I Gotta Wonder About Fractal's, er, "Perception"

[GTR37]

I CANT WAIT to see what fractal releases in 2024

well the obvious one is going to be Fm9 Turbo with larger strips

more Dyna Cabs , beyond that I don't have a clue

 

[Stone]

well the obvious one is going to be Fm9 Turbo with larger strips

more Dyna Cabs , beyond that I don't have a clue

Don't forget the FW updates now coming in 2024

 

[paisleywookiee]

well the obvious one is going to be Fm9 Turbo with larger strips

more Dyna Cabs , beyond that I don't have a clue

There already is a FM9 Turbo. I’ve got it. It’s swell.

 

[Orvillain]

And multiple Fleshlights for @Orvillain.

Nah. I found a new thing. It is called midnight depression.

 

[luckymethod]

Money does strange things to people.

Which is even more remarkable because we're probably talking about VERY little money.

 

[luckymethod]

Meh, who cares. Of course loads of guitarists don't get on with the "Fractal UI" -- that should come as no surprise. Either someone really likes the approach (most of the folks here) or must REALLY appreciate the sonic difference to choose Fractal.

The way I see it, fractal could definitely do a better job at designing a machine that's more user friendly. All the other companies could do a better job at sounding good. I picked the fractal because I prefer to cuss when I make my sounds than to do it while I play.

 

[luckymethod]

I don’t think having a more, uh, modern interface would hurt anything. If there was a toggle for the full UI and a dummy-proof touchscreen UI with all the extra shit tucked away they’d probably move a few more units. As we’ve seen from recent events, just putting pretty pictures on the screen will have people convinced something sounds great even when it’s dookie. Imagine if it actually sounded great, too.

It's true but the quad cortex also shown that if you put a feature in you gotta make it work right. The WiFi for example is kind of a nightmare. You can definitely see they are kinda chumps at their first rodeo, they'll figure it out eventually

 

[luckymethod]

There's a reason why everyone relies on Axe-Edit; i know people who are unable to use their gear without it.

Me. I don't even try and I program computers for a living. The interaction model on the machine just doesn't jive with my brain, I'm sure I could figure it out if I really needed to but I already have a job and I play for fun.

It could be easier to use and it wouldn't hurt anything at all. There's so many great industrial designers out there, I hope fractal eventually gives up and hires one even part time.

 

[luckymethod]

I am not against a touchscreen on a Fractal but it has to be well implemented the QC just is not responsive enough

Very true. Do or do not, there's no try as Yoda said. I'm confident Cliff would just get it right if he decided to venture there.

 

[BenIfin]

This is off-topic .... but here in Oz ....imagine spending > $3000+ on a modeller and you cant store or backup or re-load your own pre-sets to/from your desktop or laptop ... in 2024 ... apparently you *can* (?) store your whole QC system wide full image on your local PC .... which makes their position re: pre-sets even more bizarre.

I know its very-old news ...... but seriously ...w.t.a.f !!

 

[luckymethod]

This has not been my recent experience with the QC at all. I've read they improved it?

Fun facts, how well touch screen react to the user can be down to age because as you get older your fat migrates and there's less water in your fingers, so capacitive screens might have a hard time sensing a touch. Also long fingernails tend to be an issue.

 

[luckymethod]

Could have , I had the QC way back when it released
And Wifi , touch screen response and ground noise were certainly some things that could have used some improvement

Same here. I opened it, played with it for two days and decided it was too green and the dev team bit more than they could chew. Sent it back and so far I don't regret it, maybe I'll get version 2 one day but Neural sort of convinced me they are not particularly professional and they'll need to do a lot to win my business back. Line6 kinda did the same in the past, they recovered but it took them years. It's just easier to do things right the first time, fixing a bad brand perception is a bitch.

 

[luckymethod]

Alright my bathroom break is over please carry on

 

[deadpool_25]

 

[laxu]

Fun facts, how well touch screen react to the user can be down to age because as you get older your fat migrates and there's less water in your fingers, so capacitive screens might have a hard time sensing a touch. Also long fingernails tend to be an issue.

For guitarists callouses would also have an effect.

Honestly touchscreen devices should have some settings for sensitivity and calibration. Some might do this stuff under the hood as you tap away, but a separate calibration mode is useful to fine tune it to avoid alignment errors and to make the touch sensitive enough to be reliable for the user.

 

[paisleywookiee]

For guitarists callouses would also have an effect.

Honestly touchscreen devices should have some settings for sensitivity and calibration. Some might do this stuff under the hood as you tap away, but a separate calibration mode is useful to fine tune it to avoid alignment errors and to make the touch sensitive enough to be reliable for the user.

Just use your

 

[timbuck3]

The way I see it, fractal could definitely do a better job at designing a machine that's more user friendly. All the other companies could do a better job at sounding good. I picked the fractal because I prefer to cuss when I make my sounds than to do it while I play.

i agree...its strange hoe headrush and fender can come out with slick gui yet sounds are meh and fractal is opposite. Seems fractal is one step away from dominating the whole market if the gui was slicker. But maybe cliff thinks if that happens he will never be able to keep up with demand?
Lets say axefx 5 is released with slick gui..the fm4/fm10 how many guys with fractals already will jump on board and sell their old ones? I bet a ton if not all here

 

[Orvillain]

Just use your

Apple Pencil Deluxe?

 

[luckymethod]

i agree...its strange hoe headrush and fender can come out with slick gui yet sounds are meh and fractal is opposite. Seems fractal is one step away from dominating the whole market if the gui was slicker. But maybe cliff thinks if that happens he will never be able to keep up with demand?
Lets say axefx 5 is released with slick gui..the fm4/fm10 how many guys with fractals already will jump on board and sell their old ones? I bet a ton if not all here

I doubt he cares that much, but personally I have my own biases of what I like and pretty clear ideas about how I would restructure an hypothetical Axe 4 to be easier to use, not a ton of rework. If I get really bored one day I might give it a go at mocking it up for giggles. One things for sure aside a larger screen I would double the number of encoders cause the pagination and having to switch rows in order to "duplicate" the number of knobs in the machine's UI is aggravating to me.

another thing I would do is having a real time analyzer view in the background of all eq settings UIs like the Fabfilter stuff for example, getting visual feedback of your tweaks is super useful.

I would also have a touchscreen but use it primarily for navigation, leaving input mostly to the physical dial controls. If we're really trying to make everything accessible you could have a bunch of physical unlabeled buttons across the top of the screen and dials below and skip the touch altogehter, that would also work well and potentially you can put smaller screens in the buttons to change the labels and keep the UI flexible.

Alright, I'm doing it, maybe this weekend I'll post a couple concepts.

 

[paisleywookiee]

i agree...its strange hoe headrush and fender can come out with slick gui yet sounds are meh and fractal is opposite. Seems fractal is one step away from dominating the whole market if the gui was slicker. But maybe cliff thinks if that happens he will never be able to keep up with demand?
Lets say axefx 5 is released with slick gui..the fm4/fm10 how many guys with fractals already will jump on board and sell their old ones? I bet a ton if not all here

There’s nothing slick about Fisher Price cartoon graphics.