New Fractal product coming!!

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Rogerthat said:
Thomann is just trying to steer you towards what they sell.

Fractal has a ton of innovation in modeling but it’s behind the scenes in the component modeling. It’s not a sexy touch screen.

Innovation such as ML produces amps that alias heavily so there hasn’t been a reason to go there.
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Yeah, I'm not sure why you need "innovation", tbh. When I first got my FM9, the amps and effects were already the best I had used, and they've only gotten better. Short of coming up with some AI that's going to respond to voice/text prompts to give you the sound you're looking for, you still have to set up your own signal chains on every device out there, so might as well start out with the best possible source sounds.
 
Rogerthat said:
Thomann is just trying to steer you towards what they sell.

Fractal has a ton of innovation in modeling but it’s behind the scenes in the component modeling. It’s not a sexy touch screen.

Innovation such as ML produces amps that alias heavily so there hasn’t been a reason to go there.

Here’s an example of innovation.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160328501A1/en
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I do agree, innovations have to be truly useful and not just marketing tricks.
BTW I think that aliasing stuff is a fantasy from Cliff’s mind when it comes to his customers’ perception. A/B testing have proven people can’t spot x2 versus x8 oversampling despite huge impact on aliasing. Even in fractal galaxy, FAS assume that FM3 sounds the same as AFXIII despite the diffence in oversampling rates. And I’ve made my own testing FM3 dizzy VS NAM and had the same amount of aliasing spectrum produce by 10-20Khz sine sweeps.
The ONLY thing I could spot versus AFXIII was that FM3 had more punch and compression on the attack but not sure it was the same firmware equivalent at the time.
 
Yvanbloomberg said:
I would say FAS is good for digital amp and FX engineering but definitely not innovators.
Tell me one thing they really invented?
NDSP despite sounding less good imo, did innovate. Nice design, touch screen, switch that can be rotative encoders, Deep Learning amp capture, offering both black box and white box modeling (and not just religious about one) and of course research papers.
That’s innovation.
Kemper at its time was too, and won the first digital amp era (they sold a lot more than fractal did as what Thomann told me)
Steinberg invented the amp plugin with VST amp,
Line 6 invented amp modeling with Axsys212,
Two Notes and Redwires invented the IR cabs,

I mean, we don’t ask FAS to be innovative, but to solve amp modeling and some analog FX.
As Apple, they don’t show off innovations on to flex but make good products doing their jobs at the best level possible.

My POV of course, and I may be wrong
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Neural did not really innovate up into pretty recently IMO
They took the best parts of other units and improved upon

Their GUi is a heavy nod to helix
The captures again a heavy nod to Kemper
And the encoders / footswitch combo was done by TC electronic on the Gsystem in the 80s

Now that said getting plug-in into a hardware unit is relatively new
 
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If we say "innovation" in a sense Clayton Christensen defined as "disruptive innovation", I agree that Kemper deserves to be called "innovator" (v.s. FAS seeming more like a "sustaining innovation", if I adopt Christensen's framework). It offers a convincing tone, if not better for everyone, with a much less powerful DSP than Fractal, making it easier to increase profit margin. Not to mention they've opened up a new segment in guitar processor market, and draw the interest of tube amp purists that could have never been interested in modelers by claiming it can profile their beloved amps.

Another Christensen's theory that could be useful to explain Kemper vs FAS debate could be "Jobs to be done". After all, guitarists wanna get the job done (= achieve the best tone/experience they expect from a particular amp) at the lowest cost. Every time I see posts like "I just want the sound in my head, not tweaking", it reminds me of this theory.

Whether Cliff wants/find it necessary to become a "disruptive innovator" is another question. Personally, apart from a little bit of concern in market share, I'm happy with FAS's current direction as I enjoy tweaking.
 
Yvanbloomberg said:
I would say FAS is good for digital amp and FX engineering but definitely not innovators.
Tell me one thing they really invented?
NDSP despite sounding less good imo, did innovate. Nice design, touch screen, switch that can be rotative encoders, Deep Learning amp capture, offering both black box and white box modeling (and not just religious about one) and of course research papers.
That’s innovation.
Kemper at its time was too, and won the first digital amp era (they sold a lot more than fractal did as what Thomann told me)
Steinberg invented the amp plugin with VST amp,
Line 6 invented amp modeling with Axsys212,
Two Notes and Redwires invented the IR cabs,

I mean, we don’t ask FAS to be innovative, but to solve amp modeling and some analog FX.
As Apple, they don’t show off innovations on to flex but make good products doing their jobs at the best level possible.

My POV of course, and I may be wrong
Click to expand...
The original Axe-Fx was the first product to allow user-installable IRs.
The MFC-101 was the first product to use "solid-state" footswitches.
The MFC-101 Mk II was the first product to allow bidirectional MIDI and power over an XLR cable.
The Axe-Fx II was the first product to implement channels which was then expanded upon in the Axe-Fx III.
The Axe-Fx III was the first product to implement Speaker Impedance Curves.
etc., etc.

We have dozens of "research papers". We just don't post them on the internet as it would give away trade secrets.

Kemper sold more profilers in EU. We sold more Axe-Fx's in the USA and Canada.

Two Notes and Redwirez did not "invent" IR cabs. We were using IRs (and allowing users to install them via MIDI) before Two Notes was even a company. If anyone innovated the use of IRs it was us.
 
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Yvanbloomberg said:
I do agree, innovations have to be truly useful and not just marketing tricks.
BTW I think that aliasing stuff is a fantasy from Cliff’s mind when it comes to his customers’ perception. A/B testing have proven people can’t spot x2 versus x8 oversampling despite huge impact on aliasing. Even in fractal galaxy, FAS assume that FM3 sounds the same as AFXIII despite the diffence in oversampling rates. And I’ve made my own testing FM3 dizzy VS NAM and had the same amount of aliasing spectrum produce by 10-20Khz sine sweeps.
The ONLY thing I could spot versus AFXIII was that FM3 had more punch and compression on the attack but not sure it was the same firmware equivalent at the time.
Click to expand...
What A/B tests are you referring to?
 
FractalAudio said:
The original Axe-Fx was the first product to allow user-installable IRs.
The MFC-101 was the first product to use "solid-state" footswitches.
The MFC-101 Mk II was the first product to allow bidirectional MIDI and power over an XLR cable.
The Axe-Fx II was the first product to implement channels which was then expanded upon in the Axe-Fx III.
The Axe-Fx III was the first product to implement Speaker Impedance Curves.
etc., etc.

We have dozens of "research papers". We just don't post them on the internet as it would give away trade secrets.

Kemper sold more profilers in EU. We sold more Axe-Fx's in the USA and Canada.

Two Notes and Redwirez did not "invent" IR cabs. We were using IRs (and allowing users to install them via MIDI) before Two Notes was even a company. If anyone innovated the use of IRs it was us.
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Many thanks for the clarification :)
Many things I didn’t know, learned a lot.
And about what I said about aliasing and NAM?
Thanks!
 
What's killing me right now is waiting to see what the form factor is. I already rearranged my desk to get an AXE FX III, 2 FC-6 and EV-1s and an FM3 in here. Not complaining just curios to see what I am going to have to move this time.
 
The idea that Fractal "doesn't innovate" is pretty misguided. Without Fractal, we'd arguably still think the Line6 POD is the height of amp modeling.

Who do you think showed the market that "boutique modeling" (as opposed to what Line6 was doing at the time) was even a viable business concept? You don't even have to take my word for it. Look at the timelines, particularly the startup dates, of every popular modeling company (excluding Line6, lol). Fractal did that first and has pretty much paved the way for every other amp modeling company that could be considered high-end.

The fact that Fractal doesn't use touch screens or JPEGs of amp models in the interface is about as inconsequential as it gets, honestly. As far as research and techniques that advance the technology, specifically in the areas of things that actually matter like improving the tonal realism of the algorithms, the availability of the advanced parameters that likely require a whole ton of under-the-hood wizardry happening for those controls to even exist, as well as the basically infinite flexibility in signal routing within patches, everybody in the industry falls directly in line behind Fractal.
 
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Admin M@ said:
Fractal Audio also invented Scenes, which in one form or another are standard on many products today.
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Yep. Even the concept of a modular grid within which you can manually place and route effects, which exists in some form or another in basically every modeler today, was a Fractal innovation. Before that, modelers had one signal path hard-coded by the developer.
 
FAS said the new product won’t compete with existing product. So no need to wait for it, if you want to get an FM3 turbo, FM9T or AF3T you won’t regret :)
It won’t be a modeling device apparently ;)
 
FractalAudio said:
The original Axe-Fx was the first product to allow user-installable IRs.
The MFC-101 was the first product to use "solid-state" footswitches.
The MFC-101 Mk II was the first product to allow bidirectional MIDI and power over an XLR cable.
The Axe-Fx II was the first product to implement channels which was then expanded upon in the Axe-Fx III.
The Axe-Fx III was the first product to implement Speaker Impedance Curves.
etc., etc.

We have dozens of "research papers". We just don't post them on the internet as it would give away trade secrets.

Kemper sold more profilers in EU. We sold more Axe-Fx's in the USA and Canada.

Two Notes and Redwirez did not "invent" IR cabs. We were using IRs (and allowing users to install them via MIDI) before Two Notes was even a company. If anyone innovated the use of IRs it was us.
Click to expand...
And THAT qualifies firmly as Innovation.
 
GreatGreen said:
The fact that Fractal doesn't use touch screens or JPEGs of amp models in the interface is about as inconsequential as it gets, honestly.
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Minor point, I know, but to me, this is a plus. While I appreciated the capacitive footswitches on the Helix, and think the twisty footswitchs on the Fender thing and the QC is a cool idea, I don't feel any need to touch the screen. And I've never seen an implementation of JPEG's of amp models and pedals that didn't lower the overall aesthetic; to me, that makes it look very Headrush (all due respect), cheap and tacky.

I thought the Helix had a really nice looking layout on the screen, the QC as well. Is the Fractal layout (the one showing the signal path) a little less pretty? Maybe. A little less intuitive? Maybe slightly, but I think that's a function of it's flexibility, and I'd rather have the flexibility than a pretty screen. Plus, I leave it on the screen that shows the names of the snapshots under the patch, anyways - that's useful, to me, and a pretty effects chain really isn't.

My tastes do run a little utilitarian, if that's not clear.
 
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