AxeFX III: What's Missing?

But we're not. It's still MIDI. You can wrap up however you want, it's still the same protocol, you're just sending through a wireless router.

Fine. Put the wireless in the unit, make it controllable from my iPhone, make it a seamless experience so I don’t have to connect and troubleshoot some kludgy adapter. I’d buy one tomorrow.
 
Fine. Put the wireless in the unit, make it controllable from my iPhone, make it a seamless experience so I don’t have to connect and troubleshoot some kludgy adapter. I’d buy one tomorrow.
I still don't understand why everyone is so eager to stick a transmitter into the box? To me that sounds like a recipe for something "kludgy". And with wireless protocols changing every year, you're not really very future proofed, at all. I'd rather have an external Ethernet to MIDI converter. Most of them don't require any setup. Either that, or just access to the already on the board Ethernet port, as someone else suggested. That way, I can easily upgrade the external wireless adapter, which is FAR CHEAPER than an Axe-FX.
 
Ok, guys... I have to add the obligatory "shut up and play yer guitar!" response here!

Granted, this is a thread about what's missing... But it's turning into a pissing match about what people "must have" in a product that ain't gonna have it, because it's already built.

I personally think it would be great to have some form of easy, tablet based editing. But it doesn't, and serious editing should probably not really be done live (i.e., a performance scenario).

Anyway, I get it... But it's not in the Axe Fx III... And 4-5 pages of back and forth seems a little much.

:D
 
Wireless control is a nice to have but not a need to have. For a flagship, workstation, center piece, it doesn't seem like an outrageous expectation.

Wireless in professional audio is here to stay and expanding. Wireless microphones, in ears, iPad mixing control....
 
I still don't understand why everyone is so eager to stick a transmitter into the box? To me that sounds like a recipe for something "kludgy". And with wireless protocols changing every year, you're not really very future proofed, at all. I'd rather have an external Ethernet to MIDI converter. Most of them don't require any setup. Either that, or just access to the already on the board Ethernet port, as someone else suggested. That way, I can easily upgrade the external wireless adapter, which is FAR CHEAPER than an Axe-FX.

My experience with MIDI conversion to wireless, MIDI to PC, basically MIDI to anything but another dedicated MIDI device has pretty much been a pain. As an example, connecting my Axe-FX Ultra to my PC - through a Midisport 2x2, IIRC - was always a crapshoot as to whether the thing would work or whether it would take 5-6 reboots of the Ultra and the PC to get things communicating. Enter the Axe-FX II with its USB port and voila - it works seamlessly, every single time. I don't know the technology, but I assume Fractal engineered or integrated a USB MIDI conversion of some kind, and it works great.

In that same vein, I suppose I could buy a MIDI to wireless converter for the Axe FX III and hope it works, but I'm not going to do that, because I think it would be unreliable. I want a wireless control solution engineered by Fractal, not kludged together by me. Because I know if Fractal does it, it will work great. We disagree, and that's fine. I'm just responding to the question, "what's missing" with my entirely subjective point of view.
 
Ok, guys... I have to add the obligatory "shut up and play yer guitar!" response here!

Granted, this is a thread about what's missing... But it's turning into a pissing match about what people "must have" in a product that ain't gonna have it, because it's already built.

I personally think it would be great to have some form of easy, tablet based editing. But it doesn't, and serious editing should probably not really be done live (i.e., a performance scenario).

Anyway, I get it... But it's not in the Axe Fx III... And 4-5 pages of back and forth seems a little much.

:D

No pissing match here, just a friendly discussion on a slow day.
 
Wireless control is a nice to have but not a need to have. For a flagship, workstation, center piece, it doesn't seem like an outrageous expectation.

Wireless in professional audio is here to stay and expanding. Wireless microphones, in ears, iPad mixing control....

Thank you. This is all I'm saying.

By the way, your MFC-101 is still serving me well, nearly 3 years later... :):):)
 
WiFi or even Bluetooth would be an amazing thing to have - as I stated earlier big big oversight......
Come on Fractal delay its release and get it sorted - the FC's may also be ready by then :cool:
WTF!!!! Do NOT Delay the Release!!! This month is uncomfortably long already. :)
 
Wireless control is a nice to have but not a need to have. For a flagship, workstation, center piece, it doesn't seem like an outrageous expectation.

Wireless in professional audio is here to stay and expanding. Wireless microphones, in ears, iPad mixing control....
The examples you've sited here are all for reducing wires run across a stage, which is a huge issue. To me it seems people are wanting the Axe to have built in wireless to solve problems that already have far more practical solutions.
 
My experience with MIDI conversion to wireless, MIDI to PC, basically MIDI to anything but another dedicated MIDI device has pretty much been a pain. As an example, connecting my Axe-FX Ultra to my PC - through a Midisport 2x2, IIRC - was always a crapshoot as to whether the thing would work or whether it would take 5-6 reboots of the Ultra and the PC to get things communicating. Enter the Axe-FX II with its USB port and voila - it works seamlessly, every single time. I don't know the technology, but I assume Fractal engineered or integrated a USB MIDI conversion of some kind, and it works great.

In that same vein, I suppose I could buy a MIDI to wireless converter for the Axe FX III and hope it works, but I'm not going to do that, because I think it would be unreliable. I want a wireless control solution engineered by Fractal, not kludged together by me. Because I know if Fractal does it, it will work great. We disagree, and that's fine. I'm just responding to the question, "what's missing" with my entirely subjective point of view.
I had quite the opposite experience. When I got my II, the Axe USB wouldn't work with my Mac. I've been go through the MIDI on the Axe, and using my computer IO MIDI in, and out. Axe-Edit, and audio worked fine through USB, but I had to control live automation with the MIDI. I'm still not sure this has been remedied.
 
I do have to say, though, if we ever decided to split everything up, those do open up a lot of interesting options. At the moment, it's far more convienent for us just to keep our entire setup in a single rack case.
It's a really neat product, I was thinking of buying it to expand midi capabilities of my AX8.
It would let me control my Xr18 mixer and my Antares ATG equipped guitars, Axe edit (or FracPad) via wifi, translate PCs sent from the ax8 into every kind of multiple midi messages, attach usb midi knob controllers, etc..
I also exchanged some emails with the developer some time ago and he told me they're currently working on Android and ios apps and will soon add support to directly connect a bluetooth dongle in the usb port to have Midi BLE.
 
so my only option to hear and edit my Axe III FoH is to get a 100 foot USB cable and probably stand next to the guy with an iPad adjusting his X32 (wirelessly). :oops:
is there any other guitar-specific processor or amp that allows WiFi control of everything? this doesn't seem like a new problem, is all i'm saying. sure there's an opportunity here, but would the Axe-Fx be the first guitar processor ever to be edited and controlled via WiFi? it would right?

for digital mixers, it clearly makes sense and has helped the industry tremendously. but the sound guy IS responsible for all of that and needs to be out in various places other than mix position. one could argue that the guitarist really should be staying at his place on the stage and let the sound guy do the mixing.

of course, today we all do various jobs and it would be great. so like i said before, this is an opportunity. but i don't think we're losing out on anything since we haven't really had it before, on ANY guitar rig.
 
Since I'm not interested in Bluetooth, etc., I'm gonna rewind to a comment by Sprint that may have been overlooked:

Modifiers should be able to change for different channels within the same block, rather than being shared across all channels.

Also, I wish there were more than 2 Scene Controllers. 8 seems a more reasonable number.

(Or has that already been fixed in the III, and I just haven't seen anyone say so?)

+1, since modifiers are still shared across channels, 3 3-channel or 4 2-channel amp blocks would be better ...

One of my biggest wishes for Axe III was that the modifiers would no longer be shared across channels (ability to have separate modifiers with varying settings on the same control across different channels within a block, or, a modifier on a control in one channel and no modifier on the same control in another channel within a block). On the Axe II this limitation often forces me to use 2 amp blocks (with differing modifiers on the same control) instead of being able to use 1 amp block if the limitation did not exist by allowing an amp block with differently set modifiers on the same control in X and Y in the same block.

This crops up in most of my patches since I looove to put a modifier on amp gain to control it with a pedal (works sooooo well with
Axefx - can go from light grit to high gain and anywhere in between depending on expression pedal position - I also attach the same modifier to the amp level control allowing me to keep level volume between lo-gain to hi-gain. Works beautifully, BUT, if I want a dirt amp in X with these modifiers attached, and a clean amp in Y without these modifiers (clean gain / level settings could be drastically different in Y than in X), it's not possible and I have to go to a 2nd amp block for clean sounds. Always seemed unfortunate to me, and more so now on the Axe III with double the channels but still having to share modifiers.

In a way though, I have new hope in this regard since I suspect "modifier sharing" was necessary up until now in the interests of keeping cpu/memory usage in check; but now, with an Axe III that's 2.4X the DSP, who knows, maybe this is something that's now a possibility in future firmware updates. Even allowing channels to override a given modifier to "None" with a specific value setting where other channels still use the modifier would be a huge advance (this is almost possible now as initial values can "stay put" on a given control, but as soon as the modifier is used in X or Y, the value in all channels (x or y) sharing that modifier will (often undesirably) move to the current modifier value).
 
Since I'm not interested in Bluetooth, etc., I'm gonna rewind to a comment by Sprint that may have been overlooked:

Modifiers should be able to change for different channels within the same block, rather than being shared across all channels.

Also, I wish there were more than 2 Scene Controllers. 8 seems a more reasonable number.

(Or has that already been fixed in the III, and I just haven't seen anyone say so?)
Pretty certain it's already been confirmed that there are 8 scene controllers...
 
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