Who's using FracPad? Is it the s*#t? Or is it just........S*#t?

[paisleywookiee]

About to pull the trigger on an iPad Pro. I've been the iPad+Mac Mini guy for a few years now, and have gotten to the point where the only thing I really need a computer for whilst away from home is.......the damn Fractal. Everything else the iPad does great (web editing, photo editing, music, video editing) especially with FCP and Logic Pro now on iPadOS.

Anyone using FracPad? I really don't want a laptop right now, because I'd like to hold off until I can swing a MBP14.

 

[Elric]

I've always found FracPad to be Flaky, TBH. I definitely would not want to rely on it.

 

[JiveTurkey]

You could just get a Surface?

 

[Jambi]

FracPad…

 

[metropolis_4]

It's been a while since I've used it. I thought it was fine; serviceable but quirky.

I used to use it for making small adjustments in the venue space during sound checks and it was great for that.

 

[paisleywookiee]

You could just get a Surface?

I have one. It's.......a Surface.

 

[eggpl@nt]

I never use it after having paid $30 for it. Al's contributions to the FAS community cannot be understated, but I don't get along with FracPad.

 

[Foxmeister]

You could just get a Surface?

Just bought a Surface Pro 9 this week to replace my venerable Surface Pro 3 - I may actually prefer it to my Apple silicon MacBook Air...

 

[JiveTurkey]

Just bought a Surface Pro 9 this week to replace my venerable Surface Pro 3 - I may actually prefer it to my Apple silicon MacBook Air...

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I've always found FracPad to be Flaky, TBH. I definitely would not want to rely on it.

FFS, start that alliteration with Frankly...

 

[ragingplatypi]

 

[JiveTurkey]

I have one. It's.......a Surface.

 

[Jambi]

With how cheap Mac minis are getting (picked up an M2 from Costco a couple months ago for ~$400 to use as a Plex server,) I thought sticking one in the rack as a headless unit to control Axe-FX / FM9, run MainStage, Logic, Helix Native, etc. through an iPad. I never got around to figuring out if or how to connect directly to the mini (specifically after a fresh boot and no monitor.) May have to use Duet to accomplish something like that

 

[paisleywookiee]

Just bought a Surface Pro 9 this week to replace my venerable Surface Pro 3 - I may actually prefer it to my Apple silicon MacBook Air...

 

[norminal]

I’ve used it and like many apps in this industry, the UI was designed by a coder not a UI designer. With that said, until the Fractal Audio ecosystem supports Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and a proper mobile app is released, it fills a niche and does the job.

 

[laxu]

It might have improved but I tried the trial version a few years ago. Back then it had a lot of jankiness to it but also some good ideas to make the Axe-Edit UI work better with a touchscreen. But it definitely lacked polish and had some scaling, alignment etc issues.

The big issue for me was that it had trouble connecting. My CME Widi Master is normally extremely stable but Fracpad really struggled to connect to it. I didn't have the right cables to try Fracpad wired to see if it was more stable.

I have always said Fractal should hire the developer and work together to provide an official mobile editor.

In actual use, I'm not convinced it's better than Axe-Edit though. While not having to hold your pick in some weird way like when you pick a mouse to operate Axe-Edit is nice, overall it's basically a mobile alternative to Axe-Edit rather than a gamechanging workflow improvement.

Real gamechanging usability could be achieved by a MIDI knob controller that is not tied to Fractal's modifier system limitations but can be assigned to any parameter while still being able to operate those controls from Axe-Edit and the front panel. Atm to do this you need a MIDI -> Axe-Fx Sysex translation layer which gets kinda complicated especially when you need to reverse engineer the communication since Fractal has not released specs or example code for this.

 

[norminal]

Real gamechanging usability could be achieved by a MIDI knob controller that is not tied to Fractal's modifier system limitations but can be assigned to any parameter while still being able to operate those controls from Axe-Edit and the front panel.

Something like this?

 

[laxu]

Something like this?
View attachment 10595

In the extreme, sure!

Another option is less knobs but the ability to change what CC numbers they use using internal presets on the controller.

 

[quadgear]

Something like this?
View attachment 10595

I'm looking for the holy grail of physical knobs with a display. Just picked up one of these old Novation Remote Zero SL Mk II. It's not perfect, but getting there.

This BCR32 is vaporware, probably impacted by the low end cpu shortages. 32 knobs with led rings. Display won't cut it (too small) unless it can be setup to display ~8 characters across (for current value or abbreviated label). With that may knobs, I can fit pretty much all parameters on the surface without paging/scrolling. A printed overlay of labels might be enough along with the light rings.

 

[Baba]

Seriously though, dafuq is FracPad?