FW 3.00 is a gigantic improvement

[bkd_guitarist]

I've loved my FX8 from the moment I got it, but the preset/scene/IA paradigm was a bit kludgy. I'm a heavily scene-dependent player - having become addicted to scenes in the Axe-FX II, I use them far more often than I use IA's or presets. But using the FX8 was a bit challenging with having to switch in and out of sticky scene mode to change presets, etc. Multiple button presses that could land you in trouble with fast song changes, etc.

All that is fixed with FW 3.00. I now have my Scene button set to Scene 1/2 toggle, buttons 5-8 globally set to Scenes 3-6, and buttons 1-4 controlling IA's on a per-preset basis. Bank Up and Down buttons are set to Preset Up/Down. I set up my presets with our set lists (one preset per song), use Preset Up to step through the songs, and switch scenes within each song. With up to 6 scenes per song, I'm in good shape - I've never used more than 5.

With the improvements in MIDI implementation, this thing is now massively more powerful than it was at release time. The new paradigm is really pretty easy to understand as long as you think of the new "FS" page as a separate MIDI controller like the MFC.

It's pretty damned cool to have bought a piece of gear 9 months ago, and over that time the piece of gear has suddenly become about 75% better than it was when I bought it, and I've done nothing but install firmware.

And they wonder why we love Fractal...

 

[octatonic]

I agree- there is one thing that is bugging me though.

I'd like it if Scene 1/2 reverts to the previous scene used.
For instance, you have clean on Scene 1, Dist Rtm on Scene 2, Solo on Scene 3.
Switching to back form Scene 3 for a solo to your Dist Rtm requires two presses as pressing Scene 1/2 defaults back to Scene 1.

My workaround is to have my Dist Rtm sound on scene 1 and my clean on scene 2- not a huge inconvenience but it messes with my sense that incremental numbers should = incrementally more gain.

 

[Admin M@]

PREVIOUS SCENE would be a totally different function to Scene 1/2 toggle. I think this is already on the wishlist.

 

[chris]

PREVIOUS SCENE would be a totally different function to Scene 1/2 toggle. I think this is already on the wishlist.

I think he means "previously selected scene last selected by the 1/2 switch," which is a bit specific in usage. I personally like that hitting th 1/2 switch goes to 1 every time. If he needed to go from lead to Scene 1, and 2 was selected last, he'd still have to press the switch two times. I'd probably use separate Scene switches for that need.