Is it time for Fractal to upgrade the DSP chips in the Axe FX II/Xl

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brokenvail said:
I think the problem is everyone wants to use the hi res version of everything...high res reverb (sometimes two of them), two UR cabs for Stereo, high res mic pre in cab ect. Let's be honest here the non high res mic pre and verb are FAR FAR FAR from low quality. On top of all this two amps, two drives and every fx in the axe. It is getting crazy out here. Ppl are starting to get a 2nd axe or wanting and FX8 to use more fx ect. What is crazy is many of these guys are bedroom players (I am 75% joking about the bedroom player part)

we won't even get into the guys wanting to run two guitars, a bass and vocals all with their own routing at the same time through their ii. I am not knocking one here. It is amazing how much the ii can do but if you are pushing the axe to the max some times you will hit the ceiling.
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The examples I listed above are not kitchen sink patches by any means. And I'm a gigging musician. The presets I set up are practical for my application, one amp and a few effects. I would like to take advantage of the Hi Res and High Quality settings because to me they sound better. I know much is lost on the audience, but I still like to use it.
I use scenes and modifiers heavily, and love the control I get.
I'm not complaining at all. I can work around the CPU issues and do just fine. Love the advanced in quality and hope they keep coming. Would rather find workarounds to take advantage of them than not have them.

Eventually, it be nice to have a new model come out that has more available memory, and when it's practical and makes business sense, I'm sure Cliff will blow our minds again!
Happy now, and in no rush to see new one.

Thanks Cliff for all the advancements!! Keep em coming!!


Sent from my iPhone
 
I'm no power user, but a few of my presets are now maxed out. I now have to decide to dumb them down or downgrade back to FW 16.
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Way? What's the different between 16 and 17 in terms of CPU usage?
 
FractalAudio said:
Because this would allow the user to exceed the CPU limits of the unit.
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Sorry, but I don't understand. Can you please elaborate on that? Don't we have the possibility to exceed the CPU limits today? Why would a X/Y/Off function from the MFC-101 exceed the CPU?
 
jjdpro said:
Maybe the answer is to use FPGA's (field-programmable gate array) processors which superior than DSPs. FPGA's are being used in Avid's HDX Cards and Fairlight sytems.
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Nope. The FPGAs would need DSP blocks in them to be useful at the kind of processing happening here and FPGAs with DSP blocks in them are *very* expensive and not at all as powerful as what a dedicated DSP can do. Even then, they're not really the best choice for something that's largely a DSP-field math problem. Avid uses the FPGAs for mixer routing audio signals -- something very non-taxing and suitable for an FPGA. All the heavy processing the HDX cards is done, where it should be, in DSP chips.

Edit: I see Cliff addressed this one already. :)
 
FractalAudio said:
Think about it a bit.
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Hehe! Yup, you're probably right that I'm no Einstein, but I've been suggesting this one the wishlist earlier, so this is a question I've been thinking a lot of. Perhaps it's obvious to the rest, but not to me :)
I came over a post one the FX8 forum the other day (http://forum.fractalaudio.com/fx8-discussion/93610-x-y-workflow.html) where YEK as far as I understood it confirmed that the FX8 would have a function for both on/off and toggle X/Y on the same button. That made me again hope that this would be possible to the MFC in the future.
 
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FractalAudio said:
No. An FPGA can be used to do some bit-slice or word-slice DSP processing but pales to a dedicated DSP for the type of signal processing tasks we require. Typically you use an FPGA to off-load repetitive tasks from a host DSP or CPU. Where an FPGA shines is in massively parallel processing but they don't work as well as a dedicated DSP for sequential processing. This is why they are favored in things like SDR where you are doing a simple, fast operation on many simultaneous channels. Something like the Axe-Fx would perform worse using an FPGA solution, probably much worse.

If you have many tracks, as in a DAW, an FPGA can be a better solution due to the parallelism of the FPGA but the algorithms will be necessarily limited to simple things like EQ and compression. Complicated algorithms like reverb, distortion, etc. are better suited to a dedicated DSP. For example, the Xilinx "DSP Slice" is very crude in comparison to a dedicated DSP. It's limited to add, multiply and some logic operations. In contrast a dedicated DSP can do far more complicated processing.

I imagine the Avid cards are being utilized as dedicated coprocessors where some of the algorithm is native and certain operations are offloaded to the FPGA. Since this processing is necessarily parallel they can take advantage of the massively parallel architecture of an FPGA.
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I can't really explain why....but I became ever so slightly aroused when you explained all that. (humor)
 
eliezar said:
Hehe! Yup, you're probably right that I'm no Einstein, but I've been suggesting this one the wishlist earlier, so this is a question I've been thinking a lot of. Perhaps it's obvious to the rest, but not to me :)
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If you have an off state and you don't account for the CPU you could have a patch that would use more than the CPU allowed once those effects were turned on. You have to account for the fact that preset will use the effect. Bypass = off.
 
Being able to max the CPU usage is just part of the equation... In order to release a next-gen device there needs to be demand for it as well. I think it's fair to assume that the majority of users aren't maxing out the CPU all the time, and for those that do there is an easy solution in adding another Axe-FX or the upcoming FX8 into their rigs.

I think we can trust that Cliff will begin work on a next-gen Axe-FX when he feels the limits are close to being met and the demand is there.
 
Jack Napalm said:
If you have an off state and you don't account for the CPU you could have a patch that would use more than the CPU allowed once those effects were turned on. You have to account for the fact that preset will use the effect. Bypass = off.
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Hi Jack! Thanks for the answer. I should have been clearer, but I'll blame it on the language-barrier :) What I really ment was I want a X/Y/Bypass-function, not X/Y/Off. At least in my case this would allow me to use only one drive-block and one delay block with X/Y, and still be able to bypass them. Does this make things any clearer?
 
eliezar said:
Hi Jack! Thanks for the answer. I should have been clearer, but I'll blame it on the language-barrier :) What I really ment was I want a X/Y/Bypass-function, not X/Y/Off. At least in my case this would allow me to use only one drive-block and one delay block with X/Y, and still be able to bypass them. Does this make things any clearer?
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You can do that today with scenes.
 
yek said:
The TigerSharc is already the most powerful processor out there. There are two of those inside the AxeFx.
Adding a 3rd would increase the price with hundrads of dollars.
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More importantly is how would it be used? The resources are already divided pretty evenly. You can't split something like amp modelling without incurring latency (based on my expertise which is near none).
 
shasha said:
More importantly is how would it be used?
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Exactly. Audio processing like this doesn't lend itself well to parallel processing. Example: Let's say you've got a reverb block at the end of your chain. You can't process the reverb until you've processed all the other blocks.
 
I could be wrong, but I thought that Sharc (or whoever makes the DSP) hasn't release a newer/better DSP chip. i.e. the Axe Fx is using the best there is on the market.

The only alternative would be to add a third DSP, but that has it's own set of issues such as added latency in shifting data between the various CPUs.

I just got my Axe II and was a bit worried about hitting CPU limits, but I've been able to rebuild my entire rig and sit at around 80%, so pleasantly surprised. It means I now have room to experiment with dual CABs
 
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