Ok, so I've been playing with the beta .02 for the last 2 nights and discovered a few things, I apologize if I'm repeating things as I've been reading so much I forget where things left off with certain issues. My experience:
In each of my presets I have an Out1 and Out 2 block. I have my signal path split off before the cab block to go to Out2 to send to my Seymour Duncan PS 170 driving my on stage cab. Out1 goes to FOH. I noticed after I reset amp blocks, I level the preset for Out1 (most important) to unity 0db. In the previous firmware my Out2 levels would vary between -15db to -16db. Now the Out2 level fluctuates a lot more between presets even though Out1 all show 0db, but vary from -19db to -24db. Even with these lower levels, on the FM3 itself my Out2 Clip light flickers rather frequently. Having different Out2 levels I'm guessing would cause erratic stage volume between presets with this big of a fluctuation, so I rolled back to v3 pre Cygnus for my show tomorrow night. I can turn the level in the Out2 block down to get the Clip light to disappear, but then the Out2 level drops as one would expect. I have Copy Out1 to Out2 in global config, but I wasn't sure if that gets ignored or has any bearing if the Out2 block is in the grid.
Another observation, I had several presets where I had a TS808 OD drive block in front of an amp to juice it up a bit. After resetting the amp, changing settings on the drive did almost nothing. I changed to a different drive block as a test (Compulsion HP) and it worked as I would expect. Changed back to TS808 OD and still nada. I'm guessing this is user error, but I was happy with the new drive I chose anyway, so I moved on.
Most of the amp changes affected my presets quite a bit, even though it retained the tone controls. I had to tweak a bunch of my presets, but boy did everything sound great when I got them back to what I was used to! The one amp that changed dramatically for me was the Deluxe Tweed. After upgrading firmware, it changed the amp to Deluxe Tweed Jumped and the bottom end was so dark and distorted. Had to spend the most time getting that one dialed back in, but again, once I switched back to Deluxe Tweed and adjusted things, I got a tone that was great as well.
The last thing, I have some presets with a lot of blocks and get close to 80% cpu as you would expect. I nuked a couple of blocks I hardly use so I could turn on ultra res cabs. That said, I have a few presets with very limited number of blocks where the cpu was high where I couldn't turn on ultra res cabs, even though Reverb was set to economy. I forgot to note them before I rolled back, sorry, after the gig this weekend I'll reload the beta and mess with it again to upload the presets for examples. Just thought it was strange to have a pretty basic preset with high cpu (~80%) after the firmware upgrade, as they were at or under 70% pre upgrade.
Overall I loved the sound of the beta, but with the Out2 issue I had to roll back. With only 2 days of tweaking and practicing, I got used to the new firmware and am bummed I had to roll back for my gig. The old firmware/tones aren't bad by any stretch, but this is the first firmware for me where I could hear and tell what a significant difference Cygnus makes. Can't wait to get the kinks worked out. Keep going Fractal Team! I appreciate all the effort!
it's only because I have my own prefered one that just rocks with my cab and I'd like to stick to it.
