Axe-Fx III 16.00 Beta 4 "Cygnus" Firmware - Public Beta

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https://www.fractalaudio.com/downlo...xe-fx-3/16p0/axefxiii_dsp_rel_16p00_beta4.zip

IMPORTANT - READ ME - DON'T IGNORE - LISTEN UP CHUCKLEHEADS

1. This is BETA firmware. It is not guaranteed to be flawless and bug-free.
2. It WILL change the sound of your presets.
3. The volume levels of your presets WILL likely change.
4. There are known issues with minor popping/thumping when changing amp models/channels/scenes.
5. Not every amp model has been updated yet. Some amp models may sound completely wrong. If an amp model is not listed below there is a possibility it won't sound right.
6. There may be issues with Axe-Edit not working correctly for some amp models.
7. You MUST update Axe-Edit to the latest beta for proper operation:
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...8-supports-fw-16-00-public-beta.170254/unread

IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO ACCEPT THE ABOVE LIMITIATIONS THEN YOU SHOULD NOT INSTALL THIS FIRMWARE.

The following amp models have been updated and verified against the real amps:
'59 Bassman
'65 Bassman
Vibroverb
Band-Master
Deluxe Reverb
Twin Reverb BF
Deluxe 5E3
Princeton Reverb
AC20 DLX
Plexi 50W
Plexi 1987x
Plexi 6CA7
Recto2
CAE 3+
X88
X99
SLO 100
Triaxis
Mesa MKIV
5150
6505+
5150 III
Orange Tiny Terror
Tucana
Cornford MK50
Swart Atomic Space Tone
Komet Concorde
Komet 60
Tweed 5F8-A
FAS Brootalz
Diezel Herbert
Friedman Smallbox
Friedman BE/HBE
Dirty Shirley
Cameron CCV
Cameron Atomica
Dumble ODS-100 HRM
Dumble ODS-100 Clean
Ruby Rocket
Trainwreck Express
Trainwreck Liverpool
Trainwreck Rocket
Suhr Badger 18
JCM800
JCM800 #34
Brit Super
Brit 800 Mod
Brit Brown
PRS Archon

The following models have been updated but NOT verified yet:
JTM45
Carol-Ann OD2
1959SLP
Plexi 100W
Mark IIC+
Bogner Ecstasy
Bogner Shiva
Bogner Uberschall
Super Reverb
Vibrolux
Diezel VH4 Blue
Plexi 50W 6550
Question, once 16.0 comes out of beta form to full 16.01 are there going to be an update for all the factory presets for Cygnus ?
 
Very cool information there, I was not aware of that. Thanks, man.

Now this question is completely due to my ignorance on this, is there a way to model the 8 ohm load in the Axe III with a certain cabinet or setting on the amp block?
Yep, it's in your quote.

If you use them into an 8-ohm cabinet they're brighter. To simulate this lower the negative feedback by 1/sqrt(2). This results in a negative feedback value of 0.3.
 
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I will recheck the model. I did a cursory check this morning and nothing appeared amiss. When I get back to main HQ I will get the amp out and compare.

Remember there are two versions. Dirty Shirley 2 is the brighter of the two (has a 2.2nF cathode cap instead of 4.7nF).
If you haven't pulled your DS out to recheck, don't bother. I just spent a couple of hours with mine A/B'ing it against the Cygnus DS1 model on my Axe. With the real amp on 16 ohms and an impedance curve on the Axe that sounded similar my load box, they're close enough that I doubt there's anything wrong with the model. I'll chalk my initial impression up to not having a suitable impedance curve selected or possibly having the real amp set to 8 ohms to use with my Suhr RL.

Tonight I mostly ran into a Power Station set to 16 ohms and was in the ballpark from the start. It was just a matter of flipping through impedance curves to dial it in closer. I will say, with the master almost wide open the real amp had more midrange honk for some reason. I switched over to my Suhr RL with the amp at 8 ohms and there was less honk. After adjusting the negative feedback on the model to simulate the amp being on 8 ohms they were pretty damn close again. Not sure what that was, I guess I was either hearing the differences between the Suhr and Power Station's loads or the amp just sounds that different at 16 vs 8 ohms when running hard.
 
Just had a weird experience with 16.00b running through S/PDIF back into my interface. I was getting a lot of high-end noise and it sounded super hissy, I assumed it to be digital jitter noise. At first I thought it was my monitors, so I plugged in to my interface's headphones (18i20 3rd gen), noise was still present.

Swapped clock source between the interface and the axe, no change. Plugged my phones direct into the AxeFX, noise disappeared. Back into the interface, boom there's the noise.

Power-cycled both units, waiting 30+ seconds before turning each back on, no dice. At all times my interface showed that it had sync-lock with the Axe FX.

Finally downgraded the Axe firmware to 15.01. Noise completely disappeared, sound out of both headphone ports was identical. Then, upgrade again back to 16.00b and noise stayed gone.

Have no idea what could've caused it, and haven't seen it happen again yet. But at least I thought I'd put it on the Fractal radar. Will make another post if it happens again.

Man I had an issue like this too tonight at band practice. I've been getting weird hisses rarely and randomly on my personal preset outputting to a PA speaker probably around Thanksgiving, first on firmware 15, but then tonight it happened again on FW 16 right after updating my cab IR in the preset and saving it. I had it on the tuner screen and all the green part glitched out and stayed frozen. I did a power cycle and now my preset died. The name of the preset and scenes persist but it's all glitched out and there's no blocks in the preset any more. Very weird. I may try to revert to FW15 but the hiss thing happened randomly then too. The other issue I've noticed is when I'm using the AxeFx as an interface into Windows, the sounds will go all weird like the bitrate got lowered significantly and things sound kind of hissy. A shame as my unit is just out of warranty, I'm hoping it's a bug they're working on a fix for but I don't know what Cliff has on his whiteboard in terms of fixes incoming.

Forgive the greasy camera photos.
 

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Man I had an issue like this too tonight at band practice. I've been getting weird hisses rarely and randomly on my personal preset outputting to a PA speaker probably around Thanksgiving, first on firmware 15, but then tonight it happened again on FW 16 right after updating my cab IR in the preset and saving it. I had it on the tuner screen and all the green part glitched out and stayed frozen. I did a power cycle and now my preset died. The name of the preset and scenes persist but it's all glitched out and there's no blocks in the preset any more. Very weird. I may try to revert to FW15 but the hiss thing happened randomly then too. The other issue I've noticed is when I'm using the AxeFx as an interface into Windows, the sounds will go all weird like the bitrate got lowered significantly and things sound kind of hissy. A shame as my unit is just out of warranty, I'm hoping it's a bug they're working on a fix for but I don't know what Cliff has on his whiteboard in terms of fixes incoming.

Forgive the greasy camera photos.
Assuming you've made a backup, have you tried resetting the system parameters?
 
Man I had an issue like this too tonight at band practice. I've been getting weird hisses rarely and randomly on my personal preset outputting to a PA speaker probably around Thanksgiving, first on firmware 15, but then tonight it happened again on FW 16 right after updating my cab IR in the preset and saving it. I had it on the tuner screen and all the green part glitched out and stayed frozen. I did a power cycle and now my preset died. The name of the preset and scenes persist but it's all glitched out and there's no blocks in the preset any more. Very weird. I may try to revert to FW15 but the hiss thing happened randomly then too. The other issue I've noticed is when I'm using the AxeFx as an interface into Windows, the sounds will go all weird like the bitrate got lowered significantly and things sound kind of hissy. A shame as my unit is just out of warranty, I'm hoping it's a bug they're working on a fix for but I don't know what Cliff has on his whiteboard in terms of fixes incoming.

Forgive the greasy camera photos.
Something like this is so unique and specific I doubt it’s a bug they're “working on” since they may not even know this could happen. Have you contacted support about this? I’ve never seen anything like this myself.
 
Assuming you've made a backup, have you tried resetting the system parameters?
Not yet. I only got home like an hour ago. I'll probably take a crack at it in the morning.


Something like this is so unique and specific I doubt it’s a bug they're “working on” since they may not even know this could happen. Have you contacted support about this? I’ve never seen anything like this myself.


Not yet, might send them a quick email about it in the morning.
 
The other issue I've noticed is when I'm using the AxeFx as an interface into Windows, the sounds will go all weird like the bitrate got lowered significantly
Is this using S/PDIF.... I read in some other thread a similar issue and it was the clock rate being reset from 48KHz by the PC interface that was messing things up.
 
If you haven't pulled your DS out to recheck, don't bother. I just spent a couple of hours with mine A/B'ing it against the Cygnus DS1 model on my Axe. With the real amp on 16 ohms and an impedance curve on the Axe that sounded similar my load box, they're close enough that I doubt there's anything wrong with the model. I'll chalk my initial impression up to not having a suitable impedance curve selected or possibly having the real amp set to 8 ohms to use with my Suhr RL.

Tonight I mostly ran into a Power Station set to 16 ohms and was in the ballpark from the start. It was just a matter of flipping through impedance curves to dial it in closer. I will say, with the master almost wide open the real amp had more midrange honk for some reason. I switched over to my Suhr RL with the amp at 8 ohms and there was less honk. After adjusting the negative feedback on the model to simulate the amp being on 8 ohms they were pretty damn close again. Not sure what that was, I guess I was either hearing the differences between the Suhr and Power Station's loads or the amp just sounds that different at 16 vs 8 ohms when running hard.
Yeah, I couldn't find anything wrong. It's amazing how much difference the speaker impedance makes when the feedback is off the speaker jack. It's a bad way to do it IMO but it is what it is.
 
Yeah, I couldn't find anything wrong. It's amazing how much difference the speaker impedance makes when the feedback is off the speaker jack. It's a bad way to do it IMO but it is what it is.
Am I understanding right that your recommended adjustment here is to "lower the negative feedback by 1/sqrt(2). This results in a negative feedback value of 0.3."?

Could or should we use or simulate a 16 ohm cab instead?
 
One thing I noticed is that changing the power tube models has no impact at all. The JTM45 model defaults to EL34's, so I went to change it to KT66's and nothing changed. So I tried every other power tube and the only one that sounded any different was the 300B. I tried this with numerous other amp models and found the same thing. My recollection from the old firmware was that changing power tubes had a real impact on the tone and the feel. Anyone else finding this?
 
One thing I noticed is that changing the power tube models has no impact at all. The JTM45 model defaults to EL34's, so I went to change it to KT66's and nothing changed. So I tried every other power tube and the only one that sounded any different was the 300B. I tried this with numerous other amp models and found the same thing. My recollection from the old firmware was that changing power tubes had a real impact on the tone and the feel. Anyone else finding this?

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/no-differences-when-changing-tubes.163545/page-5#post-1962569
 
Am I understanding right that your recommended adjustment here is to "lower the negative feedback by 1/sqrt(2). This results in a negative feedback value of 0.3."?

Could or should we use or simulate a 16 ohm cab instead?
The default value is for a 16 ohm cab. Also, 0.3 is actually 3. Cliff probably calculated from a max value of 1 instead of 10.
 
One thing I noticed is that changing the power tube models has no impact at all. The JTM45 model defaults to EL34's, so I went to change it to KT66's and nothing changed. So I tried every other power tube and the only one that sounded any different was the 300B. I tried this with numerous other amp models and found the same thing. My recollection from the old firmware was that changing power tubes had a real impact on the tone and the feel. Anyone else finding this?
I noticed this too. I changed the recto2 to el34 to try & tighten it up & couldn't hear a difference. Previous firmwares were subtle but it did change the sound.
 
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