Fractal vs. Helix: Let the comparisons begin! (Video series)

Wow Mitch, impressive amount of work you put on this video!

You made me smile with your 25:25 afirmation when you talk about Syx files: "I think it's a proprietary file format Fractal only uses".

Proprietary...yes and no!

Your Ax8 have midi in and midi out connectors, but the USB is in fact a two way midi-over-usb connector, it means that the data stream between the device and the computer: firmware, presets, cabs...all of them are sysex.

Let me explain you the syx thing:
The .syx file extension refers to System Exclusive Messages (SysEx abreviated), is part of the MIDI protocol that was set in 1983 between manufacturers...I admit that MIDI can be intimidating at the begining, but is a long-lived and flexible standard. If you are a musician sooner or later you're faced with midi.

The short explanation of midi is here: https://www.midi.org/
"MIDI is an industry standard music technology protocol that connects products from many different companies including digital musical instruments, computers, tablets and smartphones.
The MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) produces the Specifications that make MIDI products work together."
This connection between products from many different companies are the midi standard messages, the first example that comes to my mind is a change preset command with a midi foot controller from a diferent company, this would not be possible without a common protocol.
But sysex is beyond standard...
Unlike every other message format in the MIDI standard, sysex messages can be variable in length; they are marked by both a start byte (F0 hex) and an end byte (F7 hex). The byte after the start byte is required to be a number that identifies the manufacturer; the MIDI standard defines a specific number for each manufacturer that has applied for an ID from the Midi Standard Assotiation.
You can see here that the Fractal Audio id number is 00 01 74 in hex numbers (hex numbers are explained at the end of the post):
https://www.midi.org/specifications/item/manufacturer-id-numbers
..and these are all the rules of sysex: a start byte, manufacturer id and end byte, the body is flexible.

The best explanation of MIDI I ever found is here in the forum:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/basic-midi-and-controllers.54821/#post-693592
"System Exclusive [SysEx] – this allows manufacturers to add extra functions and capabilities to those found in regular MIDI. These ‘extras’ are bespoke / manufacturer specific, so you wouldn’t expect a Moog to be able to react to Korg SysEx. But two Korgs with SysEx would have some extra cool capabilities available."
So in some manner we can see this sysexs with Fractal manufacturer id as proprietary, but a lot of manufacturers use their own sysex.

The language that sysex speaks is hexadecimal (abreviated hex, also called base16):
http://www.2writers.com/eddie/TutHex.htm

Conclusion: I'm agree that the procedure to load a custom IR in the helix is more user-friendly at the short sight: drag and drop the wav into the editor, but I find that syx files gives more power to the people despite the need of a wav2syx conversion.

And my last advice is Clarky’s note to self: do not talk to girlies about MIDI at parties.. it's an epic fail...
 
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ETOLKIEN said:
The best explanation of MIDI I ever found is here in the forum:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/basic-midi-and-controllers.54821/#post-693592
"System Exclusive [SysEx] – this allows manufacturers to add extra functions and capabilities to those found in regular MIDI. These ‘extras’ are bespoke / manufacturer specific, so you wouldn’t expect a Moog to be able to react to Korg SysEx. But two Korgs with SysEx would have some extra cool capabilities available."
So in some manner we can see this sysexs with Fractal manufacturer id as proprietary, but a lot of manufacturers use their own sysex.

The language that sysex speaks is hexadecimal (abreviated hex, also called base16):
http://www.2writers.com/eddie/TutHex.htm

Conclusion: I'm agree that the procedure to load a custom IR in the helix is more user-friendly at the short sight: drag and drop the wav into the editor, but I find that syx files gives more power to the people despite the need of a wav2syx conversion.

And my last advice is Clarky’s note to self: do not talk to girlies about MIDI at parties.. it's an epic fail...
Click to expand...
Great explanation, but I'm still a bit confused. What is the discernible benefit of having MIDI-based impulse loading? What is the "power to the people" that is provided? Does it allow for higher fidelity impulses or something, since I think I read that Helix truncates down to 2048 samples.
 
Mitch Baker said:
What is the discernible benefit of having MIDI-based impulse loading? What is the "power to the people" that is provided?
Click to expand...
Short answer: Cliff knows what he's doing.
Long answer: The use of sysex in the inner works of the device gives you many advantages in the long term, one of the few drawbacks is this need of conversion to syx when you load IRs.
One of the advantages is that MIDI is more obsolescence-proof than using a manufacturer editor. Not only for IRs, for preset files too.
I'll give you the example of the first Axe generation: standard and ultra, this products are finalized (some may say obsolete), and all the stuff (firmware, Axe edit...) remain unchanged since 2011.
Axe-edit for gen1 works well with current PC operating systems, but all we know that things evolves fast in the present days, in the future you will have a new OS in your computer and axe-edit will don't work.
In this scenario the only way to load a preset or IR in the device will be a 3rd party midi interface and a MIDI utility like MIDIOX. And this is posible because the Axe is Midi friendly. A strong and widely accepted protocol like MIDI ensures that you will find an interface and an utility avaliable after OS changes...
Axe2 and Ax8 are alive right now, but the same thing will happen, for sure. We'll arrive at a point that the product will be finalized and axe-edit will be vulnerable to the obsolescence winds...in this moment the old good MIDI will come to the rescue. Irs and presets are all syx so no problemo...
The Helix procedure for IRs is more easy right now, but in the future you will have the Helix, a bunch of .wav Ir files and .hlx preset files and nothing for send them to the device.
When I say "power to the people" I'm also thinking about the MIDI standard in general: is good to have many manufacturers selling compatible products, the more alternatives, the better to the user. You don't have to be attached to one sole company.


Mitch Baker said:
Does it allow for higher fidelity impulses or something, since I think I read that Helix truncates down to 2048 samples.
Click to expand...
I don't think this is related to wav vs syx, the benefit of using a higher resolution depends on the lenght of the wav source file and the capabilities of the device to cope long IRs.
Helix can use 2048 samples IRs (1024 in economy mode), and Ax8 can handle normal (1024, 20 ms) hi (2040, 40 ms) and ultra resolution (up to 8000 samples, 170 ms). Ultra res files have more detail on the low spectrum, but you can benefit of this only if the wav source file is long and have information beyond 40 ms. The same aplies to Helix 2048(40ms) vs 1024 (20ms) modes: if the wav decays at 20ms there's no added benefit between normal and economy mode.
But if you have a long wav: Ax8 in Ultrares mode gives you more resolution/fidelity than Helix.
Here you have Cliff's words about Ultrares:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/something-cool-ive-been-working-on.75794/
 
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Higher resolution may have benefits, but I think the question is about using .syx vs .wav

Whatever the internal format is, Helix editor allows to drag .wav files, which is easier. It may even do some conversion, but if it does, it's internal and doesn't require a separate program.

Don't think it's a big deal, but there's that.
 
ETOLKIEN said:
Short answer: Cliff knows what he's doing.
Long answer: The use of sysex in the inner works of the device gives you many advantages in the long term, one of the few drawbacks is this need of conversion to syx when you load IRs.
One of the advantages is that MIDI is more obsolescence-proof than using a manufacturer editor. Not only for IRs, for preset files too.
I'll give you the example of the first Axe generation: standard and ultra, this products are finalized (some may say obsolete), and all the stuff (firmware, Axe edit...) remain unchanged since 2011.
Axe-edit for gen1 works well with current PC operating systems, but all we know that things evolves fast in the present days, in the future you will have a new OS in your computer and axe-edit will don't work.
In this scenario the only way to load a preset or IR in the device will be a 3rd party midi interface and a MIDI utility like MIDIOX. And this is posible because the Axe is Midi friendly. A strong and widely accepted protocol like MIDI ensures that you will find an interface and an utility avaliable after OS changes...
Axe2 and Ax8 are alive right now, but the same thing will happen, for sure. We'll arrive at a point that the product will be finalized and axe-edit will be vulnerable to the obsolescence winds...in this moment the old good MIDI will come to the rescue. Irs and presets are all syx so no problemo...
The Helix procedure for IRs is more easy right now, but in the future you will have the Helix, a bunch of .wav Ir files and .hlx preset files and nothing for send them to the device.
When I say "power to the people" I'm also thinking about the MIDI standard in general: is good to have many manufacturers selling compatible products, the more alternatives, the better to the user. You don't have to be attached to one sole company.



I don't think this is related to wav vs syx, the benefit of using a higher resolution depends on the lenght of the wav source file and the capabilities of the device to cope long IRs.
Helix can use 2048 samples IRs (1024 in economy mode), and Ax8 can handle normal (1024, 20 ms) hi (2040, 40 ms) and ultra resolution (up to 8000 samples, 170 ms). Ultra res files have more detail on the low spectrum, but you can benefit of this only if the wav source file is long and have information beyond 40 ms. The same aplies to Helix 2048(40ms) vs 1024 (20ms) modes: if the wav decays at 20ms there's no added benefit between normal and economy mode.
But if you have a long wav: Ax8 in Ultrares mode gives you more resolution/fidelity than Helix.
Here you have Cliff's words about Ultrares:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/something-cool-ive-been-working-on.75794/
Click to expand...

I actually wouldn't be surprised if someone comes up with a better version of midi sometime in the near future. While it is currently a standard, there's always room for improvement, and the big upturn in digital equipment could drive a change. Just like C programming is great, there have been tons of "improvements" to it as other codes have come out.

Personally I think the way Line 6 handled it is a little easier. Not a big deal at all, but it is in fact easier.
 
All i can say is 'each to their own'. Some like the fractal, others like the helix. Personally, i used line 6 for a long time, maybe 10 years. But it never made me very content until fractal released the FX8 and bought one for myself in the 'used market' just a few months ago. I couldn't go back to line 6. If i can go back in time, i would just purchase a fractal product.
Just my .02 cents!
 
Part 3 is here! 8 more "less popular" amp models compared, and I paid much more attention to the input pads and bright switches than I did in the first episode.

EDIT: Oh, and I bought the Strat :)

 
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