LaXu
Member
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- 10,507
The Axe-Fx Standard/Ultra/2 was rather horrid to use from the front panel. I used these for years and the Axe-Edit software was the saving grace. I would have sent my Standard back without it. Often just doing some small tweaks to anything from the front panel was awkward with the way it worked.
Axe-Fx 3/FM3/FM9 has a half-assed refactor of the original UI. The display is bigger and in color, more controls fit on screen at once, the A/B/C/D knobs are now in a sensible position under the screen and there's one more knob. Not having to remember the knob position vs mapping is a huge help.
They did next to nothing about the button layout and navigation. It's still that awkward big knob surrounded by buttons placed around it and the nav section that is spaced a bit too far apart. Most of the UI software still works the same way too for better or worse. Part of this may be because the Axe-Fx 2 processor was discontinued so they had to expedite development of the 3rd gen Axe-Fx.
With the addition of the home screen, access to the layout grid became increasingly awkward when there's no longer a dedicated button for it but you have to hit one of the knobs or the Enter button but only if you are in the home screen. Accessing amp/cab is no longer one shortcut button away and you either need to scroll to the performance view or go through the layout grid or spam Edit until you get there.
It's a few steps forward, few steps back. It took them several years to do something as simple as shortcut buttons for going back to previous block or quickly going to common blocks. It helps, a lot in fact.
Yes people learn to use the units just fine, even get fast at it but it's never a joy to work with because there's a good bit of mental "ok, what do I press/turn now" type thinking involved because it lacks consistency as I outlined in some other post. It's got an engineer type design mentality to the whole thing that makes it more complicated for the non-power user to operate than it needs to be.
With Cliff claiming he's using these 99% from the front panel (post in their now locked Rhett Shull review thread), I don't know what to say other than he prefers things like that. Considering he's someone seeking perfection for his modeling tech it amazes me if he does not see the various pitfalls in their current UI design. I kind of want to see a "Cliff using the front panel" video in case I am missing something on how these are meant to be used.
My bigger beef with Fractal is their refusal to address the issues. Non-wishlist UI issue threads often get locked quickly on their forums and for a company celebrated for their rapid firmware updates, the near complete lack of UI updates is disappointing. Lots of low hanging fruit suggested by yours truly and others. If they could do even one or two UI improvements for every major firmware release that would trickle to a lot of improvement over time.
EDIT: For the record I'm not expecting the world here, just some small improvements here and there would make it better.
Axe-Fx 3/FM3/FM9 has a half-assed refactor of the original UI. The display is bigger and in color, more controls fit on screen at once, the A/B/C/D knobs are now in a sensible position under the screen and there's one more knob. Not having to remember the knob position vs mapping is a huge help.
They did next to nothing about the button layout and navigation. It's still that awkward big knob surrounded by buttons placed around it and the nav section that is spaced a bit too far apart. Most of the UI software still works the same way too for better or worse. Part of this may be because the Axe-Fx 2 processor was discontinued so they had to expedite development of the 3rd gen Axe-Fx.
With the addition of the home screen, access to the layout grid became increasingly awkward when there's no longer a dedicated button for it but you have to hit one of the knobs or the Enter button but only if you are in the home screen. Accessing amp/cab is no longer one shortcut button away and you either need to scroll to the performance view or go through the layout grid or spam Edit until you get there.
It's a few steps forward, few steps back. It took them several years to do something as simple as shortcut buttons for going back to previous block or quickly going to common blocks. It helps, a lot in fact.
Yes people learn to use the units just fine, even get fast at it but it's never a joy to work with because there's a good bit of mental "ok, what do I press/turn now" type thinking involved because it lacks consistency as I outlined in some other post. It's got an engineer type design mentality to the whole thing that makes it more complicated for the non-power user to operate than it needs to be.
With Cliff claiming he's using these 99% from the front panel (post in their now locked Rhett Shull review thread), I don't know what to say other than he prefers things like that. Considering he's someone seeking perfection for his modeling tech it amazes me if he does not see the various pitfalls in their current UI design. I kind of want to see a "Cliff using the front panel" video in case I am missing something on how these are meant to be used.
My bigger beef with Fractal is their refusal to address the issues. Non-wishlist UI issue threads often get locked quickly on their forums and for a company celebrated for their rapid firmware updates, the near complete lack of UI updates is disappointing. Lots of low hanging fruit suggested by yours truly and others. If they could do even one or two UI improvements for every major firmware release that would trickle to a lot of improvement over time.
EDIT: For the record I'm not expecting the world here, just some small improvements here and there would make it better.
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