Horror gig - Axe stopped working mid-gig!

Were playing at the house of blues in Cleveland this Saturday, and you are scaring the shit out of me. lol.
 
guitardoc said:
Last night I experienced a horror gig. I adjusted all my presets with 8.01, checked every single preset to make sure they worked allright, backed them up, packed all my stuff and went off to the gig. So far so good.
The gig went allright as usual at first. However, when I called up preset 11 (which is a preset with about 80% cpu with nothing fancy in it, just an acoustic simulation and some mid-gain sound) there was no sound at all and the display flashed CPU overload. In the middle of the gig in front of several thousand people. Shite.
I quickly restored the backed up Bank A but to no avail. Preset 11 remained f****d up. So we had to skip the song with preset 11 and wanted to go on but from then on the sound came out of the unit delayed by about 2 seconds. I had to tell the FoH and the backline guys to mute everything so I could reboot the Axe without popping anyone's ears. From then on at least the remaining presets worked allright as long as I didn't touch preset 11. That was one horror gig believe me.
This morning I rebuilt preset 11 by copying the respective blocks from other presets and rechecked everything twice. Backed everything up and rechecked again. Now I'm headed to tonight's venue and my fellow band members are giving me a hard time regarding reliability for tonight's show, so please keep your fingers crossed that last night's nightmare was a one time experience...

However, has anyone experienced something similar and what was the cause? I'm an otherwise happy MkI user.
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did the Axe-Fx have proper ventilation?
 
chris said:
did the Axe-Fx have proper ventilation?
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Hmm, that's an interesting question. I would say it did, being in a 4 space rack case with 2 spaces empty (which I use to store cables and power cords etc.) However, the rear lid is always closed since the rack stands on it.
I have been using the unit this way for years and never encountered any problems. Even after many hours of continuous use the AxeFx always feels 'normal' to the touch, not even a tiny bit warm at all.
But how could ventilation correlate to corrupting a preset?
 
I use my Axe-Fx II Mark I for shows and band practice and I have a XL+ I keep at home. I got the XL+ for a great price as a B stock and I test all updates on it first. I'm usually a firmware behind with my Mark I.

Thanks to @AlGrenadine for his FracTool, I can convert my presets between my Mark I and XL+.

I use a FAMC Liquid Foot Plus (LF+) MFC and after a recent firmware update, it didn't work correctly with my Mark I and I only tested it with my XL+.

So even if you have a backup, make sure to test both to make sure they work properly.
 
guitardoc said:
Hmm, that's an interesting question. I would say it did, being in a 4 space rack case with 2 spaces empty (which I use to store cables and power cords etc.) However, the rear lid is always closed since the rack stands on it.
I have been using the unit this way for years and never encountered any problems. Even after many hours of continuous use the AxeFx always feels 'normal' to the touch, not even a tiny bit warm at all.
But how could ventilation correlate to corrupting a preset?
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Not sure about the preset specifically, but I've had my axe do weird things when I let it get too hot by keeping covers on or somehow blocking airflow. Everything got sluggish, couldn't change presets, etc. totally my fault. It felt as if I went to 120% CPU, as an example. Turned it off, waited a few minutes, put an external fan on it and unblocked things and it was fine.

I'd bet that could corrupt a preset. Just throwing out ideas. In almost 10 years of using the Axe frequently, that's the only issue I've ever had.
 
A corrupt preset is a real drag, and the number one concern as a user, as opposed to conventional rigs. Scary stuff. The nearest I have come to that is a few weeks ago when my power conditioner failed to power up, and my rack wouldn't work. I circumvented the issue by plugging everything in separately, for that one gig. I tested the power conditioner the following day at home and it powered up fine. Weird.
 
Another thing I suggest being around technology my whole life. Blow it out with air once in a while. They will get dusty.
Must have been a night for terror. Last night we played an outdoor concert. 35 minutes into the show a monsoon storm came up. There were side and back drapes and we had tarps, but the wind was driving through the front. We weren't fast enough. Cabs, keyboards, pedal boards, lights and bass rig all got soaked. I was lucky and had my guitar rig in the back where the wind driving rain missed it. PA amps and console were in the back of a truck covered. The storm passed, we dried everything as much as possible, we dumped the water out of the Distro 4 gangs on stage, and was able to get the GFIs that tripped back up and went back on. Scary and amazing all at the same time. And that's Rock 'N Roll.
 
guitardoc said:
All you guys helped me a lot by obviously keeping your fingers crossed the whole last night - I didn't have any problems with my gear at last night's show!
I admit I felt a little uneasy every time I called up the ominous preset 11 but everything worked like a charm.
Maybe now is a good time to buy a backup unit - at least now I have an excuse when asking my wife for the money for a brand new XL+. :)
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.....ax8 is good...
 
I have an 11rack in my rackcase for backup. NOT an Axe but something that'll get me through the night alive. That's the great part about digital stuff, the spare amp doesn't take up much space.
 
Yikes! Sorry to hear that OP. These types of situations help keep me somewhat grounded in that I try relatively hard to not create any parts for myself that rely very heavy on effects. I want to be able to get through a gig (if need be and all else fails) by simply plugging straight into a backup amp and be able to finish the gig with a guitar -> amp -> speakers tone. Of course, if money were no object, my rig would be 100% redundant via spare everything and even then I would likely keep a standard amp (probably my Marshall) on standby.
 
Sucks, glad it worked out the second night. I have had all sorts of equiptment throughout the years, and have experienced many breaksdowns of my own or bandmates gear. Luckilly I alway travel prepared with spare tubes, soldering Iron, toothpick (essential for straplock issues), extra powersupply, yellow earplugs (for adjusting the height of the pickups in a very expensive non-customable custom guitar), duct tape etc etc, so I can confirm this happens to ALL gear. Luckilly I have only once experienced issues with my fractal during a gig (at a sound check, rebooted and the issue dissapeared), but always carry around my laptop in case a quick re-install should be necesarry, as I don't have the money lying around for a back-up axe. I have though experienced that my MFC had to be replaced a few days before a tour (g66 saved my butt), and that the PSU died just before a tour, got replaced and died again shortly after the tour. Not sure where I'm going with this, just felt like sharing ;)
 
Cool would be to able to backup and install firmware and presets using an iPhone or iPad since I always have them around at gigs. Maybe there is such a tool around and I haven't stumbled upon it?
 
Been playing the axe for two years with no issues at all. I recall having the axe lock up just once, at home, but I've rebooted it and it worked fine instantly...
 
The only issue I've had with my AFX2XL/MFCIII has been the dreaded name timeout on the MFC when connected via fastlink when changing presets too fast. This has happened with various XLRs. I've rectified by using Recall on the MFC to enter preset mode.

I had a really freaky scene issue once, but that wound up being my fault. I had done a pickup date and instead of bringing my MFC, I used a TRS Y cable in the pedal jack for Scene Inc/Dnc with 2 foot switches. The next night I had a bigger show and the stage was really rumumbly. Every time the subs would kick, my AFX wound change Scenes, in order, in time with the music. I realized later that I left my Scene Inc/Dnc TRS cable plugged in and it was grounding on my rack case with every stage vibration. Dumb@$$.
 
The sheer number of things that can go wrong is mentally staggering. I have had all manner of issues and train wrecks at gigs in my life. Back when I ran 20 space rack rigs, a bad cable or lose plug was a true disaster that could and would show up at the worst times. Between amps, cables, peddles, power supplies and power sources, guitars... who the hell knows what is going to go down. It the last 6 -8 months alone I've had:

* screw from dunlop cable lock rip out of the bottom of my main guitar... mid song. Yowza! Trying to solo while supporting the guitar on my leg...
* Y-cable went funky on my expression peddle, causing my wah to auto engage when I didn't want it, and could not turn it off. had to jump to another preset with no wah mid song.
* IEM cable got snagged on something, and tore out of the earpiece. No IEM for rest of show. (thankfully it was the last set and I made it through)
* My favorite guitar... an '87 Ibanez RG with old school floyd rose just went haywire, falling WAY out of tune throughout the set, and there was just no bringing it back without a full 5 minute retuning... so had to jump to backup guitar. Ya gotta love extreme temperature changes...
* The old "broken E string" on a Floyd Rose... first time this has happened in many years... and yes, the string was new. Who knows??? That was a wild one.
* extreme interference with my IEM... loud static bursts in my ear... sound tech tried to take me to a new frequency several hundred Mghz away... but the problem persisted. No IEM for that show.
* dreaded AXE FX freeze ups... ( I have old forum threads about these issues, but I solved them and have not had this happen in a long time. Beware loose fitting FASLink cables!)
* Soundboard freeze up! Ahhh... the digital world. So awesome. Thankfully this happened between songs... and our tech fixed it quick. He was running all over turning off speakers though, to reboot the mixer... then turning everything back on. Yikes!
* and about 50 other total bullshit acts of the live music devil gremlin who gets off on wrecking my night. You just act like you meant to do that crap and keep rocking. Normally the crowd doesn't even know what happened.


I feel like I so over-prepare these days for contingencies. backup guitars, monitors on stage (that I might not use), straps, batteries, spare cords and cables, and ... most recently... I have created dual copies of ALL presets... independently... and stored each preset twice.
So... my preset list looks like this...
Song 1
Song 1
Song 2
Song 2
Song 3
Song 3
...and so on. This way, If I have a corrupt preset or something goes wrong... I can fluidly move to the next (same) preset without skipping a beat.
I just have to double tap to the next preset(song). I run them in reverse order so I use the down button to get to the next song. The trick is to independently verify every preset. I honestly have not had many issues with corrupt presets, but it is just that I am fairly "snake-bit" when it comes to freaking Murphy and his law, so I have backup plans of backup plans. :confused:
 
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