GlennO
Axe-Master
The Axe-FX (and FM3 and FM9) was primarily designed for live use. However, it is increasingly popular to use it for recording. Unfortunately, its legacy as a device to be used on stage makes it awkward for use in the studio. Here are some preset management suggestions to improve the Axe-FX for use when recording.
When used on stage, you only need access to a relatively small number of presets and the limited number of slots in the Axe-FX is sufficient. On the other hand, when in the studio, you often need access to a larger number of presets and the limited number of slots can be a problem. As you prepare to record a track, you want to search through a preset library to find the right preset for this track. That library may need to contain a large number of presets, more than the number of memory slots in the Axe-FX, which means the presets should be stored on your computer, not in the Axe-FX.
Also, in order to perform this search efficiently, you want the library to be categorized and tagged. You want your search to be filtered and sorted. You want to be able to easily manage and re-organize your library. Again, this dictates the library should be stored on your computer, not in the Axe-FX.
While "Manage Presets" can be used to access presets on your computer, it's rather limited. It's time to bring rich browsing, like can be found in software synths, to amp modelers. You should be able to use Axe-Edit to browse categories of sortable presets, blocks, and IR's. Other features would include: sorting, filtering, tagging, boolean expressions, finding similar presets, locking of parts of a preset as you browse, searching, adding notes to a preset, etc. See the screen shot below for an example of a modern preset browser. The same ideas could be applied to browsing blocks and IR's.
One barrier to making this happen is the way Impulse Responses are currently identified in a preset by memory slot number. This basically means every IR you will ever use needs to be stored in memory on the Axe-FX where they can't be organized or categorized, making it difficult to browse IR's when editing a preset. Further, it means you can't move an IR to another slot without breaking any presets that use it. It also means the size of your IR library is limited by the number of memory slots.
This problem was solved long ago in samplers. In a sampler, the sample audio is identified in a preset by a path. That means when you load a preset from your computer, the sample audio is automatically loaded into memory. The same principle could be used in the Axe-FX: any IR's used by a preset would automatically be loaded into the Axe-FX memory when you load the preset. There would be no need to manually make sure the IR is stored the Axe-FX before loading the preset. Instead of storing your entire IR library in the Axe-FX, you would store it on your computer where it is easy to organize and manage without any limits on how many you can have in your library.
This also means loading a "set list" of presets for a gig would automatically load all the IR's needed by those presets.
IMHO, in the next couple of years the competition among amp modelers will change. The pursuit of the faithful emulation of tube amps will become less important. There simply isn't a lot of room left for improvement in this area. Instead, the attention will turn to improving the user experience. For example, making it easier to navigate through a large number of presets. Imagine if the AxeEdit browser looked like the example below.
When used on stage, you only need access to a relatively small number of presets and the limited number of slots in the Axe-FX is sufficient. On the other hand, when in the studio, you often need access to a larger number of presets and the limited number of slots can be a problem. As you prepare to record a track, you want to search through a preset library to find the right preset for this track. That library may need to contain a large number of presets, more than the number of memory slots in the Axe-FX, which means the presets should be stored on your computer, not in the Axe-FX.
Also, in order to perform this search efficiently, you want the library to be categorized and tagged. You want your search to be filtered and sorted. You want to be able to easily manage and re-organize your library. Again, this dictates the library should be stored on your computer, not in the Axe-FX.
While "Manage Presets" can be used to access presets on your computer, it's rather limited. It's time to bring rich browsing, like can be found in software synths, to amp modelers. You should be able to use Axe-Edit to browse categories of sortable presets, blocks, and IR's. Other features would include: sorting, filtering, tagging, boolean expressions, finding similar presets, locking of parts of a preset as you browse, searching, adding notes to a preset, etc. See the screen shot below for an example of a modern preset browser. The same ideas could be applied to browsing blocks and IR's.
One barrier to making this happen is the way Impulse Responses are currently identified in a preset by memory slot number. This basically means every IR you will ever use needs to be stored in memory on the Axe-FX where they can't be organized or categorized, making it difficult to browse IR's when editing a preset. Further, it means you can't move an IR to another slot without breaking any presets that use it. It also means the size of your IR library is limited by the number of memory slots.
This problem was solved long ago in samplers. In a sampler, the sample audio is identified in a preset by a path. That means when you load a preset from your computer, the sample audio is automatically loaded into memory. The same principle could be used in the Axe-FX: any IR's used by a preset would automatically be loaded into the Axe-FX memory when you load the preset. There would be no need to manually make sure the IR is stored the Axe-FX before loading the preset. Instead of storing your entire IR library in the Axe-FX, you would store it on your computer where it is easy to organize and manage without any limits on how many you can have in your library.
This also means loading a "set list" of presets for a gig would automatically load all the IR's needed by those presets.
IMHO, in the next couple of years the competition among amp modelers will change. The pursuit of the faithful emulation of tube amps will become less important. There simply isn't a lot of room left for improvement in this area. Instead, the attention will turn to improving the user experience. For example, making it easier to navigate through a large number of presets. Imagine if the AxeEdit browser looked like the example below.
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