Fractal Units have problems with 4CM?

zenaxe

Fractal Fanatic
Some guy on rig talk is making weird claims about the AFX II (and the Ultra before it) having issues when used with the 4CM. He's acting as if this is some widely experienced and acknowledged issue with the Fractal units but I have never heard this claim? A search pulls up no immediate info. Is this for real?

It was with the AxeFX Ultra and II I had and the weird thing it was worse with the II. No amount of isolation or hum eliminators would fix it. Jay Mitchell actually said in the past it was a design flaw but who knows. All I know is the noise 4CM with those units was something I couldn't handle and should never be an issue with a unit at the price. Now I think with new units like the XL.... it's supposedly been addressed

Not sure about the new ones since I've not been interesting in using an AxeFX in a good while but I did read they addressed it. It was supposedly addressed with the II with these special cables Fractal was saying to use. I had some of those as well and they didn't work. I've run 4CM for a good while and know how to deal with ground loop hum and never had a problem getting rid of it. Again ironically units like the Line 6 M13, POD HD500, and my current GSP 1101 I've not had to use a hum eliminator unless I've played rooms where it was needed.

I wasn't the only one that had issues with the II. At that time the fix "limited bandwidth"......... :confused:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... ?t=1033646

Anyway I've read they addressed it and I'd assume especially after releasing a product specifically for 4CM that have worked it out.

This strikes me as absurd but I have never actually run either my Ultra or II MkII using 4CM. My understanding of Humbuster was that it was to eliminate ground loop noise which is a by product of other gear.
 
Actually Cliff just responded on RT. LOL. :D Never fear!!

The very early Axe-Fx II's had more bandwidth than necessary on Output 2. The frequency response extended to hundreds of kHz. When used with certain tube amps this would cause instability in the output drivers. The solution was to limit the bandwidth to a "normal" range of 20 to 20 kHz. We provided the update for free and all units shipped after the first 100 or so had this update included. The Axe-Fx II Mark II, XL and XL+ have a redesigned output circuit that is immune from any of these issues.
 
That guy is a hater anyway....any time someone posts anything about an Axe he goes off. I know he's used them in the past but he's now a 5153 fanboy and 'nothing comes close'.

Tastes vary. The 5153 sounded like a distortion pedal in a box to me....never flipped an amp so fast in my life.
 
That hasn't been an issue since the first 100 or so units that were made years ago. The XL+ shares the same amazing low-noise architecture of the FX-8. I regularly use my XL+ in 4CM as this is part of the modeling process. It's the quietest device I've ever tried in 4CM.
 
That hasn't been an issue since the first 100 or so units that were made years ago. The XL+ shares the same amazing low-noise architecture of the FX-8. I regularly use my XL+ in 4CM as this is part of the modeling process. It's the quietest device I've ever tried in 4CM.

Is there anyway to tell which ones have the issue, ie. serial number? I have an Axe-Fx II MK-I and have been recently considering trying the 4CM method.
 
I've tried 4CM since early 90s when I first started to use rack products. Actually the first one was Rocktron intellifex and the result was meh..
Before fractal I was using G-system 4CM with Mark IV and there's thousand threads how to do it right, with buffering methods and expensive cables and so on...
Axe-FX II is by far the best product I've used in 4CM.. but I don't use "real" Amps any longer. There's no need to =)
 
I've seen the majority of issues with 4CM has been leveling between amp and AXE II.

Oh, and internet storms. Such as 'I hear people are having issues' is one very vocal guy who bumps a thread to 34 pages in 1 day...and it turns out his input levels were too hot...etc.
 
I have one of the earlier Axe II units and had it modded by G66 to limit Output 2's bandwidth. This worked wonders and eliminated the hiss i was getting from Output 2 in a 4CM setup with a Marshall JVM.

4CM with the Axe II is stunning when set up correctly 8)

As mentioned above, humbuster cables eliminate ground loop issues, but the issue with 4CM for the early units was high frequency hiss with certain amps (due to the wideband nature of Output 2).
 
I've seen the majority of issues with 4CM has been leveling between amp and AXE II.

Oh, and internet storms. Such as 'I hear people are having issues' is one very vocal guy who bumps a thread to 34 pages in 1 day...and it turns out his input levels were too hot...etc.

Yeah ground loop or gain staging problem was my first thought, but since the dude was dropping Jay M's name (which really threw me off since Jay is a pretty factual oriented dude) I wanted to confirm. That sort of made it sound like it might have something more than the typical hater talk.
 
if your serial # is above 100, per Cliff... no need to worry.

How can you verify an Axe-Fx II Mark I was one of the 1st 100 by the serial number? My Axe-Fx II Mark I Serial number is FX 11-11I215 and purchased it in March 2012. Mine had the "Output 2 Hiss" issue. FAS fixed it for free and said I had to pay shipping to return it but I didn't realize I also had to pay the shipping to get it back bc I had never had to pay shipping both ways for a known issue repairs from Alesis, Roland or Line 6, so I ended up paying over $70 in shipping, so it wasn't free. Also, it took a while for FAS to admit to the problem but it really became an issue when the Mark II came out and they said the only difference was the Ethercon port but it actually had the Output 2 Hiss Mod too.

The Output 2 Hiss Mod did fix the issue and the 4CM worked perfectly with no noise, hum, hiss or special cables.
 
I was unable to use the Axe FX II in 4CM with Marshall's JVM210h. I owned one when I first got Axe FX II, and sold it not long after. I rented a JVM210h earlier this year and was reminded of this experience. I also bought a new (made in Vietnam) Marshall DSL100H earlier this year and had ZERO issues with 4CM.

all loops are not created equal, and IMO the Axe FX II was not he problem.
 
I was unable to use the Axe FX II in 4CM with Marshall's JVM210h. I owned one when I first got Axe FX II, and sold it not long after. I rented a JVM210h earlier this year and was reminded of this experience. I also bought a new (made in Vietnam) Marshall DSL100H earlier this year and had ZERO issues with 4CM.

all loops are not created equal, and IMO the Axe FX II was not he problem.

What year does it say on the back of your JVM210h? I know older JVM's had issues with the FX Loop and was the reason I returned mine but I thought that I had read that Marshall fixed the issue after 2009.

I had my Axe-Fx II Mark I that I mentioned above fixed by FAS bc it was having the 4CM Output 2 Hiss issue with a JCM 2000 DSL100.
 
It was a 2011, and the one I rented was 2014. The Axe FX II worked perfectly in both loops, just didn't in 4CM as the sound would get garbled and phased.
 
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