractalaudio.com/tmp/AITR_Toad.mp3

The first clip is a regular IR. The second is the same IR with a stereo set of room mic IRs mixed in at -6d

One of my favorite examples of effective use of room ambience - Chris Duarte, Shiloh: .

 

[Analog]

Wondering if you could still use/audition FullRes IR's on the Mk1 via axe-edit as they don't currently fit on the internal flash?

 

[unix-guy]

Wondering if you could still use/audition FullRes IR's on the Mk1 via axe-edit as they don't currently fit on the internal flash?

To audition an IR it needs to be loaded into an IR slot on the unit.

 

[Joe Bfstplk]

One of my favorite examples of effective use of room ambience - Chris Duarte, Shiloh: .

This reminds me a lot of Tin Pan Alley by SRV....

 

[Analog]

To audition an IR it needs to be loaded into an IR slot on the unit.

Oh yeah I see it goes via the scratchpad slots.

 

[vangrieg]

Close mic'ing has been a standard born out of necessity, not out of what's ideal. It results in cutting out a lot of a guitar's tone or feel. We've just become accustomed to it, now defending it as the ideal guitar tone. I've seen rig rundowns of players that use as many as 4 to 6 mics in a live setting trying to replicate as many nuances of a cab/speaker they can.

Well, to bring things back into perspective, that necessity is called "mixing". A process where you cut out frequences, dynamics, "feel" from individual instruments so that the overall result sounds good.

Adding reverberation to each instrument may create that "feel" for players, but together in most cases the result will sound like a pile of mud. Especially if everyone brings some random room sound with him.