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Post subject: Too much twisting of the "data wheel" to make adjustments
Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 9:08 am
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Anyone else thinking that you have to twist the data wheel WAY too much to make changes to most settings. For settings that have only a few options (like "high, medium, low" for example) it works as expected...each "click" of the data wheel moves the setting backwards or forwards one option (like moving from High to Medium). But for options that have much finer control like Treble for example you REALLY have to twist the knob to get the setting to change much...unless you spin the knob REALLY fast...in fact so fast that you kind of lose control over how much you are changing the setting. And maybe I'm being overly sensitive :P but I feel like I'm going to break or wear out the wheel at some point.

There has got to be a better way to handle this and updates to the behavior of the wheel could definitely be handled via firmware update. I get that Fender wants me to be able to make really fine adjustments to settings that support it and that is good. So I sat here thinking about how they might be able to handle it differently to improve my experience (the "user experience") for tweaking settings that support fine adjustments. In my view the user generally expects and would be happiest if the data wheel worked just like a physical knob would on an amp...twisting the data wheel 360 degrees (full circle) should adjust a setting like treble from 1 all the way to 10. This behavior would work great for quickly getting to the "ballpark" of where you want the setting to be (call it the "course" adjustment). From there the user would then need a way to make "fine" adjustments (after getting to the ballpark with course adjustment). My first thought was to make the user push a button (let's call it the "fine button") and turn the wheel at the same time to make fine adjustments, but that makes things more complicated and my amp doesn't have such a button so you'd have to use some other button for this purpose (like "Tap/Tuner" would now be "Tap/Tuner/Fine"). So I don't think this is the best approach. I think the best approach is similar to what fender ended up doing, and that is using the speed at which the user twists the wheel to determine if the adjustment is course or fine. I just think they just got the speed THRESHOLD wrong (way too fast). I should be able to turn the wheel at a REGULAR speed to make the course adjustment and then I should have to turn the wheel pretty darn slow to make a fine adjustment. In other words make the speed threshold between course and fine adjustments much slower than it currently is. Or for the best approach, Fender could add the "Data Wheel Course/Fine Speed Threshold" as a user controlled setting in the Utility menu so we can all set it to whatever threshold speed feels best for us.

Make sense? What does Fender think about this? And Fender...wouldn't this save you money since I've got to think you will be replacing/fixing lots of data wheels during the warranty period under your current "twist really fast" approach and my suggestion could reduce data wheel failures.


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Post subject: Re: Too much twisting of the "data wheel" to make adjustment
Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:20 pm
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Dear mcarrollmust,

Thank you for your feedback, we will be happy to forward the inquiry to the relating engineers. Please let us know if we can assist further.

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Fender Technology Support Lab
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
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(800) 856-9801


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Post subject: Re: Too much twisting of the "data wheel" to make adjustment
Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 1:16 pm
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There has got to be a better way to handle this


there indeed is..

use fuse from your PC when ever possible ! :)


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Post subject: Re: Too much twisting of the "data wheel" to make adjustment
Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:08 am
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I wrote an almost identical post about a year ago !
It's annoying
It should be an easy fix to do in firmware I think


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Post subject: Re: Too much twisting of the "data wheel" to make adjustment
Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:23 am
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KidBlast wrote:

There has got to be a better way to handle this


there indeed is..

use fuse from your PC when ever possible ! :)


Twisting a dial on a skeuomorphic interface isn't what I would call "better way".
And that's supposing that FUSE works on the PC (I have two modern laptops it cannot be used on due to FUSE not working with high DPI), and that it's feasible to bring and use a PC.

Anyhow, most analog knobs twist around 80% around going from minimum to maximum. The digital knob might not have enough steps for that to be a good option, and firmware won't give it more steps.


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Post subject: Re: Too much twisting of the "data wheel" to make adjustment
Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:35 am
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arth1 wrote:
The digital knob might not have enough steps for that to be a good option, and firmware won't give it more steps.


There's an acceleration (or velocity) factor built in, so the faster you turn the knob the more the setting changes - it's not linear - that'll be software.


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Post subject: Re: Too much twisting of the "data wheel" to make adjustment
Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:33 pm
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arth1 wrote:
Anyhow, most analog knobs twist around 80% around going from minimum to maximum. The digital knob might not have enough steps for that to be a good option, and firmware won't give it more steps.


The Data Wheel has about 25 clicks (or steps) in a full (360 degree) rotation. That's plenty of clicks for course adjustments to controls like treble, gain, etc. So for a control that goes from 1 to 10, in "course adjustment mode" the data wheel would move the setting plus or minus 0.4 with each click...so going up from zero would be like 0.0, (+click) 0.4, (+click) 0.8, (+click) 1.2, (+click) 1.6, (+click) 2.0, (+click) 2.4 etc. So I think we are totally good there.


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