Submit your Fractal unit ID

// How it works

On Windows: install the Fractal USB driver first — get it from fractalaudio.com/support, which has a driver page for each USB unit (Axe-Fx III, FM9, AX8, FX8, AM4, VP4, the II family). Without it Windows shows no MIDI ports at all. Close any other MIDI software — Windows gives the MIDI port to one program at a time, so an open editor leaves this page hearing nothing.

Works with any unit in the family — Axe-Fx Standard and Ultra, the II family, AX8, FX8, Axe-Fx III, FM3, FM9, AM4, VP4. Connect it over USB (or 5-pin MIDI for the FM3 / Standard / Ultra), open this page in Chrome or Edge, press START LISTENING, then IDENTIFY MY UNIT — Fractal units only speak when spoken to, and the reply is what identifies yours. (Opening your Fractal editor for a few seconds works too.)

Once your unit is identified, press CAPTURE MY UNIT. One button runs the whole thing: it reads your current preset plus a sample of others, the routing grid, blocks, and parameters, then maps which commands your firmware supports — all read-only, the same questions your unit's own editor already asks it. Nothing is written, nothing changes on your rig.

Axe-Fx Standard / Ultra owners: your generation predates the read commands newer units answer, so on these units the capture listens while you drive. Use wired 5-pin MIDI in both directions, and when the capture starts, press Utility → Preset → Dump System to MIDI on the front panel — that one dump is the whole prize. The on-screen steps walk you through the rest (a knob turn, a preset switch), with buttons to mark each action as you do it. Five minutes, nothing written to your rig.

The last step — mapping supported commands — keeps running for a while after the capture itself finishes; SUBMITonly appears once that's done, so don't close the tab if it looks idle for a bit. Add your email so we can follow up and credit you, then press SUBMIT. That one capture is what turns "should work" into confirmed support for your unit — your rig is a bench we don't have.

// Unit not answering? Work down this list

Permission granted, page listening, IDENTIFY pressed — and silence. The tool names the most likely cause itself once a sweep finds nothing; this is the same list in full, in order of how often we see it:

1. Chrome 152+ on a Mac is deaf to your unit. This one is not your gear. We reproduced it on the bench: the unit answered on the wire — an independent listener saw the reply, and a tempo tick every half-second — while Chrome handed the page zero SysEx frames, with permission granted three different ways. Fractal units speak only SysEx, so on that Chrome every unit looks silent. Quit Chrome completely, then relaunch it from Terminal with open -na "Google Chrome" --args --disable-features=MidiMacUmp and come back to this page. Windows Chrome is unaffected.
2. Another app is holding the unit. Fully quit Axe-Edit, Fractal-Bot, AxeBlock EDIT, and any DAW — on the Mac too, not just Windows. Fractal units answer one editor at a time, and an open editor eats the identify reply before this page ever sees it.
3. Check the port list on this page. The listening panel counts ports — but count isn't enough if they're all virtual ports from other gear. Your unit's own name (AXE-FX II, Axe-Fx III, FM9…) has to be among them. Not there? The computer isn't seeing the unit at all: try another USB cable and port, then confirm the unit shows in Audio MIDI Setup → Window → Show MIDI Studio (Mac) or Device Manager (Windows).
4. Power-cycle the unit with USB attached, then press IDENTIFY again once it fully boots. The II family especially brings USB MIDI up in a state some hosts miss until a reconnect.
5. Check the unit's own MIDI settings — I/O → MIDI: SysEx over USB must not be disabled.
6. Still nothing? Reload the page (listening restarts clean) and try once more. If it stays silent, use the support chat and tell us the unit, the OS, and whether its port name appeared in the list — that one detail tells us which half of the path is broken.

// No USB on your unit? (FM3, Axe-Fx Standard, Ultra)

The FM3's USB carries no MIDI, so it connects through its 5-pin jacks — and either path works: a wired USB MIDI interface like the Roland UM-ONE mk2 (Mac or Windows), or a CME WIDI Master over Bluetooth (Mac only— Windows Chrome can't see Bluetooth MIDI, and no iPad browser supports Web MIDI at all). We also recognize the Yamaha MD-BT01 as a Bluetooth option on Mac, though we haven't tested a capture through one — if you have one, we'd like to hear how it goes. The plug rule is the same for all, and it's the step people miss:

1. Cross the plugs over: the interface's OUT plug into the FM3's MIDI IN, its IN plug into MIDI OUT (on a WIDI Master: main plug → MIDI OUT, tail plug → MIDI IN). Both matter — the probe asks questions through the FM3's IN side; with only one plugged in your unit either never hears us or we never hear it.
2. Wired (UM-ONE mk2): plug its USB into the computer — done, skip to step 4. Bluetooth (WIDI Master): first disconnect your phone (or anything else) from the WIDI — it holds one connection at a time.
3. Bluetooth only: on the Mac, open Audio MIDI Setup (Applications → Utilities), then Window → Show MIDI Studio, click the Bluetooth button in the toolbar, and press Connect next to the WIDI Master.
4. Come back to this page in Chrome or Edge, press START LISTENING, then IDENTIFY MY UNIT. The port is picked up automatically — even if you connected it after the page was already listening.
5. Press CAPTURE MY UNIT. Bluetooth MIDI moves at 5-pin speed, so this takes a minute or more — the frame counter ticking up means it's working. Don't close the tab; SUBMIT appears when it finishes.

Own an original Axe-Fx Standard or Ultra?They have no USB at all — 5-pin MIDI only. You only need one plug: the interface's IN plug into the unit's MIDI OUT. We recommend the same Roland UM-ONE mk2. Don't use a CME WIDI Master here — it powers itself from the unit's MIDI OUT port, and phantom power on a gen-1 5-pin jack is unverified on our bench. The capture itself is listen-only: your unit's dialect has no verified read request, so the page transmits nothing at all — you'll be guided to power-cycle the unit, turn a knob, and switch a preset, and we record what it says on its own.

// Your gear is safe

The page listens by default and transmits only when you ask it to — and everything it sends is a read-only request: the firmware-version query on IDENTIFY, plus, on units we haven't confirmed ourselves, the deep probe's requests for presets (read from flash without switching), the grid, blocks, and model lists — asked in your unit's own dialect. All of them are questions your unit's own editor asks. It never changes a parameter, switches presets, or writes anything to your unit. Nothing leaves this page unless you press submit.

// Why we built this

We make AxeBlock EDIT, an iPad editor for Fractal hardware. Supporting a new unit starts with one byte — the model ID in that header — and we confirm every unit on real hardware before we claim it. Submitting your capture is how the FM3, FM9, AX8, and FX8 get supported. If you want in on the beta, sign up here.

Bloody Finger Software is an independent product, not affiliated with or endorsed by Fractal Audio Systems.