Global blocks

Available on which products

• Axe-Fx III: 8 global blocks per effect instance (not all effect blocks)
• FM3 and FM9: no
• Axe-Fx II: 10 global blocks per effect instance
• FX8 and AX8: no

FRACTAL AUDIO QUOTES

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

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

About Global blocks

Global blocks carry over parameter changes to other presets.

Not all effect blocks support Global blocks. Of the Input blocks, only Input 1 supports Global blocks.

These blocks do NOT support Global blocks on the Axe-Fx III:

• Crossover
• IR Player
• Looper
• Megatap Delay
• Mixer
• Multiband Compressor
• Multiplexer
• Output
• RTA
• Resonator
• Scene MIDI
• Send/Return
• Synth
• Ten Tap Delay
• Vocoder

You can read more in the Owner's Manual.

Working with Global blocks

Operations

Global block operations are accessible from the Tools page in the Layout menu and in the editors. There are several operations associated with Global blocks:

Link To 

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 

Loads data from a selected Global block but does NOT link the block.

Link To and Load From 

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 

Unlinks the current effect from any Global blocks.

Unlink All Blocks From Global 

Unlinks all blocks from any Global blocks to which they may be linked.

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. Reset the channel before tweaking to make sure that everything, including hidden settings, is set to default.

Save

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

If you've changed settings in one of the eight 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.

Unlink

To unlink a block from Global blocks, use any of these methods:

Axe-Fx III:

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

Axe-Fx II:

• Use the Global block menu on the hardware.
• Execute STRIP ALL GLOBAL DATA in the Utilities menu.
• Press Enter in the Recall menu on the hardware.
• Use the editor.

Share

To share a preset that contains Global blocks, you have to either send the system data file along with it, or unlink all Global blocks before exporting to disk.

Clear

There's no hardware or software system setting to wipe all Global blocks. The only way to accomplish this, is to restore a backup of factory default system data, AKA a clean system file. Ask for this on the forum.

Backup and restore

When using Fractal-Bot to create backups of presets that contain Global blocks, you need to backup the system data too, because that's where the Global blocks data is stored.

Alternatively, here's a method to save individual Global blocks:

1. Create a single preset with all your Global blocks.
2. Save that to backup preset slots.
3. In the first backup slot, set the blocks to global instance 1, unlink the globals and save the preset.
4. In the second backup slot, set selected blocks to global instance 2 (only the ones which use instance 2), unlink the globals and save the preset.
5. Repeat for subsequent blocks.

If something goes wrong and you need to restore an individual block or channel, just copy the block or channel from the appropriate backup preset, paste it into a preset with linked blocks using the correct global instance and save it.

Troubleshooting, tips and tricks

Editor snapshots

Be aware that when you use the editor to create a snapshot of a preset with Global blocks, the Global blocks data is not included in the snapshot.

Modifiers

Modifiers are not included in Global blocks. When you link a block to an existing Global block instance, modifier settings will not be included/applied.

You can copy and paste a block, including modifier settings, from another preset using the editor.

Recalling a block form the Library also includes the modifier settings.

On the Axe-Fx II, you can also use Recall Effect on the hardware to copy modifiers from one preset to another.

Set bypass state across all presets

For a method to control the bypass state of effects blocks across presets, read this: Presets

Alternative for Global blocks

The editors provide a substitute for Global blocks: Parameter Batch Set

Tips, tricks and troubleshooting

New firmware brings new features to blocks. This can cause a parameter in a Global block to stick to its old value, and not update across presets (out of sync). To fix this, each preset that contains that Global block needs to be re-saved in order to update the preset to the latest revision. Luckily, FracTool or the Parameter Batch Set function in the editor (see above) make this easier; they allow you to automatically re-save presets (all, or a specified number).

The system uses internal storage to save the Global blocks data. It's possible to exceed the available storage space. In that case the system will no longer save additional Global blocks, or all values will be reset to minimum. So use them wisely.