Axe-Fx III Firmware Release Version 17.00

Is there a competitor that offers this?
Of course not.
Neither does it cost that much.
Eg Line6 = $ 1500. AxeFX MarkII + FC12 = $ 3,000. I will not compare prices in Europe because the differences are even greater.

I don't know of any other device that gives you their latest tech in an upgrade for 50$. Buying anything is a mistake by that logic. I remember L6 selling an additional 5 amp models for $99 not so long ago. The III has had an overwhelming number of "free" upgrades since its release and will have more.
You're right. You write about software all the time, and I write about hardware all the time.
 
The CPU-usage with FullRes IR's is very high on my unit. I never reached a warning level before but with FullRes IR's I get them with every single preset I add them to. The presets I use are not heavy on CPU either, I'd think..
 

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Of course not.
Neither does it cost that much.
Eg Line6 = $ 1500. AxeFX MarkII + FC12 = $ 3,000. I will not compare prices in Europe because the differences are even greater.


You're right. You write about software all the time, and I write about hardware all the time.
At least be a little more fair and compare the Helix Rack + Control $2000 not $1500 and you're still not getting the same quality and availability of updates as Fractal.
 
Of course not.
Neither does it cost that much.
Eg Line6 = $ 1500. AxeFX MarkII + FC12 = $ 3,000. I will not compare prices in Europe because the differences are even greater.


You're right. You write about software all the time, and I write about hardware all the time.


I was planning on not responding but this triggered me a bit. You compare a lada car to a mercedes and kinda say that the lada’s ashtray is better and can be replaced by a shiny model for 50 bucks.
Come on. I get your frustration, but you bought a unit that was top notch when it came out. Still it is being improved nearly on a monthly basis. Compared to what you bought it sounds even better now and amps and effects have been added. AND FOR FREE.I think that is amazing. Of course it sucks when new models with more features come out. But that is progress.
If only they had called the mark 2 the axe fx 4 this wouldn’t have felt so weird probably.
 
@FractalAudio

Cliff I have a serious demand.
If you still have it can you please check your afd model between 2 🦐 . That’s not possible . That’s the only amp that sound off in the unit . I cook you some seafood if you want 🌸. I want to be sure that it is normal sounding and it’s impossible to try a real one here .
 
Of course not.
Neither does it cost that much.
Eg Line6 = $ 1500. AxeFX MarkII + FC12 = $ 3,000. I will not compare prices in Europe because the differences are even greater.


You're right. You write about software all the time, and I write about hardware all the time.
Line 6 Helix rack + foot controller $2,000. Processor with about 1/4 the processing power of the III. You sure you are talking about hardware or just... ?
 
The CPU-usage with FullRes IR's is very high on my unit. I never reached a warning level before but with FullRes IR's I get them with every single preset I add them to. The presets I use are not heavy on CPU either, I'd think..
Correct. Cliff stated they add about 25% processing load for each one, which is significant. He also said he's trying to find ways to reduce the load. It will still be higher than using a standard IR because it's a lot more data to process.
 
Technology is moving forward, the product needs to be developed. But if the memory size of probably $ 5 is going to determine whether a fairly large upgrade is fully functional or not, that's not good.
No offense but it seems that you don't know what you're talking about.
The Axe FX does not use SSD storage or similar technology you would find in a PC, smartphone, or USB stick. Instead, it uses specialized ICs designed for embedded use cases which have vastly different requirements and specifications. SSDs etc are almost exclusively optimized for size and transfer bandwidth and in turn sacrifice various other parameters which are important for embedded applications (e.g. an interface designed for real-time operating systems, guaranteed access timings/latencies, and higher endurances). These ICs are simply not available in large sizes because capacity is a trade-off with all the other capabilities. Looking at a big supplier in my country, the largest embedded storage ICs they offer are 2 GBit in size - that's BIT and not byte which equates to 256 Megabytes of storage.

Can't be bothered to find the post but IIRC Cliff stated in an earlier thread that the MkI used the biggest compatible storage IC available at the time they designed the hardware, and the MkII uses a newer version of that IC with twice the capacity that came out in the meantime. Same thing with the CPU, I know for a fact that the 1GHz DSP was the fastest model available when the MkI was released - but now the vendor released an 1.25GHz model with the same power and thermal budgets, thus it's feasible for Fractal to offer the MkII Turbo revision. So Fractal simply built the product with what was available at that point in time, it's not like they deliberately gimped the MkI storage or MkII CPU in order to sell an updated revision shortly after (hell, if that was their business plan they could have simply released Cygnus as the Axe FX IV and stopped updates for the III; and they would never have ported Ares to the Axe FX II). And while you can argue that there are other avenues they could have explored to future-proof the processing power or storage or RAM or whatever else, any such future-proofing would not be anywhere near as simple as adding a few dollars to the BOM of the product. Worst of all, they could cost a lot of time which Cliff does not spend on the next big modelling improvement.

TL;DR: limitations are due to the realities of designing embedded devices, from what I've seen Fractal don't compromise on hardware and do not use shady tactics such as planned obsolescence.
 
If only they had called the mark 2 the axe fx 4 this wouldn’t have felt so weird probably.
Aa - getting carried away there a bit maybe - Axefx3 mkII or even mkIITurbo would not qualify as a full generation forward given the level of feature changes in past full gen hw releases.
 
Aa - getting carried away there a bit maybe - Axefx3 mkII or even mkIITurbo would not qualify as a full generation forward given the level of feature changes in past full gen hw releases.
True, very true. But there is no rule what a next generation axe has to be and it would have given more peace of mind for mark one owners at this point. But I must say I agree with you and only mention it now because of the fuss.
 
True, very true. But there is no rule what a next generation axe has to be and it would have given more peace of mind for mark one owners at this point. But I must say I agree with you and only mention it now because of the fuss.

My guess is that the next generation will include enough power to make amp channel changes completely gapless. Other than that, I really can't fathom what else could possibly improve sound-wise.
 
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