Fractal Talk

[GTR37]

I'm starting to think that Fractal is developing a case of multiple personality disorder. I'm happily running the 32.03 Beta which was released for the AxeFX III a couple of days ago. Meanwhile, I've had to downgrade my gigging FM9s to the 10.0 firmware of six months ago due to instability in the current release. A few more mentions of AM4/VP4/ICONS, and I just might put my fist through a wall....and I've been a happy Fractal warrior since 2006.

The problem there is only one Cliff and his priority is and always has been the AXE3 and obviously working on what’s coming next
The FM series and Icons I think even to an extent are other DEVs that’s not to say Cliff does not get involved , I saw a recent post about FM9 actually where Cliff said I am working on a pitch bug that a PITA and it causing lock ups and crashes ,
I think one thing about FAS is they always want to give the most and the best to every user so they try to pack everything in but we have to remember AXE3 is double the power of FM9 , has different Cpu
Faster processing speeds so my guess is in order to try and give the end users all the stuff , sometimes it can interfere with another piece

We have been very lucky w updates but as you mentioned the more SKUs that get added the slower the update cycles and bug fixes might be

 

[laxu]

I'm starting to think that Fractal is developing a case of multiple personality disorder. I'm happily running the 32.03 Beta which was released for the AxeFX III a couple of days ago. Meanwhile, I've had to downgrade my gigging FM9s to the 10.0 firmware of six months ago due to instability in the current release. A few more mentions of AM4/VP4/ICONS, and I just might put my fist through a wall....and I've been a happy Fractal warrior since 2006.

That's the problem with the FM3/FM9 having an Analog Devices DSP vs TI on Axe-Fx 3, AM4 and VP4. Cliff primarily develops on the Axe-Fx 3, and everything else trickles down if it's feasible for the other devices to run.

It's no wonder the AM4/VP4 get faster updates when it's just a less powerful TI chip. Copy-paste code, pare down if they cannot run something. Done. Yes, I know this is perhaps oversimplified.

By comparison other Fractal developers will need to take time to port the Axe-Fx 3 code to work on the FM3/FM9. This means more time, more possible bugs and rewriting stuff.

I'm guessing the FM3/FM9 will get some bigger update and then I would not be surprised if there's a lot less movement for firmware updates on all the current units beyond maybe some bug fixes. Fractal has to develop the next gen stuff at some point.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

That's the problem with the FM3/FM9 having an Analog Devices DSP vs TI on Axe-Fx 3, AM4 and VP4. Cliff primarily develops on the Axe-Fx 3, and everything else trickles down if it's feasible for the other devices to run.

It's no wonder the AM4/VP4 get faster updates when it's just a less powerful TI chip. Copy-paste code, pare down if they cannot run something. Done. Yes, I know this is perhaps oversimplified.

By comparison other Fractal developers will need to take time to port the Axe-Fx 3 code to work on the FM3/FM9. This means more time, more possible bugs and rewriting stuff.

I'm guessing the FM3/FM9 will get some bigger update and then I would not be surprised if there's a lot less movement for firmware updates on all the current units beyond maybe some bug fixes. Fractal has to develop the next gen stuff at some point.

Im not 100% sure about this, but would the main development not take place on a computer and then get ported to each platform? Aren’t the DSP chips just where it ends up but the development work would take place on a computer based rig?

 

[Dom Mcsweeney]

@MirrorProfiles

No, come on get with it.... they program everything on the actual devices without any touchscreens.. duh....

 

[laxu]

Im not 100% sure about this, but would the main development not take place on a computer and then get ported to each platform? Aren’t the DSP chips just where it ends up but the development work would take place on a computer based rig?

I assume you need to write the DSP code for the DSP you use to make the most use of its specialities.

For the development itself there can be a simulated version of said DSP.

 

[Jarick]

This isn't new at all, FM series lag behind on updates. Fractal doesn't have a unified firmware like the Helix units did.

Cliff loves to tinker and update and he does so on the Axe 3. After a number of updates those are consolidated and the firmware ported down to the FM series. There's still pretty regular updates, just not every few weeks like the Axe 3.

It would be interesting to know if AM4 gets more frequent updates because it's easier to port or if it's a newer product.

For the FM9 there's a lot of user reports of significant issues with the latest firmware, but there's also a lot of users not experiencing any issues at all including myself. That one's a head scratcher but probably needs more attention to solve.

 

[Mongillo19]

It would be interesting to know if AM4 gets more frequent updates because it's easier to port or if it's a newer product.

It has already shown it does get more frequent updates

 

[PorcinePicker]

This isn't new at all, FM series lag behind on updates. Fractal doesn't have a unified firmware like the Helix units did.

It isn't new for the FM release schedule to lag behind. I've never complained about that, and I never will.

It's never happened before in Fractal-land that a non beta firmware release arrived with show stopping bugs that weren't rapidly acknowledged and fixed. That's a problem.

 

[Stone]

Meh im not one to make a fuss over updates/upgrades, unless its something that improves workflow or is something really usefull like Dynacabs, gapless switching etc, adding more of everything does not do much for me, but thats me YMMV

 

[dk_ace]

Looking forward to the new choruses when they make it to fm9. I’ve gotten some decent chorus sounds from it, but I haven’t gotten a chorus pedal tone that really excited me like the best chorus pedals I’ve played. Chorus is a very small part of what I do, but I’m using it more these days just to change things up.

D