Axe-Fx III Firmware Release Version 19.02 Public Beta

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JoKeR III said:
Those who continue to ask for inactive controls to be removed, please consider this. This would likely result in across the board changes, rather than individual model tweaks to remove the parameters that are inactive.

I'm one of those users who relies on the advanced parameters to dial in the tones I need. My longtime personal favorite amp is not longer usable for me due to controls deactivated due to other's doing things that aren't done in the 'real world' and complaining about the results. Fractal devices are professional grade pieces of gear and there should be an expectation that people would exercise some restraint and common sense. Just because you can do something doesn't it should be done.

The Authentic Controls all work. If you choose to go the Ideal page, there should be an understanding that you're moving away from the basic operation of an amp and delving into parameters that do/may not exist on the physical amp and some of them may not work or result in undesirable results if used.

Fractal does a great job explaining if parameters are going to be inactive or respond differently than the original when changes are made. Everyone who's discussing the inactive parameters here know which inactive parameters are being referred to. Be a professional; start a log, print out the release notes and highlight any parameter additions or deletions. I for one will continue to be vocal about dumbing down the Axe Fx. It would be a shame to see more changes that restrict its use for a majority of us.
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If anything I'd expect professional users to have even less patience for features that work (or don't) in surprising ways. They've got work to do, so they want their tools to Just Work. I don't buy that they're expected to take notes on counterintuitive behaviors and bring them to every edit session. They internalize what the actual behaviors are, as we all do (except maybe Rhett ;) ), but the less unexpectable behavior there is, the quicker you achieve a fluid experience.

How is disabling or hiding inactive controls "dumbing down" anything? I'm not sure what features you're referring to that got removed or hobbled in the interest of someone else's desires you don't share, but that's not really what we're talking about here. I doubt anyone actually WANTS some controls to be invisibly inoperable, they just deal with it as it is.

Yes it's understood that ignorant use of Ideal page settings may result in sounds you hate, but again that's not what we're talking about. It being the Ideal page doesn't mean it should behave arbitrarily. Suppose the labels on the Bass and Treble controls were switched, would that be ok? How is this different?


Just to be clear, +1,000,000% mega-appreciation for everything that Cliff and the whole Fractal crew have achieved here. The Axe has become the center of my musical life. If the kinds of things I'm talking about are lower priority than others, so be it, Fractal delivers amazing value every day. But all other things being equal, which of course they never are, controls should behave as you'd expected them to.
 
NeoSound said:
Is it possible to have a similar 2nd press for scenes? Second press returns you to the previous scene.
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That would be really cool. I'm picturing an FC6 Scenes layout where tapping 6 once brings up Scene 6 and tapping it again brings up Scene 8, then going back to Scene 6 again when tapped a third time. Would be even cooler if the second-tap mode could change the LED color. Maybe that's already possible, I dunno.
 
deathbyguitar said:
That would be really cool. I'm picturing an FC6 Scenes layout where tapping 6 once brings up Scene 6 and tapping it again brings up Scene 8, then going back to Scene 6 again when tapped a third time. Would be even cooler if the second-tap mode could change the LED color. Maybe that's already possible, I dunno.
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My Johnson Millennium J12 foot controller had this double tap revert functionality back in 2001.

I would love this to be available as I would use the crap out of it.
 
For a per-preset footswitch, when the function is assigned to Chan Inc / Dec on the Reverb 1 block and the Mini-Display Label is set to "Current Channel," it's showing "Rev2" on the FC12 footswitch screen. Changing the function or mini-display label options correctly show Rev1 or Reverb 1.

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We often want controls that are authentic, but in many cases this also means unintuitive: odd tapers, TS controls mapped to output eq (JMP) ... other odd behaviours in real amps that are not obvious if approaching controls from the perspective of assuming they will be logical / intuitive. I suspect this is the characteristic of Axfx modelling that some who posted above might be wanting to protect - I also like that these oddities are modelled despite getting fooled by some of them lol!.

For the ideal page, I guess there is a case for ideal controls to always be logical / intuitive / consistent, but if one considers the ideal page to be a collection of controls still precisely true to the amp's design but just not exposed to the user on the real amp, then, well...oddities will show up on the ideal page also. To add complexity, we also sometimes have ideal control behaviours that are in addition to the real amp's design - put there to make the amp better and more functional than the original. So with this, one could argue a case for having 3 pages of amp controls:
  • Authentic - Only what's visible on the real amp.
  • Ideal - Additional controls exposed from within the amp's original design.
  • Extended - Additional controls not supported by the original amp's design but that would have made the original amp better.
Personally, keeping track of the oddities does not bother me as I don't use a lot of amp models but I know others' usage could be very different. And then there's priorities - how hi on the list would the community want such a thing to be - not too high for me but who knows overall.
 
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NeoSound said:
Is it possible to have a similar 2nd press for scenes? Second press returns you to the previous scene.
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Seems an odd omission since this was added to the FM3 quite a while ago (FW 3.02)... And I think my Axe Fx wish for "last scene" might have been the inspiration for these features ;)
 
Omri Bazelet said:
Professional grade gear isn't equal to a complex and unfunctional.
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Never made that claim and I agree that simply because something is 'complex', it's therefore a professional device. Having some parameters inactive on certain models does not make it unfunctional. There are many amp models with inactive parameters in the Ideal page, I made a spreadsheet of these parameters for my reference should I be using an amp model and a particular parameter doesn't seem to be working.
Omri Bazelet said:
Remember that also non professional hobbyists are using this device even if they don't use the full potential of it.
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I do realize this, but why a device should potentially lose functionality that a lot of other users find extremely useful to make it easier for others would be a big step backwards. My understanding is that the Authentic page was created as a result of people wanting an easier way to dial in amps and is a huge testament to FAS' commitment to listening to customers and providing the best possible experience for all users.

Should 'hobbyists' choose to delve into the advanced parameters, there should be an understanding that more knowledge is necessary about these parameters and reading the manual, the Wiki and the blocks guide are essential to know what the parameters do.
Omri Bazelet said:
Saying that people should have a common sense to realize that the knobs on the JMP doesn't work is elitist and not cool.
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Nowhere in my comment did I say this, don't know how you can draw this conclusion. Making comments based upon a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of a comment resulting in questioning someone's character is not cool.
 
Dave Merrill said:
If anything I'd expect professional users to have even less patience for features that work (or don't) in surprising ways. They've got work to do, so they want their tools to Just Work. I don't buy that they're expected to take notes on counterintuitive behaviors and bring them to every edit session. They internalize what the actual behaviors are, as we all do (except maybe Rhett ;) ), but the less unexpectable behavior there is, the quicker you achieve a fluid experience.

How is disabling or hiding inactive controls "dumbing down" anything? I'm not sure what features you're referring to that got removed or hobbled in the interest of someone else's desires you don't share, but that's not really what we're talking about here. I doubt anyone actually WANTS some controls to be invisibly inoperable, they just deal with it as it is.
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Professional or not, there are users who simply like to tweak. I did it with physical amps by trying different bias settings, rolling preamp tubes and modding pedals. The Axe III provides the same level of tweakability and then some. I stopped using another modeller because the effects lacked the tweakability to get the sounds I wanted. Everything was based upon their 'ideal' way the effect should sound. It was always a compromise. The Axe III, to this point, really has fewer limitations to the sounds that are possible that I no longer have to compromise on any aspect of my tone. I would rather not lose any of these features if possible.

I am a semi-professional, play live but am not much of a studio player. Learning the parameters outside of the Authentic page is part of the learning curve. If you want to quickly dial in a tone, stick with the Authentic page. As I said in another reply, if you delve into the Ideal page or advanced parameters, educate yourself.

It's really not that difficult to adapt to inactive parameters. It's doubtful that more than a handful of users actually use more than 5 amp models during any given period, we usually settle on a handful for a length of time, so knowing which ones 'work' or not isn't that hard to remember.

I did not say that hiding inactive controls is dumbing down, the potential for across the board removal of these parameters or the Ideal page, in my opinion, would be. I've been around long enough to see a number of things change that made things 'simpler' that has required a change in my workflow and more recently a change in the amp models I use.

It seems that most users that aren't bothered by something, like the inactive parameters, don't speak up when others are asking for something to be removed or changed. I'm no longer going to be silent when there's a potential for more changes that impact what I'm used to using when tweaking the amp models and effects. It's part of any discussion; the other viewpoint.
 
JoKeR III said:
Professional or not, there are users who simply like to tweak. I did it with physical amps by trying different bias settings, rolling preamp tubes and modding pedals. The Axe III provides the same level of tweakability and then some. I stopped using another modeller because the effects lacked the tweakability to get the sounds I wanted. Everything was based upon their 'ideal' way the effect should sound. It was always a compromise. The Axe III, to this point, really has fewer limitations to the sounds that are possible that I no longer have to compromise on any aspect of my tone. I would rather not lose any of these features if possible.

I am a semi-professional, play live but am not much of a studio player. Learning the parameters outside of the Authentic page is part of the learning curve. If you want to quickly dial in a tone, stick with the Authentic page. As I said in another reply, if you delve into the Ideal page or advanced parameters, educate yourself.

It's really not that difficult to adapt to inactive parameters. It's doubtful that more than a handful of users actually use more than 5 amp models during any given period, we usually settle on a handful for a length of time, so knowing which ones 'work' or not isn't that hard to remember.

I did not say that hiding inactive controls is dumbing down, the potential for across the board removal of these parameters or the Ideal page, in my opinion, would be.
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I didn't mean to suggest either of those options, apologies if that wasn't clear. But I think it was :)

JoKeR III said:
I've been around long enough to see a number of things change that made things 'simpler' that has required a change in my workflow and more recently a change in the amp models I use.

It seems that most users that aren't bothered by something, like the inactive parameters, don't speak up when others are asking for something to be removed or changed. I'm no longer going to be silent when there's a potential for more changes that impact what I'm used to using when tweaking the amp models and effects. It's part of any discussion; the other viewpoint.
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In general I prefer controls to be disabled when they're inactive, rather than hidden, so I can stop looking for them elsewhere.

Some common sense applies too. I don't want to see controls for blocks I'm not looking at, or that aren't even in the preset.

But again, that's not what we're talking about. The case in question is simply that controls are sometimes shown and enabled when they don't actually do anything.That's annoying at best, and at worst makes you wonder if you're not hearing/seeing/understanding what the control is supposed to do.

But I'm engaging in the time-honored game of Being Right On The Internet, which, enough.
 
AFAIK...
Originally parameters on the Ideal page used to generically work across all (or vast majority of) amps - before it was called Ideal.
Then the Authentic page showed controls more like the actual amp.
Thus users could choose which interface they wanted to use, Authentic or Ideal.

More recently, it seems (with Cygnus?) we "lost" some of the generic control functionality as internally the models are more authentic and not all controls work (e.g. missing bright cap or fixed tone stack).

From Cliff's perspective this may be all obvious (amp by amp) but as a user it can be surprising esp. as most users don't know such and such amp has a fixed tone stack or some other amp doesn't have a bright cap. It is more authentic but some of us got used to generic tweakability. Therefore confusion... User: "this knob doesn't work"; Cliff: "of course it doesn't with that model".

Also sometimes there are bugs (e.g. twisting a knob has no effect or a strange effect) and if users don't know what is active or not we'll keep reporting them and wasting everyone's time.
 
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Don’t compare real knobs to a graphic interface where everything is possible . Even having fireworks popping when you save or a cliff meme that tells you every hour that you need to do a pause .
 
Come on guys, please don’t argue about that.
It’s something that depends only to Cliff and the Fractal team.
Personally I have no problems with the controls like they are but I can fully understand that people don’t want a control layout where some knobs have no function. We all should show at least some respect to others, doesn’t matter if we are not agree to each other.
 
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