Any plans to add a USB interface to the Axe?

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Kracked

Kracked

Inspired
It's the one item I see as value add since it would be real nice to be able to work with Axe Edit while the foot controller is connected so you're not constantly disconnecting and reconnecting the midi cables to test tweaks. I know you can edit directly on the Axe, but it's nice to have a full screen to work with....

Just a thought.
 
I believe at the time it was too much hassle to additionally study the cumbersome USB protocol and make sure it would work perfectly. That would just have postponed the Axe too much.
In hindsight it's one of very few sad things or mistakes maybe, but Cliff still did *awesome* for a first product! :cool:

Cliff said:
The next generation will almost certainly have USB and it will be used for both firmware updates and digital audio.
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Cliff has mentioned that any and all future FAS products (that can support USB) will include USB...
 
Imagining myself in Cliff's shoes, not including USB may have been one of Cliff's better design decisions.

Every audio device I've used requires a direct (not through a hub) USB connection, and my MacBook Pro only has two ports (and only one of those is direct enough to work reliably with some audio stuff). Even if Cliff put in the documentation to only use the right-side USB port on MacBook Pros, you know it is still going to generate a ton of support calls. Not to mention all the difficulties the Windows boxes have with drivers.
 
LMO said:
Imagining myself in Cliff's shoes, not including USB may have been one of Cliff's better design decisions.
... you know it is still going to generate a ton of support calls. Not to mention all the difficulties the Windows boxes have with drivers.
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What is the difference with all the MIDI problems people are having now? :mrgreen:

I've seen Cliff say he doesn't give out a phone nr for a reason (don't know if that is still so).
If he did that and still had the USB, at least it would have been great for the majority that has no problems with it.

It would also have been great to interface with some automated IR uploader program, for example.

OTOH, I kinda like the long waiting time when upgrading firmware :mrgreen:
Gives you the impression there was some work put in and all is being done in the best way possible vs a 1 second USB upload ;)
 
vAmpli said:
LMO said:
What is the difference with all the MIDI problems people are having now? :mrgreen:
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The PC doesn't have a MIDI interface built-in, so it is the guys who make the interface that have the support problems related to connecting to the PC. I guess USB would reduce the headaches related to firmware updates and with connecting to Axe-Edit, so maybe it would simplify things.

Still, I would do a lot to avoid writing Windows Vista/7 drivers.
 
LMO said:
Still, I would do a lot to avoid writing Windows Vista/7 drivers.
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FWIW, I have used cheap FTDI chip devices to produce simple USB - Virtual Com Port interfaces on products my company manufacture. You get royalty free, ready-to-go Windows certified or Mac drivers from the manufacturer, no driver writing necessary.
 
I wish my Ultra would shoot or spray one hundred dollars bills out at me when I turn it on, but it can't have everything I guess.
 
Jase2677 said:
I wish my Ultra would shoot or spray one hundred dollars bills out at me when I turn it on, but it can't have everything I guess.
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That's an optional feature installed by Fractal for an extra fee. I heard Steve Vai and John Petrucci have it. Dweezil didn't have enough cash to order it, so his Ultra shoots out a spray of twenty dollar bills, and not too thick of a spray. :lol:
 
plexi59 said:
Jase2677 said:
I wish my Ultra would shoot or spray one hundred dollars bills out at me when I turn it on, but it can't have everything I guess.
Click to expand...

That's an optional feature installed by Fractal for an extra fee. I heard Steve Vai and John Petrucci have it. Dweezil didn't have enough cash to order it, so his Ultra shoots out a spray of twenty dollar bills, and not too thick of a spray. :lol:
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I did not know other people were having problems with this as well. My Ultra sprays 100 dollar bills out at me, but the ink smears and rubs off on my hands, so I really can't use them. Geez........
 
Jase2677 said:
I wish my Ultra would shoot or spray one hundred dollars bills out at me when I turn it on, but it can't have everything I guess.
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EVERYTHING? MIDI is ancient technology....developed in the early 80's , and it has not been updated since its release....still at 1.0. USB is not a "nice to have", or a "wouldn't it be nice if", and it's definitely not "everything".
I LOVE my Axe-FX, but given that this unit IS the state of the art, it is absurd that the interface is MIDI. It's the equivalent of buying a new BMW with a cassette player and no CD or iPod interface.
 
mickdoo22 said:
EVERYTHING? MIDI is ancient technology....developed in the early 80's , and it has not been updated since its release....still at 1.0. USB is not a "nice to have", or a "wouldn't it be nice if", and it's definitely not "everything".
I LOVE my Axe-FX, but given that this unit IS the state of the art, it is absurd that the interface is MIDI.
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It is what it is. If it's a dealbreaking problem for you, then you're at odds with almost the entire rest of the user base. In that case, you just need to sell yours and move on, because you ain't gettin' USB with it. The next generation of FAS modelers will come with USB, or perhaps another, shiner, newer, interface. Ever wonder what happened to RS-232 and Centronics? MIDI's still around, but those "standard" interfaces are both long gone, and the owners of equipment that relies on them are SOL.

It's the equivalent of buying a new BMW with a cassette player and no CD or iPod interface.
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Spoken like a typical new BMW buyer. Time was (I owned a few back in the day) when people bought BMWs for their performance and driver feedback. Today's typical BMW owner thinks "performance" is how well the car functions as a chick magnet and "driver feedback" is the GPS system talking to you. :lol:
 
Jay Mitchell said:
mickdoo22 said:
EVERYTHING? MIDI is ancient technology....developed in the early 80's , and it has not been updated since its release....still at 1.0. USB is not a "nice to have", or a "wouldn't it be nice if", and it's definitely not "everything".
I LOVE my Axe-FX, but given that this unit IS the state of the art, it is absurd that the interface is MIDI.
Click to expand...
It is what it is. If it's a dealbreaking problem for you, then you're at odds with almost the entire rest of the user base. In that case, you just need to sell yours and move on, because you ain't gettin' USB with it. The next generation of FAS modelers will come with USB, or perhaps another, shiner, newer, interface. Ever wonder what happened to RS-232 and Centronics? MIDI's still around, but those "standard" interfaces are both long gone, and the owners of equipment that relies on them are SOL.

It's the equivalent of buying a new BMW with a cassette player and no CD or iPod interface.
Click to expand...
Spoken like a typical new BMW buyer. Time was (I owned a few back in the day) when people bought BMWs for their performance and driver feedback. Today's typical BMW owner thinks "performance" is how well the car functions as a chick magnet and "driver feedback" is the GPS system talking to you. :lol:
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Yikes Jay......relax......you apparently missed the part where I said I LOVE my Axe-FX......and it's obviously NOT a deal breaker.......but it doesn't mean I am going to huddle in the corner hugging the damn thing. I really couldn't care less if I am "at odds with the user base" with regard to this issue or not. Defend it all you like, USB would have made a whole lot more sense. MIDI was state of the art in 1982, USB is more the norm now.

USB is hardly RS-232 or Centronics......USB has been going strong since 1995 and isn't going away.

As for the BMW comment, how do you make the leap from me making a simple analogy to trying to piss on my leg about it functioning as a chick magnet. Did somebody have a bad week?
 
mickdoo22 said:
and it's obviously NOT a deal breaker.......
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Then the use of the adjective "absurd" on your part was extreme.

Defend it all you like, USB would have made a whole lot more sense. MIDI was state of the art in 1982, USB is more the norm now.
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You're incorrectly assuming that it could have possibly been either-or. It could not. Any piece of musical gear that will be controlled by another piece of gear must have MIDI. Unlike USB, it really is an industry-wide, stable standard. Nobody in their right mind would offer a device like the Axe-Fx to the professional musician market without a MIDI interface.

Given that MIDI was a necessity, that R&D/debug time was at a premium - FAS was a one-man operation at the time - that hardware cost was already high, and that CPU resources were already being pushed near their limits, it made eminent sense at that time and under those circumstances to implement MIDI as the Axe-Fx's only (non-signal) data interface with the outside world. Its primary use is control. In addition to being the only control protocol that is accepted industry-wide as a standard, MIDI's performance for that primary purpose is more than adequate to the task. The occasional minor inconvenience caused by relatively long transfer times for large files was obviously a compromise, but it was a good one. Contrary to your assertion, it was anything but "absurd," it was a carefully-weighed design tradeoff.

USB is hardly RS-232 or Centronics......USB has been going strong since 1995 and isn't going away.
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RS-232 was older than USB is now when it began disappearing. Ditto Centronics. Prior to their demise, nobody who worked with computers would have guessed that they would soon go away, yet the disappearance of those two protocols obsoleted quite a bit of highly specialized, expensive test gear, as well as a number of pro-audio signal processing devices. The same thing can be said of internal bus protocols: ISA, EISA, SCSI, etc. MIDI has outlasted all of them, and there are no indications at present that it will not outlast USB as well.

As for the BMW comment, how do you make the leap from me making a simple analogy to trying to piss on my leg about it functioning as a chick magnet.
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If you don't get that, then you really don't get what BMWs were when they first made inroads into the US market or, for that matter, what they are now. A "new BMW with a cassette player and no CD or iPod interface" would still have all the significant automotive attributes for which BMWs are well known. The company hasn't forgotten how to engineer performance cars, they just have ended up with a substantially different class of owner.
 
Once again.....you are looking for a freaking argument.....I wasn't editorializing about BMW's, the class of owners, or anything else. You get lost easy.
I will make my point really simple for you......IN MY OPINION, USB would have been a more practical choice, and one that would have been more convenient for most users.
 
mickdoo22 said:
IN MY OPINION, USB would have been a more practical choice, and one that would have been more convenient for most users.
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You're confused again. See above. The choice could not have been either-or. MIDI was required under any circumstances, as the device would not be commercially viable without it. OTOH, the Axe-Fx need only ever talk to a computer when updating firmware.

In case this isn't sinking in, whether USB would be more or less convenient than MIDI is irrelevant, since MIDI would be there regardless. The choice was not between the two, it was whether to add USB. That choice was made more than four years ago, and no amount of after-the-fact online hand-wringing on your (or anyone else's) part is going to change it.
 
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