Took a peek down the Fractal rabbit hole... considering a major change now.

[nightlight]

I've got a DSL100 as well as a modded Ceriatone 2203.

Your signal chain with the RL is exactly what I do right now.

I am hesitant to turn my back on tube amps, since I spent decades of my life as a player dreaming of the day I could have them. But I have a sneaking suspicion the Fractal stuff will turn me eventually...

If you can avoid selling your tube amps, don't sell them. Tube amps have their own attraction to me, even though I own an Axe FXIII and a Quad Cortex.

First of all, the sound that modellers all strive to achieve is that of a tube amp. Yes, you can go places where a tube amp can't with a modeller, but a tube amp sound still has a unique character that modellers cannot achieve imho.

Second, playing a tube amp is far better than playing a modeller. Data provided by modeller companies show us that there is always latency when we play through one. I believe it is about 2ms for both the QC and Axe FXIII and about 3ms for the Kemper.

A tube amp, on the other hand, has zero latency. Touch the strings and the amp responds. I like to describe the feeling of playing a tube amp as being a tactile experience in which you get an immediate response when you play, as opposed to modellers due to the need to go through the digital pathway.

This is most easily experienced if you palm mute very fast in a staccato fashion. With a tube amp, you'll feel the immediacy, with a modeller, you'll feel the latency. It is very low, but try A/B comparing and you should be able to discern it.

Third, tube amps tend to sound very raw and organic and rude. whereas modellers tend to sound more smooth and polished. This could be a plus or a minus to you.

This is just my experience, others may say that modellers sound exactly like tube amps. I should caveat that I am basing my claim on running a tube amp into a cabinet. I just don't get, or am unable to get, a similar sound from running my modellers into my PS-2 and then into a cabinet. It's a great tone, make no mistake, but it is very polished and refined. And yes, that can be an awesome thing.

Modellers do have a lot going for them though. They are much more portable. They also have in-built FX. And signal routing is far simpler. And there are so many in-built models in them, that you may find an amp that you really love and want to try out in real life.

Also, the Axe FXIII makes a great pairing with a tube amp, which is what I think you were initially aiming for when you said you wanted to try out the 4CM. I have my PS-2 and Suhr RL permanently hooked up to one of the inputs of my Axe FXIII, and I have a long cable that allow me to plug into the input of any amp from one of the sends of my Axe FXIII.

This allows me to have a drive, noise gate, compressor, or whatever in front of the amp and other stuff after the preamp and power amp. I also use the Axe FXIII for a cabinet, EQ, reverb, delay and whatnot.

Superb device, I can't recommend it highly enough.

But don't sell your amps if you can help it. That would be my 2 cents.

 

[rsm]

Yes, make sure you don't need your pedalboard; you spent time, money, effort to build it...wait until you're sure the Fractal works for you.

I try to keep everything; as my music focus changes, I'll sell some gear and buy more. I've been buying mostly guitars and tube amps (and keyboards) as I prepare for retirement.

The digital gear is a journey that will see updates and new hardware going forward some will cost money; my guitars and tube amps - assuming I have what I want for now and the future - are pretty much fixed (they do what they do, and just need basic care and maintenance), and I can sell if I want something different.

 

[gibson5413]

The Fractal stuff is really good and I have loved having their products for the past couple of years. I originally had an Axe-FX III but switched to the FM9 about two years back. It is a very good unit and does everything I need in comparison to the III. I actually bought a second one to leave at a rehearsal space but that fell through. I am going to sell it as I don't need two of them. Will be posting in the classifieds sometime today or tomorrow. That being said, my main FM9 is going nowhere.

 

[grrr_me_scary]

Yes, it started life as 1/2 sheet of 3/4” plywood.

I found this used rolling case on line for $50, refoamed it for another $50.

The space over the foot controller, in the case, is actually storage box as well.

View attachment 361799

View attachment 361802

View attachment 361805

The rear door has a 6” exhaust fan.

View attachment 361808

This is the cubby hole behind the expression pedals, sneakers just to give size prospective:

View attachment 361811
View attachment 361814

You did such a great job on building this box especially with all of the extremely useful things that you included.

And thanks for providing an explanation for the reason the shoes were in there

 

[Bronco]

Apparently this thing is showing up tomorrow? Damn fast shipping.

This has kicked my ass in gear a bit. I've been meaning to put together a new space for my guitars and set up the monitors I bought over a year ago and haven't used. Just cleared the needed space out in the corner of my living room and bought a set of stands off Amazon that should be coming tomorrow. With the speakers against opposing walls in a corner and set on stands to head height (I only play standing up) I hope I'm able to get a really awesome stereo image.

Thinking more about the rest of this board. I think I'm going to stick with Temple Audio and get the Duo 34. That way I can reuse the modules I already have. The patchbay will be used the same way as my current board: Instrument input, send, return and MIDI (via TRS) to amp. And of course I can build on this, adding a set of XLR outputs, a headphone out and a USB out. As a bedroom player I don't really need any of this of course, I can just have my shit all on the floor, but I do like to have everything tidy and organized, and avoid extra wear on the device's ports.

I'm also shopping around for expression pedals. The Mission Engineering stuff is appealing to me most. I'd like to have two, one as a dedicated wah and one for general expression. For the wah, I love the look of their raw metal model, it reminds me of the Wylde Wah:

I could just use my Morley, but if I'm going this route I might as well get my wahs from the FM9 too and take full advantage of the tweakability. Plus I prefer the look of a traditional wah enclosure, especially this bad motherfucker. I will for sure get the spring loaded version though, with auto engage it should feel like my Morley. I don't like the switch to engage a wah, but maybe I could get the switch version and use it to change channels on the Wah block - channel A being a normal wah with auto-engage, channel B being parked at the sweet spot. But then I wouldn't have the spring, so I could just park the wah where I want it anyway. Hm.

For general expression I'm thinking just getting a regular switchless springless version.

The whole thing is very exciting. Tearing down my board and selling it piece by piece is going to be a drag, and I don't know how hard it's gonna be to sell the board itself or some of the odder items, but I'm so looking forward to being able to plug and play.

Make sure you download the Fractal edit software...this is a must! Everything is super intuitive and gives you immediate ability to tweak as necessary without breaking your back.

 

[GreatRedDragon]

If you can avoid selling your tube amps, don't sell them. Tube amps have their own attraction to me, even though I own an Axe FXIII and a Quad Cortex.

First of all, the sound that modellers all strive to achieve is that of a tube amp. Yes, you can go places where a tube amp can't with a modeller, but a tube amp sound still has a unique character that modellers cannot achieve imho.

Second, playing a tube amp is far better than playing a modeller. Data provided by modeller companies show us that there is always latency when we play through one. I believe it is about 2ms for both the QC and Axe FXIII and about 3ms for the Kemper.

A tube amp, on the other hand, has zero latency. Touch the strings and the amp responds. I like to describe the feeling of playing a tube amp as being a tactile experience in which you get an immediate response when you play, as opposed to modellers due to the need to go through the digital pathway.

This is most easily experienced if you palm mute very fast in a staccato fashion. With a tube amp, you'll feel the immediacy, with a modeller, you'll feel the latency. It is very low, but try A/B comparing and you should be able to discern it.

Third, tube amps tend to sound very raw and organic and rude. whereas modellers tend to sound more smooth and polished. This could be a plus or a minus to you.

This is just my experience, others may say that modellers sound exactly like tube amps. I should caveat that I am basing my claim on running a tube amp into a cabinet. I just don't get, or am unable to get, a similar sound from running my modellers into my PS-2 and then into a cabinet. It's a great tone, make no mistake, but it is very polished and refined. And yes, that can be an awesome thing.

Modellers do have a lot going for them though. They are much more portable. They also have in-built FX. And signal routing is far simpler. And there are so many in-built models in them, that you may find an amp that you really love and want to try out in real life.

Also, the Axe FXIII makes a great pairing with a tube amp, which is what I think you were initially aiming for when you said you wanted to try out the 4CM. I have my PS-2 and Suhr RL permanently hooked up to one of the inputs of my Axe FXIII, and I have a long cable that allow me to plug into the input of any amp from one of the sends of my Axe FXIII.

This allows me to have a drive, noise gate, compressor, or whatever in front of the amp and other stuff after the preamp and power amp. I also use the Axe FXIII for a cabinet, EQ, reverb, delay and whatnot.

Superb device, I can't recommend it highly enough.

But don't sell your amps if you can help it. That would be my 2 cents.

Yeah I have no plans of giving up my tube amps, but I am very curious to A/B them with the models.

 

[GreatRedDragon]

I am impressed.

Very, very impressed.

Actually blown away, and that's just running through the factory presets. I can only imagine what treasures await me when I dive into the software.

 

[chumbucket]

I am impressed.

Very, very impressed.

Actually blown away, and that's just running through the factory presets. I can only imagine what treasures await me when I dive into the software.

I remember when I first got my AxeIII and I was only using headphones after initially powering it up, and I didn't even change presets for an hour because I was just having so much fun on the #1 59 Bassman patch.

 

[GreatRedDragon]

I continue to be erect.

I decided to make an EVH-style preset. It would give me a chance to test multiple effects, more amps, their channel switching functions, rack effects, complicated routing, and control layouts.

This is what I came up with:

Going down the chain, first up is an Auto-Swell. I wanted to see if I could get the FM9 to do the volume swelling. It's not quite there, I have to dial more in. Phaser and Flanger are the MXR emulations and they sound fucking spot-on. I especially like that the flanger doesn't reset the LFO when it's bypassed, something that has failed me in other sims. Ring Mod is used to create a monophonic octave pedal and it sounds pretty dead-on, at least for what I'm into. The chorus is the CE-2 model - I like that it includes low and high cuts, to better emulate the CE-5. For this one I copied Ed's settings straight from the board and it got the perfect Pretty Woman tone. It's a great sounding chorus. The drive pedal is tape distortion, sort of aiming for the vein of an Echoplex Preamp (so far this is the most glaring omission from the effects library). It adds beautiful warm saturation and a nice boost. Finally, the first delay block is a mono tape echo set for 300ms.

In the amp I have four channels set up. A is the FAS Stealth Blue model, which as I understand it is their old version of their 5153 Stealth Blue channel model, resurrected for popular demand. It sounds amazing. Channels B and C are the 5153 Stealth Red and Green channels. And Channel D is the FAS Brown amp. From what I've read, the FAS models are "perfected" versions of classic amps, finetuned to better nail the idealized sounds. This amp also sounds fantastic. I have it set up with a Sat switch, an upfront boost and an 8-band EQ at input dialed for the classic frowny setting. The amount of tweakability is absurd. The cab is one of the stock 5153 4x12 IRs.

The post-FX are where I had the most fun. The mixer block makes balancing multiple paths so easy. Dry goes straight to the mixer. For the detuning, I found an amazing block that just straight up replicates the H3000 and Ed's preset. Zero dialing in, just dropped it in and the sound was there. The raw pitch sound goes into the mixer, and then feeds two different ambient lines. The MultiTap delay has another found block, a PCM70 circular delay. I tweaked the times to be based on Ed's own PCM70 time (424ms) and maxed the mix out to create a massive sounding Cathedral sound. The Delay block has a dual digital delay based on Ed's settings for his SDE-3000s, with channels A, B and C having different times. I used the low and high band filters and the bit reduction to get more of that vintage digital sound. The other ambient line is the London Plate reverb with the same low and high cuts, as well as an additional high cut filter in front - I found that comparing the two, the delay block was much darker.

For the looper, the dry and the detuned signals go into another mixer first, which is set to the same levels as the master mixer. This way the three voices are all captured in the loop, while the ambient lines process the recording.

With all the groundwork laid, I built four scenes: Blue, Red, Green and Gold. Simple.

Diving into the footswitches, I wanted to see what I could do with the per-preset layout. Turns out, a shitload. I'm using the OFM9G layout, but for this preset I used a PP switch to make the "Effects" switch take me to the "Per Preset" layout. On this layout, I made the button six switches match (mostly) Ed's actual switcher. From right to left: PHASE, FLANGE, OCTAVE, CHORUS, TAPE and DDLS. The first five are obvious. DDLS switches between the dual delay and the reverb, so I can switch between old school and new school Ed. I also tweaked the Scenes page for this layout, changing the first four switches to be GREEN, BLUE, RED and GOLD, with color-coding to match.

I'm probably going to make a scene for Cathedral specifically, and in that case I will use the "Effects" switch on the Per Preset page to activate it.

So yeah, I fucking love this thing and I've already started selling off pedals.

 

[justin]

Very nice. Care to share this on the axe exchange?

 

[GreatRedDragon]

Very nice. Care to share this on the axe exchange?

Maybe down the line when I've done more tweaking. My past experience tells me that as I continue to experiment my earliest presets will inevitably start to sound like shit. I want to play my Wolfgang through it and EQ based on that instead of my Les Paul. Right now the values are a little off.

My first goal now is to run my Sabbra Cadabra into it and dial in a power amp/IR combo that nails the Iommi sound. Then, see it I can match (or exceed) the pedal with the digital gear.

 

[Fusionbear]

Another successful FM9T and QSC CP12 gig in the books....

Even used my V for four No Doubt tunes:

 

[GreatRedDragon]

This just gets more and more fun...

Running my Wolfgang through my EVH patch, I noticed the amps (other than the FAS Brown) felt a bit stuff and congested... which is the exact same response I had to the 5150III I briefly had. So for starters, I just looked up Ed's live rig, replicated his amp settings on all three channels and voila, instead modern Eddie.

But I still wanted to see if I could get more of that Marshally, bouncy feel.... so I threw in a second block with the Brit Brown amp (FAS's update of the FAS Brown) and just copied all of the power amp settings to all four amps in my preset. EL34s, sag, speaker response, all of it. And amazingly, it did exactly what I'd hoped. These amps now sound and feel like Marshalls, but with the raging 5150 preamp. A little variac, a little post-EQ tweaking and it just fell into place.

I also wanted to try to replicate the three cab setup. I have a pack of York Audio 5150III IRs, so I set up two cab blocks: One is the dry, running one of the York mixes. The other feeds the wet, and has two of the York mixes panned hard left and right feeding the pitch detune. Now the sound is absolutely massive, with so much more character and depth.

So with this new trick in hand, I decided to try the same preset but with Soldano X88 amps. Stock, pretty good. But then I switched the power amps over to this Marshall-style, cranked the master and just BOOM. Balls upon balls, super uncanny early Zakk Wylde sound. I swapped the IRs for York T75 IRs, put an SD-1 in front of the amp and put a Boss Dimension C after the dry cab. It's crazy, it's a sound I've been chasing for 20 years.

I'm actually losing my mind right now. I still haven't run my amp through this thing, but I predict two possible outcomes: 1) The FM9's amp models are so good that I don't bother with the amp anymore.... or, 2) it sounds so fucking good my feet melt to the floor.

 

[GreatRedDragon]

So I finally integrated this thing with my DSL 100.

The results are... my feet are melted to the floor.

Interfacing with the DSL over MIDI is a breeze. Waaaaaay easier to configure than the ES-8 was.

As good as the FM9's amp models sound, the real amp still has an X factor for getting that Marshall sound. At the same time, the amp models that I've dug into so far are not at all "lesser alternatives" to my DSL, they are a complement to the colors I get with the Marshall. The X88 model is still blowing my dick right off. Anything I can't get with my real Marshall I can get with the FM9, and vice versa. And being able to switch between my real amp and the models in the same preset is just a mind blowing possibility to consider.

At this point I really need to get my 2203 up and running, because being able to pair that with the FM9's JC-120 model will get me the fucking exact combo I've dreamed of for 20 years.

The FM9 is one of the best gear purchases I've made in my life. I would say the only purchase I've made that's even better is my #1 guitar, a 1991 Gibson Les Paul Standard. My Les Paul and my FM9, they've got it.