For those of you who also expressed an interest in an
XL/XL+ Dream Rigs version, the good news is I'm halfway through fixing the Control Switches for an XL/XL+ version. I'll be done by Friday with all six+ banks with that part. I've had to reassign Ext. 1 to Ext. 11 and Ext.2 to Ext. 12 manually, preset by preset...tedious but necessary.
On your
MFC 101 foot controller you are going to want to set up an IA foot switch for the Kicker Coil (assign the IA not to effects block, (set to NONE) but instead on next page set IA to CC #27)... and the Amp Boost (assign to CC#26)....plus an AMP X/Y (assign to CC#100) and perhaps a Scene 1/2 switch.... I personally put my Kicker and Boost in IA 16 and IA17 at the top of the MFC101.
Also set your MFC 101 bank size to 4 instead of 5, and assign Tap Tempo to IA5, then set tuner to come on when TEMPO is held.
Plus be able to access Drive Block1, Drive Block 1XY, sometimes Drive Block 2, Phaser plus Phaser X/Y, Chorus + XY, Rotary XY, Delay + Delay X/Y, Reverb, Tremolo and XY, Filter with X/Y and PEQ, and for some presets flanger and pitch shifter.... So you will run out of MFC101 foot switch room real quick, may have to use "Reveal" function. One way the AX8 has advantage over mFC101 is those X/Y functions. Wah still assigned to Ext1 pedal. Of course, if you choose presets you can instead just set up Scenes per preset and use those...
The blocks library for XL/XL+ version is what will delay/ take awhile and may hold up release of the XL/XL+ version until after the holidays - not sure yet. I have to recreate all that manually too, don't think you can port blocks between AX8 and XL as I recall (will re-test that).
But it will come together, and while the AX8 version sale expires on 12/31 at midnight Austin time, I'll make sure the XL/XL+ version has the same introductory $79 price for about the same length of time (roughly 21 days) as the AX8 did before it goes to normal price of $99.
I have A/B'd some identical setting presets between AX8 and XL. There is a slight volume discrepancy across all presets I fixed across all presets, so both versions will have same output levels/equivalent.
But I have to say (and hate to say), to my ears,
the XL/XL+ Dream Rigs version presets do sound even better than they do on the AX8. It's richer and fuller on the XL/XL+. Not by a ton, but noticeable to me in A/B'ing through the same Atomic Neo CLR. If I had to do a major gig, I'd probably use my XL and MFC101 over the AX8...then again, I like the AX8 compactness and foot switch X/Y capability, so maybe not!
I am no expert, but would suggest that noticeable difference may be the XL's larger CPU power compared to AX8's lower CPU power in processing Fractal's version of Quantum 10.01 which is inspired by the Axe-Fx III ARES firmware...the software may not be exactly the same...
