When do you predict the next Fractal Audio Axe iteration will drop, now that they've stated that it will be NAM-compatible?

laxu said:
While I agree that captures are largely unnecessary on Fractal due to its sheer amount of amp models and the competency of their component modeling, some sort of capture tech starts to be table stakes. Even cheaper units like Hotone and Headrush have it - even if the results are not NAM-grade.

So besides development time and storage needs, supporting NAM is beneficial for Fractal. Plus they can go tell people clamoring for this and that model to go buy the amp and capture it themselves. I don't think Fractal is very keen to buy new amps coming out, painstakingly reverse engineer them without schematics etc.

It's been shown that few people request old classics, most people request what they saw hyped on YT last week.
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I agree that it has become a necessary addition in the context that not everybody will use it, but it's better to have it in the brochure than not have it and the competition uses the exclusion as a selling point for their own products.
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
It’s a little odd that the folks that seem to have the most trust in Cliff’s brilliance don’t seem to have the foresight to think he might have something to bring to the NAM capture table
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Fractal already has a shitload of tonestacks available to swap around with reckless abandon, that right there would put Fractal miles ahead of everybody else if there was a way to apply them to captures.
 
Sometime this month Line 6 will release Proxy and Fractal will become the lone significant player in the space that doesn't have capture tech support.

Its table stakes now, like IR support if not more so. When parametric captures mature its going to be even more important to have.
 
paisleywookiee said:
on-device block libraries
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Yep. On device block libraries, favourites, a decent preset system with tagging, filtering, searching; likewise with IR's.

I'd love to be able to take IR's I made at home, and create a dyna cab from it. I'd also like less restrictive barriers around IR capturing, let me use my Axe3 to create WAV's!
 
I think it's within the next year honestly. Line 6 and NDSP are their biggest competitors and both released new hardware recently. I think we see something from Fractal that will raise their bar.

The Fractal software is very mature and hasn't been changing much. The opportunities are on the hardware side. Fractal has released a couple small variants from their current platform. Unless they chase the nano size and release like an AM1 or VP1, I would guess the next step is a next-gen device that really focuses on the UI aspect. Bigger touch screen and simplified navigation/editing. We're seeing that starting already on the AM4 with slimmed down controls, fewer button presses to edit, even the organized reverb menu.
 
Mongillo19 said:
It would absolutely not be. I know you have the take that "putting a touchscreen on a modeler is akin to cup holders in an Indy car"

Whatever the hell that means. The next fractal product is confirmed to have a touchscreen and NAM. You are definitely in the minority for not wanting a touchscreen and NAM.
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I am also in that minority, but I do expect it's a minority. Fortunately, I have my AM4, so I'm good.
 
Orvillain said:
I'd love to be able to take IR's I made at home, and create a dyna cab from it. I'd also like less restrictive barriers around IR capturing, let me use my Axe3 to create WAV's!
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You can rent the robot and the software from Fractal to make Dyna-Cabs. Although I don't know if individuals can do that compared to people like York or Dr. Bonkers.

Even if you had the software to tie it all together, it would take thousands of individual IR's at every point across the cone and at every distance which would be impossible to do by hand. At least that's my (admittedly) limited understanding of the process.
 
laxu said:
While I agree that captures are largely unnecessary on Fractal due to its sheer amount of amp models and the competency of their component modeling, some sort of capture tech starts to be table stakes.
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I keep seeing that being said here, but I don't agree. And why wouldn't it go both ways, with modeling being "table stakes" for Tonex and Kemper? IMO, they're very different use cases, and very different specialties, and doing both spreads finite resources more thinly by definition.

Some people love captures, including a good friend of mine. Which is fine. But it's not an overwhelming majority expectation as far as I have seen in the non-Internet world of meat sack humans.

And if needed on an ad hoc basis, there are lots of cheap capture options. But yes, at the very least, Line6 has chosen to divert resources to capture, so they clearly see market value in doing it.
 
KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!! said:
You can rent the robot and the software from Fractal to make Dyna-Cabs. Although I don't know if individuals can do that compared to people like York or Dr. Bonkers.

Even if you had the software to tie it all together, it would take thousands of individual IR's at every point across the cone and at every distance which would be impossible to do by hand. At least that's my (admittedly) limited understanding of the process.
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I know exactly how to do it. They use a Dynamount system with a custom API which gives automated access to moving the microphone around the 3 axis in front of the speaker. I looked into the cost of the API, and it is quite high. The same price as buying the hardware, more or less. So you need £1000 or so for the unit, and £1000 for the API access... and even then, you still have to write your own code to do it.

I'm fully capable of making a library every bit as good as the big players in IR land - but honestly, the financial rewards are not high enough for me to be arsed right now.
 
laxu said:
Tell Me More To Do List GIF by Disney Channel
Add Hasan Minhaj GIF by MOODMAN
mash up cat GIF

In a previous thread like this, I thought a touchscreen was a must for a next gen device, but after owning the AM4 for a bit I think it might not be.

The problems​


The big annoyance on the FM3, FM9 and Axe-Fx 3 compared to the AM4 and VP4 is navigation and block management.
  • The physical control layout is downright terrible. The nav buttons are spaced too far apart, other controls are cluttered around the big knob, the buttons often don't do what the labels say and the under screen knobs are cramped.
  • The grid is a huge pain in the ass to navigate. Move cursor - Enter - Exit - move cursor - Enter - Exit. The AM4 simplifying this to a scroll knob and 4 blocks already takes out a major pain point, because it's faster to get to the next thing.
  • Moving blocks is the worst UI design in the unit. Instead of "pick up and place" like a sensible design, it's "choose and execute function". AM4 with the simple "hold Enter and scroll" makes it child's play in the rare case when you need to do it.
  • The block cycling shortcut order is completely unintuitive. Column -> row rather than "what is connected next".
  • Nobody likes the "shunts" system for connecting blocks. AM4 doing away with it entirely streamlines everything.
While I don't love the scroll knob on the AM4, I don't think I would be massively faster with it if I were to tap and swipe on the screen. The Expert view also helps curate the controls better, and having some models combined is a huge help as well.

So what can Fractal do to make their next gen device better to use?
  • Node based grid. You connect blocks, not grid slots. It can still be arranged like a grid, but you should never have to put in a "shunt" block.
  • Fixed input and output positions on the grid. It is a bit odd to have to add these yourself, instead of just choosing which inputs and outputs are used.
  • Pick and place block movement system. Makes sense on a touchscreen.
  • Better physical control layout. I'd like to see better spaced knobs under a screen, and the return of some of the dedicated buttons that give you fast access to important systems. A Helix style Amp button would be great, similar to how Amp mode footswitch shortcut on the AM4 gives immediate access to the Amp block.
  • Overhaul the modifier system. It needs a simple vs expert view treatment because it's too complicated for most users.
  • The scene modifier system is ass. It also needs to be made fast and simple to use.
  • Make the footswitch system easier. It's very programmable - but feels like a system for engineers rather than guitarists. Offer some templates that cover most users needs - e.g switching for presets + scenes, effects + scenes and so on similar to how Helix Stadium has a combo mode.
  • On-board favorites.
  • Better global blocks for Sascha. ;)
That said, a touchscreen is going to be a thing just to keep up with what the competition is doing. But I think they could've continued without one by just fixing some core concepts in the system that make it slow to work with without the editor software.

Speculation for release​


So I still think a lot of work is to be done on the user interface front, and that's where it will take them the longest as many pieces from Axe-Fx 3 cannot be just used as is but have to be rewritten from scratch. That pushes the timeline further away. The tariff madness and other world volatility doesn't help in finding the right time to release. I don't know if the RAM pricing issues affect Fractal as afaik modelers usually use older DDR3.

The software is likely to share a huge chunk of modeling code with the Axe-Fx 3. Cliff has spent years making it, and writing it from scratch would be a huge ordeal. Improved modeling still trickling in is an indicator that some of the Axe-Fx IV tech can be achieved on the current gen. I think at some point Cliff reaches a limit to what can be brought to Axe-Fx 3 and shifts entirely to Axe-Fx IV development.

The AM4 and VP4 are clearly interim products that aim to answer some of the biggest user demands: Making it easier to use and physically smaller. Being cheaper with one more footswitch than the FM3 are nice bonuses. I think they will be Fractal's best sellers for the next few years - and give them a lot of time to catch up to the competition.

I thought the Helix Stadium would dominate the field, but it's not polished enough and doesn't have big enough advantages over the competition yet. But it might get there by the end of the year if Line6 keeps pushing out updates every 3-4 months. Until then, Fractal is IMO still the best for pure sound quality.

My guess is that the next gen Fractal might come in 2027 at the earliest, possibly all the way in 2028.
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I agree w you I think a lot of the new amp modelling updates preamp etc is likely trickling down or is coming from Algos being developed from Gen4
FAS. Said if I recall somewhere the design is done on hardware side just a ton of coding to do ,
But I think your already seeing some of it like the new HD Dynacabs
The new editor and layout design
The amp models consolidations
If you look at Icons and AM4 it give a pretty good idea of what could be and how / where touchscreens will be implemented

I think the grid that you mentioned will still be there but maybe hidden in a expert mode
I suspect the signal chain in VP4 and AM4 are more likely to appear in the main display

I am sure there are a lot more design elements to come but a processor that going to look similar to an AM4 w touchscreen NAV way more power and memory and about the size of a stadium floor no expression or slightly bigger than the old AX8 is what I think you may see
 
GTR37 said:
I think the grid that you mentioned will still be there but maybe hidden in a expert mode
I suspect the signal chain in VP4 and AM4 are more likely to appear in the main display
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I'd kinda love to see that to give an overview into what is in a preset.

But at the same time it doesn't seem quite feasible to do for complex presets that don't follow a straightforward A to B signal chain.

Signal chain can't really go into any expert view as it's so crucial. With a few blocks you can simplify it to the AM4 format, but an Axe-Fx 4 is capable of running so much more so I think it will be the traditional grid - just easier to use and hopefully without the grid slot connections.
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
What features do you care about?
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I left Kemper for Fractal because the signal routing and depth of adjustability made it a very appealing platform to do creative things on. NAM is basically somebody else doing the heavy lifting for you. And people these days want everything as dumbed down as possible, so I get it. But I'm not drawn to the dumbed down approach. I want to dial in my own sounds.
 
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