Fractal user reviews TONEX Pedal

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A buddy of mine came over wanting to do some stuff with the ToneX software in anticipation of getting his pedal.

Simply put. The software leaves a lot to be desired. It was quite surprising given what's already out there.

We tried to do a capture of my PRS HDRX 20 but the free version of the program appears to be completely crippled from doing a capture - brilliant! Trying to load any of the 3rd party captures just resulted in the software producing white noise. That was so f**king obnoxious. Really, whoever decided that was a good idea deserves a month of Teletubbies reruns playing 24/7 at 120dB. The WDM driver mode was completely unusable and the software didn't work with the RME ASIO driver for my Baby Face Pro until I downloaded ASIO4ALL - other software I use has no such problems - RME drivers are among the best in the industry. I did manage to play through some of the f**king-non-white-noise-crippled amps and they sounded good. Nothing mind blowing but definitely decent.

As my buddy was getting ready to head out, I was already uninstalling the software. I'll check out the pedal if I get a chance but I sure as hell wouldn't buy one at this point given my experience with the klunky software.
 
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hippietim said:
I sure as hell wouldn't buy one at this point given my experience with the klunky software.
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The software is indeed klunky. But that’s how I feel about pretty much every skeuomorphic UI. Why would I want to turn a virtual knob with a mouse or trackpad pointer? Give me a slider for fucks sake. Helix has modeler UI down. Best in class, IMO.
 
JiveTurkey said:
I had weird level issues after this last update as well. Submitted a support ticket for it. We'll see.
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My send signal to the amp was fine, but the return from the amp was non-existent. Just no level coming back into the Tonex Capture box (and Apollo) at all. Can’t figure it out.

Their capturing tech is great, but everything else is a nightmare right now.

EDIT: Aaaand it was user error. Figured it out. I needed to change something in UAD Console to prevent a feedback loop.
 
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hippietim said:
A buddy of mine came over wanting to do some stuff with the ToneX software in anticipation of getting his pedal.

Simply put. The software leaves a lot to be desired. It was quite surprising given what's already out there.

We tried to do a capture of my PRS HDRX 20 but the free version of the program appears to be completely crippled from doing a capture - brilliant! Trying to load any of the 3rd party captures just resulted in the software producing white noise. That was so f**king obnoxious. Really, whoever decided that was a good idea deserves a month of Teletubbies reruns playing 24/7 at 120dB. The WDM driver mode was completely unusable and the software didn't work with the RME ASIO driver for my Baby Face Pro until I downloaded ASIO4ALL - other software I use has no such problems - RME drivers are among the best in the industry. I did manage to play through some of the f**king-non-white-noise-crippled amps and they sounded good. Nothing mind blowing but definitely decent.

As my buddy was getting ready to head out, I was already uninstalling the software. I'll check out the pedal if I get a chance but I sure as hell wouldn't buy one at this point given my experience with the klunky software.
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There are a lot of "fixes" from what I am reading to various issues but NONE of them are intuitive at all. Like "well you're getting white noise because it's obvious that you should right click on tonenet and press the windows key and a hidden submenu with undo white noise becomes available"


:|

jaycal6 said:
My send signal to the amp was fine, but the return from the amp was non-existent. Just no level coming back into the Tonex Capture box (and Apollo) at all. Can’t figure it out.

Their capturing tech is great, but everything else is a nightmare right now.
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My issues started happening after this recent update. Not sure but I have a support ticket in. To be 100 clear; if I hadn't got this for $299; this would have went packing almost immediately.
 
IK’s “free” software is always next to worthless, gives you very little ability to really demo what you’ve actually pay for. It’s like with their CS amplitude, you get like a handful of sounds but not the better cab modeling, can’t hear most of the amps etc.

I think they’d be better served to just have a 15 day demo of the real product and do anyway with the free versions as they serve no purpose, don’t give you an idea of what the paid one does, aren’t good enough to keep on the PC, just a useless demo experience.

I mean before I spend $249 for the Max software (I bought the pedal so comes with it anyways) I want to see what the editor, capture etc is actually like. The free demo tells you nothing about it so your buying near blind.
 
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I really wish a company with common sense and a basic approach had created this tech. This whole IK ecosystem is garbage.
 
jaycal6 said:
I really wish a company with common sense and a basic approach had created this tech. This whole IK ecosystem is garbage.
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I think they've done a pretty good job. The UI needs improvement but you have to understand that amplitube 5 was already a mature product. They wanted to add a capture function and integrate to a5 but also have standalone tonex sotware for those that dont need a5. For those that have a5 its pretty familiar. At the same time they have a pedal stream with delays and modulations through x-gear. They are trying to enhance their complete guitar solution lineup simultaneously
 
dean701 said:
I think they've done a pretty good job. The UI needs improvement but you have to understand that amplitube 5 was already a mature product. They wanted to add a capture function and integrate to a5 but also have standalone tonex sotware for those that dont need a5. For those that have a5 its pretty familiar. At the same time they have a pedal stream with delays and modulations through x-gear. They are trying to enhance their complete guitar solution lineup simultaneously
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+1. I don't get the griping. It could use a couple more filtering and sorting options, but I find the interface works pretty well. It's a good example of how to integrate both network and local access to both models and presets into a single interface, plus in-app purchases. That's a huge challenge, but they've done a pretty good job in AT, and this extends that design to incorporate tone models.
 
In any case, the lesson here, I think, is that it's much better to put the capture feature on the computer where it belongs. Kemper should have done this long ago. If and when FAS chooses to add a capturing feature, it's probably a good idea to follow the IK model and don't burden the device with the cost and complexity of capture features. The CPU load that ML demands would never be practical on a cpu in the device anyway.
 
Anyone tried the IR loader yet? What are the specs for that? Max length for IR? I’m curious about that. Considering this product for that alone.

Would be amazing to have Room Ambient IR’s if longer impulses are possible.
 
aens said:
Anyone tried the IR loader yet? What are the specs for that? Max length for IR? I’m curious about that. Considering this product for that alone.

Would be amazing to have Room Ambient IR’s if longer impulses are possible.
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In the tonex plugin it's 2048 samples, don't know about the pedal but I guess it's the same or less
 
This pedal is not a utility pedal. Unless the utility you need is amp replacement. There is an IR level issue currently afaik? I have used it as an amp player but I have not loaded an IR into it and then ran an amp model from something else into it.
 
I could be mistaken but I thought it could load up to 200ms ?

I just ordered a Two Notes Cab M+ to compare but that box pretty much does one thing, so would be nice if the ToneX could also serve as a stand alone IR loader so I can use it with my Suhr reactive load box.

The VIR stuff they have is pretty nice though, lots of models and amps and it’s easy to blend different mic positions etc with the GUI interface.

While I have no complaints with the typical IR loader ability, that slick visual interface sure beats going into a folder of 500 files and trying to find the one that moved the mic an inch off axis.

I know I can use my fm3 as a cab/IR as well, but figure if I’m bothering to hook that up might as well just use the amp models too.

Overall though I’m still digging the Tonex with the right captures.

Pair it up with a reverb pedal like the UA Golden and a few stomps in front like the Dunlop Echoplex pedal and it’s a really cool little rig. Not saying it’s better than the fm3, but it’s very dynamic and realistic overall and I’d say very much on par with most anything on the market these days.

That all said, at least for cleaner stuff, I am enjoying my tube combo amps more than anything else. I owe all the “amp in the room” guys an apology as that is a lovely tone and does beat hearing the sound coming out of a monitor speaker. Just wouldn’t plan on taking those with me anywhere, I’d use a modeler, capture etc
 
sort of a ripp off tome, the tonex pedal . ik multimedia 5 has just a couple of free amps and cabs . it's not multimedia 5 max :cool: so you have to buy every amp or cab you want separately , and from tonenet just a bunch of free presets , the rest costs moooney .impossible to import f.e. leon todds lt tv7 mix.ir wont work , you need .wav files . the sounds are not to bad ,got to tweak a lot to make them better.
 
humpfrey said:
sort of a ripp off tome, the tonex pedal . ik multimedia 5 has just a couple of free amps and cabs . it's not multimedia 5 max :cool: so you have to buy every amp or cab you want separately , and from tonenet just a bunch of free presets , the rest costs moooney .impossible to import f.e. leon todds lt tv7 mix.ir wont work , you need .wav files . the sounds are not to bad ,got to tweak a lot to make them better.
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I think you may be misunderstanding or i am
misunderstanding your post. When you buy the pedal, you get tonex max plus amplitube 5. You then have access to create your own captures or use anything user posted on the cloud. The only thing they don't give you is amplitube max but you shouldn't need it after all that. Leon also posted his IRs in wav format and I had no problem importing them. His folder location is posted on most of his yt videos.
 
humpfrey said:
sort of a ripp off tome, the tonex pedal . ik multimedia 5 has just a couple of free amps and cabs . it's not multimedia 5 max :cool: so you have to buy every amp or cab you want separately , and from tonenet just a bunch of free presets , the rest costs moooney .impossible to import f.e. leon todds lt tv7 mix.ir wont work , you need .wav files . the sounds are not to bad ,got to tweak a lot to make them better.
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*.ir files are in a Fractal proprietary format - why would you expect to be able to import those?
 
dean701 said:
I think you may be misunderstanding or i am
misunderstanding your post. When you buy the pedal, you get tonex max plus amplitube 5. You then have access to create your own captures or use anything user posted on the cloud. The only thing they don't give you is amplitube max but you shouldn't need it after all that. Leon also posted his IRs in wav format and I had no problem importing them. His folder location is posted on most of his yt videos.
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go and watch yourself , how many amps are open in amplitube 5
 
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