Firmware 11

steadystate

steadystate

Fractal Fanatic
Guys, I know there must be posts discussing this already, but I have searched and found very little. I want to update to Firmware 11 (from 10.03), but need to know what this will do to my presets. I have read the release notes, but I'd like to hear from those who have actually heard what 11 does.

I work a day job, have a kid, and gig three nights a week, so I'll have limited time to re-tweak between gigs. Will the overall tone or gain substantially change for some of the amp sims, or is it more of a subtle "feel" issue? I tend to use amps with high MV settings, so I am primarily concerned about gain/saturation/eq changes. I will certainly not have time to audition and tweak all of my presets between gigs, and so will have to use the new firmware untested in a live situation. Any details or links to threads I missed will be much appreciated.

Thanks.
 
How subtle it is or isn't depends a great deal on how much you've used the advanced amp parameters in building your presets.

If your advanced settings are mainly at their stock values, the change will likely be subtle but noticeable in that the bottom end is a bit tighter and holds together better and that the top end is cleaner and less trashy or abrasive. You can probably ditch post amp or global EQ and you are likely to decide that everything sounds a little better. You might tweak a few knobs but you shouldn't need to do much. If you have tweaked the advanced parameters a lot in your patches, what the changes will be like are a coin toss. I would hold off until you have plenty of time to rework them just in case the changes are for the worst if you've done much in the advanced tab.

If after updating you don't like the amp sounds, I suggest you reset the amp block to default (hit the main bypass button twice) and start over. I find the amps much easier to dial in quickly like you would on their real world counterparts in V11.

D
 
The differences apparently can lie all over the place, depending on which amp sims you use and how you have them set. For most of my presets, the differences were relatively minor and required only small adjustments to accommodate. Others have encountered much more dramatic differences than I, so I would be hesitant to predict your experience. I agree with dk_ace about holding off until you have some free time to audition all your presets and update them as necessary.
 
11 worked well for me, I started from scratch but I don't think the changes were too drastic, for me pretty much all of the amps sounded more pleasing in the upper and lower frequencies, nicely defined even with the bass up etc. It wasn't night and day. Worst case you can go back to FW 10.3 if you don't like what you hear and have no time to tweak.
 
I was very happy with my V9 and V10 patches, but I've been struggling with V11. I have gotten my low and mid gains sorted out, and I am really happy with the results. I can finally agree with some of the statements made about how good V11 is. But the high gains are still eluding me. I am having trouble finding the balance between getting enough brightness and getting too harsh in the high end. I'm getting pretty close now, but it's not quite as good as think I had with V10 yet. I'm sure I can get what I want, but it is taking longer than it did changing from V9 to V10.

JWW
 
Oh, and I should add that I personally never update firmware if I don't have time to overhaul all of my important patches. My first post indicated that you might get away with it with just a few minor changes, and there's a fairly good chance that will be the case. However, I would not try it myself. I held off on updating for a few weeks until I had a few evenings open to mess with it. I really only needed 1-2 hours to be ready to go, but I wait until I have plenty of time in case things don't go as expected. This is especially true when going to a substantially different FW (e.g. 10 to 11).

D
 
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