FM3 Firmware Version 5.00 beta 1

[Ugly Bunny]

No other company in this space provides the kind of quality, regular, FREE, updates that FAS does, and yet it is never good enough. There is zero logic to buying a product with a prescribed set of capabilities and features, only to then complain when it cannot later do something that was never promised in the first place. My "sport" edition Mazda doesn't have leather seats like the "luxury" version does, and it never will. If you want all the flagship features, buy the flagship unit. The fact that FAS pays people to regularly provide updates to a device that they give away and people still complain about it is mind-blowing. In other news...get off my lawn.

Well, to play devil's advocate, a lot of what sells the units at their premium prices is the support and longevity, and the incumbent regular updates, whether tacitly or explicitly advertised. Take the QC for instance; it was basically sold in the state it was on the premise (promise?) that it would be supported, improved, and updated for years to come. It's more or less expected these days, and not just out of a sense of entitlement, but out of real-world experience and word of mouth marketing. You buy a helix or an Axe Fx for what it can do today, but you also have the confidence to buy it in the first place because you know the company listens and interacts with the users and you know it will only get better. Cliff, of course, always goes above and beyond to a mind-blowing extent. but it's not the same as expecting my 2009 Subaru Legacy to suddenly get upgraded to a Tesla for free.

But if I were a prospective buyer, I could come to this site, see a whole range of products with years and years of free & regular updates. If anything, it'd be weird to expect that to suddenly stop when I buy the product (unless it's literally at the EoL).

 

[Ugly Bunny]

Ok, but transparent is a yes\no answer. The FM3 has the virtual capo option, but it doesn't work nearly as good as the Axe III... which was updated June 2020. Matt mentioned that the FM3 cant run the pitch block improvements yesterday.

And any time anyone's mentioned it or asked about it ... crickets. I think someone mentioned something a month or two ago to the effect that they were working on it or something. But as you say has really been my point all along. I'm no longer upset about it, but the fact that it was such a shock to learn that it will never come to the FM3 is telling of the messaging (or lack thereof). I feel if it had been stated from the beginning that it was probably not gonna happen, but we're working on it," or something, it would have been easier to take and would have saved countless threads and posts over the last year and change.

But again, to be clear, it's all good. I'm quite thankful that even though it stung initially, we now know the reality of the situation and can do with those facts as we each see fit.

I'll probably wait on this beta, but I look forward to trying stuff out when the full release (giggity) comes. Looks like a lot of goodies, even if I didn't get the specific treat I wanted.

 

[Admin M@]

Tried that szephyr and diffused not there

Yes, but.... https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/new-cronoecho-delays-for-fm3.180097/

 

[Admin M@]

And any time anyone's mentioned it or asked about it ... crickets.

The wish was known and under consideration, but we really had to do "everything else" first before finally determining that it was out at this time. As for crickets, I say with the utmost respect for you and others with a wish, but the question did not rise high enough on my personal radar to the extent of triggering additional communications before now.

 

[Cam Heiliger]

Well, to play devil's advocate, a lot of what sells the units at their premium prices is the support and longevity, and the incumbent regular updates, whether tacitly or explicitly advertised. Take the QC for instance; it was basically sold in the state it was on the premise (promise?) that it would be supported, improved, and updated for years to come. It's more or less expected these days, and not just out of a sense of entitlement, but out of real-world experience and word of mouth marketing. You buy a helix or an Axe Fx for what it can do today, but you also have the confidence to buy it in the first place because you know the company listens and interacts with the users and you know it will only get better. Cliff, of course, always goes above and beyond to a mind-blowing extent. but it's not the same as expecting my 2009 Subaru Legacy to suddenly get upgraded to a Tesla for free.

But if I were a prospective buyer, I could come to this site, see a whole range of products with years and years of free & regular updates. If anything, it'd be weird to expect that to suddenly stop when I buy the product (unless it's literally at the EoL).

And yet, no one is suggesting that the unit will not receive regular updates. It has and will continue to do so. My point is that no matter what those updates are, they never seem to be good enough. If you are looking for one specific feature to be upgraded only to be disappointed/enraged when it is not, that is on you, not FAS.

There has never been a guarantee that the Virtual Capo will match the AX3 or FM9 - and the FAS team will never be able to say that it absolutely will not happen because we don't know exactly how much they will be able to optimize the code for the hardware limitations moving forward.

FAS have done everything they could be expected to do, and more as far as regular updates to support the hardware and give customers the confidence to buy them. The expectations of specific updates are, however, completely unreasonable and illogical.

 

[Maurice van Wijk]

The "S-Taper" is there as the last option of the "Taper" parameter

Now I consider my life as complete, thanks ! ;-)

 

[ConstantM]

i understand people asking for updates from the company. it's the nature of these types of devices to depend on them. however i believe fractal is the last company that should receive complaints for their updates. coming from using atomic amplifire where they rarely update and are mostly considered abandonware i am overwhelmed with the amount of stuff delivered by FAS and the frequency of the updates/attention/work put into them.
i would like the shimmer on the reverb block to avoid the cpu hog that is plex but the almost 40 (!) new sounds they crammed into it makes the fm3 an absolute goldmine for any ambient tone search and thats just a small fraction of what they delivered

 

[Ugly Bunny]

And yet, no one is suggesting that the unit will not receive regular updates. It has and will continue to do so. My point is that no matter what those updates are, they never seem to be good enough. If you are looking for one specific feature to be upgraded only to be disappointed/enraged when it is not, that is on you, not FAS.

True enough.

the FAS team will never be able to say that it absolutely will not happen

They already did say this exactly in this thread (see post #26). Now, of course that doesn't mean that it will never get better, just that the Axe III's/FM9's algorithm won't run on it.

FAS have done everything they could be expected to do, and more as far as regular updates to support the hardware and give customers the confidence to buy them. The expectations of specific updates are, however, completely unreasonable and illogical.

You're right to an extent. But, again, to play devil's advocate, there's also a track record of paying attention to customer requests and implementing them into subsequent firmware. No Klon, of course, because that's a hole other thing, but many, many features have been added based on customer request.

The wish was known and under consideration, but we really had to do "everything else" first before finally determining that it was out at this time. As for crickets, I say with the utmost respect for you and others with a wish, but the question did not rise high enough on my personal radar to the extent of triggering additional communications before now.

Haha, well, I'm not sure how to take feel about that information because I've seen it all over the place for quite some time (really, since the Axe III go the updated pitch block) and contributed to the asking/wishing/discussing the issue myself. But yeah, I guess I can see how there's been very few direct questions with you or the rest of the team tagged. I guess there's really not more to Pitchgate™ than no one made FAS aware of how important it was to us; even though it was discussed frequently, if y'all don't see it, how can you do anything about it?

As always, I respect your candor and appreciate the communication.

 

[Petrocelli]

My experiences with FM3 FW5.0-beta and FM3 Edit 1.05.03 and the different compressor types:
Studio FB / FF Compressors 1 + 2: Knee Type:

• In addition to soft, medium and hard, there is also the entry RMS. If this is selected, the FM3 hangs and there is no longer any audio output. Only switching the device completely OFF / ON helps!
• The Studio FB Compressor 2 sounds completely distorted when you select 'Soft' or 'Hard' only 'Medium' sounds normal.
• the 'Threshold' parameter has no effect in the JFET or Pedal 1 or Pedal 2 Compressor!

Thank you for this great, extensive update to everyone involved!

 

[Petrocelli]

Anyone else having trouble with the FAS Buttery amp in particular? I build a preset, all is well and there's sound and everything but when I go to edit the amp parameters the unit (the speakers) goes POP, the screen goes black and nothing works except for a reboot. After rebooting the same thing happens when editing the amp parameters.

All the other amps I had time to try out seemed to work just fine, just the Buttery giving me some attitude. Any advice? The update went through without any trouble, and both the unit and FM3 Edit are updated, though the unit isn't connected to a computer at the moment.

I played arround with the FAS Buttery but hadn't any Problems when trying different parameter settings in FM3 Edit 1.05.03! What specific parameters shootet up your unit?

 

[rglr]

My experiences with FM3 FW5.0-beta and FM3 Edit 1.05.03 and the different compressor types:
Studio FB / FF Compressors 1 + 2: Knee Type:

• In addition to soft, medium and hard, there is also the entry RMS. If this is selected, the FM3 hangs and there is no longer any audio output. Only switching the device completely OFF / ON helps!
• The Studio FB Compressor 2 sounds completely distorted when you select 'Soft' or 'Hard' only 'Medium' sounds normal.
• the 'Threshold' parameter has no effect in the JFET or Pedal 1 or Pedal 2 Compressor!

Thank you for this great, extensive update to everyone involved!

Confirmed the hang. I'm looking at this now.

 

[Petrocelli]

New Parameter "Master BIAS Excursion" in Dynamics Section - tried different settings but didn't hear anything changes. If I try the "Bias Excursion" Parameter in the Pwr Tubes + CF section in FM3 Edit, i hear small differences in the Attack of a Note in the 59 Bassguy Jumped Model. So is this parameter very subtle or only useful on special settings/Amp types?

 

[yek]

What's the difference between the VS9 ("Based on Ibanez the TS9 Tube Screamer") and the TS-808 ("Based on the Ibanez™ TS-9® Tube Screamer overdrive")?

That information in the manual is outdated. The current T808 OD model is based on a 808.

 

[jclemensfl]

The wish was known and under consideration, but we really had to do "everything else" first before finally determining that it was out at this time. As for crickets, I say with the utmost respect for you and others with a wish, but the question did not rise high enough on my personal radar to the extent of triggering additional communications before now.

Perhaps this is part of the problem for us on the outside, not understanding your work flow. And not that you owe us an explanation of that, by the way. It's none of our business.
But when you say we really had to do "everything else" first, it's confusing for us morons, who don't understand why you "had to."
In other words, I would trade this entire update and everything in it for an improved Virtual Capo. The amp improvements, the block improvements, the UI improvements, all of it, etc. Because my audiences can't tell the difference. But they can tell when the Virtual Capo doesn't work well. Or at least they can tell something is wrong, even if they don't know what it is.
So we ask ourselves, is it that Virtual Capo improvements are impossible to do, or that other things just had priority (had to do "everything else")? Again, you don't have to answer that question. But it is something at least some of us are wondering. And it can be difficult to understand why it is more important to improve a block 3 or 4 percent when a major feature for live gigging is not usable.
I think these are legitimate thoughts to have on a forum that don't deserve other forum members telling them to "buy something else."

 

[J-V]

I played arround with the FAS Buttery but hadn't any Problems when trying different parameter settings in FM3 Edit 1.05.03! What specific parameters shootet up your unit?

Granted, I've yet to try it in FM3 Edit, but on the device as soon as I pressed Page Right from the amp list to get to the amp parameters, my unit froze.

Will be home later, will investigate further.

 

[rglr]

Granted, I've yet to try it in FM3 Edit, but on the device as soon as I pressed Page Right from the amp list to get to the amp parameters, my unit froze.

Will be home later, will investigate further.

This is a confirmed bug. I have it fixed and will post another beta once I get a couple other things sorted as well.

 

[J-V]

This is a confirmed bug. I have it fixed and will post another beta once I get a couple other things sorted as well.

Amazing, thanks so much for the fast response!

 

[Ugly Bunny]

Perhaps this is part of the problem for us on the outside, not understanding your work flow. And not that you owe us an explanation of that, by the way. It's none of our business.
But when you say we really had to do "everything else" first, it's confusing for us morons, who don't understand why you "had to."
In other words, I would trade this entire update and everything in it for an improved Virtual Capo. The amp improvements, the block improvements, the UI improvements, all of it, etc. Because my audiences can't tell the difference. But they can tell when the Virtual Capo doesn't work well. Or at least they can tell something is wrong, even if they don't know what it is.
So we ask ourselves, is it that Virtual Capo improvements are impossible to do, or that other things just had priority (had to do "everything else")? Again, you don't have to answer that question. But it is something at least some of us are wondering. And it can be difficult to understand why it is more important to improve a block 3 or 4 percent when a major feature for live gigging is not usable.
I think these are legitimate thoughts to have on a forum that don't deserve other forum members telling them to "buy something else."

Well-said; you were very fair. I, too, would eschew 90% of what's in the box (and certainly everything in this update) for the Axe III's pitch block lol. I would only argue that the audience probably won't notice except as far as you're reacting to your sound not sounding/feeling as immediate as it would be otherwise, either with the improved Virtual Capo or with no poly pitch-shifting at all. I would also defend the VC once again and say that it is usable in the right context; full-band, OD/distortion sounds perfectly fine and, while it has noticeable latency, it's still possible to keep it relatively tight as a band. There's still a small amount of looseness/discomfort in feel due to latency, but you can make it work. But try to play a clean picked chord by yourself pitch shifted? That's gonna be a no from me, dawg. Otherwise, I very much appreciate you summing up how I feel about the issue in a polite and articulate way.

 

[Chris Hurley]

How it works Chris ?

Seems like you put a volume block or something like that in parallel with the pitch block and use envelope as a level modifier to fade between the un-pitched volume block and the pitch block such that the volume block got the initial attack with no latency and the pitch block picked up after that- basically covering up the latency on attack as I understand it.

 

[Alebas]

Seems like you put a volume block or something like that in parallel with the pitch block and use envelope as a level modifier to fade between the un-pitched volume block and the pitch block such that the volume block got the initial attack with no latency and the pitch block picked up after that- basically covering up the latency on attack as I understand it.

Thank you for your answer Chris. I’ll test !