[ddots-l] Re: Fractal Audio Axe FX
- From: "Jay Pilkington" <jay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:09:54 -0600
Thanks so much Chris. I read your reply almost immediately and took your
advice.
I called Fractal Audio, they were courteous, but the gentleman I spoke with
denied that there was anything they could do since the Ax II edit program
was written in Juice, and if it was not accessible, well, that's just the
way it is. I told him thank you, and then I resisted the urge to yell into
my cell phone something like the stream of syllables spewed out by the
father in the 1980s movie "A Christmas Story" when battling a malfunctioning
furnace! Youch! How can entrepreneurs, supposed "visionaries" surround
themselves with such complacent incompetence. Ok, I'll chill out.
I bought an Hd500 from Guitar Center with a 30 day trial guarantee. See my
comments in the post to follow this one.
I am not done with this Fractal issue! They have not heard the last of me
yet. I have a solution for this whole accessibility dilemma, I just need to
get to the right people.
*
Jay Pilkington
www.JayPilkington.com
-----Original Message-----
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Chris Smart
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2012 4:32 PM
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Fractal Audio Axe FX
My reply is rather long.
See below.
At 03:59 PM 1/1/2012, you wrote:
>List,
>
> 1. Does anyone have any experience with the Fractal Audio
> Axe FX guitar processor? If so, is it accessible?
Ok, first and foremost, The AXE-FX II, their newer model, is by far
the most powerful amp and cabinet modeller and effects unit ever.
Imagine utterly realistic amp modelling, cabinet impulses, lexicon
quality reverbs, Evantide quality harmonizing, on and on and on.
Nobody wants one of these more than I do! It's in a totally
different league than Line6 or anything else, and you'll pay for it
accordingly. It really is that good, and that far ahead of any
competition. But, it is aimed at the pro market, not the weekend
hobbyist type player where Line6 is more focused.
The Axe-fx it's vast, so you'd be memorizing pages and pages of
data to operate the hardware unit. You can always download it's
manual as a PDF and have a read. There are at least a few more
hardware controls on the newer unit, compared to the older standard
and ultra models.
A year or two ago, I lobbied Fractal Audio for months regarding
making their software editor accesible to us, with no success. The
last time I tried the PC version, it was completely inaccessible to
Jaws, meaning the screen appeared utterly blank to a screen reader.
I haven't tried it with Jaws 13's Convenient OCR feature, so that
may be worth looking into. If you check that out, please get back
to us on what you discover.
Because of the complexity and power of the unit, you really would
want access to the computer application to control it, and to make
use of the excellent presets available from other users. As far as
I know this is just not possible for us at the moment.
Believe me, I wish it were otherwise. But, Fractal told me after
much polite correspondence that they just could not accommodate
me. And, given the price of the unit, how many blind folks are
going to spend a couple grand on one?
I urge you to write them anyway though, since I think they need a
little reminding that we exist. Also, they might have a few more
employees compared to a couple of years ago, so who knows. You may
get further than I did.
>
>2. Does anyone have any experience with the Line6 HD500, and
>specifically with the HD500-Edit program?
I haven't used Line6 Edit since I had their POD xtLive pedalboard
unit. But in those days, it was an application written in Java and
mostly inaccessible. At the time, I used to use an older Line6
program, I believe called Gearbox, to load and save presets on the
PC, as well as give feedback when knobs were turned on the
unit. Setting Jaws to echo all screen activity at least gave me
feedback when I was designing or editing presets on the hardware
unit.
The amp modelling has improved in the newer HD series, and they
just released an HD Pro model which might have higher quality guts,
op amps, converters etc. What I've heard in demos sounds great,
with the effects taken from their M9 and M13 effects units.
I'm sorry I can't be more help - I gave up on Line6 a couple of
years ago, and got a Vox Tonelab LE. It's limited programmability
and the lackluster effects got me to sell that, and now I have a
Digitech RP1000. It's a pedalboard with amp modelling, effects,
lexicon reverbs etc. and is at least more flexible than the Vox
Tonelab units. It integrates well into an existing guitar amp and
pedals setup as well.
A couple things to keep in mind about the Digitech unit are:
1. menus rap but you can learn the matrix involved in programming it.
2. the pc editor is fairly accessible, and could be made more so
with some graphics labeling and maybe scripting.
3. The amp models are quite good, especially the marshalls, and the
effects chain is quite flexible. The effects are high quality and
the reverbs are Lexicon algorithms.
The Line6 HD series is newer than the Digitech though, and newer
usually means better when it comes to amp modelling. What I would
do is this:
Get an HD500 from somewhere with a no questions asked return
policy, such as Guitar Center if you're in the US, Long and McQuade
in Canada, and just spend some serious time seeing what you can
accomplish, and what is too difficult or stressful. If their PC
editor is still inaccessible, give it a try with Jaws 13's OCR
feature. That plus Hot Spot Clicker may allow you to render some of
it accessible. How accessible meets your idea of useful and
functional is your decision, and all our needs are different.
and again, please write Fractal Audio regarding the inaccessibility
of the software editor for their products. They are much smaller
than Line6 and other such companies, and pride themselves on
responding to users quickly. If they'd adapt their software so it
was more accessible, we'd be able to use the most powerful guitar
processor on the plannet.
Chris
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