Wish Axe-Fx III / Axe-Edit III accessibility for the blind

David777

David777

Member
Hi! I received my AXE FX III a few days ago and I'm blown away by the incredible sounds I'm getting - just from the presets without tweaking or creating any custom settings yet. One of my first thoughts was that my best friend had to get one of these....

...But, My best friend, who is an incredible guitarist and fellow gear head, happens to be 100% blind. He can't tell if the lights are on or off in a room. He is an amazing guitarist (we met at North Texas decades ago where we were both studying jazz guitar) who can dial in some of the best tone I've ever heard on a wide variety of rigs. Most likely one reason he is called THE KING OF TONE by me is that he has had to use his ears thru life to a much greater extent than those of us who can see.

I know he would freak at the AXE FX III and it's tonal possibilities. Yet, the graphic interface (both on the unit and in the AXE EDIT III software) would make it very difficult for him to navigate the unit.

I'm pretty sure if the AXE EDIT III were somehow compatible with a screen reading system for the blind such as JAWS, that he would be able to navigate the FX III fine. And with the FC-6 or FC-12 he would be able to gig with it fine (he takes his shoes off at gigs to feel the pedals with his feet).

If you guys at Fractal every wanted to speak with him/work with him, he'd be a great resource and I can give you his contact info. He has a great capability for using gear and software, and for signal routing for effects, preamps, etc. He has a home studio and records/edits his music there. We live 7 hours apart, but years ago he visited me when I got a Line6 M13 and while I was jamming he sat on the floor navigating the menu trees (which he had memorized) and twisting knobs to dial in some great presets for me. I also had a Mesa Mark III that I was unhappy with. While I was at work he took it apart and swapped some of the tubes around and dialed in some great tone for me to experience by the time I got home from work. Truly an amazing dude.

Here is a sample of his music. He wrote, sang, arranged, and played the guitars on this track.

 
Accessibility is a worthy goal. Hopefully this is something that can be done (likely on the axe-edit side only).
 
+1 - Any extra effort put into ADA/508 accessibility is an incredible boost for those who need it. I remember having one of the earliest versions of Dragon Dictate and JAWS demoed by none other than Ken Jacuzzi (the guy whose parents invented the Jacuzzi spa tub for) when I worked in the Disability Resources office at the college back in the mid/late '90s. Life-changing software for some people....

Great tune, BTW!
 
Dave Merrill said:
Blindfold yourself and try it.
Click to expand...
Not cool. If you have something to say, say it directly.

Apple has years of experience in this area and is well known for it; I was a developer for Macs for years and know their attention to detail. Adding accessibility hints to an application that ignores the OS is major work, but iOS already has the hooks and if an app is written to Apple's guidelines using their frameworks the app should automatically inherit that capability.

https://developer.apple.com/accessibility/ios/

and

https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-l.../assistive-technology-products/screen-readers

From my quick tests FracPad works with VoiceOver correctly. I don't have the appropriate cable to get it to connect to my FM3 but the iPad did announce and prompt/read-out as I moved around the screen in FracPad. Since FracPad has a trial version and works on iOS and Android, both of which have accessibility built-in, I'd say it's a reasonable and quick test to see if FracPad is a workable solution.

I didn't try using Axe-Edit III or FM3-Edit on my Mac, but the OS also supports all the same features, so it will probably work. Windows and Android have the same capabilities, so it'd be worth testing on those other OSes to see what happens.

Adding the capability to the FX3 or FM3 is not something I'd expect to happen. They'd have to add text to speech synthesis, possibly a touch-screen and a speaker. Piggybacking on the existing capabilities in the hosting computer, laptop, or device is the faster path to finding a solution.
 
Last edited:
Greg Ferguson said:
Not cool. If you have something to say, say it directly.

Apple has years of experience in this area and is well known for it; I was a developer for Macs for years and know their attention to detail. Adding accessibility hints to an application that ignores the OS is major work, but iOS already has the hooks and if an app is written to Apple's guidelines using their frameworks the app should automatically inherit that capability.

https://developer.apple.com/accessibility/ios/

and

https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-l.../assistive-technology-products/screen-readers

From my quick tests FracPad works with VoiceOver correctly. I don't have the appropriate cable to get it to connect to my FM3 but the iPad did announce and prompt/read-out as I moved around the screen in FracPad. Since FracPad has a trial version and works on iOS and Android, both of which have accessibility built-in, I'd say it's a reasonable and quick test to see if FracPad is a workable solution.

I didn't try using Axe-Edit III or FM3-Edit on my Mac, but the OS also supports all the same features, so it will probably work. Windows and Android have the same capabilities, so it'd be worth testing on those other OSes to see what happens.

Adding the capability to the FX3 or FM3 is not something I'd expect to happen. They'd have to add text to speech synthesis, possibly a touch-screen and a speaker. Piggybacking on the existing capabilities in the hosting computer, laptop, or device is the faster path to finding a solution.
Click to expand...
I meant only that I'd be surprised if accessibility would work that well without having been engineered into the app. itself.
I'd love to be wrong.
I'm not an Apple guy, no experience with accessibility on that platform.

I'm not sure what offensive thing you thought I was getting at indirectly.
If you look my other posts here on this topic, I'm 100% in favor of inclusive design.
I'm also aware that in many environments, including on the web which is where I've done some work on this, building that in is a lot of work.
If Apple has made it universal and automatic, that's awesome, but I somehow doubt it, or that would be the obvious and accepted solution.
 
Dave Merrill said:
If Apple has made it universal and automatic, that's awesome, but I somehow doubt it, or that would be the obvious and accepted solution.
Click to expand...
I did further exploring.

I connected my iPad to my FX3. On iOS the accessibility tries to work with FracPad Lite and reads the various screen elements but the demo dialog pops up quickly and stops any further experimenting. The developer could confirm whether the full version works correctly.

On MacOS 11.2, Axe-Edit III doesn't seem to have the needed hooks as the OS can only notify that the window is open but moving around doesn't cause VoiceOver to announce the screen element. Fractal's developer(s) would have to confirm whether the tags are in place.

https://developer.apple.com/accessibility/ is the high-level overview that talks about Apple's features and implementation. Windows and Android are sure to have similar presentations about their capabilities.

"universal and automatic": It's universal because it's built into the OS. Windows, MacOS and Android give any developer the ability, but often the developers don't take the time to implement the necessary hints for the system -- it's a "too busy" or "didn't care" situation usually but can be added in without a lot of work.

The Axe-Edit III developers don't seem to have notated/tagged the information about the window elements to give the OS the needed information.

FracPad appears to have that information but the trial interface gets "cute" and pops up a "buy it now" type dialog that stops any other interaction with the app. That could be reworked by the developer to allow testing the trial version further, or the developer could supply the full-version to someone to test if it's not already known.

Jay Pilkington could possibly be a good asset for either company if they wanted to move in that direction. I think they should but what do I know.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
I did further exploring.

I connected my iPad to my FX3. On iOS the accessibility tries to work with FracPad Lite and reads the various screen elements but the demo dialog pops up quickly and stops any further experimenting. The developer could confirm whether the full version works correctly.

On MacOS 11.2, Axe-Edit III doesn't seem to have the needed hooks as the OS can only notify that the window is open but moving around doesn't cause VoiceOver to announce the screen element. Fractal's developer(s) would have to confirm whether the tags are in place.

https://developer.apple.com/accessibility/ is the high-level overview that talks about Apple's features and implementation. Windows and Android are sure to have similar presentations about their capabilities.

"universal and automatic": It's universal because it's built into the OS. Windows, MacOS and Android give any developer the ability, but often the developers don't take the time to implement the necessary hints for the system -- it's a "too busy" or "didn't care" situation usually but can be added in without a lot of work.

The Axe-Edit III developers don't seem to have notated/tagged the information about the window elements to give the OS the needed information.

FracPad appears to have that information but the trial interface gets "cute" and pops up a "buy it now" type dialog that stops any other interaction with the app. That could be reworked by the developer to allow testing the trial version further, or the developer could supply the full-version to someone to test if it's not already known.

Jay Pilkington could possibly be a good asset for either company if they wanted to move in that direction. I think they should but what do I know.
Click to expand...
Yes lite version is a demo, why would one buy the full version without the annoying window poping? ^^
 
Greg Ferguson said:
I did further exploring.

I connected my iPad to my FX3. On iOS the accessibility tries to work with FracPad Lite and reads the various screen elements but the demo dialog pops up quickly and stops any further experimenting. The developer could confirm whether the full version works correctly.

On MacOS 11.2, Axe-Edit III doesn't seem to have the needed hooks as the OS can only notify that the window is open but moving around doesn't cause VoiceOver to announce the screen element. Fractal's developer(s) would have to confirm whether the tags are in place.

https://developer.apple.com/accessibility/ is the high-level overview that talks about Apple's features and implementation. Windows and Android are sure to have similar presentations about their capabilities.

"universal and automatic": It's universal because it's built into the OS. Windows, MacOS and Android give any developer the ability, but often the developers don't take the time to implement the necessary hints for the system -- it's a "too busy" or "didn't care" situation usually but can be added in without a lot of work.

The Axe-Edit III developers don't seem to have notated/tagged the information about the window elements to give the OS the needed information.

FracPad appears to have that information but the trial interface gets "cute" and pops up a "buy it now" type dialog that stops any other interaction with the app. That could be reworked by the developer to allow testing the trial version further, or the developer could supply the full-version to someone to test if it's not already known.

Jay Pilkington could possibly be a good asset for either company if they wanted to move in that direction. I think they should but what do I know.
Click to expand...
Btw the full version is free on Windows and Mac...
 
AlGrenadine said:
Btw the full version is free on Windows and Mac...
Click to expand...
Of FracPad III? I show it being $44.99 on the App Store.

...

Oh, you meant the version for Windows or Mac. I just saw that looking at the download site.

The question for this thread is, do the computer-based versions support the accessibility features being requested?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom