Fractal Talk

Haven’t seen Cliff around here much lately, wonder what they’re cookin’ up over there.

There are a few hints on the Fractal Forum:

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I need that Fractal power supply!!!

Edit- I can't take anyone seriously if their first complaint when making a list of bullet points is "No bass presets". Buy a fuckin' profiler if you want shit provided for you.

While I'd definitely LOVE an Ampeg 8x10 DynaCab, I've managed to use exactly *1* bass preset for every single bass track I've recorded in the last 6 years, regardless of the genre or playing style.

Order of importance in a bass tone, IMO-

-The bass itself
-Your fingers
-Fresh strings
-Compression
-Cab
-Amp
-Not being a dipshit (this can actually be placed anywhere in the list)
 
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I need that Fractal power supply!!!

Edit- I can't take anyone seriously if their first complaint when making a list of bullet points is "No bass presets". Buy a fuckin' profiler if you want shit provided for you.

While I'd definitely LOVE an Ampeg 8x10 DynaCab, I've managed to use exactly *1* bass preset for every single bass track I've recorded in the last 6 years, regardless of the genre or playing style.

Order of importance in a bass tone, IMO-

-The bass itself
-Your fingers
-Fresh strings
-Compression
-Cab
-Amp
-Not being a dipshit (this can actually be placed anywhere in the list)

Over the past fifteen years or so, I have laid down probably 99% of the bass tracks in my stuff using the various bass guitar samples in Native Instruments Komplete, played on a MIDI controller. I have a bass, but it's easier for me to get what I'm after using the keyboard to play the parts. Plus it's quicker to tighten things up with the drum track, because I'm anal about that kind of shit.
 
Yeah I hope it isn't too S O O N.

I do think we will see a VA4 before the next gen though

The AxeFx kicks all kinds of ass and I’m not really sure the Stadium will be a threat to it tonally, so I hope they are not in a rush to replace it unless they can really take it to the next level. (Whatever that would be)

I’m not sure a VA4 is going to move the needle, but it makes sense that could be next.

I’d love to see them dev a tablet editor and plugin player. Both would be great additions to the current gen, which might be better to focus on near term while the Stadium consumes everyone’s attention. (And might be development they could leverage for the next gen offerings)
 
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The AxeFx kicks all kinds of ass and I’m not really sure the Stadium will be a threat to it tonally
I don't think Line 6 Stadium will be a threat to any Fractal product.
Line 6 moved to schematic/component based modeling for Stadium in the last 1-2 years? Fractal has been doing this since 2006, perfecting tiny nuances like miller capacitance, grid blocking distortion, bias excursion between stages, etc.
Yet, I can still hear and feel differences between the real amp and Fractal models at certain settings, so not even Fractal has perfected amp modeling yet.
 
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Line 6 moved to schematic/component based modeling for Stadium in the last 1-2 years? Fractal has been doing this since 2006, perfecting tiny nuances like miller capacitance, grid blocking distortion, bias excursion between stages, etc.
I don't think this is true. Helix has use dsome amount of schematic and component based modelling since day 1. Stadium just expands on the concept and adds more detail.
 
I was joking but thank you

And Cliff can get mad at people all he wants about the joke but it's hard not to make that connection given the context it was in. But that's not the point of this thread

However, the dude who he was replying to definitely went way to far on the complain train 😂

Hmmm….i just checked that thread over on the Fractal forum. I am not sure why Cliff was angry about being “misquoted”, because it sure looks like he was saying that the stuff he is working on will make the Helix Stadium (and others) look like a Gameboy, by comparison. I am not sure how exactly one would read his quoted comments any other way…assuming the OP cut and pasted Cliff’s original comment faithfully with no edits.

 
Hmmm….i just checked that thread over on the Fractal forum. I am not sure why Cliff was angry about being “misquoted”, because it sure looks like he was saying that the stuff he is working on will make the Helix Stadium (and others) look like a Gameboy, by comparison. I am not sure how exactly one would read his quoted comments any other way…assuming the OP cut and pasted Cliff’s original comment faithfully with no edits.

Yeah I don't get why he got mad about that. Here's the link to the direct quote from Fractal:


I don't see how you can interpret that as anything other than "Our next gen product is going to be so good that it will make competing products look like a Game Boy". The only vague part is how it's going to do that. Since it's Fractal, I expect they are going to have the most powerful modeler ever made - with a user interface that does not compete with HX Stadium. I'd love to be proven wrong, but IMO a workflow that does not compete with HX Stadium keeps Fractal in the "looks like a Game Boy" category. Processing power is not Fractal's current problem.

I think the complaints about bass stuff are 100% valid. Adding e.g 20W Marshall models to the Fractal unit makes fuck all difference when they could instead add more bass amp models that actually offer bassists something new rather than "sounds 99% the same as existing models" for guitarists.

Fractal gets very defensive in that thread with the "well just use something else", and that's what people are going to do if they don't want to improve those parts of their products. I'd never recommend Fractal to a bass player in its current state. Not because the existing bass stuff doesn't sound good, but because other products that are cheaper provide better options.
 
I think the thing to bear in mind is, he says "all these other products" so trying to twist it like he singled out the Helix Stadium is - imho - dishonest.

And the real context for the comment is along the lines of locker talk. It wasn't meant to be taken literally, or as an official perspective or position from Cliff nor Fractal. If I or Laxu or Timbuckwhatever had said it, nobody would've given it a single thought.

The exact reason why people love how Digital Igloo interacts with the community, is exactly the same reason why Cliff shouldn't be held to these ridiculous standards, where everything he says is vetted and opined upon by sewing circle fuckwits (present company excepted of course!) who wouldn't know the first thing about designing a product or what it takes to bring something to market.

I want CEO's to talk like real people. I don't want them living in ivory towers, thinking they're better than the proles, and thus the proles thinking they're better than them by extension. He's just a dude with opinions, with ego, with everything that makes a human a human.
 
Yeah I don't get why he got mad about that. Here's the link to the direct quote from Fractal:


I don't see how you can interpret that as anything other than "Our next gen product is going to be so good that it will make competing products look like a Game Boy". The only vague part is how it's going to do that. Since it's Fractal, I expect they are going to have the most powerful modeler ever made - with a user interface that does not compete with HX Stadium. I'd love to be proven wrong, but IMO a workflow that does not compete with HX Stadium keeps Fractal in the "looks like a Game Boy" category. Processing power is not Fractal's current problem.

I think the complaints about bass stuff are 100% valid. Adding e.g 20W Marshall models to the Fractal unit makes fuck all difference when they could instead add more bass amp models that actually offer bassists something new rather than "sounds 99% the same as existing models" for guitarists.

Fractal gets very defensive in that thread with the "well just use something else", and that's what people are going to do if they don't want to improve those parts of their products. I'd never recommend Fractal to a bass player in its current state. Not because the existing bass stuff doesn't sound good, but because other products that are cheaper provide better options.
I would agree that I don’t understand how Cliff’s comment could be taken any other way. When I read that comment back when he posted it I thought “well that wasn’t very tactful and sounds like a defensive insult in response to the Stadium hype”

I don’t exactly care, I like that he speaks his mind.
 
I don't think Line 6 Stadium will be a threat to any Fractal product.
Line 6 moved to schematic/component based modeling for Stadium in the last 1-2 years? Fractal has been doing this since 2006, perfecting tiny nuances like miller capacitance, grid blocking distortion, bias excursion between stages, etc.
Yet, I can still hear and feel differences between the real amp and Fractal models at certain settings, so not even Fractal has perfected amp modeling yet.
Not quite 2006 - I believe it was until the Axe-Fx II

 
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