Georgia Tech Professor is going to DIY an Axe-FX III

Not quite sure what the point of the video is other than exposing how much money it costs to buy the hardwear? There are so many other things that need to be considered.

The comment he made of open software, "one software to rule them all" seems rather anti business. Not that guitar players really need more choices in the digital realm as there are a tone of them out their already. The marketplace looks like it saturated enough, I can't imagine why anyone would want to dive into that pond and play.
 
Mohi said:
The greatest thing of Fractal products is the Firmware, the HW is OK but it is easier to replicate. All those years, and nobody yet came out with such a good emulation algorithms, let alone the combination of HW and SW.
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I agree that he seems to be underestimating the importance of the firmware and algorithms. Having the hardware functioning is just a blank slate. It is how you utilize it that really determines whether or not it will sound good.
 
Yeah, he just proved to me that I'd rather buy my Fractal and get awesome customer support than go through the headache of building my own unit (and programming it!!!). I agree with @Sixstring that he seems sort of anti-business, kind of like he's questioning Fractal's or anyone else's right to make a profit at what they do.

It was informative though, thanks for posting! Now I definitely know for sure that I'll never attempt to build my own modeler!
 
I wouldn't underestimate the power of an open source community development, however, the one thing most students don't have access to is an original Dumble to create a model from. So it's going to tough for this platform to reach a competitive level without being able to throw in some serious money. Maybe Elon Musk will ...
 
ChristThePhone said:
I wouldn't underestimate the power of an open source community development, however, the one thing most students don't have access to is an original Dumble to create a model from. So it's going to tough for this platform to reach a competitive level without being able to throw in some serious money. Maybe Elon Musk will ...
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Sure, there is a lot that can be accomplished by a group of like minded folks. I don't see it being feasible to attain and maintain anything so complex as this though. You alluded to the "serious money" being required. People bringing that kind of cash want concessions and that's where everything would get derailed. Even not considering that, I see problems with a "group think" paradigm. Successful businesses are led by visionaries and just see something like this easily going off the rails.

I watched this guy's entire video above and I think he's missing SO much that is involved with a product of this caliber (firmware and updates is glaringly obvious). So yes, you might be able to build your own functional modeler, but is it ever going to be as high caliber as your buddy with a Fractal? I doubt it. I'll gladly pay to avoid the hassles! :smiley:
 
Linux was laughed at in the beginning by the Unix "pros". Now there's pretty much no Unix left anymore except Linux. Yes, it takes leadership, organization, and money. But history has shown it being possible. I could imagine that crowdfunding could make a lot of things possible here. But unlike Linux this thingy is not going to spawn a business concept behind it. Linux itself doesn't create money, it's an enabler for business based on it (services). The only way to make money would be to sell models that plug in into an open architecture. Similar to Amplitude et al.
 
Kinda confusing as I'm sure this guy is brilliant and understands the hardware, audio, and guitar disciplines, but most of the focus seems to be on the fact that he could assemble the same chips/hardware at a much lower price. From there, all that would be left is to throw some code onto the chips and you'd have a similar product. That's where the thousands of hours, ingenuity, and art comes in, which I don't think is so readily copied. But maybe he's a guy that could do such a thing - we'll find out.

If you go thru his YT channel he does have a lot of guitar and DSP-related videos that are probably great if you have a mind for it.
 
ChristThePhone said:
Linux was laughed at in the beginning by the Unix "pros". Now there's pretty much no Unix left anymore except Linux. Yes, it takes leadership, organization, and money. But history has shown it being possible. I could imagine that crowdfunding could make a lot of things possible here. But unlike Linux this thingy is not going to spawn a business concept behind it. Linux itself doesn't create money, it's an enabler for business based on it (services). The only way to make money would be to sell models that plug in into an open architecture. Similar to Amplitude et al.
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I'm not arguing that it can't be done. I'm just saying it's not very probable. I really see it falling apart beyond being able to build a working modeler. I think there's a world of difference between something like Linux and a physical system (I don't see any crowd sourced autos around either, as an example). As CodePoet said, we'll find out.
 
ChristThePhone said:
Raspi is a good example for crowd sourced hardware development. It might end up being an open hardware platform (like a Raspi on steroids) running VST plugins. Not really the same thing as an AxeFx 3, though, but still interesting. Yes, we'll see.
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I'd forgotten about Raspberry Pi. I remember reading about it years ago. It's a great idea.

I was thinking about Linux after my previous response, and you know that's actually a great example of what would happen IMO with almost any endeavor like this. Yes, Linux is there and you can use it, but how many people actually do? Personally I use iOS because it gives me a better user experience, others use Windows or even both. Seems like that's also what most people have adopted.

I see a similar situation that would develop for home grown modelers. Could you do it? Sure, it's probably within reach, but at least IMO I suspect the overall result will never measure up to what's available elsewhere.
 
fcs101 said:
I'd forgotten about Raspberry Pi. I remember reading about it years ago. It's a great idea.

I was thinking about Linux after my previous response, and you know that's actually a great example of what would happen IMO with almost any endeavor like this. Yes, Linux is there and you can use it, but how many people actually do? Personally I use iOS because it gives me a better user experience, others use Windows or even both. Seems like that's also what most people have adopted.

I see a similar situation that would develop for home grown modelers. Could you do it? Sure, it's probably within reach, but at least IMO I suspect the overall result will never measure up to what's available elsewhere.
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Linux doesn't really play an important role on personal desktops, but it's huge on servers where it killed pretty much all other UNIXes and that's a multibillion-$ market.

The thing with home grown modelers will be the comparatively small community willing to dive into the details of bare-metal DSP code development. The whole point of using DSPs is to create extremely efficient algorithms to do the job with as little power consumption as possible. If you prefer to use high level languages and libraries (like on a Raspi) you'll need to throw in A LOT more processing power to achieve the same result which comes at the price of higher power consumption, active cooling, etc. If your plan was to simply be able to run VST plugins and reuse existing libraries then a sufficiently powerful barebone x86 PC in a 19" rack would do the job nicely.
 
ChristThePhone said:
Linux doesn't really play an important role on personal desktops, but it's huge on servers where it killed pretty much all other UNIXes and that's a multibillion-$ market.

The thing with home grown modelers will be the comparatively small community willing to dive into the details of bare-metal DSP code development. The whole point of using DSPs is to create extremely efficient algorithms to do the job with as little power consumption as possible. If you prefer to use high level languages and libraries (like on a Raspi) you'll need to throw in A LOT more processing power to achieve the same result which comes at the price of higher power consumption, active cooling, etc. If your plan was to simply be able to run VST plugins and reuse existing libraries then a sufficiently powerful barebone x86 PC in a 19" rack would do the job nicely.
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My exposure to Linux has been via techies building their own computers and using that as their operating system. My impression of those I've run across is that they get enjoyment from the process. That's the parallel I was attempting to make and sort of where I see something like this going.
 
fcs101 said:
My exposure to Linux has been via techies building their own computers and using that as their operating system. My impression of those I've run across is that they get enjoyment from the process. That's the parallel I was attempting to make and sort of where I see something like this going.
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Yes, I agree. It's a nerd thing. If you want a nice and smart appliance like an AxeFx3 then buy an AxeFx3. If you want to use VST plugins, buy a laptop, 19" PC, whatever. If you're a nerd and like f..ing with assembler, hardware, bits and bytes then go the route described in the video.
 
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