Kinda freaking out a little...

Will this become the new "audiophile" myth in the modeler age? "The soundspace was not as open until I reinstalled 5 times".

Fl7x is right. There are quite a few checks along the way and for bit errors to go undetected on all of them is a low probability event:

1. Checksums in TCP/IP - yeah burst of errors can go undetected here...
2. CRC32 of the firmware sysex file in the zip - assuming random corruption, the undetected error here is less than 1 in a billion. However, CRC32 is 32 bits so there's a chance of collisions, which increases the undetected probability rate.
3. USB transmission of the firmware, which also does CRC checks
4. Firmware is broken into various sysex exclusive messages, each having an 16-bit checksum (unless this has changed, I haven't looked in a while) CRC would be better but it's something... Detects single bit errors, but two bit errors going undetected is 1/16

Yes undetected bit errors are possible they are just a low probability event.

Just speculation as we don't now how the firmware is laid out, but a few things already mentioned:
1. Corruption in flash storage.
2. Firmware bugs that are affected by global state/system params/other things - which is where various units will differ...

One way to verify is there's such a thing actually occuring is to record a dry track + wet track (just in case). Reamp track in the faulty unit with a known patch.
Reamp with another unit (forum volunteers? :) and examine any differences.

I wouldn't mind volunteering for the re-amp.
 
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AlbertA said:
Will this become the new "audiophile" myth in the modeler age? "The soundspace was not as open until I reinstalled 5 times".

Fl7x is right. There are quite a few checks along the way and for bit errors to go undetected on all of them is a low probability event:
1. Checksums in TCP/IP - yeah burst of errors can go undetected here...
2. CRC32 of the firmware sysex file in the zip - assuming random corruption, the undetected error here is less than 1 in a billion. However, CRC32 is 32 bits so there's a chance of collisions, which increases the undetected probability rate.
3. USB transmission of the firmware, which also does CRC checks
4. Firmware is broken into various sysex exclusive messages, each having an 16-bit checksum (unless this has changed, I haven't looked in a while) CRC would be better but it's something... Detects single bit errors, but two bit errors going undetected is 1/16

One way to verify is there's such a thing actually occuring is to record a dry track + wet track (just in case). Reamp track in the faulty unit with a known patch.
Reamp with another unit (forum volunteers? :) and examine any differences.

I wouldn't mind volunteering for the re-amp.
Click to expand...


Yeah, it seems to me that an update should either pass or fail. I would be very surprised if it made a difference. The zip would have to be corrupt but still let you extract the file which doesn't usually happen. I hope it does though. That said I compared my real JVM to the Axe model and it did sound like the top end was muted in comparison.
 
I don´t know if its normal or not but after update to Q.1 I´ve return to use the old hi res cabs because the Ultra res ones sounds darker in comparison.... I use ac30tb model...
 
It's not normal for the this firmware to be darker?
I had to use the bass cut and roll back the Bass on a lot of amp models for them to sound decent and not muffled, but I thought that was just the difference between the new quantum and 19& 20.

Once I tweaked it sounded great with better dynamics. Also I noticed with this firmware it doesn't sound as good at lower volumes as the previous FW's, once it gets to a moderate level it really opens up and sounds great.
 
As AlbertA said the possibility of a corrupted install is virtually zero. There are multiple CRC checks and checksums, etc., etc., throughout the process. The process does not only overwrite certain parts of the firmware as someone speculated. The entire memory is erased and new firmware is installed. Finally the newly installed firmware is compared to the downloaded firmware to make sure that the installation was successful. The odds of the firmware being "wrong" are literally one in a billion.

So if something sounds wrong then it's either system settings and I would recommend doing a System Reset, some other external factor (bad cable) or your ears are just off that day.

Some days I plug in and things just don't sound right. I then hook up a reference amp and the reference amp sounds identical. So I know it's my ears. Come back the next day and everything sounds glorious. For example I plugged in yesterday and just went "wow, this sounds awesome". Quantum is really good and in many cases sounds better than the actual amps.
 
When I installed Quantum, it so happened that the first amp I tried was HBE. It sounded terrible.I thought something was wrong with the firmware install. But then it turned out that my other presets were just fine. Since I don't use HBE a lot I just put it on the back burner and didn't investigate it any further.

For me, it sounds kind of AC-30-ish, whereas before it was more like a Marshall, if this description makes any sense. I've never owned or played a real Friedman though, and have no idea what it should sound like. Maybe it's a more real model of a crappy amp? :)
 
FractalAudio said:
The process does not only overwrite certain parts of the firmware as someone speculated.
Click to expand...
It was just a guess. I said that probably I was totally wrong.

So the redownload thing and even the reload of the firmware are just placebos.
I haven't had the sound issues that people had. I did myself the reload thing twice when something sounded "wrong" but nothing changed. I ended up redoing the affected patch.

So... Yeah, looks like it's the "Audiophile" Myth of the modeller age as AlbertA said. That or Ghosts In The Shell.
 
Totally agree with Cliff, some days the ears just shit the bed on ya. I was surprised at the difference between the Q Beta and the final release- absolutely a major improvement (which is an unbelievable concept in it's own right), but it did take some tweaking (mainly taming the highs) to "re-perfect" my presets and part of that was definitely my ears (I saved my re-tweaked presets in different slots and kept the originals to A/B, and from day to day the way I heard/perceived the re-tweaks changed). Cliff needs to invent some kind of "Quantum Hearing Aid", that would cut down on a lot of user problems I'm sure. I know I'd buy a pair.
 
This reminds me... I was once struggling with a patch for like three days until I found out that somehow I turned on both hardware monitoring in my audio interface and software monitoring in my DAW, and thus was getting duplicate sound with a few millisecond latency...
 
The fact that it happens on a semi regular basis to many users, including myself, points to it being another issue. And no offense Cliff but my ears are never off thst day when installing the same downloaded firmware a 2nd or 3rd time fixes it.

Not wanting to argue here, but this does happen, regardless what the technical specs say is impossible.
 
Severed said:
The fact that it happens on a semi regular basis to many users, including myself, points to it being another issue. And no offense Cliff but my ears are never off thst day when installing the same downloaded firmware a 2nd or 3rd time fixes it.

Not wanting to argue here, but this does happen, regardless what the technical specs say is impossible.
Click to expand...

Maybe it points to a startup issue then? Have you tried just powering on/off instead when that happens?
 
Severed said:
The fact that it happens on a semi regular basis to many users, including myself, points to it being another issue. And no offense Cliff but my ears are never off thst day when installing the same downloaded firmware a 2nd or 3rd time fixes it.

Not wanting to argue here, but this does happen, regardless what the technical specs say is impossible.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying you are not hearing something wrong. What I'm saying is it is not the firmware itself. Reinstalling the firmware may be changing a system setting which I why I recommend a system reset.
 
Yes. I tried everything including resetting. I wiped out all presets and cabs and reloaded.

this has been an intermittent issue since FW 14 I think? I haven't kept track.

I go back a forth from FW a lot to tweak new stuff while gigging old stuff and like it's instantly recognizable when it happens. Everything sounds like it's clipping a broken speaker.

Then reinstalling the exact same FW file a 2nd or 3rd time fixes it.
 
I've just become used to it hehe. It dosent happen all the time. Just reporting my experince. That's all I got. I'll try to record it next time... but I'm usually in a crunch for time.
 
If you've ever used the cab preamp, go to cab block and see if you have the preamp turned on and where the drive and sat knobs are.

After quantum, the cab pre was affecting my high end on a number of patches so I turned it off. Sounds better without it now.
 
Severed said:
I go back a forth from FW a lot to tweak new stuff while gigging old stuff and like it's instantly recognizable when it happens. Everything sounds like it's clipping a broken speaker.

Then reinstalling the exact same FW file a 2nd or 3rd time fixes it.
Click to expand...

That's much different than what is described by the OP. When it happens does it sound like that on any preset? Even if you create one from scratch?
 
Fl7x said:
It was just a guess. I said that probably I was totally wrong.

So the redownload thing and even the reload of the firmware are just placebos.
Click to expand...

Not it's not placebo. Nope. It's happened a few times and reloading the firmware definitely fixed it. I didn't change anything else. It's happened to lots of others as well.
 
wcfieldskx said:
Not it's not placebo. Nope. It's happened a few times and reloading the firmware definitely fixed it. I didn't change anything else. It's happened to lots of others as well.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the key to fix the issue is reload the firmware.


But there is something that confuses me...
People are definitely hearing weirdness after a firmware update that solves reloading the firmware... But Cliff says that the firmware passes a zillion of checks before it gets finally installed in the system and if something is wrong, it could be due to some system settings that could be changed because of the update.


Then, Why not include a System Reset as a part of the firmware update? That way no one would have sound issues after the update... And setting your system parameters after every update would be part of the procedure of updating a firmware.
 
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