VP4 - Firmware Updates Schedule

[fetishfrog]

I owned and operated a Pro Tools studio for a few years. Different strokes for different folks re: update schedules I guess but man, I would have killed for the update schedule Fractal adheres to from a few software companies ahem Waves ahem. They left bugs for years. eff that.

I bought the Axe III when the V12 software was out. It was complete then. I could have never updated and been perfectly happy.

 

[Dave Merrill]

Knowing that new firmware updates exist on a regular basis and not being able to do anything about it is the problem for me.
I don't expect anyone else to understand this.

The reason is because it leaves me wondering what I'm missing, when I'm trying to get work done, which is a distraction for me.

It takes up mental real estate. It's like someone coming to your door and delivering a new product that you're not allowed to open
or use, until the project you're working on is done. When someone comes to your door every month to drop off a new piece of gear that
you can't use, it starts to drive one mental. I don't expect anyone else feels this way.

I get it. But even with biannual updates, Cliff would still be cultivating epiphanies all the time because that's what he does, he just wouldn't be telling us about them. There would still be the FOMO thing if we thought about it like that.

To put it differently, there's no shame in making the choice to stay on the stable sidelines, while folks with different priorities go whizzing off to rework their presets every three weeks.

Also remember that if you get a recall for a three year old session and want to match the tones you used back then, all is not lost! Just back up, downgrade your firmware to that version, load your backup from that session, and poof, it's 2021 again.

 

[Severed]

Yup my only complaint about FAS products.

I have no solution other than... if you don't actually need something in the latest FW, simply don't update, and that's what I've done with the FM3.

I was happy when the II's final FW was done.

I've owned an FM3 since they 1st shipped and only updated FW three times.

Honestly in respect to this new offering, there is no modeling so I highly doubt updates will change or affect tone/sound/ etc like modeling units.

 

[Bob G]

I get it. But even with biannual updates, Cliff would still be cultivating epiphanies all the time because that's what he does, he just wouldn't be telling us about them. There would still be the FOMO thing if we thought about it like that.

To put it differently, there's no shame in making the choice to stay on the stable sidelines, while folks with different priorities go whizzing off to rework their presets every three weeks.

Also remember that if you get a recall for a three year old session and want to match the tones you used back then, all is not lost! Just back up, downgrade your firmware to that version, load your backup from that session, and poof, it's 2021 again.

I always print effects in case of recalls, but often, there's new work that calls for similar/same sounds I used on something else, which is one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to the VP4. If I can make custom presets of things I would normally do with my individual pedals, it just makes that recall process so much faster. Especially when I'm in the hot seat at someone else's studio. The less fiddling with gear the better.

 

[Bob G]

Yup my only complaint about FAS products.

I have no solution other than... if you don't actually need something in the latest FW, simply don't update, and that's what I've done with the FM3.

I was happy when the II's final FW was done.

I've owned an FM3 since they 1st shipped and only updated FW three times.

Honestly in respect to this new offering, there is no modeling so I highly doubt updates will change or affect tone/sound/ etc like modeling units.

You might be the one and only person who understands why the news of constant firmware updates are distractions.

It makes me wonder if your situation is similar to mine.

 

[mcnoodles]

Sounds like a you problem. Which is fine, but call it like it is. The firmware updates follow pretty typical modern software development practices. My read is that the units are “done” on release and continue to get better.

I got sick of most software updates in general so my laptop is locked on the OS it came with, same with software. So I get it. But I can afford to be on the bleeding edge with Fractal since I’m not making a living with my guitar.

 

[laxu]

FM3 and FM9 already has less frequent updates. Only the Axe-Fx 3 has had breakneck pace updates.

But you can decide when you want to engage with them. Just don't update, unless there's a feature or bug fix that matters to you. The next version will have all the previous version features so there's no harm in updating less frequently when it's convenient to you.

 

[Joe_Nowhere]

The VP4 isn't like other Fractal Audio products. It's not an amp modeler. Others have already requested NAM loading, long before me. NAM is not amp modeling. It amp capturing. I would love to capture my amps and keep those stored in the VP4. So would you!

Customer feedback is not unkind, it's helpful. Gratitude is for my morning meditation, not for my music equipment.

Fractal seem to love doing firmware updates, so if they must do them, then perhaps they can do them in a way that is more effective and less of a disruption.

What I want, is a new firmware update to my new VP4, so that it can run run amp models and a cabinet(with no effects, just amp modeling ). I'd buy two VP4s if they did this.

 

[chrisjnyc]

I dont know, holding firmware updates because one person doesn't want them to change his work slow seems a bit much. When I am gigging, I dont update anything. Seems like just update when you have time to check your settings.

 

[Syrinx]

You might be the one and only person who understands why the news of constant firmware updates are distractions.

It makes me wonder if your situation is similar to mine.

It's a self made distraction though. Fractal aren't knocking on your door shouting NEW FIRMWARE UPDATE!

It's our choice to frequent the forum and follow firmware threads, and it's our choice to decide if we want to keep up with them. None of this is forced on us.

 

[Ole]

I am genuinely curious. Why not just leave the updates and update once or twice a year?
It seems to me that you found a problem that is easily fixed.

To claim that Fractal comes with an "incomplete" product, is imo a low blow.

 

[Joe_Nowhere]

I doubt I'll ever been in the situation where I have customers that I have to please and then worry about what happens if a firmware update occurs and something I previously made for a customer no longer works or sound the same as it did when I created that solution.

Having said that, I would think that a bigger problem would be if a customer learned of a new improved feature/sound that was available, and I wasn't using it because I don't like updates.

At some level I can see the conundrum, but at the same time it seems like job security and/or just part of life where personal decisions become what separates you from others with regard to your way to deal with various revisions of things.

 

[Sixstring]

The only thing I can see as a "potential update" to the VP4 are an IR player and looper as already hinted at.

 

[Dave Merrill]

Sounds like a you problem. Which is fine, but call it like it is. The firmware updates follow pretty typical modern software development practices. My read is that the units are “done” on release and continue to get better.

I got sick of most software updates in general so my laptop is locked on the OS it came with, same with software. So I get it. But I can afford to be on the bleeding edge with Fractal since I’m not making a living with my guitar.

If your laptop is Windows (and probably Mac or *nix too), it really hasn't had any software updates since you got it, that was more than 15 minutes ago, and it's ever connected to the Internet, it's only a matter of time before something bad happens.

I'm sure you know that, so i don't get what you're saying, other than trying to prove a point. That i agree with

 

[tealtonerick]

I think this subject somewhat parallels the discussion about tracking which firmware versions have what features at any given point among all of the Fractal products that are capable of sharing those features. If this information was updated and tracked all in one place with perhaps at least tentative projections of which updates to which products are up next, it would go a long way in helping us to decide when and which devices to update at any point in time. Don't get me wrong, I do love the continuous improvement to these products! But I agree, especially for those of us who have invested in and deployed many (or all) of the different Fractal products, that it is confusing to keep any of these platforms straight while trying to actually get work done in a consistent and predictable way. I need to actually USE these products and not just spend all of my time only exploring every beautiful crevice of them continuously. Any help in tracking, breaking down, categorizing, and projecting the likely effects (no pun intended) of all the continuous changes in one focused place would be greatly appreciated.

 

[api4u]

Bob G - You've made some excellent points, and laid them out well. That being said, I absolutely disagree with your perception that the Fractal products are "incomplete", or somehow in User-Beta.

My suggestion would be, that if you are happy with the Fractal products and sounds, AS THEY ARE, just stay on the current firmware, until you feel like they've improved significantly to overcome your reluctance to update, and then go ahead and bite the bullet. I concur - the updates CAN be a pain, if you now have to realign all your presets, blah, blah, blah... However, I would NEVER want Cliff and Crew to stop providing updates, when they have epiphanies, just because they might inconvenience someone. I also don't agree with the perception that this is an incomplete product, just because there are updates; one can easily use the product out of the box, with no updates, and it will perform wonderfully.

Fractal's acceptance of user critique, and implementation of suggested improvements are one of the things that make the continued advances of the device stay on the cutting edge.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with only updating once every six months or annually, if you wish - your choice. But you "may" be missing out on the advances that are offered (or not?). Based on some of your comments, this may actually be the best approach for you, IF YOU ARE HAPPY WITH THE FRACTAL PRODUCTS. If you're not happy with what you're getting from Fractal, there are several alternative products, and believe me, they have less updates....

My notion of the Fractal bunch is that they are so far ahead of me in familiarity with the gear, and methods of achieving incremental improvements, that I will NEVER understand or perceive all of the improvements....but I appreciate all of them. If everyone took the approach you're suggesting, we would still be on the first Fractal AxeFx model, so no one got their toes stepped on, in order to stay with a "complete" product, with no room for improvement.

Also, keep in mind that Fractal does not charge a red-cent for these firmware upgrades - your initial buy-in covers the cost of future improvements, until it gets to the point where you choose to buy the next version of the product, at which point you sell the old, and purchase the new, and rinse & repeat. Many of the other modeler type companies do not offer FREE updates....

 

[strabes]

The alternative to firmware updates that change the sound of presets is the Line 6 Helix paradigm where all the core amp models that really matter (deluxe, ac30, plexi, recto, etc) are nearly 10 years old now and sound significantly worse than the newer random amp models no one cares about since their amp modeling techniques have improved over the years but they insist on not improving old amp models.

If you don’t want changes in the sound, don’t update.

 

[api4u]

I think this subject somewhat parallels the discussion about tracking which firmware versions have what features at any given point among all of the Fractal products that are capable of sharing those features. If this information was updated and tracked all in one place with perhaps at least tentative projections of which updates to which products are up next, it would go a long way in helping us to decide when and which devices to update at any point in time. Don't get me wrong, I do love the continuous improvement to these products! But I agree, especially for those of us who have invested in and deployed many (or all) of the different Fractal products, that it is confusing to keep any of these platforms straight while trying to actually get work done in a consistent and predictable way. I need to actually USE these products and not just spend all of my time only exploring every beautiful crevice of them continuously. Any help in tracking, breaking down, categorizing, and projecting the likely effects (no pun intended) of all the continuous changes in one focused place would be greatly appreciated.

Agree on the items quoted in the red text above, from tealtonerick. It would be very helpful to have a method to comprehensively track changes, either through highlighting, a spreadsheet, or a text summary.

My preference would be to be able to download a spreadsheet or database format, with ALL of the presets currently in use on a device, that could be used to recall what preset uses which cab, or drive, etc., and what the settings were for each presets datapoints. I believe Al Grenadine had a software that was mostly able to do this (apologies - I forget the name of the software). This was useful, but was stand-alone, and needed to be updated each time there were new options added. It was also not officially supported by Fractal; would have been great if they could have partnered, or somehow made this an officially supported software, accessible from within Fractal Edit, or something along those lines.

 

[Brewce]

To me it's a rather disgusting view...

• most people do understand your point and it is a pain for everyone to different degrees, but sadly there is no ideal solution for it, and certainly not yours. I'm also afraid you can't make a next gen that can run 5 firmware versions at the same time to solve it (or very quickly switch between them -- maybe it is possible to upload 5 and pick one when restarting. I do hope a next gen will have at least a choice of two somehow, for the fair reasons you mention.)
• you chose this device and the known way things work with FAS
• as there are enough versions w/o major bugs, you can choose to stay at a certain version, but you choose to be a child here...
• you cannot ask someone like Cliff to not have his fun sharing when he wants. What if he dies 5 years in and we lose both him and 5 years of new epiphanies the world could have had?? All for your childish wishes that you have a hand in yourself...
• many other good points have been made, like the VP4 not having amps
• you can choose to buy the device when it's at the end of development

 

[eddyrox]

new additions don't mean something is incomplete. it means it's IMPROVING.