Global blocks

Available on which Fractal Audio products

• Axe-Fx III: 8 global blocks per effect instance (not all effects)
• Axe-Fx II: 10 global blocks per effect instance
• FX8: no
• AX8: no

"The AX8 was not designed for use with Global Block, and there are no plans to add them." source

"The FX8 was not designed for use with Global Block, and there are no plans to add them." source

About Global Blocks

Read the Owner's Manual or this Wicked Wiki thread.

Global Blocks in the Axe-Fx IIII

There are 8 Global Blocks per effect instance. Not all effects support Global Blocks (e.g. Mixer, RTA, Ring Modulator, Ten-Tap Delay).

There are four operations associated with a Global Block:

Link To – This operation links the selected effect with a Global Block. The Global Block data is NOT loaded. Upon saving the preset the Global Block is saved. Any other presets linked to this Global Block will load the Global Block data upon recall.

Load From – This operation loads data from a selected Global Block but does NOT link the block.

Link To and Load From – This operation links an effect to a Global Block AND loads data from the Global Block. Upon saving the preset the Global Block is saved. Any other presets linked to this Global Block will load the Global Block data upon recall.

Unlink – This operation disassociates the effect from any Global Blocks.

Global Block operations are accessible from the Tools page in the Layout menu.

Reset before editing

When you've saved a block as a Global Block, and you're going to dial in a channel of that block that hasn't been tweaked before, the channel's initial settings may be way off. Resetting that channel before tweaking makes sure that everything (including settings that you don't see) is set to default.

Saving Global Blocks

After adding or editing a Global Block, the preset needs to be saved.

If you've changed settings in one of the 8 instances of a Global Block, always save the preset first before loading another instance of that block, otherwise you'll lose your edits. In other words: you can not edit several instances of the Global Block and then save the preset to save them all; you must save "per instance".

Unlinking a Global Block

Axe-Fx II:

• Global Block menu on the hardware
• STRIP ALL GLOBAL DATA in the Utility menu on the hardware
• Press Enter in the Recall menu on the hardware
• Use the editor.

Axe-Fx III:

• Layout > Tools on the hardware
• Use the editor.

To share a preset that contains Global Blocks, you have to either send the System file along with it, or unlink all Global Blocks first. Hardware and software do not provide a method yet to unlink all Global Blocks in one go. So for now unlink each block manually and then export the preset.

Exporting or backing up Global Blocks

When backing up a preset with Global Blocks, you need to backup system data too, because that's where the global blocks data is stored. Use Fractal-Bot for this.

Axe-Fx II – Back up the System Data.

Axe-Fx III – Back up either the System Settings or the Global Blocks data only.

Global Blocks and modifiers

Modifier and internal/external controller settings are not saved with Global Blocks.

On the Axe-Fx II you can use Recall Effect to copy modifier and controller settings from one preset to another. Or use the Copy function in the editor.

Setting the Bypass state of a (Global) block across all presets

The Bypass state of a Global Block is saved per preset, not across all presets.

If you want systemwide control of the bypass state of an effect block, here's a solution:

1. Attach the Bypass parameter of the effect block to an External controller.
2. In the I/O menu, switch the External controller between 0% or 100% to change the effect's Bypass state. Or assign a switch on your foot controller to the MIDI CC of the External Controller to switch the block.
3. This works with Global and non-Global Blocks, and across all presets with the same effect block.

Repairing broken links

New firmware can sometimes break Global Blocks unfortunately. This can happen when the firmware brings changes to a block, such as extending the number of factory cabs, which leads to a new preset revision.

To restore the global link, each preset that contains Global Blocks need to be re-saved in order to update the preset to the latest revision. Luckily, FracTool makes this easier; it allows you to automatically re-save presets (all, or a specified number).

Removing all Global Block data

You can't empty or reset individual Global Block slots. And there's no authorized method to clean the Axe-Fx from all Global Block data, stored somewhere in the system data memory area.