Axe Edit without Axe connected?

[chrisjnyc]

Whats the story with using Axe Edit without an Axe FX connected at the same time? This was possible with the Axe Ultra.

 

[barhrecords]

Yes it used to be possible to run the editor without the hardware connected.

The story is the editor was unstable and in my opinion a sore point.

The rewrite of the editor made it not possible to run without the hardware connected.

The rewrite also made the editor very stable.

 

[ssmorga78]

Man, how I wish that we could use Axe Edit without the Axe being connected again....... It makes it really rough when you find a tip/trick/setting advice/preset on the Axechange that you want to tinker with or look at while you are away from your Axe. I know you can't hear what the changes sound like without the Axe, but....... I still like to look at what others are doing in their presets and get ideas from them. This would allow me to be able to get ideas while I'm away from my Axe so that when I got home to it, I could get right to work trying things out.

 

[northtrader]

Man, how I wish that we could use Axe Edit without the Axe being connected again....... I know you can't hear what the changes sound like without the Axe, but....... This would allow me to be able to get ideas while I'm away from my Axe so that when I got home to it, I could get right to work trying things out.

+1

I was just discussing this with a fellow enthusiast this past weekend! I've been with the Axe-FX since 2009 and I sure miss being able to dissect and construct potential preset ideas without having to be beside my Axe-FX. I recall the 'issues' with Axe-Edit prior to the current "axe-fx as a dongle" mode and realize there were legitimate reasons behind the change (even though the issues never surfaced in my use of Axe-Edit back then).
It would be great if there was some kind of "offline" mode that could be injected into Axe-Edit. A mode that would ignore any connected or not-connected Axe-FX and allow you to create and manipulate presets but only allow them to be saved to your computer. Would something like that be possible?

 

[s0c9]

Yes, it's possible, but I don't see it going back to the old way.
Each new firmware brings changes and enhancements, that an offline mode would require AE being firmware version aware.
Say you're on the latest firmware and you open AE. AE starts in that firmware mode.
You then open a preset from an earlier firmware that didn't have feature X.
Does AE now re-render its UI back to the firmware under which the preset was saved or upgrade the old preset to the new firmware version?
What if you want to save that preset? How you would do that depends on the answer to the 2 questions above.

The "old" AE used to support that by using a local database to store and track firmware versions, mappings, etc. It contributed to the instability and required tons of extra coding for the offline mode.
The decision was made to move away from that spaghetti code and to the "polling" method to deliver a clean efficient app that didn't require changes for each firmware Cliff released.
The upside is you get the "blocks updating" after a new firmware as AE now polls the device for settings.
The downside is there's no offline mode...

 

[northtrader]

Thanks for the insight s0c9.

I can see the 'cleanliness' of the 'poll the axe-fx for current settings' method. Perhaps there's a user selected option to save the currently polled information for offline usage? You edit offline, save the preset to one of your preset folders and, the next time you connect to your Axe-Fx and it re-polls the unit, you have to 'open' the preset you edited and save it to the Axe-Fx while you're connected.

With respect to opening older firmware presets .... we do that already. Yes, firmware updates percolate through the presets on the Axe-Fx but we still have the ability to find that 'v16 preset' that we want to revisit and open it up in AE. The ability to 'save it in a prior firmware format' isn't really necessary.

 

[unix-guy]

If I have the FX 3 screwed into a rack unit downstairs and my PC is upstairs it would be very nice to be able to do the following:

1. Select the firmware version in Axe Edit currently active on the FX 3 and/or provide sync info from the FX 3 via a USB drive
2. Create scenes and other configurations, download and use presets and get everything set up on the PC
3. (Optional) Provide an emulator mode such that Axe Edit can take short, unprocessed guitar riffs as input to the software and send output to the PC speakers to hear (more or less) what it sounds like (not usable for a recording input)
4. Export to a USB drive to upload into the FX 3 to make minor updates and tweaks using the actual unit.

This functionality would be very helpful to those of us that have no intention of ever using the FX 3 in a studio environment.

This thread is about Axe Fx II...

 

[bolteddown]

Yes, it's possible, but I don't see it going back to the old way.
Each new firmware brings changes and enhancements, that an offline mode would require AE being firmware version aware.
Say you're on the latest firmware and you open AE. AE starts in that firmware mode.
You then open a preset from an earlier firmware that didn't have feature X.
Does AE now re-render its UI back to the firmware under which the preset was saved or upgrade the old preset to the new firmware version?
What if you want to save that preset? How you would do that depends on the answer to the 2 questions above.

The "old" AE used to support that by using a local database to store and track firmware versions, mappings, etc. It contributed to the instability and required tons of extra coding for the offline mode.
The decision was made to move away from that spaghetti code and to the "polling" method to deliver a clean efficient app that didn't require changes for each firmware Cliff released.
The upside is you get the "blocks updating" after a new firmware as AE now polls the device for settings.
The downside is there's no offline mode...

What I would like to see is the ability to connect the unit to a computer and then remote into it from another computer and make changes through the edit program. Like for instance being able to connect to the unit in my rehearsal studio when I'm at home or at work where I have my dual 27" monitors. It would also be great to be able to record that way too and use the tone without having to unplug and take the unit out of my rack and bring it to the recording studio

 

[iaresee]

What I would like to see is the ability to connect the unit to a computer and then remote into it from another computer and make changes through the edit program. Like for instance being able to connect to the unit in my rehearsal studio when I'm at home or at work where I have my dual 27" monitors. It would also be great to be able to record that way too and use the tone without having to unplug and take the unit out of my rack and bring it to the recording studio

This is entirely possible and completely supported by any modern operating system. This isn't functionality that ever would or even should exist directly in the editor. You'd just need leave your Fractal unit powered up and connected to the computer in your rehearsal studio.

 

[paranoid]

Never could and still can't see why you would make changes you can't hear. I never once made changes to the ultra while not playing. Is amp modeling now visual, if so I can save space by selling my monitors.

 

[bolteddown]

This is entirely possible and completely supported by any modern operating system. This isn't functionality that ever would or even should exist directly in the editor. You'd just need leave your Fractal unit powered up and connected to the computer in your rehearsal studio.

Cool. So I would then be able to be in a studio in a different location and tap into the fractal in my rehearsal space and use my tones to record and then edit the tones if the engineer wants to say turn up the treble or dial back the chorus amount?

 

[iaresee]

Cool. So I would then be able to be in a studio in a different location and tap into the fractal in my rehearsal space and use my tones to record and then edit the tones if the engineer wants to say turn up the treble or dial back the chorus amount?

No. You'd just be able to use the editor remotely. I mean, maybe you can figure out some convoluted way to shunt stems to the PC in your rehearsal space. But none of that has anything to do with Fractal. That's entirely a remote PC and remote recording problem.

 

[s0c9]

What I would like to see is the ability to connect the unit to a computer and then remote into it from another computer and make changes through the edit program. Like for instance being able to connect to the unit in my rehearsal studio when I'm at home or at work where I have my dual 27" monitors. It would also be great to be able to record that way too and use the tone without having to unplug and take the unit out of my rack and bring it to the recording studio

LOL - you quoted my post from back in 2016.. things are a lot different in Fractal land since then.. and as @iaresee stated, what you want to do is remote access and very possible. Re-amping and getting the audio back to the recording unit would require something like an active DANTE network - but.. AFAIK .. still not supported, but does support AES.

 

[bolteddown]

And the other big component to this is that I have a lot of free time at work and I would love to be able to edit tones in AxeEdit without having the Fractal attached, save the tones to dropbox and then upload them to the unit once I get home. Little things like always having the effects loop active for the Eventide for every tone and since I use a output 1 as a direct to the board and output 2 to a power amp on every tone, being able to make those adjustments. Really anything which is just basic setup that takes time that I'd rather do when I'm sitting in the office with literally nothing to but listen in on a conference call.