Firmware 10 shat on my patches in spectacular fashion

Well, here's my take on it.

It's not like FAS didn't tell us, months ago even, that this FW update was going to seriously change the sounds of our presets. They basically informed us out of the gates that we will have to start from scratch on our sounds and work our way back around until we find something that we like. Further, nobody is forcing anybody to change their firmware up to the latest and greatest. I have saved every FW since about 3.0 to my computer, so if I should choose to do so, I can pretty much go all the way back (as though I ever actually would! HA!) should I choose to do so.

If you are in the middle of a project, need to gig, or need stability for any other reason, and the current FW is working for you, just back up your system if you want to play around with it and then revert when you need to. Dry track if you are recording and if you want to upgrade to the next FW you can always go back and mix it again.

It's not like FAS is Big Brother, erasing the history of AFX2 development so that you have no choice but to stick to whatever they currently provide you. I don't see how people can get sour grapes over this situation because the ball is perpetually in the users court. At any rate, I'm thinking that with the exception of FW 5 (I just couldn't get along with it), every single update has provided me with a better product, and I'm ridiculously stoked to get used to FW 10 and get back to recording. Peace!
 
scottburrow said:
I kept only one preset out of all the presets that I had used before. But that one preset I had to reset the amp so it would take the new parameters. I had to do this before, don't remember what firmware it was, but I just loaded all new banks and went for it. I haven't even gotten through them all yet. I keep getting stuck on that Dumble lead with the overdrive on. I guess the moral of the story is that you have an uphill climb for awhile I know I do, ugghhh, but that's alright, because what Im hearing in the new presets sound fantastic. I play next weekend so besides learning new tunes, I will creating new patches from scratch, a lot of work yes, but enjoyable work.
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Agree. Im starting 100% from scratch, restoring factory system settings, banks, etc. Will rebuild the 5-6 patches i use regularly for gigging. It will be fun and rewarding!
 
wknight2 said:
Does anyone have the issue where the factory "clean" presets all sound crunchy? Like early AC/DC crunchy? The crunch patches like the Euro Blue are really distorted.
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With my custom shop Les Paul I can easily distort the clean fender and vox factory presets.

I do one of two things:

1. Lower the preset drive to 1 and boost the preset amp level up to compensate.
2. Roll back the guitar volume a hair.

Do this and the fender models come alive with buckers.
 
I've been using my AF2 since FW 5 and every update changes my sounds but I feel like the changes make the amps sound more like the originals. I either go back and forth selecting the amp to reset the advanced settings or hit the Bypass button twice to reset all the settings. Once the sounds are reset I test the feel & dynamics and then usually have to make small changes to get my sounds back but I feel like I have to do less tweaking w every update bc my original tweaks were made to make the amps sound more life like.

To compare old and new sounds, record a few clips w your volume knob set to different levels or play pink noise or sine waves at different volumes and then look at the clips in a spectrum analyzer
 
jonnyguitarman said:
Dont you all get fed up of going through the same rigmarole every time theres a new firmware? In my mind, a new firmware should take the unit and all its patches and make them better...... All that happens is that you have to go back to the drawing board every time a firmware is released. I'm definitely not 100% that its making the Axe any better once you get back to somewhere near where you were.
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Its a tradeoff.

Rapid change and innovation vs. preset stability.

Although older firmware revisions do somewhat become obsolete and not down loadable from FAS etc., they at least give you the option to stay on an older firmware until you get the time to re-tweak.

You can even save your old presets, upgrade the firmware, start on your new edits, downgrade back for shows to the old one until you get caught up.

But yeah it could be a lot of work depending on how many custom presets you have made and how complicated they are.
 
jonnyguitarman said:
Title says it all really.

Every patch is muffled and lost all bottom end detail and punch. Almost every patch is clipping the output stage like a mo fo, crashing at every back up attempt too. I'm really struggling to see any improvement at all over 9 apart from a more stable Axe edit. This is after hours of tweaking too. The "in the room" amp feel has completely disappeared all together, not a happy man.

I'll be tweaking to try to get back near where I was before but Im sick of having to invest significant time in rebuilding all my patches at every upgrade. If it wasn't for the fact that axe edit wasn't stable i'd be rolling straight back to 9. I wont be upgrading again unless the next one is just an addition of amps/speakers/fx. Changing the whole feel of the thing and the way it responds every time is really buggin me. I cant hear or feel any improvements at all.

Just me? probably...... :/
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Ya know, I thought I was nuts and was going to say something on this blog, but I didn't want the the towns people chasing me in Lederhosen with torches.

9. sounded great, I installed 10 and then all the banks. You describe what I heard. For gins I did a system reset. BANG ... everything sounded amazing. Again I was going to post, but I thought that maybe I had such high expectations that when that wasn't there, I thought it sounded worse (physiological), and the passage of time let me hear 10 for what it was.

Try a system reset, can't hurt!
 
I'd agree with you for previous firmwares. I always felt like I was updating for the extra features and that the sound wasn't actually changing for the better. Firmware updates have always been an annoyance where I wanted new features but knew I'd have to spend ages dialing my presets back in. However, this is the first firmware update where I've plugged in and thought "wait a minute..." and then I've spent all day playing and smiling.
This is through studio monitors though. I've got band practice in 40 minutes and I'll be putting it through power amp and cab, so we shall see.
 
Thank you. So it sounds like have to dial back drive substantially is normal with LP pickups.

barhrecords said:
With my custom shop Les Paul I can easily distort the clean fender and vox factory presets.

I do one of two things:

1. Lower the preset drive to 1 and boost the preset amp level up to compensate.
2. Roll back the guitar volume a hair.

Do this and the fender models come alive with buckers.
Click to expand...
 
insalacom said:
Ya know, I thought I was nuts and was going to say something on this blog, but I didn't want the the towns people chasing me in Lederhosen with torches.

9. sounded great, I installed 10 and then all the banks. You describe what I heard. For gins I did a system reset. BANG ... everything sounded amazing. Again I was going to post, but I thought that maybe I had such high expectations that when that wasn't there, I thought it sounded worse (physiological), and the passage of time let me hear 10 for what it was.

Try a system reset, can't hurt!
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How do I do a reset?
 
You've probably got a lot more complex patches than I do because the only thing I noticed was a drop in levels on my old patches. Turned them up and voila, same as before.
 
barhrecords said:
With my custom shop Les Paul I can easily distort the clean fender and vox factory presets.

I do one of two things:

1. Lower the preset drive to 1 and boost the preset amp level up to compensate.
2. Roll back the guitar volume a hair.

Do this and the fender models come alive with buckers.
Click to expand...

I'm having EXACTLY the same experience with my PRS. In a couple of cases, I dialed back the input trim also.
 
jonnyguitarman said:
Dont you all get fed up of going through the same rigmarole every time theres a new firmware? In my mind, a new firmware should take the unit and all its patches and make them better...... All that happens is that you have to go back to the drawing board every time a firmware is released. I'm definitely not 100% that its making the Axe any better once you get back to somewhere near where you were.
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I had a few minor changes in my tones with the upgrade to 10. So I did not run into the issues you had. It maybe because I don't use PEQs in my patches at all.
I had to adjust gain/MV ratio in a couple of presets and in the case of my Plexi Treble patch, forget about it. It just would not correct, so I replaced it with something else.
But I feel that we're done. Maybe some more amps later, maybe more cabs to play with, but in terms of modeling - this is it, I think.
V9 to V10 was in some ways subtle and in other ways brutal. But mostly, it was very positive and handled the few remaining "OK buts" that I had regarding a couple of models, especially the Twin and the Dumble, which are those are use most. V10 is totally there.
The ODS sounds better than my clone ever did, and it was an awesome amp. The Twin sounds like an old twin I used to play and far better than the modern twin I have which sits in a road case.
So to answer the question, there's always an adjustment needed. It can be daunting sometimes, but last night I played my whole gig through 2 presets. And one of the attendees came up to me and said "how do I order one of these things? It sounds unbelievable!"
It took me about an hour to get my presets in the zone. That's a very small price to pay for even one of these models sounding as good as they do now.
Peace!
 
Haven't upgraded yet, but a question.
With the roll back parameter is it possible to use it to compare V9 and V10 patches?

Say I have a patch and copy it to the next patch number so I have 2 versions of the same patch. They should sound the same. So then I can change global setting to v9 and listen, then Change to V10 and re- listen and tweak as required. Then comparing this new V10 patch with the unchanged patch by changing back to 9. Continue as required till your V10 sounds as close as you would like or better than V9.

that should work right?
 
"But I can totally get where this "process" can indeed cause consternation to those whose "time" is precious."

Absolutely - if I had the luxury of sitting in my bedroom (or during the day on a pro-basis), night after night, then absolutely brilliant. However, with a full time job and family commitments (yes, some musicians do have them! LOL) then having to sit and tinker is somewhat time consuming. My time is mostly spent learning songs for my band, deps, etc, so don't have much 'advanced gear twiddling time'. However, the Axe-FX is an absolute revelation and has been a real God-send. And nice to see some competition from another vendor (and no, it's not Line6 either - they've gone from the hare to the tortoise in the great modelling race).
 
jonnyguitarman said:
Dont you all get fed up of going through the same rigmarole every time theres a new firmware? In my mind, a new firmware should take the unit and all its patches and make them better...... All that happens is that you have to go back to the drawing board every time a firmware is released. I'm definitely not 100% that its making the Axe any better once you get back to somewhere near where you were.
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I've thought about this a few times in the past because to be honest it used to piss me off. I mean you get a couple of really amazing patches perfected, a new firmware comes out and you're back to the drawing board in many cases. I've been doing this routine for years since the Ultra so it obviously hasn't turned me completely off from what the boxes can do.

But if you really think about it, your patches HAVE to sound different with an update. If they didn't than there wouldn't be any changes being made in the firmware updates. It does require more work, but in my experience every single update has been more than worth the effort.

The other thing is that we usually have incremental patches that usually include a new parameter or two or a few new models in there and it's more about features than a completely new modeling algorithm and approach. The big updates like v10 aren't the rule, they are the exception so there shouldn't be a need to recreate every patch for every release. This one just happens to be a completely new monster. After about 12 hours of just playing I think that it's worth the effort for this one.
 
jonnyguitarman said:
Dont you all get fed up of going through the same rigmarole every time theres a new firmware? In my mind, a new firmware should take the unit and all its patches and make them better...... All that happens is that you have to go back to the drawing board every time a firmware is released. I'm definitely not 100% that its making the Axe any better once you get back to somewhere near where you were.
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I can totally understand where you're coming from. But for me, as long as Fractal continue to revise and update factory presets, I'll be a happy camper. Most of "my sounds" are just slight tweaks of the factory presets anyway.
 
If you don't have the time to deal with changes, don't upgrade. No one forces you to do so.

Other alternative is to buy a product that never gets upgraded. There are plenty of those including real amps.
You can super glue your knobs in place and nothing will ever change. Except your tubes and transformers will age.

Who do I complain to about entropy!
 
Patzag said:
I had a few minor changes in my tones with the upgrade to 10. So I did not run into the issues you had. It maybe because I don't use PEQs in my patches at all.
Peace!
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I use PEQ in nearly 50 patches and I'm not having near the problem that jonnyguitarman is having (thank God). It's taking me a long time to dial my presets back in but only because I'm using this as an opportunity to sanity check all my presets, going back to the originals (I'm in a cover/wedding band) and trying to get as close as I can to my target sound. I think that a quick reset of the amp and some eq / volume adjustment would have gotten back to very usable presets. I would probably be more frustrated if I was in an original band and had a signature sound dialed in that I wanted to protect at all costs. But, as others have said, I don't see how it would be possible to do a revolutionary upgrade to the Axe innards without affecting everything in a significant way.
 
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