Axe-Fx II "Quantum" Rev 8.00 Public Beta

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Just spent my whole weekend trying to update all of my Axe-Fx and AX8 presets for 7.02. (The changes to the Comp block did the most damage to my stuff)............. and Beta Q8 drops....:eek: The AX8 never even got to see an official Q7.02....:p

The same thing happened with Q7....:confused: and Q6....and Q5.....and Q4......and....;)

Can't wait to try it out. I hope it doesn't change things much......

Cliff......your an animal...........and your killing me!o_O

Yes, I was thinking that it musst be a hard live with all this great updates to be a commercial preset maker. ;)
 
I had a quick run through my "amp+cab" presets, and some amp models do not sound quite right in the 8.0 beta, to my ears. I dotted down the following (there may be more):
  • TX STAR clean
  • ODS-100 clean
  • Nuclear Tone
  • Boutique 1
  • Brit Brown
FWIW, the Trainwrecks seem to sound better than in 7.02.
 
Moogerfooger type pedals. Eventide pedals. Pigtronic pedals. Eventide pedals. Some more glitchy sounding pedals. Something totally unique.

Fractal Audio doesn't model brands, they model and simulate effects.

Some of the effects in those medals can be and have been reproduced. Like the envelope filter, the murf, ambient, pitch etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see a few future firmware updates focussed on the user interface and effects.
 
Fractal Audio doesn't model brands, they model and simulate effects.

Some of the effects in those medals can be reproduced. Like the envelope filter, the murf etc.
The point is we want more! more more more! and we can never have enough:)
We want more, because we need more because we want one device to be everything, but more:)
 
I just did a direct comparison between Q8.00 Beta and Q7.02 release. I used the latest factory Plexi Normal preset for both boxes.

Q8 has clearly improved string-to-string definition on six-note chords. Not any brighter, but more crisp and more detailed. If you run presets with a pushed power amp, you're going to like this.

Houston, we have texture. :)

Uhh now I'm wet ...can't wait for checking it out...
 
8.00

Improved amp modeling. Improves clarity and sounds more “open” especially for non-MV amp models or when the MV is turned up.

The bias excursion values for most amp models have been updated based on new measurement techniques. Existing presets will automatically be updated to the new values.

Based on user feedback the Amp block Speaker Drive now defaults to zero.

Cab block Delay parameters now have 0.001 ms resolution.

Fixed “quantization” noise when Amp block Transformer Drive parameter is set to its minimum value and a lot of gain is applied after the block. This specifically addresses the “Tube Pre” model as the default Transformer Drive is at the minimum.

Fixed Amp block Preamp Hardness parameter not “sticking”.

Fixed incorrect Modifier mapping in Advanced page of Amp block.
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/bias-excursion.99698/
 
It would be cool to have more effects. I mean there's a whole DSP dedicated to them too, and there's still so many pedals out there that do some pretty hard to reconstruct sounds that I'd love to be able to have at my fingertips. It can't be fair to say "yeah, well many pedals just throw together several effects into one circuit and you can recreate them with several blocks" as I've heard some say.

Sometimes it feels like Cliff's key to customer loyalty besides rapid update releases is just making amps a bit bassy on one update and
then making them a bit more trebly on the next, so people will keep on marveling at the changes from the previous
update, perhaps made manifest by whatever tweaks they have to make to their presets. "Oh this one brightens up the mud, oh, this one sounds so much fuller and not tinny". Or "Cliff made a parameter I never thought about more accurate, he's so on it, it's so much better". Heresy, you say? It might be.
Then again, this is still my favorite piece of kit, so, love the update.

Not sure why you've posted this.... sounds a lot like a cheap shot at a lot of people here and at Cliff as well. I've been trying to get a 10 track recording of my songs finished for about 4 years now and started with firmware 11 or 13 thereabouts. I'm still using a lot of tracks from early on ( driven tones) but things have improved without question especially in the clean tones... maybe not so noticeable between each firmware but when I A-B old and new stuff its remarkable the changes to the dynamics etc. I'm glad you think its a good piece of kit though
 
Quick story for perspective.
My band's Keyboard player recently bought a new and pretty expensive keyboard (a well known & respected brand), and for some reason it was my job to get the thing connected to our PA, I saw it had two 1/4 inch jack line outs on the rear panel, for connection to an external source. I thought i'd check the manual to see if these were balanced or not. The manual says nothing about it. As if the outs were just an afterthought anyway. Also, there appears to be no expression pedal socket on it either, just pedal sockets which are for the brand's own multi piano pedal only. All this before we even get to (lack of) updates for the product.

It's instantly clear that the manufacturer has built this thing up to a price point, so it can compete with other products on the market. Any appointments deemed superfluous are binned in favour of the bare minimum requirements.
Now, that's when it becomes instantly clear how spoiled and very lucky us FAS users are. If we want to route or connect the unit a certain way, we can. It's all there if we need it, plus a whole lot more.
Then we get these updates, and okay, some like them, others don't. You don't have to do the updates, but the option is there which is very cool.
 
...Sometimes it feels like Cliff's key to customer loyalty besides rapid update releases is just making amps a bit bassy on one update and
then making them a bit more trebly on the next, so people will keep on marveling at the changes from the previous
update, perhaps made manifest by whatever tweaks they have to make to their presets. "Oh this one brightens up the mud, oh, this one sounds so much fuller and not tinny". Or "Cliff made a parameter I never thought about more accurate, he's so on it, it's so much better"....
I understand what you are saying from the end result, but the release notes are usually pretty good at explaining the "why" for a given update. You don't even really need to understand electronics or physics to get the overarching objective that drives most of these changes. It's not "I added some bass or treble to the system". That might be a symptom of the change, but what changed is almost always the manner in which the characteristics of a component is measured and then translated into code. The degree of accuracy to which this is done is what makes the AxeFX unique.

You just have to remember that what makes a guitar amplifier magic is the manner in which it completely screws up the signal coming out of the guitar. They are not good "amplifiers" from a strict definition of the word. If they were it would just be an exact copy of your raw guitar signal at a much louder level. Capturing the manner in which the signal is changed (distorted) from the original is not just a matter of taking the input and comparing it to the output. If it were you could write some kind of code to simulate that, but that would be a static representation (i.e. no consideration for variation in frequency, level, etc). The accuracy of the modeling is based on how realistically/exacting you can simulate every single component individually taking into account how they impact each other within a circuit. None of these components are static or linear; they break down as they heat up, they attenuate some frequencies, they add some resonant frequencies, they clip, etc.

It's the defining of the properties and characteristics of a resistor, a capacitor, a transformer, a piece of wire, etc to simulate the operation of the entire circuit that makes the difference here. The degree of accuracy of how each component's characteristic is defined is based on the manner in which the measurements are made. The degree of accuracy of each is what determines the quality (level of exactness) of the end result.

So basically you could just look at the end result as what was done, but that's not what was specifically done. The majority of release notes indicate changes in the way that a component was measured. If this data was readily available to FAS from the beginning then I'm sure that it would have been used in the initial release and we would have far less updates, but these are physical/analog components that have non-linear properties and he's basically creating new ways to capture those in a variety of scenarios on a continuous basis. I can imagine that some company out there has done a lot of this in some big lab with a lot of engineers and scientists already for some purpose, but I imagine that it would be for internal use only and be guarded.

I'm not trying to be defensive or anything like that. I understand your point. I'm just sharing my perspective and if it's of no use then that is fine. It's not our job as the customers to really care about the process; it's to use the product to do what we need....some of us just like getting a little peek behind the curtain and appreciate the process and amount of work that goes into getting to that final result so some of us probably get a bit defensive about it. Not many companies are as transparent about what it is doing in terms of development nor are they as enthusiastic about sharing incremental changes/discoveries with it's customers as FAS is. As a matter of fact I don't know any other company that is like this. It's one of the things that I enjoy about being a FAS customer....that doesn't mean that everyone else feels the same way as I do. Some people just like to use the thing for what it's intended. ;)

You know, the end goal for all of us is to have a product that can recreate all of those amps and stuff as realistically and accurately as possible. I see every update as a step closer to achieving that.
 
I had a quick run through my "amp+cab" presets, and some amp models do not sound quite right in the 8.0 beta, to my ears. I dotted down the following (there may be more):
  • TX STAR clean
  • ODS-100 clean
  • Nuclear Tone
  • Boutique 1
  • Brit Brown

Thanks for the info. Then i will wait.
Fw 7.02 sounds soo good
 
I had a quick run through my "amp+cab" presets, and some amp models do not sound quite right in the 8.0 beta, to my ears. I dotted down the following (there may be more):
  • TX STAR clean
  • ODS-100 clean
  • Nuclear Tone
  • Boutique 1
  • Brit Brown
FWIW, the Trainwrecks seem to sound better than in 7.02.

Try resetting the amp. I noticed the Speaker Drive interacts more with some amps so you may want to turn that down as well. FWIW, the Nuclear Tone, Boutique 1 and Brit Brown models are essentially unchanged from the previous firmware so it could just be your ears.
 
Try resetting the amp. I noticed the Speaker Drive interacts more with some amps so you may want to turn that down as well. FWIW, the Nuclear Tone, Boutique 1 and Brit Brown models are essentially unchanged from the previous firmware so it could just be your ears.

Amp models were reset, and Speaker Drive is at 0.00. I'm definitely noticing that something's "off" in some models.

P.S. I probably shouldn't have mentioned Brit Brown, because the changes in that model date back to 7.xx.
 
Amp models were reset, and Speaker Drive is at 0.00. I'm definitely noticing that something's "off" in some models.

P.S. I probably shouldn't have mentioned Brit Brown, because the changes in that model date back to 7.xx.

"Off" isn't really any help.
 
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