AxeCabManager - a new utility for Axe-FX II users

CyberFerret

CyberFerret

Power User
One of the things that frustrates me about the Axe-FX is the tediousness of auditioning different cabs and IRs on the device. There are currently 133 factory cabs on there, with space for another 100 user cabs. That is two hundred and thirty two cabs that you need to work out which sounds best in a particular preset.

While waiting for Axe-Edit 3.0, and while developing some other stuff for Axe-Pad, I spent the past couple of days knocking up this little utility:

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AxeCabManager, is very simply, a cabinet manager for your Axe-FX II. It allows you to:

* List all your factory and user cabs in one place
* Add a list of different cabs to a 'favourites' folder for easy auditioning of cabs that are scattered all over the cab list
* Set and compare mono/stereo cabs. Also X/Y settings and supports dual cab blocks in a preset
* Rename user cabs with a right click
* Drag and drop cab .syx files from Windows Explorer into a user cab slot for instant uploading to the Axe-FX

Very often, we want to compare factory cabs against custom IRs. It is quite painstaking to select back and forth, especially if one cab is in slot 20 and the other in slot 152. Now you can add as many or as few disparate cabs into a 'favourites' list and then just click on the cab names (or even just use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to select them instantly)...

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Yes, I mean you can be playing your guitar, and just have to reach over to your keyboard and press [Up] or [Down] to switch the cabs. Factory or User, it doesn't matter, you can group your own collection to audition them all side by side.

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Renaming cabs is now also a cinch. Renames them in real time on your Axe-FX

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The finisher: Drag and drop cab IRs from your hard drive straight onto the Axe-FX via AxeCabManager!! I have 'Safety Mode' turned on here to warn when overwriting a user slot, but if you turn it off, it is as easy as click, drag, strum, listen, click, drag, strum, listen to run through a bunch of files on your hard drive. Like what you hear? Copy it to 'Favourites' then move to the next slot and drag another IR in to continue...

AxeCabManager (like my other utility AxeFXReporter) is released FREE to all Axe-FX II users as a 'thank you' for supporting AxePad over the past 18 months. Of course, paypal donation are always welcome: devan@blaze.com.au - A programmer always needs new strings and picks... ;-)

AxeCabManager can be downloaded via this link.

Simply extract the two files into a folder on your hard drive and double click on the 'AxeCabManager.exe' application. Choose your MIDI in and out device and click [Connect]. From there on, it should download a list of all the cabs on your device and as you select them in AxeCabManager, they will be selected on your Axe-FX.

Notes:
------
* Windows only, may work on an emulator on a Mac, but I haven't tested it. Windows 7 highly recommended.
* Requires Axe-FX to be plugged in on USB port and latest Fractal drivers installed.
* Axe-FX II ONLY - Sorry Standard and Ultra users - the SYSEX programming is just TOO different.


EDIT: Version 1.01 now uploaded (same download line). Now supports saving and loading of the 'favourites' list. Now you can have collections of favourite cabs that suit various genres or styles etc!


UPDATE: New Mac version of this uility now release. More information on this thread.

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UPDATE: New Version 1.01b now fixes the cab renaming issue.
 
Last edited:
yek said:
Wow, that's fantastic!

(If only there was a Mac version too!)
Click to expand...

Got Parallels or another VM on your Mac yek? I'd be keen for someone to try this under an emulator on the Mac or on Linux. Not sure how it would go. I am using the native Windows MIDI API here, and I think because of the critical timing, an emulator session of Windows might not keep up... ?!?
 
Wow:)

Sound like a great tool, will definitely try this one out.
Thanks for your great work!
 
This is incredible. Sadly, I own a Macbook pro. And I don't have a windows 7 cd, so I can't run a windows session in Boot Camp. Can someone on the forum turn this into a Mac program? This is a great tool. I get frustrated reading guys' posts that seem to know what their favorite cabinets are. I want to program a loop of a chord progression and cycle through them until I arrive at the ones that are my favorites, and this software (if it were available on MAC) would make it so much easier.
 
Very nice, i was just breaking my head on the same issue as i just received the Ownhammer collections.
Will try it a.s.a.p.
Big thanks for developing AND sharing.
 
Awesome. I'll be trying this out tonight. I must have missed AxeFXReporter. I'll have to look for that too.
-
Austin
 
It's normal that favourite cabs resets when restarting app?
It would be great if app could save our settings :)
 
Owczar said:
It's normal that favourite cabs resets when restarting app?
It would be great if app could save our settings :)
Click to expand...

Haha - Yes, at the moment the 'Favourites' is really only for the session.

I could see why people would like to save their favourite presets, but then others would ask for multiple saved sets of favourites based on songs/presets etc. and then before you know it I will burn up another few days on this project! :D

Let me think about this for a bit... ;)
 
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