UAFX Enigmatic

[the swede]

No worries mate, you'll be assimilated right in time.

Damn those finns…. They want to own everything.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

UA as a company who spent years selling SHARC powered devices and $300 plugins….finally cave into native plugins and $29 sales. Coincidently they also start released $300-400 priced guitar pedals and no (new) amp sim plugins.

Plainly obvious that they’ll milk the HW/pedal cow as much as they can, where people are more prepared to pay these kinds of prices. I’m sure plugins and a full modeller will follow eventually but they’re scooping up that money that’s on the table now. Sort of obvious to see what’s going on (especially with how the company has typically sold their products), but also, why wouldn’t you do that from their perspective?

 

[MirrorProfiles]

And he lumber jacks through the break-up tones like he has stumps rather than hands.

But that might be just me being biased after I have yet another "reviewer" who hasn't bothered to learn fuck all about the amp's topology.

Kinda like the guy from I think session.de yapping on about the ratio knob being compression.

Und warum bist Du sowiso schon each. Lol

sounded pretty great to me and I usually think dumbles sound like ass

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

sounded pretty great to me and I usually think dumbles sound like ass

It sounds like a Rock guy playing a Dumble.

Not my bag...

 

[Wasbeer]

Do you think the sort of people who buy these are looking to eventually have the same features as a Helix or an Axe FX?

Nobody is going to have more than 2 of these in use at once, the whole point is that you DON’T have a bazillion amps in one. They’re going after the people who don’t want all the options of a fully fledged modeller.

That's why I ordered the Lion yesterday, should arrive today. I'm hoping for less tweaking, more playing. I do like tweaking around in Helix Native every now and then but usually all the options leave me with adjusting chains and tweaking parameters a lot of the time.

With the Lion I expect to dial in a usable sound faster, the pots seem to correspond more or less exactly the same as on the real plexi. And most of the time I've ended up on a Plexi or Marshall style amp anyways on Helix as well. It's kinda expensive maybe for what it does and midi support would've been nice. But maybe it's all I need 95% of the time.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Und warum bist Du sowiso schon each.

6:30 alarm. Every weekday. Kids.

 

[Lysander]

6:30 alarm. Every weekday. Kids.

gesprochen wie ein echter Deutscher!

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

6:30 alarm. Every weekday. Kids.

Ugh.
Wouldn't be the ideal for me.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Wouldn't be the ideal for me.

It defenitely isn't. But I actually got used to it since a long time already (the bigger one just turned 14), so I'm fine.

 

[laxu]

UA as a company who spent years selling SHARC powered devices and $300 plugins….finally cave into native plugins and $29 sales. Coincidently they also start released $300-400 priced guitar pedals and no (new) amp sim plugins.

Plainly obvious that they’ll milk the HW/pedal cow as much as they can, where people are more prepared to pay these kinds of prices. I’m sure plugins and a full modeller will follow eventually but they’re scooping up that money that’s on the table now. Sort of obvious to see what’s going on (especially with how the company has typically sold their products), but also, why wouldn’t you do that from their perspective?

Makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is why they adamantly refuse to add the functionality people ask for. You could easily sell me a bunch of UA pedals if they had MIDI and multiple presets. But instead they can sell me zero.

The only non-MIDI controllable pedals on my board are a Turbo Tuner ST-300, and Boss FZ-1W. I'd gladly swap the Boss for a MIDI controllable one if someone made an analog fuzz with MIDI. The Kernom Moho is afaik the only one on the market and it's as large as my Strymon Volante and honestly pretty ugly. I deal with the Boss as it's pretty set-and-forget and I'd only like being able to switch it on/off via MIDI. I could add a simple loop switcher, but don't really have the space for it under my board.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is why they adamantly refuse to add the functionality people ask for. You could easily sell me a bunch of UA pedals if they had MIDI and multiple presets. But instead they can sell me zero.

The only non-MIDI controllable pedals on my board are a Turbo Tuner ST-300, and Boss FZ-1W. I'd gladly swap the Boss for a MIDI controllable one if someone made an analog fuzz with MIDI. The Kernom Moho is afaik the only one on the market and it's as large as my Strymon Volante and honestly pretty ugly. I deal with the Boss as it's pretty set-and-forget and I'd only like being able to switch it on/off via MIDI. I could add a simple loop switcher, but don't really have the space for it under my board.

I’m sure part of their original design brief is to offer something that simple enough to not require MIDI and adding it will feel like they’ve failed in what they’re trying to design. Its clearly the wrong move based on how much they’re offering and depend on by using a phone and secondary functions etc.

I’m not really too interested in these pedals for the most part but I actually don’t see MIDI THAT big deal on something like this. You’d just treat it like you would an amp. Do the TC pedals offer MIDI? maybe they’d be a better fit?

 

[Wasbeer]

Instead of midi an extra footswitch would have been nice for storing preset. Maybe not so much for the plexi pedal, but for the multichannel amps.

 

[laxu]

I’m sure part of their original design brief is to offer something that simple enough to not require MIDI and adding it will feel like they’ve failed in what they’re trying to design. Its clearly the wrong move based on how much they’re offering and depend on by using a phone and secondary functions etc.

I’m not really too interested in these pedals for the most part but I actually don’t see MIDI THAT big deal on something like this. You’d just treat it like you would an amp. Do the TC pedals offer MIDI? maybe they’d be a better fit?

MIDI is more relevant for their fx pedals for sure. But the Enigmatic clearly has enough functionality that multiple presets and MIDI switching start to make sense. Astra is probably the best (worst?) example as it's a multi-mod pedal capable of only two settings to switch between.

I feel the Anti is in a similar state as both are stretching what you can do from the onboard knobs/switches and how lack of MIDI/presets is biting it in the ass. 3 channels, but you'll have to pick two channels for your sounds.

UA is clearly not averse to offering options. They just really don't want to overhaul their hardware to support remote control on anything but the app.

No MIDI on TC afaik.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I will say as a generally happy UA user for 10+ years, they think of themselves as Apple but are nowhere close. They desperately try to follow that model but Apple get the tough decisions right most of the time, UA fumble a lot.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Instead of midi an extra footswitch would have been nice for storing preset. Maybe not so much for the plexi pedal, but for the multichannel amps.

Which other than the 5150 and Recto that isn't released are multi channel amps? Unless you count the Deluxe as multichannel.
None

 

[ragingplatypi]

I have so many friends who would buy this over a Helix or Fractal (and have bought similar products). And the closest any of them have ever been to a midi cable is the distance to the dark corner of the stage where the keyboardist resides.

 

[Wasbeer]

Which other than the 5150 and Recto that isn't released are multi channel amps? Unless you count the Deluxe as multichannel.
None

Tbh I haven't checked out all the available UAFX pedals. I expected they had a couple channelswitchers as well, in which some extra button might come in handy.

 

[Sascha Franck]

but also, why wouldn’t you do that from their perspective?

Because not everything is about milking the last drops out of whatever it might be. And yes, I'm serious. The world would be a much better place in case people wouldn't always do so.
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about UA's financial status, so it might as well be that they just need to do things as they do.

 

[Sascha Franck]

You’d just treat it like you would an amp.

Well, not really. With all the "alt" and app-only functionality, this is fundamentally different from how I'd treat an amp already.

 

[ragingplatypi]

Re: Helix and the GSG- I have to admit I have fussed with it way too much to get a rhythm (EOB) tone. Litigator and Aristocrat are much kinder for that. Having read all the articles about Dumbles in my youth, the GSG does seem to have that issue of there being a small sweet spot where things are perfect, and the clean tone has that fascinating “hifi” and “bigger” thing going on. Also, on the Catalyst it is obvious that, despite the logic of modeling, the GSG model shines when the amp is cranked to gig volume, whereas the Aristocrat is better at lower volumes.