I'm concerned that updates are getting a bit out of control

GazzaBloom said:
Well there's some lively responses! Thank you

Can I just correct you Stratman68 - I have not directly smeared anyone with my post, and I never would. I have shared a concern and asked a couple of challenging questions, that's all.

Clearly many here do not share those concerns, that's great.

Isn't sharing views, often with differing opinions, and debating topics what forums are all about, or are we supposed to only sing praise, whoop and holler with joy?

I apologise if my post has offended anyone and I am more that happy to refrain from posting further if that's what people would prefer.

Gazza
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The problem I think with your post is that it is "speculative" and has an air of "insinuation." It speculates on recklessness on FAS part yet their track record and evidence shows that they are constantly improving their products....whether in lull periods of competition or not. So your post seems reckless itself since it cannot be verified and puts in question FAS's "lack of discipline and control" .....with no substantive evidence for it.
Maybe you don't mean it this way ....but this is how it seems to come across.

Beta is beta.....and warnings are posted. It is incumbent upon the user to be prepared to backup all data should they decide to roll back to the previous FW for any reason whatsoever. I totally enjoy checking out new major releases!...I just roll back if it drastically alters my presets and re-update when time permits adjust my presets.

The last thing I would want is for Cliff to have reservations about releasing future beta after one of his "epiphanies!"

I may be wrong but I myself don't know of any company offering this type of interaction with their customers with new developments anywhere.
 
It's funny how forums are like the weather. Occasionally a squall breaks out and disturbs the otherwise orderly flow of air. You can't stop it—it's just gonna happen. The same weather system that produces warm tropical breezes will sometimes produce a tornado.

Some people relish the storm. They dive in and stir up the winds. Others paddle their canoes out beyond the edge of the storm, and wait for it to pass. Still others flirt around the rim of the storm, occasionally brushing against it and letting it spin them around. Some get fed up with the weather in general, and move off-planet.

Whichever of those groups you fall into, drop your anchor into something more solid than the flurry of words that make up a forum. It'll make your whole experience much more pleasant.
 
Dude firstly I get what your trying to say here.

Personally I find it really useful to take regular glances at the territory we have been blessed to be in now. The digital guitar world we are venturing further and further into is an exciting and uncharted territory.
You can picture Cliff as the captain of an exploration ship, that we are all lucky to be aboard. We are out on the still open water with no one else out this far. Each time he finds something new he charts it and adds it to the knowledge base. He then also immediately feeds the rest of the crew (us) on board with every new bit to give feedback on.

Navigating new territory is very rarely going to be laid out in a linear fashion. I say strap yourself in, dump how you think the updates may appear to others.

In its own right it is a valid point to raise, good thread!
 
I would not call it "out of control". FAS introduced 20 beta and then Quantum beta before 20 went into general release. So, yes, that's a bit of an odd release sequence as far as software release cycles go, however, I don't think we have any reason to be concerned at all because:
- 1Q seems to be a totally solid release delivering real improvement with little or no issues.
- 1Q includes what was in 20b.
- We continue to get significant improvements to the AxeFx on a regular basis (every couple of months at least) for no additional cost - Absolutely no other modelling product provides this.
- These betas are optional - if you're concerned anyway despite the many reasons not to be, you can happily stay on the latest general release.

Conclusion?...
 
Stratman68 said:
I think that is untrue. Say what you want. I have never jumped on someone for saying something "FACTUAL" about the axe. If there's an issue there is an issue./

It's the stupid crap like the Original Post. Those are NOT questions. Come on....I am beginning to wonder if some here cannot read, seriously. How those statements are not found to be offensive is beyond the scope of my mind.. One basically says Cliff is "using us".

The scared knee jerks, afraid of helix, and the other crap I quoted too much already. sorry, this offends me especially coming from someone who has been here a "very short" time" but yet has the insight and wisdom about how Cliff is sweating helix, making bad decisions, going to bury FAS......Give me a F**K88 break. Guess what, the world is not all wonderful and beautiful.

Really sad, I get mad at stuff like this, not someone saying there axe is fizzy or can't get a good sound, et, etc. We hear that all the time.

Ya know, I can name a bunch of you that I am sorry to say would never had made it in the real bad world---if you know what I mean-signature......

Man this type of thread just burns me because I do not understand the defending. All I see are derogatory statements about fractal. PERIOD. I don't care how the sentence is built grammatically.

SO, I am going to take a hiatus, probably means I'll miss the ax8, but some of you ACLU members are killing me.

Shame I am leaving after someone posts what the OP did.... Now there's logic for ya..............B**lSH88 logic.

Enjoy being the cool head and nice guy even when it's NOT warranted at all
\FRank
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Frank, you need to go outside or something--you are getting worked up arguing with strangers on the Internet about a computer.
 
Hellraiser said:
Brother, NEVER, EVER write a critical Post about updates in this Forum!!! They will kill you (I know...) Here are all Update Junkies and they need there daily dosis. Other companies test updates and bring them out if they run stable, not so FAS... Bring it out, look what happens, if its good ok, if not try again... Every Update you can spend endless Time to tweak your presets, thats only FAS Sh...
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Have to respectfully disagree there. Objectively observing as an IT guy - what I've seen from FAS is that most of, if not all of their beta releases are solid and contain very few issues when delivered to those customers that want to participate in the beta (remember: there's no such thing as a completely bug free release of anything). In fact, most general releases I see in other products are no more stable than FAS' beta releases. I'm often amazed how so many organizations take forever to release a tiny set of features with a bug rate that's nothing special given the time taken. Suggesting that FAS throws untested beta releases out there seems factually incorrect. As far as tweaking goes: yes you may need to tweak your presets to incorporate new release features into your tone (though not always as is evidenced by the Quantum release which yields improvements immediately), but tweaking presets to find your sweet spot in a new feature should not be somehow construed as dealing with a buggy release - I don't see the connection there.

And of course - as nausiatingly repeated over and over and over and over here ....: if you don't want to install new releases, you don't have to.

Not a fanboy comment here - it just is what it is
 
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Open and closed beta

Developers release either a closed beta or an open beta; closed beta versions are released to a restricted group of individuals for a user test by invitation, while open beta testers are from a larger group, or anyone interested. The testers report any bugs that they find, and sometimes suggest additional features they think should be available in the final version. Examples of a major public beta test include the following:

Early customers purchased a "pioneer edition" of the WordVision word processor for the IBM PC for $49.95. In 1984, Stephen Manes wrote that "in a brilliant marketing coup, Bruce and James Program Publishers managed to get people to pay for the privilege of testing the product."[9]
In September 2000 a boxed version of Apple's Mac OS X Public Beta operating system was released.[10]
Microsoft's release of community technology previews (CTPs) for Windows Vista, between September 2005 and May 2006.[11]
Throughout 2009 to 2011, Minecraft was in public beta.
On December 29, 2014, all owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One were able to download and play the Beta of Halo 5: Guardians for free through January 18, 2015. Users of the Beta were reminded via in-game popup that the release was a Beta and may contain some glitches and were encouraged to communicate them through the Halo series online community.

Open betas serve the dual purpose of demonstrating a product to potential consumers, and testing among an extremely wide user base likely to bring to light obscure errors that a much smaller testing team might not find.
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Don't participate in open beta if you don't understand what it is.
Don't participate in open beta and then complain about the beta. You are testing. Provide useful feedback.
 
Wow! This may be the dumbest comment/complaint/irrational thought that I have ever heard about the Axe-Fx. And BTW, those "other" products out there don't even come close. That is all.


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GazzaBloom said:
While I absolutely recognise and welcome Cliff's and the FAS team's enthusiasm and support of the Axe FX, I am concerned that there is a lack of disipline and control with regards to recent FW Beta updates.

We have a FW20 beta that is now overlapped with a Quantum 1 beta. Does this suggest that random developments are being thrown out for testing by the public without adherence to a product development plan?

Or are these frantic developments a knee jerk reaction to the imminent lower cost product releases by other manufacturers (Helix, Amplifire, Yamaha THR100), which are looking likely to be great sounding products?

Every company needs creative and spur of the moment product developments but releasing these as a stream of consciousness to the public may end up being self defeating and appear amateurish, especially without taking the time to write release notes.

Just a concern of mine, from someone who owns and loves the Axe FX.
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People like you are an impediment to progress. If you were the gate keeper of the firmware updates, you would be way more conservative and if I died tomorrow I would have missed out just because you didn't think it was ready. That is the definition of suck. To never have experienced it at all, love, pain, growth, and firmware updates. Life can't come at me fast enough :)
 
Hellraiser said:
Other companies test updates and bring them out if they run stable, not so FAS... Bring it out, look what happens, if its good ok, if not try again... Every Update you can spend endless Time to tweak your presets, thats only FAS Sh...
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Nothing could be further from the truth. You have a history of complaining about this topic with knee jerk comments based on nothing factual. You obviously have no clue how beta testing is done because many companies publicly beta test with software that is extremely buggy. It is after all the very reason Beta testing takes place.

You have absolutely no knowledge of how much testing is done behind the scenes before FAS releases a public Beta test. In all my years in the IT field I actually find it remarkable how few bugs are found in initial Beta releases much less the ones that eventually make it to the public. And those that are found are corrected in minutes as opposed to the months and years other companies take. I have actually found many of the Beta firmwares produced by FAS to be less buggy than other companies final release software that never gets updated post release.

And why would this Beta release bother you anyway as you no doubt are still tweaking your presets from your last update since the time you spend doing so is endless. :)
 
Look we all know that Cliff gets liquored up late at night, writes some code, posts it online and then says "check this shit out" with his fingers crossed.

Anyone that really thinks that we get a "public beta" minutes after he's written it with no testing is delusional. Now there may be a quick bug fix where he may have input a wrong value (has happened twice), but those were spot corrections and not "new" releases. None of this stuff is being put out there for the public to install without some testing being done by the guy writing the code. And more to the point the guy has been working with the same basic architecture (the TigerSHARC DSP's) for closing in on ten years now....I think that he knows what he is doing and isn't "experimenting" with us.

This isn't the government releasing chemicals into the water table to see what effects it has on the unsuspecting public. Every firmware release is optional and the public betas are 100% voluntary. There hasn't been one unstable firmware version released and the two that had problems were pulled and fixed that same day.

Now if there were chronic product failures that were being ignored and FAS was innovating at the expense of those problems or even worse had moved on to developing a new product to market then these types of threads would have some teeth and most likely my support and that of many others. The reason that people on here get all worked up and defensive is not because we bought a device and become blindly devoted to it....it's because we bought a device that works, brings us pleasure and appreciate and respect the manner in which the business is run. Why on earth would anyone think that they have the right to question how a grown ass man runs his business? How much self-entitlement does someone have to have to do that? And we're not even talking about dissatisfied customers that were cheated out of their money by getting a product that didn't deliver on what it was supposed to....we're talking about people whining about the rate of innovation and improvement to their device for FREE....all of which by the way is completely up to the discretion of the end user to participate in.

To quote my dear, beloved, sweet grandmother "WTF is the problem?"
 
GazzaBloom said:
While I absolutely recognise and welcome Cliff's and the FAS team's enthusiasm and support of the Axe FX, I am concerned that there is a lack of disipline and control with regards to recent FW Beta updates.

We have a FW20 beta that is now overlapped with a Quantum 1 beta. Does this suggest that random developments are being thrown out for testing by the public without adherence to a product development plan?

Or are these frantic developments a knee jerk reaction to the imminent lower cost product releases by other manufacturers (Helix, Amplifire, Yamaha THR100), which are looking likely to be great sounding products?

Every company needs creative and spur of the moment product developments but releasing these as a stream of consciousness to the public may end up being self defeating and appear amateurish, especially without taking the time to write release notes.

Just a concern of mine, from someone who owns and loves the Axe FX.
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Saying that you are concerned is an odd word choice. It implies you have something to lose here. As hundreds have said on this and other threads, you are free to never update again. You can ignore them completely, and play the next 5 years on FW9. Really, it will work.

Are you are concerned by a never ending quest for improvement? You are bashing the very business model that has made Fractal Audio the BEST gear company on earth. What, you wish they were more line Line 6? That is less amateurish to you?

Line 6 is cool company. They make fun products. I've not seen many national touring big name pros using their amp modelers though, at least not yet. (Can you name one? I can't. )About the only thing they have made that I consider pro level would be the old green and blue delay and modulation modelers. those got some tour use from a good number of people. I don't think Fractal is nervous about them or anyone else really. Why? Because by the time those companies catch up to where FA is today, FA will be 3-4 years into the future. This is true BECAUSE of the beta program. When Cliff has a breakthrough large or small, he shares it. That has oodles of value to many (dare I say most) of us users. It's the least amateurish method I can imagine. It's why FA is SO FAR out in front of any other gear company.

By the way. I (almost) always wait for full FW releases. I'm not a big beta user, but I watch them very closely to see what is coming next. This one sounds like a winner. Keep em coming Cliff. I might let other guys try it out first and not do the beta myself (a tip to the OP), but I'm glad it's out there. I know in a couple of weeks I'll be using it too in a full version and I'll love it.

PS. I saw your later post, and no, I don't think you not posting is the answer. It's an open forum. You can have an opinion, even if most of us don't share it. Rock on.
 
I can't be bothered to read thru this thread and I'm sure it has already been said but these are Beta releases for testing and feedback allowing us to be on bleeding edge. Pretty cool really. If they hold back we won't be as involved. Being on this forum gives you an opportunity you wouldn't normally get
 
Huh!?! When I saw the title of this post I assumed (incorrectly) it was someone trying to be funny. I feel privileged to be able to take Cliff's beta releases for a pre-release test run. It gives me and many others a sense of inclusion, like we are right there watching the magic unfold before our very eyes, err, ears. Thanks FAS!


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