Wish Implementing an "Expert" Mode on AX3

I don't think there's enough demand to warrant more complexity. If anything, Cliff has stated that feedback indicates people want more simplicity, not less. Personally, I absolutely love the advanced parameters and hope they're never removed or scaled back because I use and rely on them; however, as far as adding more complexity, the unit is already perceived by many as extremely (if not overly) complex as it is, so I tend to think it would be counterproductive.

I personally wanted to see how much people would agree to it through this thread, I do believe the small minority would like something like this at least

I don't get why people can't just stick to the authentic page, it doesn't have to be complicated for them :rolleyes:

For the minority, that like to tweak, it just limits the possibilities of what the AX3 or even Fractal can provide IMO
 
Can't remember the thread but there was an advanced (power amp IIRC) parameter that Cliff nuked because it was causing a nasty feedback under extreme settings and a forumer asked him to bring it back, so Cliff's response was that it was best to leave that out because for every "Expert user" out there knowing what he's doing, there would be tens or hundred users calling support because they didn't know what they changed and now their Axes "are broken".

And I'm not trying to be disrespectful but just look at the many posts by people who don't know what the "Refresh after new FW" is and what it does, so they post about their FM3s having bugs and not showing amps and FXs. And don't get me started on the "Why is the 2290 not working???" thing (and I've been one of them).

Now imagine the number of threads and/or support calls because "I think I've just borked my Axe FX, I don't know what I did but I can't get a clean tone anymore out of my Plexi" "Help, the Rectifiers are overly fizzy", "Can't get an open tone out of my Friedman, sounds sooooo compressed).

I see your point, that would be very problematic for the people at fractal , I never thought about that

My solution was just to have an easy to find button (digitally or physically) to reset their amp model to default , which it's kind of hidden in the Block > Reset Channel
 
I don't get why people can't just stick to the authentic page, it doesn't have to be complicated for them

That's what I tell posters on other forums who complain that the Axe-Fx has too many advanced parameters and not enough simple, amp-like controls.

For the minority that like to tweak, it just limits the possibilities of what the AX3 or even Fractal can provide IMO

Given what FAS already provides, which is far more than any other modeling developer, I don't see this as a case of the glass being half empty.
 
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The biggest problem is you go down the rabbit hole and can’t get back out.

As I’ve said before, the text should change color, if altered from the saved state.

Ideally
one color if below the saved state, and another if above. This would greatly improve your ability to see where you are at versus where you started.
 
The biggest problem is you go down the rabbit hole and can’t get back out.

As I’ve said before, the text should change color, if altered from the saved state.

Ideally
one color if below the saved state, and another if above. This would greatly improve your ability to see where you are at versus where you started.

maybe I never wanted to leave, also that would also be a great idea
 
That's what I tell posters on other forums who complain that the Axe-Fx has too many advanced parameters and not enough simple, amp-like controls.



Given what FAS already provides, which is far more than any other modeling developer, I don't see this as a case of the glass being half empty.

I say push the envelope
 
One thing that makes this more complicated (and take this with a grain of salt, I'm making lots of assumptions): I think in many cases the axe doesn't need to simulate individual resistors and capacitors, it just needs to simulate their combined effect. To drastically simplify, if you have a computer function that does 2 + 5 + 3 + X, to optimize it you can just do 10 + X. Similarly, if you have a grid of resistors and capacitors that does some set of low and high cuts you can replace it with a simple function saying "low cut at X Hz, with Y slope, high cut at Z Hz with W slope". This makes the models more efficient, lower latency, and allows more effects and advanced parameters to run. But it also means that the tools you create can't expose "set value for this resistor" as easily as they can expose "set the transformer mismatch".

In fact, that's a perfect example: Transformer mismatch is a number that represents how the power tubes and output transformer interact. When you swap power tube types in an amp, part of the audio effect is maybe from the new tubes themselves, but most is because the new tube type won't be properly matched to the transformer anymore. But in the Axe, you don't need to set one transformer value to 234 to match the 6L6 value of 234, you just set it to 1.0 to mark it as evenly matched. And turn it up or down to simulate different levels of mismatch. This is because the actual values of the transformer don't matter, just how matched it is to the power tubes.

But consequently, you can't set a transformer to a specific value, or automatically mismatch you power tubes because those values aren't in the simulation. They've been simplified (in the mathematical way, like above when I combined constant values into a single one which is functionally identical) so now you just have a simple value where you can adjust the ratio of the match/mismatch.

Lots of the advanced parameters I'm sure are exposing some of these sorts of optimized values. But that's also what makes it difficult to make a true schematic builder at the resistor and capacitor level: You'd be losing all of that optimization.

An interesting idea would be a sort of compiler program though, where you could modify the input schematic then compile a model in the optimized form.

But TL;DR: I think because of the way the models are optimized to run in a real time, low latency way, there are many cases where an individual resistor value can't be tweaked because that entire chunk of circuitry has been baked into a single thing representing the result.
 
you could say that having that kind of internal tweakability could put fractal at a whole level beyond what other amp modelers could do

or Maybe on a future axe fx it could have the kind of "internal" modifications I'm suggesting? Yeah I agree like mix and match internal parts of an amplifier , like bass tonestack from a mesa rectifier, middle tonestack of a friedman, distortion characteristics of a EngL that cleans to a fender deluxe from just turning down gain button

Crazy but I can dream
The low mid high bands of most guitar tone stacks aren't independent. I don't think different bands from different amps is feasible, the whole stack functions as a unit.
 
The low mid high bands of most guitar tone stacks aren't independent. I don't think different bands from different amps is feasible, the whole stack functions as a unit.
Agree. Even though some amps you could separate them, so many you couldn't. And for all the various amps where the seperate tone controls behave differently depending on how the others are set, and/or with the gain settings, there is no way. Thus, we have what we have now, the entire stack.
 
This is a "1% activity".

The great majority of users, even pro-users, won't care for this level of access VS getting other things Fractal is working on. Dev time is a zero sum game!

Worst maintaining that access as features change becomes morework over time, and that is really why it's a waste of time even to "try"
It adds drag to future releases for the sole benefit of people that really want to be doing Cliff's job, versus consuming Cliff's product aka

Are you a guitar player who likes to tweak (the mythical 99%)
or are you an amp / modeling sound design person who owns a guitar or three but wants even more virtual options than the 100s we already have (1%)
 
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past a certain point if you want to tweak more, IMHO, you should just play synth.

I mean listen to Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater. He can cop "guitar" tones when he wants but do things with them that even John Petrucci a true tasteful Shred Lord can't physically do bc the wood and steel layout of the guitar doesn't allow for it.
 
Yeah, while I'm always game for more options at my disposal, I use so few of the advanced parameters in the amp block as it is now. The models have gotten so good, that I simply don't need most of them. The default settings and plain old tone stack adjustments are almost always plenty to pull up just about any crazy tone that is rattling around in my melon. That said, I do still like having the options there just in case. I like the III's approach of having the authentic tab for basics yet all the crazy detailed stuff is still there if you feel like messing with it.

More times than not, it's the cab block that takes up most of my tweaking time. I'll take more cab block improvements and better cab management options over additional amp parameters anyday. I'd love the ability to pick a mic and cab combo and then virtually move the mic around to fine tune the tone, but as Cliff stated in other threads to do that accurately would require thousands of IR sample points per mic/cab combo and the Axe III simply doesn't have the storage capacity for that approach. I'm hopeful some new and better way to achieve this can be found.
 
I was big into amp tweaking in the 90's, probably a load of Marshall mods and others (mainly Fender, some Vox and Hiwatt) I tried are still all over Ampage archives. There is nothing I have wanted to try that hasn't been easily achievable from Axe FX II onwards. Want to build your own amp from scratch? Most of the building blocks are already there. For those of us that were into all that, it really doesn't take a lot of brain power to look at the advanced features built in, and to figure out the intent. It's not like we can only change the value of a cathode bypass cap and hear what it does, we can easily move a tone stack, or even change its entire topology, or move a master volume control either side of a phase inverter. We get to do all of that without the risk of electrocution or trying to find a replacement output transformer for our most dearly loved amp.

This honestly feels like such a good place to land for me. Endless starting points, and plenty of understanding of directions available. My soldering iron has never been used less. From my point of view, keep doing what you are doing at Fractal, it's working for me.

Liam [last major electric shock from a tube amp circa 1998]
 
The low mid high bands of most guitar tone stacks aren't independent. I don't think different bands from different amps is feasible, the whole stack functions as a unit.

not knowledgeable on how amp really works tbh ,

what I was trying to say just for example like how a bass knob of a mesa , middle knob of a marshall , trebel of an engl (of each their own freq response) on your own custom amp
 
One thing that makes this more complicated (and take this with a grain of salt, I'm making lots of assumptions): I think in many cases the axe doesn't need to simulate individual resistors and capacitors, it just needs to simulate their combined effect. To drastically simplify, if you have a computer function that does 2 + 5 + 3 + X, to optimize it you can just do 10 + X. Similarly, if you have a grid of resistors and capacitors that does some set of low and high cuts you can replace it with a simple function saying "low cut at X Hz, with Y slope, high cut at Z Hz with W slope". This makes the models more efficient, lower latency, and allows more effects and advanced parameters to run. But it also means that the tools you create can't expose "set value for this resistor" as easily as they can expose "set the transformer mismatch".

In fact, that's a perfect example: Transformer mismatch is a number that represents how the power tubes and output transformer interact. When you swap power tube types in an amp, part of the audio effect is maybe from the new tubes themselves, but most is because the new tube type won't be properly matched to the transformer anymore. But in the Axe, you don't need to set one transformer value to 234 to match the 6L6 value of 234, you just set it to 1.0 to mark it as evenly matched. And turn it up or down to simulate different levels of mismatch. This is because the actual values of the transformer don't matter, just how matched it is to the power tubes.

But consequently, you can't set a transformer to a specific value, or automatically mismatch you power tubes because those values aren't in the simulation. They've been simplified (in the mathematical way, like above when I combined constant values into a single one which is functionally identical) so now you just have a simple value where you can adjust the ratio of the match/mismatch.

Lots of the advanced parameters I'm sure are exposing some of these sorts of optimized values. But that's also what makes it difficult to make a true schematic builder at the resistor and capacitor level: You'd be losing all of that optimization.

An interesting idea would be a sort of compiler program though, where you could modify the input schematic then compile a model in the optimized form.

But TL;DR: I think because of the way the models are optimized to run in a real time, low latency way, there are many cases where an individual resistor value can't be tweaked because that entire chunk of circuitry has been baked into a single thing representing the result.

that's one way to do it , maybe what you're suggesting is how they do it already in simple terms

who knows a future axe fx might have a faster processor to fix that and to be able to handle/model these internal changes to individual components

isnt the axe fx 3 running on 2x 1ghz? with todays cpu speeds AMD/intel nearing 6 ghz I wonder what fractal can do with the extra speed( I know we're talking 1-3 ms iput to output here) but it'll definitely put an end or close to real life latency when switching from going analog to digital
 
Agree. Even though some amps you could separate them, so many you couldn't. And for all the various amps where the seperate tone controls behave differently depending on how the others are set, and/or with the gain settings, there is no way. Thus, we have what we have now, the entire stack.

it would probably sound silly but just my proposal is all
 
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