Thoughts watching
@2112's great video.
Like:
- To nobody's surprise, fx sound great!
- Using the knob to select between "layers" is a clever way to simplify what you are doing.
- Adding fx, and getting to the new fx parameters is pretty easy.
- The simplified parameters for fx is a very welcome feature that I hope ends up in the other Fractal products too.
- Being able to activate another effect with a footswitch while you are editing a different one is good.
- Showing the list of scenes when changing them is good, easy to find another one if you hit the wrong footswitch.
- Preset/mix routing page is a nice way to easily set the mix of fx and series/parallel.
- It has USB interface capabilities! Not sure how I'd use these, might work for reamping tracks?
- VP4-Edit looks really nice, a good simplified version of Axe-Edit.
Dislike:
- Selecting the fx category is the Axe-Fx style cumbersome "cycle type one by one". I think having a list pop up like on Helix would be nice to get to what you want faster.
- With a long list of fx, like on the reverb, getting to the end of the list might be a bit of a pain in the ass.
- Getting to editing of fx could be faster. I think you now need to scroll to the block and press Enter. This works, but is not super fast for adjusting.
- When editing an effect, I think the onscreen knobs could be a bit bigger? Hard to say.
Wishlist (getting in my UI ideas early!):
1. When in Effects layer, let me press the button on the knobs to go to edit that effect, even if I am currently editing another one.
Example, with active fx in bold: I have CMP -
DRV -
DLY - REV. I adjust my DRV to a higher volume, but find my DLY time is too high. I press knob C, and delay settings pop up. Ok, now I find that maybe I should also tweak my DRV again, so I press knob B to go back to DRV.
This would greatly enhance editing presets where the combination of effects makes a cohesive sound, e.g that Pog style preset Leon demoed.
The current functionality seems to be that knob press = choose fx type. I'd rather have the option to reverse this so that Enter = change type.
I find that when I have settled on the fx types, the thing I want to do most is edit the block, not change its type.
2. Indicator on the home page for parallel routing.
I find that on my SA Collider I often don't remember if the delay and reverb are in series or parallel. Would be neat if Fractal could cram in some indicator for this. Maybe a little bar on the block that says "parallel", or a little P in the corner or something?
Depending on EU prices, might have to buy this and see how it works for me.
