Axe FX II and feature creep

[Andrew Male]

Judging by the response to this thread thus far I don't think most people agree with your assertion that making the AxeFX II easier to use by changing the UI or adding an 'easy mode' would be a good thing. In truth the AxeFX II is easy to use as is. Add Amp block, add Cab block, edit Cab block to select an IR, edit Amp block to select amp and adjust gain/bass/mid/treble/master - done. It is in fact easier to set this up on the AxeFX II than it is on a Line6 HD series modeler.

As has been stated and restated here in this thread all of the 'easy mode' type controls are on the first tab or first couple tabs for every block. Reverb? Add Reverb block, edit Reverb block, select Reverb type, adjust mix to taste - done. Chorus? Add Chorus block, edit... you get the point. All one need do to make easy use of the AxeFX II is stick to the first tab(s) for all block types - instant 'easy mode'. Then, at such a time as one chooses to dive deeper to take further control of any given block type, all one need do is click next page - instant advanced mode. With this approach everyone has everything they want literally at their fingertips and FAS (Cliff) doesn't have to maintain two UI's to get there - we're already there.

I think the front panel is fine, Axe EDIT could do with a bit of UI love. The UI is essentially unchanged from initial versions.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Judging by the response to this thread thus far I don't think most people agree with your assertion that making the AxeFX II easier to use by changing the UI or adding an 'easy mode' would be a good thing.

Which is somewhat disappointing, as I've put a lot of effort into bringing up valid arguments.
I'm not making these things up. I know several people that are not tube-heads by heart but still can not be converted, in fact, a lot of people like the tones I get out of the box and would want to make the switch, but mostly get scared away by the complexity.

I had one guy say "I've got those two effect pedals and this amp, can you try to replicate it in the Axe?". As the amp model existed in the Axe, I gave it a try by selecting the matching amp model, setting the tone controls roughly to his settings and adjusting the MV to taste, then did a tonematch. After that, I tried to dial in the effects pedal, which surprisingly was a lot harder to do.
The results were pretty good. But then he said "that's cool... but I did not really understand what you did there."

And then I realized, that just because I understood exactly what I did, it doesn't mean that everyone has the same thinking. Especially not those that never did some programming in their life and understand all the logic behind the parameters and MIDI.



--------------------------

Anyways, I think this thread has been totally derailed by the usual "don't touch my amp advanced parameters!" crowd (which kind of shows how ignorant people are and only read what they want to read - the advanced parameters thing was only a side note and not the actual focus of the initial discussion).

A: "How about we renovate this house? The inner walls haven't been re-colored for almost 13 point 7 years now!"
B: "No, don't tear down the walls, without them, the roof will break."
A: "Easy, boy, it's just about removing the old wallpaper and applying some ne- ..."
B: "No... I like the wallpaper. It has a nice pattern."
A: "Renovated walls look better, especially since we want this house to be attractive for more tenants. And we can get a wallpaper that has the same pattern if you like."
B: "Nonono! If we remove the walls, it's not a house anymore!"
A: "Wait, what? Didn't I just say it's not about removing the walls, but - ..."
B: "I said DONT TOUCH THE WALLS!"

 

[ztevie]

I can understand he didn't know what you were doing when tonematching, but adjusting basic parameters? It's like a normal amp but the knobs are on the screen. What would be difficult about that? Of course if you've never seen a computer in your life sending an email would be an overwhelming experience. I wouldn't think programming skills or midi knowledge is required to get nice tones either.
A certain knowledge about computers and how to use them is required to use axe edit, but that goes for everything regarding software. Using Word for the first time is hard, and you would have to know basic things about computers before you do.
Everybody is entitled to their opinion, so are you, but calling people ignorant is.... Well, ignorant.

This thread is going nowhere. People have stated opinions and I'm sure FAS have been reading here. Maybe they'll t take some of what's been said here and incorporate it into future fw's. Let's see, it's up to them, it's not like we can vote about it and demand FAS follow the majoritys wishes?

 

[Marcus Siepen]

You gave your point of view, you named your arguments and still there are people that disagree, so what? Does every person have to agree with you? And why does every player have to abandon his tube amp and embrace the Axe-FX? If your friend likes the sound he gets from his tube amp, cool, let the man play. If he wants to check out the Axe-FX, cool again, let him give it a try. If he doesn't like it cause it is too confusing for him, no problem, let him play his tube amp and be happy. And about renovation of the UI, have you ever thought about the possibility that a lot of people might be as confused by a new UI as your friend is confused by the present one? After all there are many people that get along just fine with the present version, your simplified version might be a nightmare for them. If Fractal decide to go for a new UI, fine, no problem with that, I just don't see why it HAS to be renewed, just because some people can't hold themselves back when it comes to messing with things they have no clue about. If all the new UI does is hide those features those people will go to advanced mode anyway, mess up things, sound bad and complain.

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[chris]

--------------------------

Anyways, I think this thread has been totally derailed by the usual "don't touch my amp advanced parameters!" crowd (which kind of shows how ignorant people are and only read what they want to read - the advanced parameters thing was only a side note and not the actual focus of the initial discussion).

A: "How about we renovate this house? The inner walls haven't been re-colored for almost 13 point 7 years now!"
B: "No, don't tear down the walls, without them, the roof will break."
A: "Easy, boy, it's just about removing the old wallpaper and applying some ne- ..."
B: "No... I like the wallpaper. It has a nice pattern."
A: "Renovated walls look better, especially since we want this house to be attractive for more tenants. And we can get a wallpaper that has the same pattern if you like."
B: "Nonono! If we remove the walls, it's not a house anymore!"
A: "Wait, what? Didn't I just say it's not about removing the walls, but - ..."
B: "I said DONT TOUCH THE WALLS!"

Eh, I feel like your analogy should be more like "we are moving the stove and refrigerator into the bathroom so you don't get confused when you look for the sink."

 

[Zwiebelchen]

You gave your point of view, you named your arguments and still there are people that disagree, so what? Does every person have to agree with you?

I never said that everyone has to agree with that (why would I make a thread clearly stating that I wanted to initiate a discussion if I don't want to hear other people oppinions? I'm not that kind of guy), just that a lot of users did not even bother to read even a single post and just assumed it's another complain-thread and replied based on that assumption (explains a lot of useless posts here).

And why does every player have to abandon his tube amp and embrace the Axe-FX? If your friend likes the sound he gets from his tube amp, cool, let the man play. If he wants to check out the Axe-FX, cool again, let him give it a try. If he doesn't like it cause it is too confusing for him, no problem, let him play his tube amp and be happy.

Geez, why does everyone believe that talking about gear is like a zealous crusade? You never talked to friends about your hobby? Christ!
I'm just mirroring some experiences I had with other people into a clear example, nothing more. I'm not trying to pursuade anyone.

And about renovation of the UI, have you ever thought about the possibility that a lot of people might be as confused by a new UI as your friend is confused by the present one? After all there are many people that get along just fine with the present version, your simplified version might be a nightmare for them. If Fractal decide to go for a new UI, fine, no problem with that, I just don't see why it HAS to be renewed, just because some people can't hold themselves back when it comes to messing with things they have no clue about. If all the new UI does is hide those features those people will go to advanced mode anyway, mess up things, sound bad and complain.

I never said it HAS to be done, I also never talked about removing parameters or an idiot-mode. I just said that the UI could be improved or get a make-over, IMHO.
Again, why do you assume I'm some kind of furious fanatic, that wants his poison applied no matter what? I'm not threatening anyone with a lawyer. I'm not holding a gun. I just initiated a simple discussion I assumed could be taken seriously and mature. I got proven wrong (not generalizing here, several posts were pretty good).

Eh, I feel like your analogy should be more like "we are moving the stove and refrigerator into the bathroom so you don't get confused when you look for the sink."

Seriously, give me one quote where I suggested something along those lines. Just one.

 

[pyba]

I think that most answers come from experienced user that have probably spend a lot of time and have a strong background in guitar sound.
(The global vibe is a bit disapointing I may add, what's the point of a forum if it is not possible to express ideas without getting shot down, which seems quite a frequent occurence these days)

I completely understand zwieblechen argument. The idea is not to remove any parameters or limit tweakability. What I would appreciate, being a total noob in tube amp design and internal working, is an interface that would translate technical parameters into sound oriented parameters ("Mellow distortion"; "Tight low end", "shimmering spakling clean") that could in turns modifiy several advanced parameters IN A COORDINATED FASHION to achieve a specific goal.

I frequently see here some advice in response to questions about specific type of of sound ("push sag a little, then drop Bias a little and see if triode hardness helps") and it would be very helpful if that kind of interdependant adjustements could be presented in a newbie friendly way. I completely understand it is not trivial, and that may take a lot of work, but that doesn't mean that is is useless or not even worth to discuss.....

 

[Marcus Siepen]

@ Zwiebelchen: I don't think you are a furious fanatic and I guess I also didn't call you that, did I? In case you felt attacked by me, just let me make it clear that I didn't have any intention to do so, nor do I see any reason why I should, you have your opinion, I have mine, all the others have theirs, fine for me. To make my point of view very clear without quoting or adressing anybody:
Is the Axe FX or its UI too complicated? Actually, in my humble opinion, no, it is not, at least not as long as you (random you, not addressing anybody) don't make it so.
Let's assume you are an absolute beginner, you just learned how to play the Smoke on the water riff (in E of course, not in G) and you got an Axe FX II for christmas. You have absolutely no idea abot amps, effects, patches, routing and all that stuff... is it too compicated for you? Nope, it is not, it already comes with the "absolute beginner" mode. All you need are two things, the power switch and that big round knob next to the display. Stick to the factory presets for a start, there are almost 400 in the box, there should be some options that please you, no need to mess with anything for now.
After some time you progressed a bit (you know how to play Highway to hell by now ;-) ) and you found out that your fave factory preset is good, but not perfect for you. You learned a bit about the amp and you want to try to take the next step. Cool, there is a mode for you as well, just stick to editing the basic amp parameters on the first page, stick to adjusting bass, mids, treble, gain, volume and presence. Ignore everything else and you will be fine, and you will even learn a lot about how the amp works and reacts.
Now you feel you want to take the next step and you want some effects? No problem, activate/edit ONE effect, maybe read about it before, watch a video tutorial and then adjust only the basic settings for that efffect (again, page one is your friend).
After you learned how to use that effect, go for another one, take it step by step. Find out what YOU like, and inform yourself about it. Yeah, I know, it is not very common anymore, but actually picking up a manual can be a pretty good thing...
It all comes down to what we do with the Axe FX, if we mess with things we don't know anything about, we are heading for trouble, but we are the only ones that can be blamed for that. If we don't want to learn anything about the things that we are using, well, trouble again. If we avoid those things though the Axe FX can be a very great sounding and powerful tool, which is not too difficult to handle.

 

[Hugomack]

I've proposed it before and will do it again: I'd love to see an EASY MODE skin added to Axe-Edit.

As well as something similar for the hardware. It'd make troubleshooting much easier.

I totally agree.

If this "Easy Mode Skin" replicated the controls on the actual amp being modelled, that would make sense. Axe Edit graphics of the actual amps' control boards would be super-cool....

Then people who in the real world would change the valves, or tinker with the circuitry could do that in deeper "tinker" modes of virtual reality.

But with each firmware upgrade, it's getting easier and easier to get great tone, so I have no problem with Cliff's excellent development of the FX2. The amps sound great right out of the box. I only tinker with effects and modify the controls.

 

[Rex]

I had one guy say "I've got those two effect pedals and this amp, can you try to replicate it in the Axe?"...I gave it a try...The results were pretty good. But then he said "that's cool... but I did not really understand what you did there."

i like you, my brother, and I appreciate your many contributions to the forum, so I ask this with all respect:

Is it possible that a different presentation could have reduced the complexity this guy perceived? Tone Match is one of the deeper functions, and without a background explanation, a noob would perceive it as just pushing mystery buttons. When he said he didn't understand, did he get further explanation, or did he get, "Yeah, it's complicated."?

Once a person knows what Tone Match is supposed to do, and they've walked through the steps a couple of times, it becomes pretty easy to understand. The alternative is to remove the Tone Match function because it's "too complicated." And then you'd never be able to use it.


i totally get your desire for simplification. But I'm totally opposed to feature removal.

 

[Rotti]

I look at it like this: FAS's time is not unlimited and therefore valuable. While it might be nice to have a 3D representation of each modeled amp in AxEdit where you could, digitally, visually see yourself replacing a bright cap or biasing a new (mixed?) quad of tubes, then I'm all for it... although I wonder who might then consider what I look at as intuitive as even more confusing than the present option - in any case that is not the point of this post, and I digress...

BUT would I, as a consumer, rather see product development resources taken away from new features (formant shift anyone?), amp options (KT77's pleeeease! ), and the like for the sake of a new tool to orchestrate it with, even though the existing format is, IMHO, intuitive enough and allows all aspects of the AFX to be controlled within it (at least by the next version for a couple new features, as I understand it)? Probably not.

To go back to the car metaphor (which I will only slightly mix with other metaphors and is a bit of a stretch but I think the point should be clear):

You're going on a trip. You know where you want to go (tone), but you're not sure how to get there. You have two vehicles to chose from:
One vehicle is your standard, 4-tires on the road car (tube amp, let's say, or perhaps AFX without any advanced parameter adjustments) and comes with GPS navigation (almost a century of the same technology).
The other vehicle can drive, swim, fly, and teleport (AFX). It comes with a map and magnetic compass.

If you are not just a driver, but a pilot, your choice should be obvious; although this is one ship that even the most novice tweeker could keep in flight. And if you want to get fancy and you can read a map, again I think your choice is obvious.

 

[GreatGreen]

As for the car analogy, what the OP is doing is asking for all the roads in the world he personally doesn't use to be demolished so he'll never have to think about where he's going, even though is car already always naturally takes the easiest, most direct route everywhere he wants to go.

 

[Fabio KTG]

I say that Cliff should add a newbie friendly skin to a future update, iron out any bugs then stop updates altogether and go have that we'll earned vacation. Then work on a different product. You don't hear the Ultra users whining about this and that, because they know that the Ultra has reached its finality. Perhaps if Cliff stopped the development of the Axe 2, we'd all just STFU and make do with what we have?

 

[pyba]

As for the car analogy, what the OP is doing is asking for all the roads in the world he personally doesn't use to be demolished so he'll never have to think about where he's going, even though is car already always naturally takes the easiest, most direct route everywhere he wants to go.

I think you should actually read the OP's posts.

 

[pyba]

we'd all just STFU and make do with what we have?

Yes great idea. He could start by stopping spending money uselessly and shutdown the forum, since apparently exchanging opinions is frowned upon..

 

[Tanax]

Use the few amps that you like. Don't use the reverb models that you don't feel like using.

Problem with this from a new users' point of view is that they still have to go through all amps in order to find the one they like.

Why do I care? This will make me sound nerdy but it makes my point. I care because in the past I played a few online games that started out just awesome. Then as they became popular guys like you came in and complained things were too complicated. What happened every single time after? The developers caved and dumbed everything down forcing me to quit because suddenly the games were boring.

Quit trying to dumb down my AXE! Cmon anyone who finds the extra bells and whistles daunting can easily ignore them. I appreciate us discussing how to make the product better but I strongly believe that the you are exaggerating the complexity here and I am unclear why.

Oh and yes I refer to my car manual all the time. Thank You.

Providing a "easy mode" skin for the Axe-FX does not impact you so I don't see the problem if they don't actually remove any features, just hides them from view when in easy mode. Using the advanced mode would be exactly how it is now.

There's also the other end of that stick, regarding games. I've played games that haven't caved and dumbed it down but kept it difficult. This was great for the current users who had already learned the game so they had a steady fanbase but the game died anyway due to 1) having difficulty getting new players and 2) old players eventually left due to having other things to do in life/found another game.

Feature creep, agony of choice, option anxiety ...

It's not the amount of parameters, it's being to able to see and access them.

People think of Macs being easier than Windows PCs, partly because there are less configuration opties.
Well, the Mac has those too but you can't see them.

Some people want easier effect blocks, like 3 virtual knobs. Others have a thread going, wishing far more advanced effect options.
Can't please them all. Except by changing the way things are presented.

I've proposed it before and will do it again: I'd love to see an EASY MODE skin added to Axe-Edit.

As well as something similar for the hardware. It'd make troubleshooting much easier.

Completely agree!

I haven't used the Axe-FX for more than a year now and I'm kind of dreading to start using it again due to all new things that have come out. Having an easy mode interface would make it really easy to get back into the game and after having learned that, starting to dive deeper into the more advanced features. It's all about easing the learning curve for the end-user. The Axe-FX is indeed a very complicated unit with a lot of power, dumbing down the interface during the initial learning stage makes sure the user doesn't get discouraged from continuing.

 

[mogvinda]

Too many features on my AXE FX! A genuine First World Problem

First World Problems - Funny First World Problem Meme Images

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Your point is? What are you saying exactly?

This discussion (if you could call it that) is aimless. It started out with you saying that you thought the unit had exceeded the scope of its features.

Nope, it didn't. It started out with saying that I feel we reached a point where the unit begins to exceed the scope of its features.

When we pointed out that it indeed hadn't you discussed usability issues.

I did that right from the beginning.

Now that we've pointed out that there were indeed few to none and that the existent "learning curve" is to be expected given the market segment the Axe-Fx is targeting [...]

There are usability issues. Otherwise we wouldn't have the usual troubleshooting posts every day. There's just a lot of things that are not really intuitive by design right now. Things like the scenes feature, things like the FX loop block combining in/out instead of seperating them, the modifier settings being all over the place instead of directly at the controller menu, hidden button functions (press fx bypass for global block settings? double-click X for copying X/Y values?) etc..
Those features are functional, yes, they do work fine if you know them, yes - but I'm not saying they don't work, I'm just saying they could be improved for a more intuitive workflow.

The features you find confusing or pointless are there because somebody uses them. By and large they stay out of the way. If you don't use them then they don't detract from the experience thanks to smart UI design. If you implement the ability to hide them this will undoubtedly be more trouble than it's worth on the back end and cause additional support woes on the front for very little return on investment. The most logical place to go is... nowhere.

Repeating myself for almost the tenth time: it's not about removing those features. It's about making the unit more user-friendly. And even if you don't use scenes, X/Y or the preset noise gate, they can still cause issues if you don't fully understand them.

To go back to the analogy of cars (just because you guys seem to like that example); just because you never look into the engine doesn't mean your car is always working fine. Especially when updating firmware versions, some advanced parameters like to go nuts (in case they got changed by the firmware) - there has been a lot of issues because of this. Locking certain things to default values if the user doesn't want to use them just makes sense.

Is it possible that a different presentation could have reduced the complexity this guy perceived? Tone Match is one of the deeper functions, and without a background explanation, a noob would perceive it as just pushing mystery buttons. When he said he didn't understand, did he get further explanation, or did he get, "Yeah, it's complicated."?

Well, the issue that made him think it was too complicated for him was pretty much the modifier stuff (I tried to replicate one of his wahs and a volume control by expression pedals) and the X/Y switching of amps. I mean, he was kind of used to having a 2-button switch that selects the different amp channels and it took me quite a while to explain how and why I used scenes with X/Y amp settings to achieve that functionality (as he had a 3 channel amp).
So it wasn't really the tone match feature that was the issue (I told him tone matching is just high definition auto-EQing and that he doesn't really need to bother with it).

I guess it was kind of too much information for starters, but then again, when you come from an analogue background, you usually do want to replicate what you have at first, so it's kind of understandable.

I look at it like this: FAS's time is not unlimited and therefore valuable.

I really understand that sentiment. I'm actually also an advocate of "adding more effects models before making further improvements to amp modelling", but still, an interface makeover could do good in many aspects.

As for the car analogy, what the OP is doing is asking for all the roads in the world he personally doesn't use to be demolished so he'll never have to think about where he's going, even though is car already always naturally takes the easiest, most direct route everywhere he wants to go.

Yeah ... sure. You're a very wise man. *facepalm*

 

[Tanax]

As for the car analogy, what the OP is doing is asking for all the roads in the world he personally doesn't use to be demolished so he'll never have to think about where he's going, even though is car already always naturally takes the easiest, most direct route everywhere he wants to go.

Not quite. It's more along the lines of not displaying all the roads in the world on your GPS but rather only show the roads you will use when you're trying to get from point A -> point B.

 

[don_joe]

I get your point, I just don't see why people should not have enough self control to not mess with things they don't have a clue about.

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Sorry, no disrespect, but if I would have sticked to your "advice", I wouldn't learn a lot of things. Why shouldn't we experiment and learn by doing? Not all of us are so dumb to mess with every parameter and then save it just like that and than later complain WTF did I do and blame FAS for making this damn device that complicated.