How many are having problems with mfc?

rickgk

rickgk

Experienced
I have an mfc on order with the Australian distributor and at $1000aud i am expecting the mfc to be flawless in all it's promised functions but i am reading here of troubles with the tuner being quirky and super slow patch changes in axe-fx mode? Just wondering how many of you are having these problems? I would suspect that if it's a firmware issue then everyone should be having the same problems but if your not then there must be some hardware malfunctions with many of the units (this would not be good).
I'm starting to worry about the purchase now, doesn't help when the distributors customer service leaves allot to be desired also.
 
It´s scaring but IMHO the MFC is still far from being reliable on a professional environment. I´m on tour right now and was forced to stay away from the Axe-Fx mode: switching between presets sometimes takes 1 second, other times 4 seconds and again up to 7 seconds.. it sometimes freezes showing all the IA switches ON. The Tuner on its screen is irritating slow... Indeed things that could be not so important for a bedroom player but that are essential for a pro player. Since support left me alone I really dont know if there is a bunch of faulty units around or if it´s a firmware thing. I only know that I´m not the only one experiencing these problems.
 
Switching patches is sometimes painfully slow in Axe mode. I have gotten around it by using dual amp/cabs on my ultra... Hopefully this will soon be re-worked.

Maybe there should be a "Sync" button, so that patch names and effect status are only copied when manually syncing... this might help w/some of the overhead of reading the Axe Patch data on every patch switch.
 
I have had the MFC and the Axe Fx Ultra, I use them week after week in a crucial setting, fast paced and no room for glitches, and have no problems. The switching is as fast as I can step on the switch, no problems. I use it at our church and although I wouldn't call that a "professional" setting, it is none the less demanding. I have seen how it performs and it just a reliable or more so than any of my other gear.
 
Big problems here.
I can not use it playing live.
I can hardly use it during practices.
Waiting 1-5 seconds for a patch change ? Come on .....
 
So, what kind of cables you guys using, 5 pin or 7 pin? And, are you plugged into the same power source as the Axe-FX?
 
It must have been real pain for you guys,
not sure what kind of a problem it is (probably just software and not hardware)
but I hope it'll be fixed soon enough,
I have no problems using MFC in AxeFx mode whatsoever.
 
Axe-Fx mode. 7 pin cable. Works flawlessly. The only "issue" I have experienced was with the firmware version that it shipped with, it did that thing where it put random spaces in the patch name on the MFC display, but since I updated, I haven't seen that.

-Phil
 
Philip said:
Axe-Fx mode. 7 pin cable. Works flawlessly. The only "issue" I have experienced was with the firmware version that it shipped with, it did that thing where it put random spaces in the patch name on the MFC display, but since I updated, I haven't seen that.

-Phil
Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed that bug as well once or twice but it's gone after update.
 
7-pin, powered from Axe-passthru. Firmware 0.19

No issues switching patches. Everything is instant.
Used it live quite a bit. Solid.
 
Since many of you have no problem with it I´m starting to think something wrong happens during the firmware upgrade. What are you guys experiencing problems using to upgrade the firmware? I´m using a RME Fireface 400
 
RME FireFace 800 was reported as very dangerous to use when updating AxeFx
and then a guy had major problems using FireFace 400 as well,
yeah, it could be RME causing problems to MFC, try some other midi interface and see if its any better.
 
Muris_Varajic said:
RME FireFace 800 was reported as very dangerous to use when updating AxeFx
and then a guy had major problems using FireFace 400 as well,
yeah, it could be RME causing problems to MFC, try some other midi interface and see if its any better.
Click to expand...

According to RME the 400 is a different beast compared to the 800.. I upgrade with it since 3 years and have never had issues at least with the Axe.. but still it could be the problem. Looking forward to know what the others are using. I´m on tour and have no other interface handly.
 
Hi Enzo

Same Problems here. Switching Time and Tuner are very slow.
I'm on the newest firmware for the MFC and The AXE.
My Interface is a Motu 828mk3 Firewire with a Macbook.

Two thoughts that come to my mind when I read this thread :

(1) Try to use the power directly on the MFC and not through Phantom Power with the AXE.

(2) I've changed my patches when I got the MFC. Now I have many effects in my patch chains (like a real pedalboard). This could be also a reason for the switching times being slow.


- as always, excuse my poor english
thxs
 
Hi Fox,

I must report that the RME Fireface 800 works fine with Axe Fx and MFC. Well, previously when I was running Windows XP SP3 I couldn't upgrade the firmware and I was constantly exchanging the EPROM's in order to run Axe Fx. However, after installing Windows 7 Pro and new RME drivers I have upgraded firmware twice on Axe Fx and once on MFC. So far so good. MFC is working great here no problems here. I have used MIDI-OX.
 
So today I´ve had the time to experiment more. What I found is that if you are switching between presets that are not CPU intensive the MFC performs well. For example I switched between the factory presets that have not many blocks inside and all went fast. When I switch between my presets which are CPU heavy all becomes very slow. Bear in mind that I´ve an Ultra running at 82-89% CPU on each preset..
At least this explains why some are having problems and some others not.
 
Many of my patches have quite a few effects and use dual amp/cabs. The few that are simple switch fairly quick. I still think the thing to do is to have a simple "Sync" switch on the MFC-101 that would read the bank patches and settings, as an alternative to realtime reading on every patch change... I have been a software engineer for over 30 years and you would be suprised at how many assume that everything needs to be realtime...Batch programming is still a very viable alternative in many cases and I believe would significantly help this situation.
 
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