Same. Felt clickbaited AF. Comparing it to Amp Sims plugins? WTF? Really? I thought he was gonna compare to other modelers or problems in dialing a good sound, editing, IR's, etc...
I had a AXE3, sold it and went back to amps and effects. After two weeks soldering cables, messing with hiss and hum I went back to Fractal and realized I was never happier in over 20 years of making music. Everyone should use what simply fits best for what’s needed.
Yeah when I see people putting together pedalboards with preamp and fx pedals I just think of the logistical nightmare vs having an FM3/FM9 or Helix etc... costs, effort and redundancies stack up... rather just a single modeller at that point.
Tried every amp sims, bought an fm3, i will never go back to plugins and here's why : -No need to endlessely search for the best amp model replica. They all sounds dope, -More convenient and stable than a laptop -Fast to use once it's set up properly -0 latency ( the feel is there when playing) -0 Artifacts -CPU free on computer -Effects quality is mind blowing. -Routing is nice. Plug in smartphone and a guitar and boom ready to backtrack wherever there is an sound system -It has everything a guitarist can dream of. No need to hunt plugins after plugin.
If you are only recording and mixing this makes more sense, but in a playing scenario Its convenient to have a physical unit. Otherwise you will need a computer and a sound card and some way to change sounds
Agreed. This was my reaction. His argument makes a lot of sense if the use is primarily for recording. As someone who mostly focuses on live playing, I’ll almost certainly never go another route. The consistency of tone and performance is just too good.
Buying Kemper or Axe-Fx is no longer the "only way" if you want quality. It also depends on whether you are a touring musician or just recording. The plugins are great, they keep getting better, but I didn't regret keeping Kemper, because the new Liquid Profiling is very cool.
Part of me wants to hoard every single digital unit from old zoom pedals through to the modern stuff, I appreciate it all. Kempers are a steal on the second hand market atm and I want to get my hands on the liquid stuff (might borrow one off a friend). I’m hoping all the big hardware guys start offering vst options of their sims that will truly open up the hybrid options!
If you think about it, since Kemper was released in 2011, they have been constantly updating and improving the software, it has gotten better and better without they wanted to sell me a Kemper 2-3-4 every couple of years. :) I agree with what you said about the reamp, although now with Kemper's USB audio function, this is easier. I haven't tried it yet. Anyway, thanks for your recent "Peavey 6505+ vs STL Amphub 6505+" video. I have a couple of STL plugins (Tonality stuff) however this subscription thing (AmpHub) is not my world but I liked the 6505+ sound so much that I bought a couple of individual amps. 👍
This is why I love my stomp XL, bought Helix Native for 50 and use the DI from the stomp midi to record + native to reamp, while also I can take the exact same tone on my stomp to gigs.
If you have to record dry then use plugins to tweak the sound later then you don't need hardware. BUT...if you want to commit to a sound and print it then hardware is great and you can take it with you to the gig. That only applies to those who record and play live. If you are only recording then plugins are fine though I tend to use the stand alone version of the plugin, route the output to a virtual channel on the interface and commit to the sound on the way in. This saves me from having to worry about low latency monitoring.
This is a totally valid take on workflow with the Fractal. I agree these are all areas that I would love to see improvement. Like a Fractal plugin like helix native
if i was only using amps and only in a recording situation, i kinda understand what you are saying. but really, my fm3 solved so many issues for tour and has saved me so much headache and money really. to the point that both guitarists in both my bands also picked one up after i grabbed mine. it just makes sense for cutting down on weight and risk when it comes to live shows.
Before getting my fm9 i thought the sounds would be the most convincing for me, but after replacing every piece of physical gear except my guitar, this thing solved nearly everything. No more worries about patchcables going bad on the pedalboard, connectors breaking and causing buzzing, no more pedals breaking and needing a replacement. No more writing knob-positions on pieces of tape to keep the sounds. No more tweaking stuff between songs. I could've gotten the same with any other modeler (kemper, neural QC, helix, ...) but the flexibility of this thing, and the support you get from the community is unmatched.
Oh man, I hear ya on the pain of the aussie dollar and the forever quest of guitar gear! Question for you - with money (and space) not being the primary concern, would you take an amp sim or an amp? The reason I ask, is that I have captorx and plexi and the tone is really good - also, basically plug and play. For the life of me, I can't get as good a quality tone out of a plugin compared to the real thing, and it's not because I don't want to - I really want to love them! For example, I have the Neural SLO, SWorks, Amplitube, etc... and they are "ok", but no matter what I try, it's always lacking something, I can't put my finger on it (maybe it's in my head). I'm thinking about putting some cash down on second hand recto or 5150, but before I do, I wanted to ask if you had an "aha" moment that changed the way you feel about amp sims?
If you want to really nerd out over this stuff I'd suggest joining the Discord server in the link cause theres some guys on there which know more than me about this stuff. But I think the main questions are how are you using this stuff, just on headphones/speakers or are you comparing some kind of "in the room sound" on the amp vs the sims? I know exactly what you mean there seems to be this untouchable quality that a real amp has. The weird thing is I'll try an amp sim for a while and it sounds "fine"... then I'll try the real amp version and then im like "there it is, thats the sound". But then I'll do a comparison and I can barely tell the comparison apart so its like what is the difference? I've also heard some people say the immediacy of using an amp where there is 0 lag (speed of sound lag) vs even 8-20ms delay using digital, apparently even that small delay is enough to throw some people off. It's highly possible that when all sounds are equal something like this delay is one of the x factors of why something feels different. Back to amp sim vs amp... if money and space wasnt an issue even if I had a wall of amps here I would still use the amp sims first to write music because it just makes more sense. If I was crafting some kind of unique tone with some chorus/delay etc I would ideally have a baller pedal board and I'd use an amp to mess around. I'd then probably digitally recrate that because those effects are just better synced in the DAW than trying to track real time effects. Once I'm done tracking I would then reamp everything through real amps. There are times where I just wanna play guitar and firing up an amp just has a great feel so its almost like productivity I'm taking amp sims, feel and vibe i'm going amps... what a problem to have :)
I have the deepest respect for fractal and will inevitably grab an axe3 or axe4 if it comes out. But the blinders the fractal community have are pretty insane. It’s hard to deny how easy, fun and approachable a quad cortex or tonemaster pro is in comparison. Things might be lacking 1-5% in the realm of authenticity but it takes no time to build a rock solid patch with effects and dial in the tone you want. The usability of a quad cortex with the in depth modelling of a fractal would be my utopia, but I equally like what the others are doing out there
Completely agree. I really wanted to love my FM3 .. i sold my Kemper for one because i kinda just got bored of using other people's profiles/Lack of effects also more bad profiles than good on that unit. And well i was really underwhelmed in terms of sound on specific amps and overwhelmed in terms of use to be honest. Don't get me wrong it sounded great! And I got some really good tones out of it , But i found myself playing Around/Tweaking with it more than playing Guitar or Recording. It was just so annoying to navigate without a laptop/PC also.. In the end i got rid of it and went for a HX stomp as that thing was just so easy to use and inspiring! And even loading decent IR's onto the stomp when i had the FM3 next to the HX stomp comparing, i immediately sold the FM3 as i could not justify the price difference to sound. In the end i grew bored of the lack of amps in the HX unit and i now use ToneX and it's been an absolutely game changing pedal for me. I leave it packed up on my board to take to rehearsals and when i record i just use the ToneX Software as you don't need to plug the pedal into your PC/interface to use the software, It's seriously awesome. But it has no effects.. So i am maybe thinking about buying an FM3 or even an Axe 2 to run just for effects and sit in my studio, As that was one good thing i could say about the Fractal stuff! The effects are second to none when set up.
I am thinking about buying the FM3 (I currently own the HX Stomp and Native and I am super happy with the UI) because I really would like to have more amps than the HX stomp gives me. There are some oppurtinities nowadays -> the new Mooer GE 1000? Tonex? as an alternative. How many high-gain amps are available as stock in the tonex? Do you think it sounds at least as good as the FM3? In addition I have to say, I need the unit only for recording. Can you use the Tonex pedal as an interface? What would you recommend?
@@scentia_est Tonex sounds better than FM3, but remember.. it's capture technology.. ability to tweak the tones is limited. Digital modelling is inferior but you can tweak and tweak and tweak.
Sold a rig years ago for a AxeFx2 XL+ Loved this device more than anything id ever owned Had to sell it years ago to finance a large move me and my wife made and have missed it for years Recently i have sold 20+ pedals and a Mesa Mark V 35 for a AxeFx3 and have zero regrets The fractal for a home a studio is the single greatest piece of gear ive ever owned
yeah the fractal stuff is pretty crazy, if I could only have one piece of processing I would also grab an axe3. But once I started putting funds into analog routings/reamps/amps/pedals it started to be less and less relevant to have a digital amp... but as a one stop shop its crazy good. Even with all of this I still flip flop back and forth on getting an axe3.... if they announce an axe4 I'll preorder one no question and just keep it for the lifetime but right now for top dollar its a bit hard (especially when i'm still acquiring other gear)
I got to have hardware! there's just something about flipping a switch on and you know those sweet metal lead tones are right there at your disposal. And I can take my pedal board with my on the go. Software sims just seem like audio slavery to me based on ease of use only to control you in the end, AI with the end user being the addicted junky! As they'll probably get everyone hooked on them and then jack the price up to use them, that's what I see coming. I think this guy to me is an studio engineer/musician where its more important he be able to tweak with different tones with his dry signal. I use my HX Stomp as FX ONLY and chain a cheap Zoom G1on into it dramatically increasing power and lowering latency with a dedicated DSP one for amp & cabs, booster and noise gate and the other for audio interface and its FX. Plus I get a 44.1 to 48khz sampling rate conversion 1.5- 2ms latency. All I need is 1 killer metal lead tone, I use it for everything! For blues I back off gain, for ballads I back off gain slightly for neo-classical metal I crank it to 10! Revo-1 Krank amp all the way!
Cool vid , I find not having to fire up the CPU actually a net positive…and cuts my GAS for buying more pedals. You mentioned you use REAPER , I don’t use a DAW , is that what you’d recommend for a simple guitar workflow ?
Yeah it’s pretty straight forward to get up and running and if you ever have problems there’s endless workarounds and customisations available, highly recommend
It’s all in the video but the quality of sims is great these days and they can be tweaked in real time. If I’m going to the effort of reamping I might as well use my amps pedals and loadbox not a digital unit. No knock on the unit at all I’ve just amassed analog gear so for my “digital” solution sims are quicker, workflow is a lot better
I use all of it. Something like the FM9 is nice because you can have patches that match songs. It also has a Setlist feature. Thing is, they are all different. Sonically, they can all get close. Plug ins will require a midi controller to change presets. FM9 gives you gobs of power and 9 buttons to press. My pedal board is GREAT but I cannot change a complex patch with a single press. FM9 is consistent- you will know exactly what tone(s) you are getting. To record, I use Reaper and Neural DSP. For mucking around in my other room, I use a pedalboard. I essentially have two boards- one acoustic and one electric. My Godin has both outputs so I can blend- sounds epic. I use a Trio+ that adds drums and bass. Cymbals sounds best out of studio monitors- not guitar amps so I have two monitors using a AB/Y pedal on the acoustic side of the house.
Some nice setups there... and yeah I think everything shines in the right time and place. FM3/9 great for gigging, NDSP great as amp sims in Reaper etc, nice one.
Bro i went same path as you. I''ve sold Fm3 after 2 years. And now i have Mw1 Studio Tool, Red Seven, UCX II, Evh Stealth 100 and couple of last 6505. But the question is do you clipping with UCX II instrument inputs 3/4 when recording DI? My UCX II is clipping with gain at 0 when i strumming hard. Even with passive pickups.
Hahaha what are the chances like exact setup 😂. Nah mines fine, I have it set to 13dbu on 0 gain with instrument checked and passives are fine (even when chugging crazy). You can try 19dbu and it should knock it down a bit. Worst case from there you can uncheck instrument in rme total mix and it should go down even more. Very strange it’s that loud for you in the first place
@@ampspedalspickups I'am on the +19 dbu mode already. I posted that issue on Rme forum. But didnt get any good solution. Btw i also have mesa 4x12 and peavey invective. My invective crushing any other amps in the mix even Stealth. But u have to spend some time to dial that amp. It's very tricky cos of that master boost knob, post gain knob etc. Thx for the answer Bro!
@@thanos4480 I low key want an invective, stealth 100, el34 100. It’s so irrational but the lineup is just too good. I’m in the process of moving house and will be back up and running in a week or so but man… moving with a bunch of amps and audio stuff is not a great time
I just got the FM3 MKII and loving it. Could you elaborate on what you mean about the workflow issue with it? Seems it would help streamline the process for recording. Dial in tones on your monitors and just record. Can run an amp track and a DI for re-amping. Curious to know if I am missing something you have direct experience with.
Its all in the video but it basically boils down to if I want to use a digital amp then an amp sim via VST in the daw is quicker and easier because you can change the tone on the fly. 90% of the time I would never dial in an FM3 amp sound that fit as perfectly as I'd like in the mix so it meant reamping the DI back into the FM3 which added time to the process. It also meant I was constantly recording DI + Wet into the DAW whereas if I'm using an amp sim its DI only (nothing major but less tracks is neater). If I'm going to reamp things I have now built up my collection to have real amps and a loadbox, so there's joy in that process. When all I had was the FM3 its a super capable unit and I still love it, but once you have a bunch of amp sims and a bunch of real gear it just puts the FM3 square in the middle of things, its like the worst parts of analog recording and digital recording from a workflow point of view. This can also be said for the kemper / quad cortex / any digital unit. I'm hoping Fractal will have SOME kind of vst intgeration even if it needs to be paired with hardware... if that happens I'm grabbing their stuff in an instant, love it
I've never been able to use an amp sim with as little latency as any of the modelers/profilers have (Kemper, Fractal, Quad Cortex, etc.), so it's been hard for me to adjust to how a plugin feels when I'm playing through one.
This is actually one of the most legitimate points to having a hardware modeller! I’m used to the mild 8-12ms or whatever is added but some amp sims that chew up a bit more it can throw me off I know tube guys who just can’t adjust to the most micro of delay so that’s a super valid point. I guess the reamping trade off there is worthwhile if you’re gonna get a better performance from the guitarist in the end
For me, the issue of latency is an “everytime I launch it” thing. For all of neural’s plugins, I have to adjust the sample rate, then adjust it, then switch it back and the latency goes back down. It’s stupid.
It's why such few people choose vst for live performance. It's just dumb and then you got an OS to deal with behind it. I have all the things mentioned in the video. And vst will not be coming with me to gigs.
@@azzazelo yeah... I know there's a few "pioneers" running NAM pc rigs live (little computers or tablets)... Just not my vibe at all. A modeller/poweramp solution or Amp Setup/Pedalboard is the way to go for me as well
great points, it ultimately comes down to your needs and workflow it draws some parallel to when i had 8-9 analog synths for my retrowave project running midi out to them, recording the signal, after which the tone is set in stone, before jumping to all in the box for the same reasons (recall, retweakable, faster etc..) the analog synths however did need less post processing and sounded good off the bat fast forward to guitar and recording, i actually ended up selling a lot of amps after our last recording session with Drogher (gojira esque modern metal band I'm in) as they weren't really giving a lot of extra benefit (with quad tracked reamped guitars through different sources) not to mention the routing and time implications the one thing I'll say with Fractal is that i really like the hardware only stance with what feels like 100% of their resources going into the continuing update and improvement of a device that isn't cheap but rock solid, stable extremely tweakable and road tested, as opposed to what it appears Neural Dsp has going on where there's constant plugin releases and slow updates and releases on flagship hardware device (3 years for an editor, amps / updates etc.. ), I've been an avid FM3 user since buying it in 2022 for use with the band, very curious to see how things further develop in fractal land there are so many incredible plugins out there these days, the real difficulty is in figuring out which tone(s) and features you really need and want, but therein lies the tone chasing mysterium that drives us all as guitarists 😄 the difficulty with plugins being that spending small amounts on plugins or IRs for that matter really adds up after a while, and you can't always resell the plugin (depending on the licence of course) unlike hardware
I’m definitely a fractal fanboy at heart. It would be amazing if they brought out their stuff as a plugin suite. I’m still on the fence about picking up an axe3 or just holding out and grabbing an axe4, it’s all wants and not needs so we’ll see how the year pans out. If they do announce a 4 I’ll happily grab it on launch cause I only it’ll be supported for 10+ years
@@ampspedalspickups for sure, a pluginsuite would be incredible i think an fx3 would potentially put you currently in the same boat as now with regards to routing/reamping/cabling etc.. but it's a 'quicker' reamp if that makes sense, depending on how much difference you perceive or see between using the real amps and plugins/modelling for tones, it could be an idea, the non turbo units mk1 are priced quite decently, from what i've seen, and selling the amps you might still own i just kept my vht deliverance, bought a suhr reactive load for doing reamping if/when, and also for my youtube videos , when i'll try different amps i'd also grab a 4 on launch (or at least the FM4 if/when) that being said i've dialed my main preset in to a such an extent, not sure what can really be improved outside of resolution/nuance within the amp model/tone , that was the biggest upgrade for me going from an ax8 which i didn't keep too long to an FM3
Fractal makes great stuff but their UI drives me crazy. Trying to navigate the FM3 without a computer is an exercise in frustration. If they release a unit like the FM3 that's as simple to use as the Quad Cortex, they'd wipe the floor with the competition. Maybe like a "basic UI mode" where you get the same type of usability as a QC / Helix, and then a "Pro Mode" where you get the typical deep dive settings they usually offer. They have solid development behind what they do, their devices sound great and are built really well.
Former and probably soon-to-be-again FM3 owner here. Sold my FM3 for financial reasons, and am now doing that thing where I spend hours hunting down the gear I would "need" for all the tones I want. Just doing the math on wanting basically 5 different sounds (VHT Deliverance, Diezel VH-4, JCM 800/Friedman BE, Something Fender-y, Something chimey − all available in the FM3) I already would have to applying for a part-time job to afford it all. Now I'm asking myself if, instead of choosing the ease of plug-ins, I should choose to learn how to get the tones right for the track before I start recording and then do what they did pre- "best time ever to be a guitarist" and live with the tones I print. If I have to reamp, then so be it, but that would be a good time to use a plug-in or two on the DI track (I record like you do). The one advantage of having my guitar tones generated outside my computer is that I never have to be worried about CPU load. Especially when, as happened to me last year, my computer just couldn't handle two Neural DSP plug-ins running on top of Superior Drummer and a very few choice EQ and compressor plug-ins.
Yeah I feel that for sure. A couple pedals to try and cobble something together and you’re almost at the price of an fm3, it’s pretty crazy I’ve been eyeing down an axe3 for similar reasons so never say never
@@ampspedalspickups 100% about the price. Also, assuming I don't wait for end-of-year sales, the cost of, say, 5 Neural plug-ins is not insignificant and I need to factor in the cost of the computer I'm using. In any event, best time ever to be a guitarist.
Maybe i'm wrong, but it seems that getting a better sound through an amp sim on your generic PC running through some generic USB audio interface isn't really a fair comparison? The FM3 is purpose built for everything in it? isn't it going to be a guaranteed better sound/experience?
I guess it’s all situational. I’ve got an RME which is hardly a generic interface. I’m also running a dedicated DI/reamp box which helps with getting a crisp DI then that signal goes through the RME which is very decent/good in the interface world. From an AD/DA point of view I’m sure this surpasses the fm3 but to be honest even low mid to mid grade audio devices now are all great so it’s kind of a moot point. Then you look at the processing, at the end of the day the fm3 stuff is just algorithms and modelling just like a plugin it’s all code. Yes the fractal stuff is great but sims have come a long way and the gap between them can be small/non existent. I’d say where the fractal shines is the amount of tweaking that can be done. But if you pull up a great sounding 5150 sim it’s not like the fractal will be “better”. It will have more flexibility in mangling it but that doesn’t equate to more fidelity or anything it’s just flexible The purpose built thing makes sense if you’re gigging, I wouldn’t use sims and a pc for gigging so yeah the fm3 is far superior for that setup. But like I said in the video with the fm3 or any hardware modeller you need to reamp tones in real time vs plugins which can be tweaked on the fly I love the fractal stuff but I basically went from having an fm3 only to a bunch of amps, pedals for analog recordings as well as a bunch of plugins which sound indistinguishable from the fm3 in a recording (and is easier and faster to work with). So the reason to hold onto the fm3 was hard to rationalise
Good to hear a different perspective on the Fractal gear. I have a fairly extensive pedalboard so was considering the FM3 for the convenience taking to jams etc. By the sounds of what you are saying, the FM3 is good for that purpose.
The fractal gear is so robust, absolute top choice for that use. Helix would probably be second best mainly cause you have more options with size and price, either would great (I’d prefer the fm3 overall).
I feel like you want it to do something it’s not intended to do. You really can’t argue that it’s not a good VST when it’s not a VST at all. The argument should be that you like it a lot as a stand alone, and to take it over the top the fractal company should think about creating a VST for consumers to buy. You could have your exact argument for any digital processor out there.. but they are not meant for what you’re trying to do. It seems like you have a lot of knowledge behind the subject, I can’t understand why you’d take the time to negatively review a product for a service the company never intended it for.
The FM3 is a great product but the takeaway is that I started my setup and the fm3 did everything. But after buying tons of equipment and amps/pedals I had the real thing and was using it less. That’s more of a “my needs have changed” more than there’s anything wrong with the FM3.
Have you tried Dyna cab ? I was also with you But dyna cab changed fm3 entirely other gear. Fm3 's cab had its own sound over - blanket feel i hated But dyna cab is real game changer It makes guitar and effects sound As if dream 65 , iridium Real feel Already sold ? You should really try dynacab it could change your mind really
Yeah I did a video on dynacabs, it’s a really great addition but there’s also software solutions doing the same thing like “mikko2”. It’s crazy the amount of stuff Cliff keeps adding into these units, such a legend
Depends on your workflow, mindset. It can be liberating and more productive to commit to a sound, plug-ins sound good but are a bit limited and seem to cater for the most part to high gain , not found one that competes with fractals lower gain, it always sounds a bit crap. if you just do metal and only need one sound then ok, but it’s not inspiring and your going to be boxed in with using the same sounds project to project, Having the amazing signal chain effects in one unit is better than using a plugin with other plugins on your inserts. You don’t need to load up your DAW to pick up and play and come up with a new song or riff. Then there’s Latency too, and if your using other effects plugins that are part of the sound the latency goes up considerably. I have some cool plug-in amps but I find they are completely redundant, I’ll occasionally use them on other instruments like synths for a weird lo-fi flavour. For guitars, plugins are a no go for me.
Yeah there’s some really good points there. I guess for me the fm3 tones OR amp sims are a first wave placeholder. From there I can either massaging them into a quick mix or reamp through the amps and pedals I have here. So if I was chasing a quick mix I can alter the amp sim super quickly or if I’m after max quality then I’ll go through the reamping process with real amps and pedals. If fractal had some sort of vst host it would really tip the scales in that direction for me again cause everything else the fm3 does it top notch and hasn’t been matched by amp sims yet
@@chopholtz4950 I’d originally planned to do 30 videos in 30 days but that was just way too intense I might plan it better for next year. I had the s gear stuff on my hit list, softube and a few others that I didn’t get around to here. I’ll still probably do a video on it but I’ll try and give amp sims a break for a bit, got a bunch of pedals and amps to look at 💪
I sold my AX8 for the same exact reasons. But it was also frustrating live since it was impossible to have consistent sound, unless you use always the same power-amp and speakers (or bring your own FRFR speakers everywhere). Having to edit presets on a rush during sound check because the backline changed is very stressful (going in and out of menus and all). Sounds kind of obvious, but I found out the hard way in my case. Now I am using plugins with my DAW and a small-ish pedaltrain for gigs.
Yeah the fractal stuff is not super "tweak on the fly" friendly... especially in a time sensitive setting like "you have 2 minutes before you play" haha.
Purchased it last Christmas but still haven’t got around to use it for a gig. Takes too much time to program it to my tastes. I hope I get around it soon. The fact that it has no dedicated volume pedal block is another reason.
Such an amazing unit but yeah you really need to make patches on the computer and not on the device. From memory you can use an eq block and only use the gain portion as a volume block workaround
Your workflow with the fm3 doesn't need to be so complicated. The fm3 is a full blown interface that supports reamping. here is a fractal friday explaining how. ua-cam.com/video/QRljWRlLwyY/v-deo.html Although I do agree that using a plugin is a bit easier for tweaking because you can tweak at anytime without having the hardware plugged in. I have helix native for that if needed. Sometimes I will record with the fractal amp sims, then use native to facilitate the wet effects in a recording. It all depends on what you need - but reamping in the FM3 doesn't need to be complicated at all. I love my analog gear and use it quite often but I am a huge fan of the FM3 - and with the recent gap-less update the fractal is clearly the most versatile modeler - even compared to the QC in my opinion. My fm3 typically sits on my desk - for me it's been a tool that helps me practice more. I don't need to setup my pedals or amps or turn on the pc to get a quick practice in. And the models are Pristine.
As far as I could see running 2 interfaces at once in windows had its fair share of problems so people just use one or the other. If I only used one interface at a time I'd need to switch my speaker monitors between the two, or buy a switch which has its own problems. I have a full reamp setup here anyway so there's not really a benefit using the FM3 as the interface for reamping, I can just use analog and its fine. For me my computer is always on, firing up reaper and an amp sim takes like 10 seconds so its not a big deal getting that going, horses for courses I guess. Yeah fractal definitely still has that special sauce over every other modeller (software or hardware). I'll definitely be incorporating the inevitable axefx4 into my setup here. Its just hard to justify an axefx3 when I have so much digital and analog gear around here but never say never. If I'd bought the axe3 I would have kept it for all the I/O and a few other things... the FM3 just was in a weird spot. If I was doing any sort of jamming or gigging I would have kept it around but it kind of just didnt make sense. There's still days I miss it but eh, gear comes and goes... great unit!
@@ampspedalspickups there a many ways to skin a cat. I just don’t think it’s fair to knock the fm3 because of specific “needs”. Reamping isn’t for everyone but it’s a lot simpler than you described with the fm3. It’s all about your workflow. In fact, if you wanted to put fractal modeling in your studio and not dish out axefx3 money, it’s completely reasonable to buy an fm3, wire it up for reamping and hide it in a drawer.
There's no way to magically make the reamping setup easier... you can digital reamp which isn't viable for me because I already use a different interface and hopping ports isn't a solution / getting a switcher isnt a good solution for me either. It's still reamping in real time like an amp and if im going to reamp in real time then I'll just real amps. When I use digital stuff I would ideally like the instant nature of a vst. Pair all that with the fm3 had limited I/O for the studio, no impedence options on the inputs, it was noisy for 4cm setups compared to the fm9 and axe3 and I could also sell it at a time that I didnt lose any money after owning it for 2+ years. If I was gigging and wanted a beast tone machine then the FM3 is the way to go but for what I'm doing around here it just didn't make sense because I already have a good analog setup with amps as well as endless amp sims in vst, it always kind of sat in the middle. One of the best things on the FM3 was trying out the new firmware and I'd rather get an axe3 because it obviously gets flagship firmware updates, has more ports, better for 4cm and more horsepower for things like dual amps, and also it has the tone match block that the FM3 didnt have. The FM3 is great but it didnt work for me and I shared a video about it, not sure whats hard to understand haha. If it works for you then great.
Something to consider as well: really good analog pedals and amps do not really drop in price overtime, while the modelling digital processors do and quite significantly.
Amp pricing is dependant on "what's the flavor of the month." I'm probably a bit older than you - back in the 80's when Marshall came out with the master volume JCM800's, the earlier Super Leads were available for dirt cheap. I picked my favorite 50 watt Super Lead up for just under 100 UKP. I sold that same amp after moving to the US for $2,500. I just didn't need it anymore and didn't want that sound. Valvestate heads were cheaper used than a BOSS distortion pedal but when the crazy folks from the land of Vikings did their brand of metal they went for silly money and now they're back around you can find them a garage sales for cheap. Some of the more expensive amps that are associated with a particular band or style, they'll always hold their price, until that band moves onto something else. What'll be interesting is when people realize that they don't need a 100 watt or even 50 watt head and that the 25 watt and lower heads can keep up with a drummer and provide enough balls to play metal, or whatever your favorite style of music is, with - I have a small Mesa Mark V 25 and it replaced the Super Lead. I don't think that those 100 watt beasts will be as popular as they are now for much longer... I remember carrying Ampeg cabs upstairs and Marshall oversized 4x12's. Screw that for a game of soldiers...
The FM3 is a tool, tell everyone there is no one way to go. Have several amps and will keep them. The FM3 is a fantastic thing to have. Use only three buttons and it sounds fantastic. Quick setup for gigs with just a few seconds to set up, and at home get the best quiet tones imaginable.
@@ampspedalspickups people want a one thing only and sell all of the gear they have to get it. Keep a good amp, in my case kept my JVM, Jubillee and BE-100 knowing the FM3 is an option, got a Headrush 112 for it again knowing for home use, gigs that come up quick with five bands on the bill , or any need for an amazing sounding and light rig. It is invaluable.
I loved the unit to just dip my toes in other ponds. I always felt it was 95% there but not all the way - didn't hit home really as a real amp does. That said, when gen 4 comes around I'll be grabbing the whatever the next floor modeler Fractal puts out. ATM, I'm also enjoying plugins and NAM
Pretty much identical to my thoughts as well. Depending what they do I'd even be more inclined to grab the rack unit cause I have a rack setup here now and the routing limitations on the FM3 definitely contributed towards it being a bit of a sore thumb when it came to workflow.
I reached a similar conclusion. I sold my Fractal; I bought it for use as a DI because I didn't know there were other choices. As my studio skills improved, I invested in a Mac Mini pro (M2 chip with 12 cores) running LogicProX. It ran silly circles around the Fractal unit, IMO. I keep it all in the box, now. The factory Logic guitar amps and effects are actually quite good once you learn how to adjust them. 3rd party plug ins take it to an even higher level. I don't have any latency or tracking issues whatsoever, and I feel everything just sounds better and gels like it should. I use a simple Neve RNDI into an RME interface. Nothing fancy. Granted, I don't gig, but if I did, I'd find a solution.
The fractal modelling is truly best in class... the problem is the gap has significantly closed (and will continue to do so). So the reasons to get one are smaller and smaller as time passes. I'm sure I'll pick up their units over and over again its just the nature of the beast there's always a bigger better thing. But yeah for the average/seasoned person a decent computer, interface and DI is all you need to have world class recordings at your fingertips.
Logic Pro is a DAW. How does it "run circles around the Fractal unit"? The FM3 is a portable unit. I can carry it with two fingers from my bedroom to my living room to my car to my cabin to a gig, etc. VSTi plugins in a DAW still sound crappy. It works for a band like NIN because the industrial sound works with that broken tone. A band like Polyphia uses plugins, and has some of the worst single coil tones I've ever heard, if they switched to Fractal their tone would be amazing.
@@NytronX You're comparing the portability/versatility of two very different things. Read my comment again. I made it clear I was not gigging. But you do realise they are BOTH software based, right? I was speaking about the DI experience, and that's where you CAN compare the two. It's the software. VST, Plugins, doesn't matter. What matters is the way they are executed and used. While I think "most" players will get the better performance out of a Fractal (over a DAW), it's because most players haven't invested heavily in high end recording gear. But even in terms of processing alone, an M2 or M3 chip crushes the DSP in a fractal. A really good recording interface and/or outboard gear has noticeably lower latency compared to a Fractal and further reduces processing in the main chipset. Then there is the whole visual interface- I'd clearly prefer the fast and gorgeous graphical views of the Logic Pro X guitar amps on a 36" screen over the primitive dos looking interface of the Fractal editing software. As long as it is supported, I can import any and all plugins from any manufacture I want into Logic Pro. And if you think all plugins suck, you haven't spent much time in a high end recording studio lately, nor have you explored any truly great plugins that function PROPERLY because you have the headroom and SNR to do it. You also have to have developed some skill in setting it all up properly- it has taken me YEARS to learn how to get the best guitar tones from the box, and I have learned a lot from other engineers. You can get decent tone out of a fractal with the push of button in a matter of minutes and if you don't know what's possible in recording technology and software, and if you have entry level equipment, you might be reaching a conclusion similar to the one you have.
@@michaeltravis3562 I don't gig either. The Fractal is far more versatile for reasons mentioned in my previous post. Using your method, you are beholden to plugins, which don't even make use of the mega-horsepower of Apple Silicon. Regarding the UI, Axe Edit/FM3 Edit is a joy to use on my 36" monitor, the user interface is as good as the best DAWs out there. I came from (and still have) Ableton Live, Roland Octa-Capture, with AmpliTube, BIAS FX, and Guitar Rig. Fractal blows it out of the water. I am also able to play a lot of regularly now, because I don't have to boot into my computer just to be able to play. For example, I can rip Stairway to Heaven during lulls in meetings while working from home. Can't do that if I need to boot into another machine, because my work PC is using that monitor.
@@michaeltravis3562what are your recommendations for great tone in the box with plugins? I’m considering that as an alternative and would be great to learn more as I have a few Neural plugins. Thanks!
I personally hate reamping. I get the sound at the time of recording. I understand the workflow thing you’re talking about but even with plugins I get the sound at source. That being said if you can’t record loud amps at your house or studio then reamping is a necessary thing.
Good video mate. I have an Axe fx 3 and have been thinking like you for a while. I find I spend more time mucking around trying to get a good sound that I like and most times using a tone that doesn’t sound and feel right instead of playing and I’m not talking about deep diving. Also I find the community to be cult like as you have seen in these comments. What keeps me with it is the latency with amp sims and feel. I don’t play live anymore so just record. On the perfect thing, for the price, especially here in Australia I wouldn’t say perfect. You see all the pros that use it always seem to have cooper carter or someone dialing it in.
Yeah, all the tech is impressive and I genuinely think fractal has the most accurate modelling with absolutely everything you could ever want, but something about the warts and all approach means it can take more time to get stuff going… and if you try and do things directly on the unit then yikes. I’ve been watching some vids on the quad cortex and tonemaster pro and they’re dead easy to dial in. I’m certain the modelling is nowhere near as good as fractal but if it gets you going in no time and sounds good enough then there’s enough merit there…. And yeah the fractal pricing in Australia is crazy
We're lucky that computers are fast enough now to not require a dedicated hardware device. I use to have an axe fx2. I went to an fm3 because I didn't need it for anything other than local monitoring and as a DI. Also it's nice to have a way to practice without a computer. I feel lucky to be starting on my music journey not requiring a ton of hardware a computer and an fm3 is all I need.
Well..As soon as you play seriously live, things get different. How much are you able to carry around? Cost point when travelling? I used a Kemper for many years and now I moved to a cab less amp setup using a pedalboard. And yes, there´s a difference. An amp just reacts different than a modeller. But I still need to be lean and I can put my stuff into the car and do the setup within 10min. BUT: I am considering buying the FM3 now to have a device which is easy to travel with, going to rehearsals, doing gigs without the option to bring my amp setup and to have a professional, good sounding alternative. And having a programable device to use patches and scenes, etc. makes giggin much easier. Let´s face it. At least for me. And I can guarantee....the audience will not spot the difference. Playing live is a different animal and in my opinion it is good to have the analog and digital option at hand. If I would only play at home (what many are doing), I would also view it from another perspective. I love my wet/dry/wet amp rig, but the efforts to make it work were huge and expensive. But ultimately, the points made in the video are all valid. In the end, it´s a question of use cases. There is no right or wrong.
Yeah spot on. The FM3 was one of the first pieces of gear I got here (had an axe2 already), it was the hub of everything. Eventually I got a nice audio interface, loadbox, amps, pedals, cables, power, a mini studio setup. Im not gigging either so at that point for home use only is where it started to become a bit redundant. If I was out at band practice or gigging I would have kept it, definitely the right tool for the job kind of stuff.
Yeah I'm not following about the workflow. When you record an amp it's a process. You get the mics lined up, get the gain staging right with overdrives and the amp gain, you get the levels with a good preamp or console, and you commit. You commit it to tape. It's an art all in of itself and that's how all of the best guitar records have been made. If you want to record with an outboard device like a dedicated modeler or a real amplifier, you give up the niceties of VST-based recording. But it's just so incredibly that much more rewarding I feel.
Digital is digital, some is better than others sure but if I’m going to go through the full process I’d rather use real amps. For everyday recording vsts are just a lot more convenient. Digital units are perfect for live use but for studio I just find them in between worlds. I still love the fractal stuff and I’ll be the first one to preorder an axe4, but for now I just wasn’t using it because of the reasons I mentioned
You're just talkin' about recording. Live, I suppose it's better than amp sims. I'm not owning any modeler but for me the FM 3 seems to be more live oriented no? ;-)
The AxeFX and AxeFX2 picked up popularity from Misha and a bunch of other people as being serious studio tools as well as live units. The FM3 has 95% of what's in the AxeFx3 so it's kind of a no brainer studio/live tool, makes sense to be used heavily in both settings. But yeah amp sims are just more convenient for studio use and they've come a long long way. For strictly live use of course the FM3 is a fantastic unit but the tide has risen for studio options so it just became less appealing. I say all this but I still look at the AxeFX3 :). The I/O makes it more of a hub in a studio so there might be a redemption arc here.
With the FM-3 GETTING ON A PLANE OR TRAIN OR TRAVELING ON A BUS ITS IN YOUR BACKPACK AND YOU GO,,,,CAN REALLY DO THAT WITH YOUR AMP / CABS,,, GREAT FEATURE IF YOUR TRAVELING,,,,PLUS YOUR TUBES IN YOUR RECTIFIER HEAD OR MARSHALL HEADS CAN BE A TRAVELING PROBLEM. PLUS THE UP GRADING IS ALWAYS GETTING BETTER.
The amp sim plugins are so good we do not need these floor units - I do have my 2 notes captor that I run my guitar rig (real amp and pedalboard) thru then into my UA apollo twin when I want to use my sound for tracks - but I use a lot of amp sim plugins for recording they sound so good -
Yeah this is pretty much utopia for a recording/studio setup. The only reason I’d currently own a floor unit is if I needed to gig or have a portable rig. The combo of amp sims and real amps is top tier
I've had some kind of main focus on amps --> modelling --> amp sims --> captures and after trying it all I'd honestly take modelling over anything else. In the grand scheme of things there's nothing special about captures. I like to think of them as a cool backup. But the whole point of how you got there was dialling in an amp and then doing a capture of it... might as well just dial in an amp and save it as a preset. FM9 is awesome, so many amps and flexibility (possibly too much lol). Just keep it simple with a boost/amp/cab and the Fractal stuff does a 10/10 job. Captures would be cool but hugely not needed, they are so good on their own already.
When i'm GASing I come back to your account. I own an HX Stomp, have a bunch of Neural VSTs , NAM etc. and I DON'T play live anymore, so I would use it only for practicing and recording. But as a guitarist you need a lot of stuff to buy ( and sell again) just to make your own experience you're not really using the unit or don't need it as much as you thought before. That's the same with pedals but that's another story. Thank you for your work, I appreciate it and save some money :)
Ive almost irrationally purchased a QC, TMP and other digital units for the same reasons :) I say to my friends if I wasnt doing this channel or I was regularly gigging again, I'd just have a modeller and maybe 1-3 pedals to accompany it and it's all you ever need. So much of this stuff is just candy, it's insanely irrational to own all this stuff.... but here we are looking at it constantly :) I've bought and sold a few amps in the last couple of years and sometimes I didn't give them the time they deserve... so I'm going to be doing some regular videos grabbing random combos of gear here, dialling in some tones and then sharing NAM captures (and other platforms). I figure why not have a mess around day and share the files around. Current amps here are a Marshall TSL 100 / Peavey 6505+ / EVH 5150 50w / ENGL Fireball 60 / Mesa Triple Rect 150w I've acquired like 20 pedals so a bunch to checkout and mess around with!
I started recording in the early 2000's and all I had was a Pod XT Live. With this unit i recorded a ton of songs and never thought about buying new stuff. After a break of some years I recognized there was a huge leap in technology. This was also the starting point I noticed, nothing I own is good enough for me. The result is you are never satisfied even with the most expensive stuff. Irrational is the right word, I couldn't describe it in a better way.
My fm3 was the first and only fractal product ive owned, for now. I was always a boss pedal kinda guy.(gt1,me50) i could never get a decent tone that i thought was insane. Until the fm3 i never thought i would.
Speaking as a 99% live musician: I've owned all the modelers besides the ToneX and new fender unit and I gig with the FM3 and our singer/bass player moved from their Helix LT's to Quad Cortex units. I used to have the full rack AFX3 rack unit but I only used like 1 amp model and a few basic effects and honestly could have gotten by just fine with my Stomp HX (which used to be my fx pedal on my board when using real amps) and now the HX is in my bag as a backup amp. After spending lots of time with them, I feel like Kemper still FEELS the best but has limited IO compared to these other units where you can define your own signal path. Fractal sounds the most "amp-like" of the bunch when it comes to manipulating the sounds. Kemper sounds good if you don't mess with it but once you do, it starts to sound different than the real amp. Not really worse but just not like the amp anymore. QC sits somewhere in the middle but I was just really put off by no editing software (from a product designed by a software company this was inexcusable) and none of the plugins would work with it. Helix LT is the best bang for buck and stupid easy to quickly work with on stage, even mid-song, but you have to use a really good IR for those amp models to be usable (at least for me). IMO, at $999 for the gigging musician, the FM3 just does so much so well that it's hard to overlook. Yeah the Helix LT has more blocks and routing but it's twice the size and not nearly as flexible with the sounds nor as good sounding overall and nowhere near as good of effects. QC is I feel a better product these days but it's 2x the price of the FM3. Kemper missed the mark on that new little baby pedal. I have no idea who that product is for but they should have just chopped the kemper floor unit in half and called it a day.
Tons of solid info here, you really get perspective from actually using the stuff! Yeah the new kemper one is puzzling. I hear they used the same processor as the other Kempers for ease of cross use. Apparently they’re going to offer things with a paid unlock as well as a secondary unit to bolt on profiling capabilities, all a bit strange. I kind of go in circles from analog gear rules, digital hardware rules, amp sims are more convenient and also rule… there are just so many options/solutions out there now. I’ve been soul searching on this topic for a month or two and I think I might end up picking up all the latest modellers and keep upto date with firmwares and comparisons And yeah if I was gigging or rehearsing the fm3 is a no brainer. It’s funny seeing “sleek” pedalboards with multiple Strymons and other things, they stack up to 2-3x the cost and more headache with running a board. In that aspect the fm3 is a pretty nuts offering
@@ampspedalspickups I think the worst thing with the new kemper is the price. $200 more bucks and you can buy an FM3 and have a mountain more capabilities. Yeah it's not as small but you'd need a lot more space consumed to equal the FM3's offerings. Anecdotal rant: Funny you mention sleek boards as I just sort of finished a somewhat failed experiment attempt to replace the FM3 with more analog gear. I had a Friedman IR-X for the amp (since I really only use a friedman in the FM3) along with the strymon cloudburst and Dig and an Eventide Tricerachorus. Absolutely killer tone but problem #1 is that with the other pedals I have to have (Wah, Volume and some kind of drive/boost pedal), my board wasn't big enough so I'd have been looking at another expense for a bigger board and case but the bigger problem is that I'm also moving from using an FRFR behind me to my Mako amplification 1x12 cab and the duncan powerstage 200 amp. IMO that just sounds so much more natural hearing a guitar sound coming from a guitar speaker and the footprint on stage is the same. This presented a new challenge in that I needed a signal without cab sim being sent to the powerstage. I used the IR-X effects loop for the 3 effects pedals and since they're all stereo I was able to send one signal from the chorus pedal to the powerstage and the other signal back into the FX return of the IR-X. I thought that would do the trick but the nail in the IR-X's coffin finally reared it's head in the form of a REALLY bad sounding preamp tone. It just flat out sucks which really surprised me becuase the sound with the pedal's built in IR's sounds SO good. No amount of EQ tweaking on the powerstage could fix it. Thinking maybe my ears were messing with me, I did the same preamp-only test with the FM3, the Stomp HX and my Silver Jubilee and all 3 of those sounded fantastic. It was a serious bummer because the IR-X feels and sounds like a real tube amp and produces some stellar tones IF you are using it's main output with the IR's. Sure I could just stick to using an FRFR behind me and everything would be fine but the sound quality difference (IMO) in terms of sounding, feeling, behaving like a real amp are more so with a real guitar cab and decent power amp than with an FRFR. With the FM3, I just send output 2 to the powerstage before the IR block and I'm done. It was 3 clicks in the software to achieve what several hours of frustration with cables and stuff took with the other pedals and even after A/B'ing the IRX with the FM3 using a splitter pedal to really try and pick apart the sounds, I was able to tweak the FM3 to get "close enough" to the IRX that I didn't have any hesitation hitting the refund button on amazon for the IRX. If nothing else, the pedal helped me fine tune my patch LOL. After having this discussion with a couple other guitar friends, apparently now they're taking it as a "well have you tried this or that..." other products to try and see if they can dethrone the FM3 but man... simplicity wins for me. Maaaaybe a quad cortex later down the line when they have more of their desktop plugins integrated but I still feel like I'd be paying nearly 2 grand for a lateral move. /end rant
Haha man that does not sound fun. I really like simplicity and sometimes 1 or 2 pedals into an amp IS the simplicity... and other times an FM3 or single device modeller is the simplicity. If I look at the pedals I have here to build a live rig I'd go GTR --> TC Sentry Gate --> TubeScreamer --> Preamp Pedal --> --> one way FOH / other way poweramp/cab Sentry - $120 JHS Bonsai - $250 Fire & Sword - $250 TC IR Loader - $130 For an absolute barebones "top tier" tone youre looking at $750 in pedals alone, and thats no effects or alternates or really boutique pedals (ok the Bonsai is expensive you can go cheaper of course)... plus the board/power/cables and you're at the cost of an FM3 easy... plus failure etc. I'm totally on board with an FM3 for live use. I was so close to keeping mine and if I'd even used it 10 times a year outside of the studio I would have kept it just for that. My ideal gigging rig would be FM3 + Duncan Powerstage (or Orange Pedal Baby) + 2x12 Apparently Friedman are looking at releasing some poweramps for this kind of setup this year... I might end up grabbing something... or you know, add it to the never ending wishlist of stuff to try out.
This is just personal preference thing. Nothing more. I doubt Fractal will be doing VST. Rampant piracy doesn't make it very appealing, not to mention other companies just copying it.
It’s more that amp sims have gotten a lot better than they were many many moons ago. Pair that with being way more convenient in a recording environment so the balance of it all has shifted against these units a fair bit. Nothing has changed from a standalone unit point of view they are truly amazing, but you can’t ignore how good the rest of the guitar options are getting (and for a fraction of the price).
@@ampspedalspickups If you only want a few VSTs, then yes. But this is comparing an apple to a truckload of oranges. Buying the equivalent to match the number of amps in the FM3 would cost a considerable amount. I'm getting away from amps because of the exorbitant amounts of cash, and they're going up almost monthly. One amp head is an easy $2-4000 new, and used Mesa Boogies are getting pricey. I sold my Mesa recently because I am using VSTs for recording and playing. But then I don't go jam anywhere and recording a 50/100 watt amp in your basement isn't really the most neighbour friendly thing. Then once you start looking at boutique pedals it really starts piling up. At $300 or more per unit, or something like the Boss SDE-3000EVH at $600 US, you're well on your way to a FM-3 or FM-9. That's without getting into any kind of switching for your pedals. It's literally a cost saving measure if you look at it that way. Buying multiple amp heads and a wall of pedals is far far more expensive.
@@sunnibird Yeah I guess I've broken things down into 2 main categories for noodling at home and recording, Analog and Digital ironically. If I want to use a digital ampsim, cab, delay/reverb/any effect then all of that is covered in something like Amphub and other software. Everything I was doing in the FM3 I can do in the box... but faster every single time. The only drawback is that Fractal has all the options under the sun but I would only reach to those when I was messing around or in very very few situations where I was reamping and something wasnt sounding right so I had to dig in and do some transformer changes etc. I have no doubt that Cliffs modelling of a 5153 is infinitely more accurate than the 40 x 5150 amp sims out there... but accuracy doesnt equate to good recorded tone imo. If the amp sim can give you good recorded tone then what else do you need? So I get the whole argument of well the FM3 is the price of one amp and it has hundreds inside, but I'd counter argue and say that an amp sim is 1/20th the cost of the FM3, can give you the same "end results" and is quicker and easier to use. Like I said in the video, I wish in some way shape or form they'd offer all their tech in a vst or some kind of plugin format even if its coupled to the hardware, that would be the best of both worlds. Either way I'm going to be gassing for the axe4 when it launches. I've owned the last 2 gens of Fractal products and am still a fanboy at heart, but the productivity of amp sims atm is just a superior workflow. All the analog stuff is nice to haves and totally a luxury, they come and go at a much slower pace :)
I think Cliff said he wouldn't do a plugin version due to piracy. I love all my Fractal gear but I also love my tube amps. Get a Two-Rock amp. You will not be disappointed
I know but there’s gotta be hope 😂 He also said he wouldn’t do profiling but I highly suspect the next iteration will have it, and it will be better than others but that’s a tale for another time
I said in the video that amassing gear bit by bit is half the reason I sold it. Amps, Pedals, Loadboxes, Reamp, DI and of course an interface. Yeah the fm3 or any of them work insanely well as a one stop shop solution but when you spend thousands on the rest of the setup it starts to make less and less sense (which is what the video is about basically). I still rank Fractal as the top hardware modelling solution, and you know I'll be on the axefx4 preorder list 😆
Sure that might be a great way to go if you have a lot of space. But for those in small apartments, we have a need for modelers. I have a whole rack of boutique guitar amps sitting at home in New York. I honestly don't miss them while living in Denmark. My Kemper works just fine. But I agree about the use of amp modelers for tracking in the DAW. Between ToneX and Bogren Digital, I have found some great tones for my music. That being said, the main reason I am interested in the FM3/FM9 is purely about playing out live as a solo act and triggering patch/program changes via midi. That is not something I can do with the big bulky gear, especially when I am flying to gigs on an airplane and the weight of my luggage is a key factor. So depending on the circumstances, your arguments fall flat on their face. To each his own.
Yeah for live use the fractal units would be my goto as well. I’ve been running modellers through the power section of a 5150iii into a cab and it’s great. We have so many options these days it’s pretty amazing
Most modern punk/metal players would be happy with a 5150 tone (6505/5150iii), they really did nail that one. I think its a combo of trying to stay relevant/upto date and how much different can a guitar tone be 50-60-70 years later. A lot more experimentation with amps and fx... kind of seen a lot of it done now / harder to sound unique and good at the same time. I'm all for it though!
Hard pressed to find? Tone master pro released with a ridiculously bad evh5150 (which is made by fender no less) and they finally had to admit it was modeled wrong and they will fix it.
Lol that’s amazing. I knew it sounded kind of rough but didn’t realise they admitted it. Hopefully it’s a lot better with an update cause it wasn’t great in the demos I heard
Next video I’m editing is basically a real amp vs an amp sim. Not being a nerd about it just realistic. I turned my engl fireball on and was like why is an amp so easy to use. I fired up an STL sim and to my surprise they were very close at all settings. Sims have come a long way and are as good or better than modellers. Hardware stuff just makes more sense for band practice or gigging, otherwise the sound of both are neck and neck these days
@@ampspedalspickups Yes, completely agree. Thank you for raising awareness around this important topic. I am in the process of ditching much of my gear now in favor of amp sims. I' keeping the guitars :-)
Sold my FM3 and went to an FM9, for gigging it just makes sense. Yeah i get they should have a VST thing and move those patches to the floor board but overall it does the thing. I don't need the analog effects and more often these days the digital models sound better than the real world thing. I still have my tube amps and I love them. But I can't imagine life without a modeler now
Yeah for gigging it makes way more sense than studio use only. If I'd have picked up the axe3 when it launched I probably would still have it but the fm3 filled a hole in my studio but then I sort of outgrew it. I'm hoping Cliff has some aces up his sleeve for an axe4, will definitely be keen to grab one again.
I still think it’s one of the best / most authentic modeller out there. But if the result you’re getting from all the other ones leaves you lacking then you’ll probably have the same with this. If you can try someone else’s it’s always the best way to give it a go without buying
For me… the idea is to leave my heavy amps and massive pedal board at home. To each his own, but I use it for 90% live play. I am building a pedal board with it, but still less to carry.
I am interested in your comment as I’m kinda looking at the unit. You said the idea is to leave amps and massive pedal board at home. I get that. Kinda thinking of the same also. But then you said your building a pedal board with it. That leads me to believe it doesn’t have everything if your need to add to it?
I have the FM3, so I added a tuner to avoid using a button on the FM3, my TB Drive, and my Fuzz I like that I can’t get exactly on the FM3. You don’t need to add any pedals. Just my preference. Just 3 pedals, but really don’t need it.
@@Fablebox yeah if I had the fm3 on a board I'd probably want a drive pedal and an expression to control FAS parameters for presets. It really can handle everything live unless you're a gear nerd like us or have some need for a crazy walrus audio/strymon sort of pedal where its just easier having a dedicated thing. Such a great unit.
I’ve never owned a physical modeler, but I’ve owned lots of plugins, and to me, profiling sounds like the better option since it’s modeling a real amp.
It’s like a double edged sword. Profiling can get the exact sound at the exact settings and does a “perfect” job. But if you’re trying to pull a new sound then flicking through things is painful I personally like “models” when creating a tone, but I use profiling to “archive” a tone or a piece of gear I get to try out. The end game solution for me would be some piece of technology that basically dials in your “models” to sound exactly like the profile, and then you have all the freedom to move the knobs around after the fact. That’s basically how the kemper works there’s baked in models under the hood and the capture chooses the best one then slams a bunch of eq after it to match the tone
@@thisguy2973 “kind of” would be my answer. On face value kemper just does a profile of an amp and then once captured the controls were generic eq curves, saturation etc. So with liquid you still do a capture but then tell it what settings you did. So all the eq and saturation controls “should” be modelled. There’s still some levels of interpretation with how accurate the capture is to start, does the user input the right settings, and lastly how good is their modelling? Its a great system but too many fragments If the modeller can just hear my sample audio and make a preset for me with insanely high accuracy, that’s utopia
I get your point, but vst or any ampsim only usable in studio, not on live gig. If i were i keep my fm3 for live gig use. Much wasier than grabbing ur amp collection. Just my opinion bro 🍻🍻🍻
Great and honest video. I've been waiting to find a video like this. I've been using NAM (or other amp sims along with GetGood Drum IRs) and plugins to create my guitar chain for a little while. Best tones I've ever had and the flexibility of changing out components couldn't be easier. I control the on/off of my plugin guitar chain using a Line 6 HD500x in midi mode. I can't imagine a better rig, honestly
I always felt like fractal had a slightly better sound than Neural's plugins and modeler. I think Neural has a cool modeler and definitely sick plugins. So it's not that they're not good, but back when I was looking at review after review with fractal and neural dsp, I always felt like fractal had a better tone whether it was clean vintage tones, modern mid boosted tones in the 2nd position lol, and also big heavy rectifier tones. So a year ago I got an fm9 and have just been so happy with it. It's built like a tank and I can get amazing recordings and gig confidently with it. I know this is mostly about home recording, and yes hopefully they can do something to make reamping better! But again, I always thought it sounded slightly better, and that's most important for me. 😎 ua-cam.com/video/d3FVcXiwv_0/v-deo.html
The fractal stuff is just so open ended there's really no boundaries IMO. If you want something extra punchy, smooth etc etc its all in there so yeah I agree you can land yourself in a better position than plugins. Yeah if you're using it live or rehearsing with it as well then absolutely no reason to sell. When I got the fm3 it was basically my one stop shop for tones... but as I grabbed a loadbox, pedals, amps, DI unit etc etc it just became "another piece of gear". People seem to think that I've simply replaced the fm3 with a $10 amp sim... when the truth is it took 5x the cost of the FM3 with all that other gear to make me go... you know what, I cant justify having the fractal when I have so much invested in all of this other analog gear haha. I'll definitely be eyeing down the axefx4 whenever it drops, still my favourite hardware units on the market! Also sick tones and playing, solid stuff!
@@ampspedalspickups I hear that! I don't blame you, especially with the economy we have right now 🙄lol. I had to sell a few pedals and my epiphone sheraton 2 pro to get the pc and modeler I wanted for recording. Now I REALLY miss them lol. It's all bittersweet I guess unless you're rolling in the dough haha. Thanks man! 😎
I have been a fractal user since 2013,i own the Axe 3,QC and Kemper Stage,fractal make great units but for me QC sound more close to the real amp that the fractal,sometimes i enjoy playing with the Axe 3 but the next day i find the fractal audio boring and that doesnt happen with the QC or the Kemper,my favorite device is the Kemper,but like i always say good hands can make any unit sound awesome
Ampsims never gonna sound or react as good. And if you ad the price for a good interfase its not a good deal. The only thing better would ve to mic a cab yourself.
Well, yeah. If you're doing recording and running everything through a computer there's no need to have an external hardware unit to run amp sims. The only reason to have an external unit is for situations where you aren't running through a computer. They're for live situations or if you want to sit and play on your couch instead of in front of your computer.
FAS will probably never make a plugin version of their modeling. It's counterproductive for them, it will be a compromise, the modeling is already at peak quality with nothing in the market even challenging it and it wouldn't make sense to have it pirated by everyone. Also this comparison with plugins is meaningless. If you instantly like a plugin tone without tweaking you could just as easily instantly like a FAS preset from the hundreds it offers. That's no argument. And a plugin has a very specific use and it's what you describe though personally i don't know where this expectation that a recorded guitar tone should be tweaked post-print comes from. It's a very specific fad that only gets applied by amateur or semi-amateur mixing engineers and only in the metal genre. Everyone else records guitar as it was recorded for years and there is no problem with that. You should get your tone and then fit it into the mix without chopping it down into "minced meat" to its basics. IMO for 1000 bucks to be able to have all those studio quality effects, 300+ expertly modeled amps and all the routing and I/O options you could use is a no brainer.
Strive for something better I say. Digital is digital, a plugin should be an easy port and opens up the user base exponentially. The most modern version of ilok plugins don’t get cracked so they’ll be safe on that front. Recording DIs and using plugins or reamping is nothing new, been around for decades. Plugins have just come a long way in the last 5-6 years closing that gap of hardware digital vs plugin digital
@@ampspedalspickups I don't think FAS is willing to compromise into making a plugin. Developing for their own specific hardware is much more efficient and yields more performance out of if and in the end better results. As for the reamping it used to be a solution to correct problems in the tracks or for someone who didn't have the equipment necessary or desired to send the DIs somewhere to be reamped. Nowadays with those plugins mixing engineers tweak the sound as they mix. IMO it's not a natural process and a mixing engineer worth his salt should be able to work with a proper amped gtr sound without having to trash it and run to the plugin. Great music has been made that way for decades. If you ask me reamping should only be reserved for problem solving. I wouldn't work with an engineer who's first words is "i just need di tracks"...the recording process matters just as much (if more) than the mixing one and the feedback a player gets from his tone affects the performance. you can't isolate one from the other and just slap some plugin that you can easily work into your mix on top. btw there isnt a single plugin that can hold a candle to FAS's modeling. I've been using them since the LePou ones and even before that with some elementary ones and have used almost everything when it comes to amp modeling. they will do in an emergency or if you lower your standard but whenever i try one (even the great neuraldsp ones) and then go back to my axe fx i immediately notice the difference and a more 3-dimensional sound
Uuuummmm… you do realize that the FM3 IS A DI BOX, right? You can record the DI (via USB) AND the processed tone simultaneously. I have both this unit as well as tube amps, and I prefer the Fractal over my amazing amp and $3000 pedalboard.
Hopefully, I bought some stuff before the prices skyrocketed on the 2nd hand market: I'd be unable to buy the full MoogerFooger collection (w. two delays for stereo) now: the prices have gone totally insane... For the Rig-A, which I designed for easy transport with no compromises on quality, it's in a SKB RLX-6 so it can be moved like a Samsonite, then... - Mesa Triaxis - Marshall EL84-20/20 (often overlooked... by people who never gave a try... This thing is damn great: it's filled with parts you usually only find on boutique amps! Note I also own other amps, racked or not. If I need more power, I can take another poweramp with me, but it rarely happened) - Lexicon MPX-G2 - Eventide Eclipse - Sound Sculpture Switchblade GL - 1U rack with Tetris-like stuffed stompboxes circuits - 2x Electrovoice TL806/EVM12L (guess why I rarely needed more than the 2x20W, in fact, in the control room, I usually pull out one of the two EL84 on each channel to lower power at 2x 4.5W... And even tho, it's still really loud... => The Fooger collection is in a "soft" 6U flycase that is independent... I don't need 300 amps models, I just need MY sound which comees straight from the 1st tube amp I built 30+ years ago: a Mesa Stu22 copy built with the trannies scavenged from a Marshall 1974x (AKA Plexi 18W) then I added the Mark III's distortion while keeping the Stu22's overdrive... It didn't sounded like a Stu22... It sounded better and moreover unique. I toured with this baby for years. With some really minor mods, I could get the same sound from the Triaxis+EL84-20/20 and I got both for cheaper than dirt, thanks to the vintage/boutique trend: racked amps and preamps can be obtained for really cheap while they were all high-end stuff in the 80's/90's and still are...
Jesus , kinda think you are all over the place.how do you have any time to play guitar when your constantly messing with stuff.too much gear not enough playing.a great guitar player can make any amp sound great
I think you missed the point of the video offering my point of view on owning a bunch of studio equipment and the fm3. No problem with sound it’s great in that regard
sorry but these are non-arguments you just stumble through just to justify selling the unit for your own personal reasons. they are not reasonable arguments
Who’s arguing? I’m offering my point of view on why a unit like this has less value when you have real amps on one side and plugins on the other side. If you have nothing else they are incredible, if you gig they are incredible. But if you’re in the studio and have a bunch of other things then it’s harder and harder to justify owning one
@@ampspedalspickups if you think paying 1000-1500 bucks per amp is more justified than owning the ones fractal has in the box (not to mention all the effects and drives and stuff) then you have a different idea of what is justified or not than me...
@@ampspedalspickups i already do mate. didnt need your permission for that. and you did just say that you couldnt justify owning one for the price of 1000 bucks. but you can justify to yourself i assume owning a couple of amps for more than that and only having these two amp sounds...no strawman argument. just the reality you dont like to hear...but you also can use whatever makes you happy. doesnt mean it's a cohesive reasonable argument as i said in the 1st comment it's about your own personal taste which you are entitled to have of course
No matter how you dice it digital amp units aren’t real amps so yes I would rather have a bunch of analog gear around here. For digital solutions I mostly have plugins which have their advantages over a hardware unit. The whole point of why I made this video was to give the perspective that digital units used to be the best way to get these sounds but the reality is plugins have massively caught up and are close enough for digital. If you’re not gigging and have a bunch of real amps as well as a bunch of plugins the fm3 starts to sit in the middle and has the inconvenience of real time recording without the benefit of it being an analog amp. If you can’t see the logic here then I dunno what to say. It’s fine if you don’t agree but it’s the reality of the landscape of plugins and modelling units now
What you didn't mention is that you need more gear to run an amp sim as a guitar rig especially when playing live. One of the biggest issues to deal with is latency. A cheap laptop won't give you a high quality signal and the same can be said for a cheap interface. On top of that, you will then need to amplify the signal and run it through an FRFR system.
I did mention it but yeah the fm3 is one of the best units out there for live use! If I was gigging regularly I would have kept it just for that. Run one output into a poweramp/cab and the other with an IR to FOH, so good
MATE - ITS HARDWARE. ITS FOR LIVE USE!!!. I got a helix but i play out live & better than fractal - it came with amp plugin for FREE!!! 100% of the pedal in a plug in. no re-amping ever or waiting.
Thx for the thoughtful view on these modeler boxes. I have an olde Roland VG-99 sitting around looking pretty... dusty. I was going to sell when I could have gotten $1100, but now it's worth $500; if anyone wants it let me know :) Can you explain modeling subscription options? I didn't quite catch what you said there. Thx!
I was talking about subscriptions like STL Amphub which is $10/month but if you wait for deals like Black Friday I think they go as low as $60/year. There are so many amp sims these days it’s really hard to dump down 50-100 for a bunch of them that’s why I suggested a subscription where they keep adding things to it. I’ll be doing some Black Friday sales roundup vids cause there’ll definitely be a ton of deals going around
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
As soon as he said DAW, it was apparent he was misapplying a portability-prioritized live-performance-intended tool for a studio tool. "Next!"
The same points stand for the axefx3. FM3 is great for live use
Same. Felt clickbaited AF. Comparing it to Amp Sims plugins? WTF? Really? I thought he was gonna compare to other modelers or problems in dialing a good sound, editing, IR's, etc...
Yep I made that mistake too and sold my FM3 Guess what I bought instead? FM3 Turbo.
I had a AXE3, sold it and went back to amps and effects.
After two weeks soldering cables, messing with hiss and hum I went back to Fractal and realized I was never happier in over 20 years of making music.
Everyone should use what simply fits best for what’s needed.
Yeah when I see people putting together pedalboards with preamp and fx pedals I just think of the logistical nightmare vs having an FM3/FM9 or Helix etc... costs, effort and redundancies stack up... rather just a single modeller at that point.
Hey, good for you man. Me and a bunch of others are keeping ours. Good day.
🤘
Uh oh, we found the b-hurt comment of the day.
Stop being such a hurt fanboy bro
What he said ;-)
@@brians4451 Cultists don't like it when someone leaves.
Tried every amp sims, bought an fm3, i will never go back to plugins and here's why :
-No need to endlessely search for the best amp model replica. They all sounds dope,
-More convenient and stable than a laptop
-Fast to use once it's set up properly
-0 latency ( the feel is there when playing)
-0 Artifacts
-CPU free on computer
-Effects quality is mind blowing.
-Routing is nice. Plug in smartphone and a guitar and boom ready to backtrack wherever there is an sound system
-It has everything a guitarist can dream of. No need to hunt plugins after plugin.
Yup . Reduced my plugin hunt since my purchase of it. Only thing the interface is not very user friendly.
If you are only recording and mixing this makes more sense, but in a playing scenario Its convenient to have a physical unit. Otherwise you will need a computer and a sound card and some way to change sounds
Agreed. This was my reaction. His argument makes a lot of sense if the use is primarily for recording. As someone who mostly focuses on live playing, I’ll almost certainly never go another route. The consistency of tone and performance is just too good.
Buying Kemper or Axe-Fx is no longer the "only way" if you want quality. It also depends on whether you are a touring musician or just recording. The plugins are great, they keep getting better, but I didn't regret keeping Kemper, because the new Liquid Profiling is very cool.
Part of me wants to hoard every single digital unit from old zoom pedals through to the modern stuff, I appreciate it all. Kempers are a steal on the second hand market atm and I want to get my hands on the liquid stuff (might borrow one off a friend).
I’m hoping all the big hardware guys start offering vst options of their sims that will truly open up the hybrid options!
If you think about it, since Kemper was released in 2011, they have been constantly updating and improving the software, it has gotten better and better without they wanted to sell me a Kemper 2-3-4 every couple of years. :) I agree with what you said about the reamp, although now with Kemper's USB audio function, this is easier. I haven't tried it yet.
Anyway, thanks for your recent "Peavey 6505+ vs STL Amphub 6505+" video. I have a couple of STL plugins (Tonality stuff) however this subscription thing (AmpHub) is not my world but I liked the 6505+ sound so much that I bought a couple of individual amps. 👍
@@80s_kid wait til you see what I got in store for September 🤜🤛
This is why I love my stomp XL, bought Helix Native for 50 and use the DI from the stomp midi to record + native to reamp, while also I can take the exact same tone on my stomp to gigs.
Hard to argue with how straight forward a setup that is, so handy!
If you have to record dry then use plugins to tweak the sound later then you don't need hardware. BUT...if you want to commit to a sound and print it then hardware is great and you can take it with you to the gig. That only applies to those who record and play live. If you are only recording then plugins are fine though I tend to use the stand alone version of the plugin, route the output to a virtual channel on the interface and commit to the sound on the way in. This saves me from having to worry about low latency monitoring.
Is this a universal audio workflow thing? I have been looking for a similar solution to what you've described.
@@robertpatenit can be any interface with a Loopback channel.
This is a totally valid take on workflow with the Fractal. I agree these are all areas that I would love to see improvement. Like a Fractal plugin like helix native
You're making a good point about the studio workflow. Definitely something to consider.
if i was only using amps and only in a recording situation, i kinda understand what you are saying. but really, my fm3 solved so many issues for tour and has saved me so much headache and money really. to the point that both guitarists in both my bands also picked one up after i grabbed mine. it just makes sense for cutting down on weight and risk when it comes to live shows.
Yeah for live it completely makes sense, would be my goto out of all the units even the fm9
Before getting my fm9 i thought the sounds would be the most convincing for me, but after replacing every piece of physical gear except my guitar, this thing solved nearly everything.
No more worries about patchcables going bad on the pedalboard, connectors breaking and causing buzzing, no more pedals breaking and needing a replacement. No more writing knob-positions on pieces of tape to keep the sounds. No more tweaking stuff between songs.
I could've gotten the same with any other modeler (kemper, neural QC, helix, ...) but the flexibility of this thing, and the support you get from the community is unmatched.
Oh man, I hear ya on the pain of the aussie dollar and the forever quest of guitar gear!
Question for you - with money (and space) not being the primary concern, would you take an amp sim or an amp?
The reason I ask, is that I have captorx and plexi and the tone is really good - also, basically plug and play.
For the life of me, I can't get as good a quality tone out of a plugin compared to the real thing, and it's not because I don't want to - I really want to love them! For example, I have the Neural SLO, SWorks, Amplitube, etc... and they are "ok", but no matter what I try, it's always lacking something, I can't put my finger on it (maybe it's in my head).
I'm thinking about putting some cash down on second hand recto or 5150, but before I do, I wanted to ask if you had an "aha" moment that changed the way you feel about amp sims?
If you want to really nerd out over this stuff I'd suggest joining the Discord server in the link cause theres some guys on there which know more than me about this stuff. But I think the main questions are how are you using this stuff, just on headphones/speakers or are you comparing some kind of "in the room sound" on the amp vs the sims?
I know exactly what you mean there seems to be this untouchable quality that a real amp has. The weird thing is I'll try an amp sim for a while and it sounds "fine"... then I'll try the real amp version and then im like "there it is, thats the sound". But then I'll do a comparison and I can barely tell the comparison apart so its like what is the difference?
I've also heard some people say the immediacy of using an amp where there is 0 lag (speed of sound lag) vs even 8-20ms delay using digital, apparently even that small delay is enough to throw some people off. It's highly possible that when all sounds are equal something like this delay is one of the x factors of why something feels different.
Back to amp sim vs amp... if money and space wasnt an issue even if I had a wall of amps here I would still use the amp sims first to write music because it just makes more sense. If I was crafting some kind of unique tone with some chorus/delay etc I would ideally have a baller pedal board and I'd use an amp to mess around. I'd then probably digitally recrate that because those effects are just better synced in the DAW than trying to track real time effects. Once I'm done tracking I would then reamp everything through real amps. There are times where I just wanna play guitar and firing up an amp just has a great feel so its almost like productivity I'm taking amp sims, feel and vibe i'm going amps... what a problem to have :)
I sold it after trying a quad cortex. Very happy i did. Much easier to use and sounds just as good if not better.
I have the deepest respect for fractal and will inevitably grab an axe3 or axe4 if it comes out. But the blinders the fractal community have are pretty insane. It’s hard to deny how easy, fun and approachable a quad cortex or tonemaster pro is in comparison. Things might be lacking 1-5% in the realm of authenticity but it takes no time to build a rock solid patch with effects and dial in the tone you want. The usability of a quad cortex with the in depth modelling of a fractal would be my utopia, but I equally like what the others are doing out there
Completely agree. I really wanted to love my FM3 .. i sold my Kemper for one because i kinda just got bored of using other people's profiles/Lack of effects also more bad profiles than good on that unit. And well i was really underwhelmed in terms of sound on specific amps and overwhelmed in terms of use to be honest. Don't get me wrong it sounded great! And I got some really good tones out of it , But i found myself playing Around/Tweaking with it more than playing Guitar or Recording. It was just so annoying to navigate without a laptop/PC also.. In the end i got rid of it and went for a HX stomp as that thing was just so easy to use and inspiring! And even loading decent IR's onto the stomp when i had the FM3 next to the HX stomp comparing, i immediately sold the FM3 as i could not justify the price difference to sound. In the end i grew bored of the lack of amps in the HX unit and i now use ToneX and it's been an absolutely game changing pedal for me. I leave it packed up on my board to take to rehearsals and when i record i just use the ToneX Software as you don't need to plug the pedal into your PC/interface to use the software, It's seriously awesome. But it has no effects.. So i am maybe thinking about buying an FM3 or even an Axe 2 to run just for effects and sit in my studio, As that was one good thing i could say about the Fractal stuff! The effects are second to none when set up.
I am thinking about buying the FM3 (I currently own the HX Stomp and Native and I am super happy with the UI) because I really would like to have more amps than the HX stomp gives me. There are some oppurtinities nowadays -> the new Mooer GE 1000? Tonex? as an alternative. How many high-gain amps are available as stock in the tonex? Do you think it sounds at least as good as the FM3? In addition I have to say, I need the unit only for recording. Can you use the Tonex pedal as an interface? What would you recommend?
@@scentia_est Tonex sounds better than FM3, but remember.. it's capture technology.. ability to tweak the tones is limited. Digital modelling is inferior but you can tweak and tweak and tweak.
Very insightful, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Sold a rig years ago for a AxeFx2 XL+
Loved this device more than anything id ever owned
Had to sell it years ago to finance a large move me and my wife made and have missed it for years
Recently i have sold 20+ pedals and a Mesa Mark V 35 for a AxeFx3 and have zero regrets
The fractal for a home a studio is the single greatest piece of gear ive ever owned
yeah the fractal stuff is pretty crazy, if I could only have one piece of processing I would also grab an axe3. But once I started putting funds into analog routings/reamps/amps/pedals it started to be less and less relevant to have a digital amp... but as a one stop shop its crazy good. Even with all of this I still flip flop back and forth on getting an axe3.... if they announce an axe4 I'll preorder one no question and just keep it for the lifetime but right now for top dollar its a bit hard (especially when i'm still acquiring other gear)
I got to have hardware! there's just something about flipping a switch on and you know those sweet metal lead tones are right there at your disposal. And I can take my pedal board with my on the go. Software sims just seem like audio slavery to me based on ease of use only to control you in the end, AI with the end user being the addicted junky! As they'll probably get everyone hooked on them and then jack the price up to use them, that's what I see coming. I think this guy to me is an studio engineer/musician where its more important he be able to tweak with different tones with his dry signal. I use my HX Stomp as FX ONLY and chain a cheap Zoom G1on into it dramatically increasing power and lowering latency with a dedicated DSP one for amp & cabs, booster and noise gate and the other for audio interface and its FX. Plus I get a 44.1 to 48khz sampling rate conversion 1.5- 2ms latency. All I need is 1 killer metal lead tone, I use it for everything! For blues I back off gain, for ballads I back off gain slightly for neo-classical metal I crank it to 10! Revo-1 Krank amp all the way!
what do you mean by VST? Virtual something?
A plugin basically, can be tweaked in real time etc
Cool vid , I find not having to fire up the CPU actually a net positive…and cuts my GAS for buying more pedals.
You mentioned you use REAPER , I don’t use a DAW , is that what you’d recommend for a simple guitar workflow ?
Yeah it’s pretty straight forward to get up and running and if you ever have problems there’s endless workarounds and customisations available, highly recommend
So youre main issue is the reamping?
It’s all in the video but the quality of sims is great these days and they can be tweaked in real time. If I’m going to the effort of reamping I might as well use my amps pedals and loadbox not a digital unit. No knock on the unit at all I’ve just amassed analog gear so for my “digital” solution sims are quicker, workflow is a lot better
fractal aussi reamp en temp reel@@ampspedalspickups
I use all of it. Something like the FM9 is nice because you can have patches that match songs. It also has a Setlist feature. Thing is, they are all different. Sonically, they can all get close. Plug ins will require a midi controller to change presets. FM9 gives you gobs of power and 9 buttons to press. My pedal board is GREAT but I cannot change a complex patch with a single press. FM9 is consistent- you will know exactly what tone(s) you are getting. To record, I use Reaper and Neural DSP. For mucking around in my other room, I use a pedalboard. I essentially have two boards- one acoustic and one electric. My Godin has both outputs so I can blend- sounds epic. I use a Trio+ that adds drums and bass. Cymbals sounds best out of studio monitors- not guitar amps so I have two monitors using a AB/Y pedal on the acoustic side of the house.
Some nice setups there... and yeah I think everything shines in the right time and place. FM3/9 great for gigging, NDSP great as amp sims in Reaper etc, nice one.
Bro i went same path as you. I''ve sold Fm3 after 2 years. And now i have Mw1 Studio Tool, Red Seven, UCX II, Evh Stealth 100 and couple of last 6505. But the question is do you clipping with UCX II instrument inputs 3/4 when recording DI? My UCX II is clipping with gain at 0 when i strumming hard. Even with passive pickups.
Hahaha what are the chances like exact setup 😂. Nah mines fine, I have it set to 13dbu on 0 gain with instrument checked and passives are fine (even when chugging crazy). You can try 19dbu and it should knock it down a bit. Worst case from there you can uncheck instrument in rme total mix and it should go down even more. Very strange it’s that loud for you in the first place
@@ampspedalspickups I'am on the +19 dbu mode already. I posted that issue on Rme forum. But didnt get any good solution. Btw i also have mesa 4x12 and peavey invective. My invective crushing any other amps in the mix even Stealth. But u have to spend some time to dial that amp. It's very tricky cos of that master boost knob, post gain knob etc.
Thx for the answer Bro!
@@thanos4480 I low key want an invective, stealth 100, el34 100. It’s so irrational but the lineup is just too good. I’m in the process of moving house and will be back up and running in a week or so but man… moving with a bunch of amps and audio stuff is not a great time
I just got the FM3 MKII and loving it. Could you elaborate on what you mean about the workflow issue with it? Seems it would help streamline the process for recording. Dial in tones on your monitors and just record. Can run an amp track and a DI for re-amping. Curious to know if I am missing something you have direct experience with.
Its all in the video but it basically boils down to if I want to use a digital amp then an amp sim via VST in the daw is quicker and easier because you can change the tone on the fly. 90% of the time I would never dial in an FM3 amp sound that fit as perfectly as I'd like in the mix so it meant reamping the DI back into the FM3 which added time to the process. It also meant I was constantly recording DI + Wet into the DAW whereas if I'm using an amp sim its DI only (nothing major but less tracks is neater).
If I'm going to reamp things I have now built up my collection to have real amps and a loadbox, so there's joy in that process.
When all I had was the FM3 its a super capable unit and I still love it, but once you have a bunch of amp sims and a bunch of real gear it just puts the FM3 square in the middle of things, its like the worst parts of analog recording and digital recording from a workflow point of view. This can also be said for the kemper / quad cortex / any digital unit. I'm hoping Fractal will have SOME kind of vst intgeration even if it needs to be paired with hardware... if that happens I'm grabbing their stuff in an instant, love it
I've never been able to use an amp sim with as little latency as any of the modelers/profilers have (Kemper, Fractal, Quad Cortex, etc.), so it's been hard for me to adjust to how a plugin feels when I'm playing through one.
This is actually one of the most legitimate points to having a hardware modeller! I’m used to the mild 8-12ms or whatever is added but some amp sims that chew up a bit more it can throw me off
I know tube guys who just can’t adjust to the most micro of delay so that’s a super valid point. I guess the reamping trade off there is worthwhile if you’re gonna get a better performance from the guitarist in the end
For me, the issue of latency is an “everytime I launch it” thing. For all of neural’s plugins, I have to adjust the sample rate, then adjust it, then switch it back and the latency goes back down. It’s stupid.
It's why such few people choose vst for live performance. It's just dumb and then you got an OS to deal with behind it.
I have all the things mentioned in the video. And vst will not be coming with me to gigs.
@@azzazelo yeah... I know there's a few "pioneers" running NAM pc rigs live (little computers or tablets)... Just not my vibe at all. A modeller/poweramp solution or Amp Setup/Pedalboard is the way to go for me as well
great points, it ultimately comes down to your needs and workflow
it draws some parallel to when i had 8-9 analog synths for my retrowave project running midi out to them, recording the signal, after which the tone is set in stone, before jumping to all in the box for the same reasons (recall, retweakable, faster etc..)
the analog synths however did need less post processing and sounded good off the bat
fast forward to guitar and recording, i actually ended up selling a lot of amps after our last recording session with Drogher (gojira esque modern metal band I'm in) as they weren't really giving a lot of extra benefit (with quad tracked reamped guitars through different sources) not to mention the routing and time implications
the one thing I'll say with Fractal is that i really like the hardware only stance with what feels like 100% of their resources going into the continuing update and improvement of a device that isn't cheap but rock solid, stable extremely tweakable and road tested, as opposed to what it appears Neural Dsp has going on where there's constant plugin releases and slow updates and releases on flagship hardware device (3 years for an editor, amps / updates etc.. ), I've been an avid FM3 user since buying it in 2022 for use with the band, very curious to see how things further develop in fractal land
there are so many incredible plugins out there these days, the real difficulty is in figuring out which tone(s) and features you really need and want, but therein lies the tone chasing mysterium that drives us all as guitarists 😄
the difficulty with plugins being that spending small amounts on plugins or IRs for that matter really adds up after a while, and you can't always resell the plugin (depending on the licence of course) unlike hardware
I’m definitely a fractal fanboy at heart. It would be amazing if they brought out their stuff as a plugin suite.
I’m still on the fence about picking up an axe3 or just holding out and grabbing an axe4, it’s all wants and not needs so we’ll see how the year pans out. If they do announce a 4 I’ll happily grab it on launch cause I only it’ll be supported for 10+ years
@@ampspedalspickups for sure, a pluginsuite would be incredible
i think an fx3 would potentially put you currently in the same boat as now with regards to routing/reamping/cabling etc.. but it's a 'quicker' reamp if that makes sense, depending on how much difference you perceive or see between using the real amps and plugins/modelling for tones, it could be an idea, the non turbo units mk1 are priced quite decently, from what i've seen, and selling the amps you might still own
i just kept my vht deliverance, bought a suhr reactive load for doing reamping if/when, and also for my youtube videos , when i'll try different amps
i'd also grab a 4 on launch (or at least the FM4 if/when) that being said i've dialed my main preset in to a such an extent, not sure what can really be improved outside of resolution/nuance within the amp model/tone , that was the biggest upgrade for me going from an ax8 which i didn't keep too long to an FM3
Fractal makes great stuff but their UI drives me crazy. Trying to navigate the FM3 without a computer is an exercise in frustration. If they release a unit like the FM3 that's as simple to use as the Quad Cortex, they'd wipe the floor with the competition. Maybe like a "basic UI mode" where you get the same type of usability as a QC / Helix, and then a "Pro Mode" where you get the typical deep dive settings they usually offer. They have solid development behind what they do, their devices sound great and are built really well.
Yeah I feel exactly the same way, hopefully they do it!
Former and probably soon-to-be-again FM3 owner here. Sold my FM3 for financial reasons, and am now doing that thing where I spend hours hunting down the gear I would "need" for all the tones I want. Just doing the math on wanting basically 5 different sounds (VHT Deliverance, Diezel VH-4, JCM 800/Friedman BE, Something Fender-y, Something chimey − all available in the FM3) I already would have to applying for a part-time job to afford it all.
Now I'm asking myself if, instead of choosing the ease of plug-ins, I should choose to learn how to get the tones right for the track before I start recording and then do what they did pre- "best time ever to be a guitarist" and live with the tones I print. If I have to reamp, then so be it, but that would be a good time to use a plug-in or two on the DI track (I record like you do).
The one advantage of having my guitar tones generated outside my computer is that I never have to be worried about CPU load. Especially when, as happened to me last year, my computer just couldn't handle two Neural DSP plug-ins running on top of Superior Drummer and a very few choice EQ and compressor plug-ins.
Yeah I feel that for sure. A couple pedals to try and cobble something together and you’re almost at the price of an fm3, it’s pretty crazy
I’ve been eyeing down an axe3 for similar reasons so never say never
@@ampspedalspickups 100% about the price. Also, assuming I don't wait for end-of-year sales, the cost of, say, 5 Neural plug-ins is not insignificant and I need to factor in the cost of the computer I'm using. In any event, best time ever to be a guitarist.
Maybe i'm wrong, but it seems that getting a better sound through an amp sim on your generic PC running through some generic USB audio interface isn't really a fair comparison? The FM3 is purpose built for everything in it? isn't it going to be a guaranteed better sound/experience?
I guess it’s all situational. I’ve got an RME which is hardly a generic interface. I’m also running a dedicated DI/reamp box which helps with getting a crisp DI then that signal goes through the RME which is very decent/good in the interface world. From an AD/DA point of view I’m sure this surpasses the fm3 but to be honest even low mid to mid grade audio devices now are all great so it’s kind of a moot point.
Then you look at the processing, at the end of the day the fm3 stuff is just algorithms and modelling just like a plugin it’s all code. Yes the fractal stuff is great but sims have come a long way and the gap between them can be small/non existent. I’d say where the fractal shines is the amount of tweaking that can be done. But if you pull up a great sounding 5150 sim it’s not like the fractal will be “better”. It will have more flexibility in mangling it but that doesn’t equate to more fidelity or anything it’s just flexible
The purpose built thing makes sense if you’re gigging, I wouldn’t use sims and a pc for gigging so yeah the fm3 is far superior for that setup. But like I said in the video with the fm3 or any hardware modeller you need to reamp tones in real time vs plugins which can be tweaked on the fly
I love the fractal stuff but I basically went from having an fm3 only to a bunch of amps, pedals for analog recordings as well as a bunch of plugins which sound indistinguishable from the fm3 in a recording (and is easier and faster to work with). So the reason to hold onto the fm3 was hard to rationalise
Good to hear a different perspective on the Fractal gear. I have a fairly extensive pedalboard so was considering the FM3 for the convenience taking to jams etc. By the sounds of what you are saying, the FM3 is good for that purpose.
The fractal gear is so robust, absolute top choice for that use. Helix would probably be second best mainly cause you have more options with size and price, either would great (I’d prefer the fm3 overall).
@@ampspedalspickups thanks mate, I appreciate the feedback!
I feel like you want it to do something it’s not intended to do. You really can’t argue that it’s not a good VST when it’s not a VST at all. The argument should be that you like it a lot as a stand alone, and to take it over the top the fractal company should think about creating a VST for consumers to buy. You could have your exact argument for any digital processor out there.. but they are not meant for what you’re trying to do. It seems like you have a lot of knowledge behind the subject, I can’t understand why you’d take the time to negatively review a product for a service the company never intended it for.
The FM3 is a great product but the takeaway is that I started my setup and the fm3 did everything. But after buying tons of equipment and amps/pedals I had the real thing and was using it less. That’s more of a “my needs have changed” more than there’s anything wrong with the FM3.
Have you tried Dyna cab ?
I was also with you
But dyna cab changed fm3 entirely other gear.
Fm3 's cab had its own sound
over - blanket feel i hated
But dyna cab is real game changer
It makes guitar and effects sound
As if dream 65 , iridium
Real feel
Already sold ? You should really try dynacab it could change your mind really
Yeah I did a video on dynacabs, it’s a really great addition but there’s also software solutions doing the same thing like “mikko2”.
It’s crazy the amount of stuff Cliff keeps adding into these units, such a legend
Depends on your workflow, mindset. It can be liberating and more productive to commit to a sound, plug-ins sound good but are a bit limited and seem to cater for the most part to high gain , not found one that competes with fractals lower gain, it always sounds a bit crap. if you just do metal and only need one sound then ok, but it’s not inspiring and your going to be boxed in with using the same sounds project to project, Having the amazing signal chain effects in one unit is better than using a plugin with other plugins on your inserts. You don’t need to load up your DAW to pick up and play and come up with a new song or riff. Then there’s Latency too, and if your using other effects plugins that are part of the sound the latency goes up considerably. I have some cool plug-in amps but I find they are completely redundant, I’ll occasionally use them on other instruments like synths for a weird lo-fi flavour. For guitars, plugins are a no go for me.
Yeah there’s some really good points there. I guess for me the fm3 tones OR amp sims are a first wave placeholder. From there I can either massaging them into a quick mix or reamp through the amps and pedals I have here. So if I was chasing a quick mix I can alter the amp sim super quickly or if I’m after max quality then I’ll go through the reamping process with real amps and pedals.
If fractal had some sort of vst host it would really tip the scales in that direction for me again cause everything else the fm3 does it top notch and hasn’t been matched by amp sims yet
@@chopholtz4950 I’d originally planned to do 30 videos in 30 days but that was just way too intense I might plan it better for next year. I had the s gear stuff on my hit list, softube and a few others that I didn’t get around to here. I’ll still probably do a video on it but I’ll try and give amp sims a break for a bit, got a bunch of pedals and amps to look at 💪
I sold my AX8 for the same exact reasons. But it was also frustrating live since it was impossible to have consistent sound, unless you use always the same power-amp and speakers (or bring your own FRFR speakers everywhere). Having to edit presets on a rush during sound check because the backline changed is very stressful (going in and out of menus and all). Sounds kind of obvious, but I found out the hard way in my case. Now I am using plugins with my DAW and a small-ish pedaltrain for gigs.
Yeah the fractal stuff is not super "tweak on the fly" friendly... especially in a time sensitive setting like "you have 2 minutes before you play" haha.
Purchased it last Christmas but still haven’t got around to use it for a gig. Takes too much time to program it to my tastes. I hope I get around it soon. The fact that it has no dedicated volume pedal block is another reason.
Such an amazing unit but yeah you really need to make patches on the computer and not on the device. From memory you can use an eq block and only use the gain portion as a volume block workaround
Your workflow with the fm3 doesn't need to be so complicated. The fm3 is a full blown interface that supports reamping.
here is a fractal friday explaining how.
ua-cam.com/video/QRljWRlLwyY/v-deo.html
Although I do agree that using a plugin is a bit easier for tweaking because you can tweak at anytime without having the hardware plugged in. I have helix native for that if needed. Sometimes I will record with the fractal amp sims, then use native to facilitate the wet effects in a recording.
It all depends on what you need - but reamping in the FM3 doesn't need to be complicated at all.
I love my analog gear and use it quite often but I am a huge fan of the FM3 - and with the recent gap-less update the fractal is clearly the most versatile modeler - even compared to the QC in my opinion.
My fm3 typically sits on my desk - for me it's been a tool that helps me practice more. I don't need to setup my pedals or amps or turn on the pc to get a quick practice in. And the models are Pristine.
As far as I could see running 2 interfaces at once in windows had its fair share of problems so people just use one or the other.
If I only used one interface at a time I'd need to switch my speaker monitors between the two, or buy a switch which has its own problems.
I have a full reamp setup here anyway so there's not really a benefit using the FM3 as the interface for reamping, I can just use analog and its fine.
For me my computer is always on, firing up reaper and an amp sim takes like 10 seconds so its not a big deal getting that going, horses for courses I guess.
Yeah fractal definitely still has that special sauce over every other modeller (software or hardware). I'll definitely be incorporating the inevitable axefx4 into my setup here. Its just hard to justify an axefx3 when I have so much digital and analog gear around here but never say never. If I'd bought the axe3 I would have kept it for all the I/O and a few other things... the FM3 just was in a weird spot. If I was doing any sort of jamming or gigging I would have kept it around but it kind of just didnt make sense. There's still days I miss it but eh, gear comes and goes... great unit!
@@ampspedalspickups there a many ways to skin a cat. I just don’t think it’s fair to knock the fm3 because of specific “needs”.
Reamping isn’t for everyone but it’s a lot simpler than you described with the fm3. It’s all about your workflow.
In fact, if you wanted to put fractal modeling in your studio and not dish out axefx3 money, it’s completely reasonable to buy an fm3, wire it up for reamping and hide it in a drawer.
There's no way to magically make the reamping setup easier... you can digital reamp which isn't viable for me because I already use a different interface and hopping ports isn't a solution / getting a switcher isnt a good solution for me either. It's still reamping in real time like an amp and if im going to reamp in real time then I'll just real amps. When I use digital stuff I would ideally like the instant nature of a vst.
Pair all that with the fm3 had limited I/O for the studio, no impedence options on the inputs, it was noisy for 4cm setups compared to the fm9 and axe3 and I could also sell it at a time that I didnt lose any money after owning it for 2+ years.
If I was gigging and wanted a beast tone machine then the FM3 is the way to go but for what I'm doing around here it just didn't make sense because I already have a good analog setup with amps as well as endless amp sims in vst, it always kind of sat in the middle.
One of the best things on the FM3 was trying out the new firmware and I'd rather get an axe3 because it obviously gets flagship firmware updates, has more ports, better for 4cm and more horsepower for things like dual amps, and also it has the tone match block that the FM3 didnt have. The FM3 is great but it didnt work for me and I shared a video about it, not sure whats hard to understand haha. If it works for you then great.
Surely the FM3 is the best tool for live shows?
Up there with the best for live for sure! If we’re talking about gigging it’s one of, if not the best overall setup
I love my FM3
Something to consider as well: really good analog pedals and amps do not really drop in price overtime, while the modelling digital processors do and quite significantly.
Yeah definitely
Amp pricing is dependant on "what's the flavor of the month."
I'm probably a bit older than you - back in the 80's when Marshall came out with the master volume JCM800's, the earlier Super Leads were available for dirt cheap. I picked my favorite 50 watt Super Lead up for just under 100 UKP. I sold that same amp after moving to the US for $2,500. I just didn't need it anymore and didn't want that sound. Valvestate heads were cheaper used than a BOSS distortion pedal but when the crazy folks from the land of Vikings did their brand of metal they went for silly money and now they're back around you can find them a garage sales for cheap. Some of the more expensive amps that are associated with a particular band or style, they'll always hold their price, until that band moves onto something else.
What'll be interesting is when people realize that they don't need a 100 watt or even 50 watt head and that the 25 watt and lower heads can keep up with a drummer and provide enough balls to play metal, or whatever your favorite style of music is, with - I have a small Mesa Mark V 25 and it replaced the Super Lead. I don't think that those 100 watt beasts will be as popular as they are now for much longer...
I remember carrying Ampeg cabs upstairs and Marshall oversized 4x12's. Screw that for a game of soldiers...
The FM3 is a tool, tell everyone there is no one way to go. Have several amps and will keep them. The FM3 is a fantastic thing to have. Use only three buttons and it sounds fantastic. Quick setup for gigs with just a few seconds to set up, and at home get the best quiet tones imaginable.
Still my fav hardware pedals/units on the market, top tier stuff!
@@ampspedalspickups people want a one thing only and sell all of the gear they have to get it. Keep a good amp, in my case kept my JVM, Jubillee and BE-100 knowing the FM3 is an option, got a Headrush 112 for it again knowing for home use, gigs that come up quick with five bands on the bill , or any need for an amazing sounding and light rig. It is invaluable.
I loved the unit to just dip my toes in other ponds. I always felt it was 95% there but not all the way - didn't hit home really as a real amp does. That said, when gen 4 comes around I'll be grabbing the whatever the next floor modeler Fractal puts out.
ATM, I'm also enjoying plugins and NAM
Pretty much identical to my thoughts as well. Depending what they do I'd even be more inclined to grab the rack unit cause I have a rack setup here now and the routing limitations on the FM3 definitely contributed towards it being a bit of a sore thumb when it came to workflow.
I reached a similar conclusion. I sold my Fractal; I bought it for use as a DI because I didn't know there were other choices. As my studio skills improved, I invested in a Mac Mini pro (M2 chip with 12 cores) running LogicProX. It ran silly circles around the Fractal unit, IMO. I keep it all in the box, now. The factory Logic guitar amps and effects are actually quite good once you learn how to adjust them. 3rd party plug ins take it to an even higher level. I don't have any latency or tracking issues whatsoever, and I feel everything just sounds better and gels like it should. I use a simple Neve RNDI into an RME interface. Nothing fancy. Granted, I don't gig, but if I did, I'd find a solution.
The fractal modelling is truly best in class... the problem is the gap has significantly closed (and will continue to do so). So the reasons to get one are smaller and smaller as time passes. I'm sure I'll pick up their units over and over again its just the nature of the beast there's always a bigger better thing.
But yeah for the average/seasoned person a decent computer, interface and DI is all you need to have world class recordings at your fingertips.
Logic Pro is a DAW. How does it "run circles around the Fractal unit"? The FM3 is a portable unit. I can carry it with two fingers from my bedroom to my living room to my car to my cabin to a gig, etc. VSTi plugins in a DAW still sound crappy. It works for a band like NIN because the industrial sound works with that broken tone. A band like Polyphia uses plugins, and has some of the worst single coil tones I've ever heard, if they switched to Fractal their tone would be amazing.
@@NytronX You're comparing the portability/versatility of two very different things. Read my comment again. I made it clear I was not gigging. But you do realise they are BOTH software based, right? I was speaking about the DI experience, and that's where you CAN compare the two. It's the software. VST, Plugins, doesn't matter. What matters is the way they are executed and used. While I think "most" players will get the better performance out of a Fractal (over a DAW), it's because most players haven't invested heavily in high end recording gear. But even in terms of processing alone, an M2 or M3 chip crushes the DSP in a fractal. A really good recording interface and/or outboard gear has noticeably lower latency compared to a Fractal and further reduces processing in the main chipset. Then there is the whole visual interface- I'd clearly prefer the fast and gorgeous graphical views of the Logic Pro X guitar amps on a 36" screen over the primitive dos looking interface of the Fractal editing software. As long as it is supported, I can import any and all plugins from any manufacture I want into Logic Pro. And if you think all plugins suck, you haven't spent much time in a high end recording studio lately, nor have you explored any truly great plugins that function PROPERLY because you have the headroom and SNR to do it. You also have to have developed some skill in setting it all up properly- it has taken me YEARS to learn how to get the best guitar tones from the box, and I have learned a lot from other engineers. You can get decent tone out of a fractal with the push of button in a matter of minutes and if you don't know what's possible in recording technology and software, and if you have entry level equipment, you might be reaching a conclusion similar to the one you have.
@@michaeltravis3562 I don't gig either. The Fractal is far more versatile for reasons mentioned in my previous post. Using your method, you are beholden to plugins, which don't even make use of the mega-horsepower of Apple Silicon. Regarding the UI, Axe Edit/FM3 Edit is a joy to use on my 36" monitor, the user interface is as good as the best DAWs out there. I came from (and still have) Ableton Live, Roland Octa-Capture, with AmpliTube, BIAS FX, and Guitar Rig. Fractal blows it out of the water. I am also able to play a lot of regularly now, because I don't have to boot into my computer just to be able to play. For example, I can rip Stairway to Heaven during lulls in meetings while working from home. Can't do that if I need to boot into another machine, because my work PC is using that monitor.
@@michaeltravis3562what are your recommendations for great tone in the box with plugins? I’m considering that as an alternative and would be great to learn more as I have a few Neural plugins. Thanks!
all taste
I personally hate reamping. I get the sound at the time of recording. I understand the workflow thing you’re talking about but even with plugins I get the sound at source. That being said if you can’t record loud amps at your house or studio then reamping is a necessary thing.
Good video mate. I have an Axe fx 3 and have been thinking like you for a while. I find I spend more time mucking around trying to get a good sound that I like and most times using a tone that doesn’t sound and feel right instead of playing and I’m not talking about deep diving. Also I find the community to be cult like as you have seen in these comments. What keeps me with it is the latency with amp sims and feel. I don’t play live anymore so just record. On the perfect thing, for the price, especially here in Australia I wouldn’t say perfect. You see all the pros that use it always seem to have cooper carter or someone dialing it in.
Yeah, all the tech is impressive and I genuinely think fractal has the most accurate modelling with absolutely everything you could ever want, but something about the warts and all approach means it can take more time to get stuff going… and if you try and do things directly on the unit then yikes.
I’ve been watching some vids on the quad cortex and tonemaster pro and they’re dead easy to dial in. I’m certain the modelling is nowhere near as good as fractal but if it gets you going in no time and sounds good enough then there’s enough merit there…. And yeah the fractal pricing in Australia is crazy
I'm hearing many excuses. Anything can be rationalized.
An honest opinion is what it’s called 🤘
Okay you’re a literal child.
We're lucky that computers are fast enough now to not require a dedicated hardware device. I use to have an axe fx2. I went to an fm3 because I didn't need it for anything other than local monitoring and as a DI. Also it's nice to have a way to practice without a computer. I feel lucky to be starting on my music journey not requiring a ton of hardware a computer and an fm3 is all I need.
I sold my Fractal FM3 for more than I paid... for a Fractal FM3 MKII Turbo.
Well..As soon as you play seriously live, things get different. How much are you able to carry around? Cost point when travelling? I used a Kemper for many years and now I moved to a cab less amp setup using a pedalboard. And yes, there´s a difference. An amp just reacts different than a modeller. But I still need to be lean and I can put my stuff into the car and do the setup within 10min. BUT: I am considering buying the FM3 now to have a device which is easy to travel with, going to rehearsals, doing gigs without the option to bring my amp setup and to have a professional, good sounding alternative. And having a programable device to use patches and scenes, etc. makes giggin much easier. Let´s face it. At least for me. And I can guarantee....the audience will not spot the difference. Playing live is a different animal and in my opinion it is good to have the analog and digital option at hand. If I would only play at home (what many are doing), I would also view it from another perspective. I love my wet/dry/wet amp rig, but the efforts to make it work were huge and expensive. But ultimately, the points made in the video are all valid. In the end, it´s a question of use cases. There is no right or wrong.
Yeah spot on. The FM3 was one of the first pieces of gear I got here (had an axe2 already), it was the hub of everything. Eventually I got a nice audio interface, loadbox, amps, pedals, cables, power, a mini studio setup. Im not gigging either so at that point for home use only is where it started to become a bit redundant. If I was out at band practice or gigging I would have kept it, definitely the right tool for the job kind of stuff.
Yeah I'm not following about the workflow. When you record an amp it's a process. You get the mics lined up, get the gain staging right with overdrives and the amp gain, you get the levels with a good preamp or console, and you commit. You commit it to tape. It's an art all in of itself and that's how all of the best guitar records have been made. If you want to record with an outboard device like a dedicated modeler or a real amplifier, you give up the niceties of VST-based recording. But it's just so incredibly that much more rewarding I feel.
Digital is digital, some is better than others sure but if I’m going to go through the full process I’d rather use real amps. For everyday recording vsts are just a lot more convenient. Digital units are perfect for live use but for studio I just find them in between worlds.
I still love the fractal stuff and I’ll be the first one to preorder an axe4, but for now I just wasn’t using it because of the reasons I mentioned
You're just talkin' about recording. Live, I suppose it's better than amp sims. I'm not owning any modeler but for me the FM 3 seems to be more live oriented no? ;-)
The AxeFX and AxeFX2 picked up popularity from Misha and a bunch of other people as being serious studio tools as well as live units. The FM3 has 95% of what's in the AxeFx3 so it's kind of a no brainer studio/live tool, makes sense to be used heavily in both settings. But yeah amp sims are just more convenient for studio use and they've come a long long way. For strictly live use of course the FM3 is a fantastic unit but the tide has risen for studio options so it just became less appealing.
I say all this but I still look at the AxeFX3 :). The I/O makes it more of a hub in a studio so there might be a redemption arc here.
With the FM-3 GETTING ON A PLANE OR TRAIN OR TRAVELING ON A BUS ITS IN YOUR BACKPACK AND YOU GO,,,,CAN REALLY DO THAT WITH YOUR AMP / CABS,,, GREAT FEATURE IF YOUR TRAVELING,,,,PLUS YOUR TUBES IN YOUR RECTIFIER HEAD OR MARSHALL HEADS CAN BE A TRAVELING PROBLEM. PLUS THE UP GRADING IS ALWAYS GETTING BETTER.
Yeah for a gigging solution its perfect... If I was still gigging I'd probably stick with an FM3 / PowerAmp / 2x12 cab
The amp sim plugins are so good we do not need these floor units - I do have my 2 notes captor that I run my guitar rig (real amp and pedalboard) thru then into my UA apollo twin when I want to use my sound for tracks - but I use a lot of amp sim plugins for recording they sound so good -
Yeah this is pretty much utopia for a recording/studio setup. The only reason I’d currently own a floor unit is if I needed to gig or have a portable rig. The combo of amp sims and real amps is top tier
I really wish the FM9 had a way to capture your amps like the big brother the Axe-III or the Kemper. I think the Axe-III is way overkill for me.
I've had some kind of main focus on amps --> modelling --> amp sims --> captures and after trying it all I'd honestly take modelling over anything else. In the grand scheme of things there's nothing special about captures. I like to think of them as a cool backup. But the whole point of how you got there was dialling in an amp and then doing a capture of it... might as well just dial in an amp and save it as a preset. FM9 is awesome, so many amps and flexibility (possibly too much lol). Just keep it simple with a boost/amp/cab and the Fractal stuff does a 10/10 job.
Captures would be cool but hugely not needed, they are so good on their own already.
When i'm GASing I come back to your account. I own an HX Stomp, have a bunch of Neural VSTs , NAM etc. and I DON'T play live anymore, so I would use it only for practicing and recording. But as a guitarist you need a lot of stuff to buy ( and sell again) just to make your own experience you're not really using the unit or don't need it as much as you thought before. That's the same with pedals but that's another story. Thank you for your work, I appreciate it and save some money :)
Ive almost irrationally purchased a QC, TMP and other digital units for the same reasons :)
I say to my friends if I wasnt doing this channel or I was regularly gigging again, I'd just have a modeller and maybe 1-3 pedals to accompany it and it's all you ever need. So much of this stuff is just candy, it's insanely irrational to own all this stuff.... but here we are looking at it constantly :)
I've bought and sold a few amps in the last couple of years and sometimes I didn't give them the time they deserve... so I'm going to be doing some regular videos grabbing random combos of gear here, dialling in some tones and then sharing NAM captures (and other platforms). I figure why not have a mess around day and share the files around.
Current amps here are a Marshall TSL 100 / Peavey 6505+ / EVH 5150 50w / ENGL Fireball 60 / Mesa Triple Rect 150w
I've acquired like 20 pedals so a bunch to checkout and mess around with!
I started recording in the early 2000's and all I had was a Pod XT Live. With this unit i recorded a ton of songs and never thought about buying new stuff. After a break of some years I recognized there was a huge leap in technology. This was also the starting point I noticed, nothing I own is good enough for me. The result is you are never satisfied even with the most expensive stuff. Irrational is the right word, I couldn't describe it in a better way.
My fm3 was the first and only fractal product ive owned, for now. I was always a boss pedal kinda guy.(gt1,me50) i could never get a decent tone that i thought was insane. Until the fm3 i never thought i would.
Speaking as a 99% live musician:
I've owned all the modelers besides the ToneX and new fender unit and I gig with the FM3 and our singer/bass player moved from their Helix LT's to Quad Cortex units. I used to have the full rack AFX3 rack unit but I only used like 1 amp model and a few basic effects and honestly could have gotten by just fine with my Stomp HX (which used to be my fx pedal on my board when using real amps) and now the HX is in my bag as a backup amp.
After spending lots of time with them, I feel like Kemper still FEELS the best but has limited IO compared to these other units where you can define your own signal path.
Fractal sounds the most "amp-like" of the bunch when it comes to manipulating the sounds. Kemper sounds good if you don't mess with it but once you do, it starts to sound different than the real amp. Not really worse but just not like the amp anymore.
QC sits somewhere in the middle but I was just really put off by no editing software (from a product designed by a software company this was inexcusable) and none of the plugins would work with it.
Helix LT is the best bang for buck and stupid easy to quickly work with on stage, even mid-song, but you have to use a really good IR for those amp models to be usable (at least for me).
IMO, at $999 for the gigging musician, the FM3 just does so much so well that it's hard to overlook.
Yeah the Helix LT has more blocks and routing but it's twice the size and not nearly as flexible with the sounds nor as good sounding overall and nowhere near as good of effects.
QC is I feel a better product these days but it's 2x the price of the FM3.
Kemper missed the mark on that new little baby pedal. I have no idea who that product is for but they should have just chopped the kemper floor unit in half and called it a day.
Tons of solid info here, you really get perspective from actually using the stuff!
Yeah the new kemper one is puzzling. I hear they used the same processor as the other Kempers for ease of cross use. Apparently they’re going to offer things with a paid unlock as well as a secondary unit to bolt on profiling capabilities, all a bit strange.
I kind of go in circles from analog gear rules, digital hardware rules, amp sims are more convenient and also rule… there are just so many options/solutions out there now. I’ve been soul searching on this topic for a month or two and I think I might end up picking up all the latest modellers and keep upto date with firmwares and comparisons
And yeah if I was gigging or rehearsing the fm3 is a no brainer. It’s funny seeing “sleek” pedalboards with multiple Strymons and other things, they stack up to 2-3x the cost and more headache with running a board. In that aspect the fm3 is a pretty nuts offering
@@ampspedalspickups I think the worst thing with the new kemper is the price. $200 more bucks and you can buy an FM3 and have a mountain more capabilities. Yeah it's not as small but you'd need a lot more space consumed to equal the FM3's offerings.
Anecdotal rant: Funny you mention sleek boards as I just sort of finished a somewhat failed experiment attempt to replace the FM3 with more analog gear.
I had a Friedman IR-X for the amp (since I really only use a friedman in the FM3) along with the strymon cloudburst and Dig and an Eventide Tricerachorus.
Absolutely killer tone but problem #1 is that with the other pedals I have to have (Wah, Volume and some kind of drive/boost pedal), my board wasn't big enough so I'd have been looking at another expense for a bigger board and case but the bigger problem is that I'm also moving from using an FRFR behind me to my Mako amplification 1x12 cab and the duncan powerstage 200 amp. IMO that just sounds so much more natural hearing a guitar sound coming from a guitar speaker and the footprint on stage is the same.
This presented a new challenge in that I needed a signal without cab sim being sent to the powerstage. I used the IR-X effects loop for the 3 effects pedals and since they're all stereo I was able to send one signal from the chorus pedal to the powerstage and the other signal back into the FX return of the IR-X.
I thought that would do the trick but the nail in the IR-X's coffin finally reared it's head in the form of a REALLY bad sounding preamp tone. It just flat out sucks which really surprised me becuase the sound with the pedal's built in IR's sounds SO good. No amount of EQ tweaking on the powerstage could fix it.
Thinking maybe my ears were messing with me, I did the same preamp-only test with the FM3, the Stomp HX and my Silver Jubilee and all 3 of those sounded fantastic.
It was a serious bummer because the IR-X feels and sounds like a real tube amp and produces some stellar tones IF you are using it's main output with the IR's.
Sure I could just stick to using an FRFR behind me and everything would be fine but the sound quality difference (IMO) in terms of sounding, feeling, behaving like a real amp are more so with a real guitar cab and decent power amp than with an FRFR.
With the FM3, I just send output 2 to the powerstage before the IR block and I'm done. It was 3 clicks in the software to achieve what several hours of frustration with cables and stuff took with the other pedals and even after A/B'ing the IRX with the FM3 using a splitter pedal to really try and pick apart the sounds, I was able to tweak the FM3 to get "close enough" to the IRX that I didn't have any hesitation hitting the refund button on amazon for the IRX. If nothing else, the pedal helped me fine tune my patch LOL.
After having this discussion with a couple other guitar friends, apparently now they're taking it as a "well have you tried this or that..." other products to try and see if they can dethrone the FM3 but man... simplicity wins for me.
Maaaaybe a quad cortex later down the line when they have more of their desktop plugins integrated but I still feel like I'd be paying nearly 2 grand for a lateral move.
/end rant
Haha man that does not sound fun. I really like simplicity and sometimes 1 or 2 pedals into an amp IS the simplicity... and other times an FM3 or single device modeller is the simplicity.
If I look at the pedals I have here to build a live rig I'd go GTR --> TC Sentry Gate --> TubeScreamer --> Preamp Pedal --> --> one way FOH / other way poweramp/cab
Sentry - $120
JHS Bonsai - $250
Fire & Sword - $250
TC IR Loader - $130
For an absolute barebones "top tier" tone youre looking at $750 in pedals alone, and thats no effects or alternates or really boutique pedals (ok the Bonsai is expensive you can go cheaper of course)... plus the board/power/cables and you're at the cost of an FM3 easy... plus failure etc. I'm totally on board with an FM3 for live use. I was so close to keeping mine and if I'd even used it 10 times a year outside of the studio I would have kept it just for that.
My ideal gigging rig would be FM3 + Duncan Powerstage (or Orange Pedal Baby) + 2x12
Apparently Friedman are looking at releasing some poweramps for this kind of setup this year... I might end up grabbing something... or you know, add it to the never ending wishlist of stuff to try out.
id speak my piece but they would burn me at the stake lol
😂😂😂
amazing channel !!!
I like ....an amp. and turtles.
This is just personal preference thing. Nothing more. I doubt Fractal will be doing VST. Rampant piracy doesn't make it very appealing, not to mention other companies just copying it.
It’s more that amp sims have gotten a lot better than they were many many moons ago. Pair that with being way more convenient in a recording environment so the balance of it all has shifted against these units a fair bit.
Nothing has changed from a standalone unit point of view they are truly amazing, but you can’t ignore how good the rest of the guitar options are getting (and for a fraction of the price).
@@ampspedalspickups If you only want a few VSTs, then yes. But this is comparing an apple to a truckload of oranges. Buying the equivalent to match the number of amps in the FM3 would cost a considerable amount. I'm getting away from amps because of the exorbitant amounts of cash, and they're going up almost monthly. One amp head is an easy $2-4000 new, and used Mesa Boogies are getting pricey. I sold my Mesa recently because I am using VSTs for recording and playing. But then I don't go jam anywhere and recording a 50/100 watt amp in your basement isn't really the most neighbour friendly thing. Then once you start looking at boutique pedals it really starts piling up. At $300 or more per unit, or something like the Boss SDE-3000EVH at $600 US, you're well on your way to a FM-3 or FM-9. That's without getting into any kind of switching for your pedals. It's literally a cost saving measure if you look at it that way. Buying multiple amp heads and a wall of pedals is far far more expensive.
@@sunnibird Yeah I guess I've broken things down into 2 main categories for noodling at home and recording, Analog and Digital ironically. If I want to use a digital ampsim, cab, delay/reverb/any effect then all of that is covered in something like Amphub and other software. Everything I was doing in the FM3 I can do in the box... but faster every single time. The only drawback is that Fractal has all the options under the sun but I would only reach to those when I was messing around or in very very few situations where I was reamping and something wasnt sounding right so I had to dig in and do some transformer changes etc.
I have no doubt that Cliffs modelling of a 5153 is infinitely more accurate than the 40 x 5150 amp sims out there... but accuracy doesnt equate to good recorded tone imo. If the amp sim can give you good recorded tone then what else do you need? So I get the whole argument of well the FM3 is the price of one amp and it has hundreds inside, but I'd counter argue and say that an amp sim is 1/20th the cost of the FM3, can give you the same "end results" and is quicker and easier to use.
Like I said in the video, I wish in some way shape or form they'd offer all their tech in a vst or some kind of plugin format even if its coupled to the hardware, that would be the best of both worlds. Either way I'm going to be gassing for the axe4 when it launches. I've owned the last 2 gens of Fractal products and am still a fanboy at heart, but the productivity of amp sims atm is just a superior workflow. All the analog stuff is nice to haves and totally a luxury, they come and go at a much slower pace :)
I think Cliff said he wouldn't do a plugin version due to piracy. I love all my Fractal gear but I also love my tube amps. Get a Two-Rock amp. You will not be disappointed
I know but there’s gotta be hope 😂
He also said he wouldn’t do profiling but I highly suspect the next iteration will have it, and it will be better than others but that’s a tale for another time
I never liked working with plugins and since I have no room or money for huge amps and cabs, hardware processors are a blessing.
You forgot to mention how much you had to pay for a really good interface to sound as good as your fm3. It would at least cost $1200 in the states.
I said in the video that amassing gear bit by bit is half the reason I sold it. Amps, Pedals, Loadboxes, Reamp, DI and of course an interface.
Yeah the fm3 or any of them work insanely well as a one stop shop solution but when you spend thousands on the rest of the setup it starts to make less and less sense (which is what the video is about basically).
I still rank Fractal as the top hardware modelling solution, and you know I'll be on the axefx4 preorder list 😆
Sure that might be a great way to go if you have a lot of space. But for those in small apartments, we have a need for modelers. I have a whole rack of boutique guitar amps sitting at home in New York. I honestly don't miss them while living in Denmark. My Kemper works just fine. But I agree about the use of amp modelers for tracking in the DAW. Between ToneX and Bogren Digital, I have found some great tones for my music. That being said, the main reason I am interested in the FM3/FM9 is purely about playing out live as a solo act and triggering patch/program changes via midi. That is not something I can do with the big bulky gear, especially when I am flying to gigs on an airplane and the weight of my luggage is a key factor. So depending on the circumstances, your arguments fall flat on their face. To each his own.
Yeah for live use the fractal units would be my goto as well. I’ve been running modellers through the power section of a 5150iii into a cab and it’s great. We have so many options these days it’s pretty amazing
Back in the day players used lots of different amps and sounded different now everybody sounds the frakin same.ls it just me?😮
Most modern punk/metal players would be happy with a 5150 tone (6505/5150iii), they really did nail that one. I think its a combo of trying to stay relevant/upto date and how much different can a guitar tone be 50-60-70 years later. A lot more experimentation with amps and fx... kind of seen a lot of it done now / harder to sound unique and good at the same time. I'm all for it though!
Hard pressed to find? Tone master pro released with a ridiculously bad evh5150 (which is made by fender no less) and they finally had to admit it was modeled wrong and they will fix it.
Lol that’s amazing. I knew it sounded kind of rough but didn’t realise they admitted it. Hopefully it’s a lot better with an update cause it wasn’t great in the demos I heard
I very much agree with your views. Amp SIMs will likely replace the Fractal FX products...it's already happening.
Next video I’m editing is basically a real amp vs an amp sim. Not being a nerd about it just realistic. I turned my engl fireball on and was like why is an amp so easy to use. I fired up an STL sim and to my surprise they were very close at all settings. Sims have come a long way and are as good or better than modellers. Hardware stuff just makes more sense for band practice or gigging, otherwise the sound of both are neck and neck these days
@@ampspedalspickups Yes, completely agree. Thank you for raising awareness around this important topic. I am in the process of ditching much of my gear now in favor of amp sims. I' keeping the guitars :-)
Sold my FM3 and went to an FM9, for gigging it just makes sense. Yeah i get they should have a VST thing and move those patches to the floor board but overall it does the thing. I don't need the analog effects and more often these days the digital models sound better than the real world thing. I still have my tube amps and I love them. But I can't imagine life without a modeler now
Yeah for gigging it makes way more sense than studio use only. If I'd have picked up the axe3 when it launched I probably would still have it but the fm3 filled a hole in my studio but then I sort of outgrew it. I'm hoping Cliff has some aces up his sleeve for an axe4, will definitely be keen to grab one again.
Thank you. This convinced me to keep my tube amps and not invest in this fractal modeler. Every modeler or amp sim I've tried, I ended up returning.
I still think it’s one of the best / most authentic modeller out there. But if the result you’re getting from all the other ones leaves you lacking then you’ll probably have the same with this. If you can try someone else’s it’s always the best way to give it a go without buying
For me… the idea is to leave my heavy amps and massive pedal board at home. To each his own, but I use it for 90% live play. I am building a pedal board with it, but still less to carry.
Live use is really where they make the most sense. I’d be reaching for an fm3 first, quad cortex second and then a Kemper or helix after that
Im Using a tone x pedal with a hx fx and its pretty much everything i could need or want
I am interested in your comment as I’m kinda looking at the unit. You said the idea is to leave amps and massive pedal board at home. I get that. Kinda thinking of the same also. But then you said your building a pedal board with it. That leads me to believe it doesn’t have everything if your need to add to it?
I have the FM3, so I added a tuner to avoid using a button on the FM3, my TB Drive, and my Fuzz I like that I can’t get exactly on the FM3. You don’t need to add any pedals. Just my preference. Just 3 pedals, but really don’t need it.
@@Fablebox yeah if I had the fm3 on a board I'd probably want a drive pedal and an expression to control FAS parameters for presets. It really can handle everything live unless you're a gear nerd like us or have some need for a crazy walrus audio/strymon sort of pedal where its just easier having a dedicated thing. Such a great unit.
And for a live gig ? FM3 all the way !
You didn't mention this...
Except at 09:50 where I did mention it 😉
I’ve never owned a physical modeler, but I’ve owned lots of plugins, and to me, profiling sounds like the better option since it’s modeling a real amp.
It’s like a double edged sword. Profiling can get the exact sound at the exact settings and does a “perfect” job. But if you’re trying to pull a new sound then flicking through things is painful
I personally like “models” when creating a tone, but I use profiling to “archive” a tone or a piece of gear I get to try out.
The end game solution for me would be some piece of technology that basically dials in your “models” to sound exactly like the profile, and then you have all the freedom to move the knobs around after the fact. That’s basically how the kemper works there’s baked in models under the hood and the capture chooses the best one then slams a bunch of eq after it to match the tone
@@ampspedalspickups I thought that’s what liquid profiling was supposed to solve, but again, I’m new to this.
@@thisguy2973 “kind of” would be my answer. On face value kemper just does a profile of an amp and then once captured the controls were generic eq curves, saturation etc. So with liquid you still do a capture but then tell it what settings you did. So all the eq and saturation controls “should” be modelled.
There’s still some levels of interpretation with how accurate the capture is to start, does the user input the right settings, and lastly how good is their modelling? Its a great system but too many fragments
If the modeller can just hear my sample audio and make a preset for me with insanely high accuracy, that’s utopia
I get your point, but vst or any ampsim only usable in studio, not on live gig. If i were i keep my fm3 for live gig use. Much wasier than grabbing ur amp collection. Just my opinion bro 🍻🍻🍻
Yeah for sure! I said in the video this is all about studio use, live is a whole other beast
Great and honest video. I've been waiting to find a video like this. I've been using NAM (or other amp sims along with GetGood Drum IRs) and plugins to create my guitar chain for a little while. Best tones I've ever had and the flexibility of changing out components couldn't be easier. I control the on/off of my plugin guitar chain using a Line 6 HD500x in midi mode. I can't imagine a better rig, honestly
Yeah that’s awesome. There are endless solutions out there these days and when you find something you massively gel with it’s just awesome
I always felt like fractal had a slightly better sound than Neural's plugins and modeler. I think Neural has a cool modeler and definitely sick plugins. So it's not that they're not good, but back when I was looking at review after review with fractal and neural dsp, I always felt like fractal had a better tone whether it was clean vintage tones, modern mid boosted tones in the 2nd position lol, and also big heavy rectifier tones. So a year ago I got an fm9 and have just been so happy with it. It's built like a tank and I can get amazing recordings and gig confidently with it. I know this is mostly about home recording, and yes hopefully they can do something to make reamping better! But again, I always thought it sounded slightly better, and that's most important for me. 😎 ua-cam.com/video/d3FVcXiwv_0/v-deo.html
The fractal stuff is just so open ended there's really no boundaries IMO. If you want something extra punchy, smooth etc etc its all in there so yeah I agree you can land yourself in a better position than plugins. Yeah if you're using it live or rehearsing with it as well then absolutely no reason to sell. When I got the fm3 it was basically my one stop shop for tones... but as I grabbed a loadbox, pedals, amps, DI unit etc etc it just became "another piece of gear".
People seem to think that I've simply replaced the fm3 with a $10 amp sim... when the truth is it took 5x the cost of the FM3 with all that other gear to make me go... you know what, I cant justify having the fractal when I have so much invested in all of this other analog gear haha. I'll definitely be eyeing down the axefx4 whenever it drops, still my favourite hardware units on the market!
Also sick tones and playing, solid stuff!
@@ampspedalspickups I hear that! I don't blame you, especially with the economy we have right now 🙄lol. I had to sell a few pedals and my epiphone sheraton 2 pro to get the pc and modeler I wanted for recording. Now I REALLY miss them lol. It's all bittersweet I guess unless you're rolling in the dough haha.
Thanks man! 😎
I have been a fractal user since 2013,i own the Axe 3,QC and Kemper Stage,fractal make great units but for me QC sound more close to the real amp that the fractal,sometimes i enjoy playing with the Axe 3 but the next day i find the fractal audio boring and that doesnt happen with the QC or the Kemper,my favorite device is the Kemper,but like i always say good hands can make any unit sound awesome
@@Nig6tWalkerwhat leads you to prefer the Kemper to the QC?
@@themischa well both devices are pretty good but to me Kemper sound is more organic.but i really enjoy using the QC both devices are killer
agree 100%
I’ll keep it just the same…😉 Purpose built tools are hard to beat.
Ampsims never gonna sound or react as good. And if you ad the price for a good interfase its not a good deal. The only thing better would ve to mic a cab yourself.
Well, yeah. If you're doing recording and running everything through a computer there's no need to have an external hardware unit to run amp sims. The only reason to have an external unit is for situations where you aren't running through a computer. They're for live situations or if you want to sit and play on your couch instead of in front of your computer.
Bingo, agreed 100%
FAS will probably never make a plugin version of their modeling. It's counterproductive for them, it will be a compromise, the modeling is already at peak quality with nothing in the market even challenging it and it wouldn't make sense to have it pirated by everyone. Also this comparison with plugins is meaningless. If you instantly like a plugin tone without tweaking you could just as easily instantly like a FAS preset from the hundreds it offers. That's no argument. And a plugin has a very specific use and it's what you describe though personally i don't know where this expectation that a recorded guitar tone should be tweaked post-print comes from. It's a very specific fad that only gets applied by amateur or semi-amateur mixing engineers and only in the metal genre. Everyone else records guitar as it was recorded for years and there is no problem with that. You should get your tone and then fit it into the mix without chopping it down into "minced meat" to its basics.
IMO for 1000 bucks to be able to have all those studio quality effects, 300+ expertly modeled amps and all the routing and I/O options you could use is a no brainer.
Strive for something better I say. Digital is digital, a plugin should be an easy port and opens up the user base exponentially. The most modern version of ilok plugins don’t get cracked so they’ll be safe on that front.
Recording DIs and using plugins or reamping is nothing new, been around for decades. Plugins have just come a long way in the last 5-6 years closing that gap of hardware digital vs plugin digital
@@ampspedalspickups I don't think FAS is willing to compromise into making a plugin. Developing for their own specific hardware is much more efficient and yields more performance out of if and in the end better results.
As for the reamping it used to be a solution to correct problems in the tracks or for someone who didn't have the equipment necessary or desired to send the DIs somewhere to be reamped. Nowadays with those plugins mixing engineers tweak the sound as they mix. IMO it's not a natural process and a mixing engineer worth his salt should be able to work with a proper amped gtr sound without having to trash it and run to the plugin. Great music has been made that way for decades.
If you ask me reamping should only be reserved for problem solving. I wouldn't work with an engineer who's first words is "i just need di tracks"...the recording process matters just as much (if more) than the mixing one and the feedback a player gets from his tone affects the performance. you can't isolate one from the other and just slap some plugin that you can easily work into your mix on top.
btw there isnt a single plugin that can hold a candle to FAS's modeling. I've been using them since the LePou ones and even before that with some elementary ones and have used almost everything when it comes to amp modeling. they will do in an emergency or if you lower your standard but whenever i try one (even the great neuraldsp ones) and then go back to my axe fx i immediately notice the difference and a more 3-dimensional sound
Uuuummmm… you do realize that the FM3 IS A DI BOX, right? You can record the DI (via USB) AND the processed tone simultaneously. I have both this unit as well as tube amps, and I prefer the Fractal over my amazing amp and $3000 pedalboard.
The fm3 being a great and versatile unit isn’t the reason I sold it, it’s all in the vid 😉
11 minutes. 11 minutes-THAT I’M NOT GETTING BACK.
You missed a big point these are amazing tools for live use
You missed where I mentioned that in the video 😂
Just saw it after I typed my bad lol
So wtf do i do then
Chug
sounds like you don't play live bro lol
Yeah, studio focused
I'm a guitarist in a band and play live, I couldn't care less about mixing in a studio that's someone else's job.
👍
It’s interesting how guitarists have 0 perspective on other peoples world view / perspective. Nobody cares that you play live at a dive bar bro.
Yes rambling big time
I dumped ANY modelling stuff for real gear...
Hopefully, I bought some stuff before the prices skyrocketed on the 2nd hand market: I'd be unable to buy the full MoogerFooger collection (w. two delays for stereo) now: the prices have gone totally insane...
For the Rig-A, which I designed for easy transport with no compromises on quality, it's in a SKB RLX-6 so it can be moved like a Samsonite, then...
- Mesa Triaxis
- Marshall EL84-20/20 (often overlooked... by people who never gave a try... This thing is damn great: it's filled with parts you usually only find on boutique amps! Note I also own other amps, racked or not. If I need more power, I can take another poweramp with me, but it rarely happened)
- Lexicon MPX-G2
- Eventide Eclipse
- Sound Sculpture Switchblade GL
- 1U rack with Tetris-like stuffed stompboxes circuits
- 2x Electrovoice TL806/EVM12L (guess why I rarely needed more than the 2x20W, in fact, in the control room, I usually pull out one of the two EL84 on each channel to lower power at 2x 4.5W... And even tho, it's still really loud...
=> The Fooger collection is in a "soft" 6U flycase that is independent...
I don't need 300 amps models, I just need MY sound which comees straight from the 1st tube amp I built 30+ years ago: a Mesa Stu22 copy built with the trannies scavenged from a Marshall 1974x (AKA Plexi 18W) then I added the Mark III's distortion while keeping the Stu22's overdrive... It didn't sounded like a Stu22... It sounded better and moreover unique. I toured with this baby for years. With some really minor mods, I could get the same sound from the Triaxis+EL84-20/20 and I got both for cheaper than dirt, thanks to the vintage/boutique trend: racked amps and preamps can be obtained for really cheap while they were all high-end stuff in the 80's/90's and still are...
Click-bait.
thx
Jesus , kinda think you are all over the place.how do you have any time to play guitar when your constantly messing with stuff.too much gear not enough playing.a great guitar player can make any amp sound great
I think you missed the point of the video offering my point of view on owning a bunch of studio equipment and the fm3. No problem with sound it’s great in that regard
too much talking
Kind of the point of a talking piece video
Click bait….
Obviously didn’t watch it… had an fm3 and it’s now gone and I explain why
sorry but these are non-arguments you just stumble through just to justify selling the unit for your own personal reasons. they are not reasonable arguments
Who’s arguing? I’m offering my point of view on why a unit like this has less value when you have real amps on one side and plugins on the other side. If you have nothing else they are incredible, if you gig they are incredible. But if you’re in the studio and have a bunch of other things then it’s harder and harder to justify owning one
@@ampspedalspickups if you think paying 1000-1500 bucks per amp is more justified than owning the ones fractal has in the box (not to mention all the effects and drives and stuff) then you have a different idea of what is justified or not than me...
Excellent strawman response, no one ever said that. If you watched the video I praised the fm3 and still do, use whatever makes you happy mate
@@ampspedalspickups i already do mate. didnt need your permission for that. and you did just say that you couldnt justify owning one for the price of 1000 bucks. but you can justify to yourself i assume owning a couple of amps for more than that and only having these two amp sounds...no strawman argument. just the reality you dont like to hear...but you also can use whatever makes you happy. doesnt mean it's a cohesive reasonable argument as i said in the 1st comment it's about your own personal taste which you are entitled to have of course
No matter how you dice it digital amp units aren’t real amps so yes I would rather have a bunch of analog gear around here. For digital solutions I mostly have plugins which have their advantages over a hardware unit. The whole point of why I made this video was to give the perspective that digital units used to be the best way to get these sounds but the reality is plugins have massively caught up and are close enough for digital. If you’re not gigging and have a bunch of real amps as well as a bunch of plugins the fm3 starts to sit in the middle and has the inconvenience of real time recording without the benefit of it being an analog amp.
If you can’t see the logic here then I dunno what to say. It’s fine if you don’t agree but it’s the reality of the landscape of plugins and modelling units now
All these ubeaut effect units are crap. They still dont come close to a real valve amp with a kick ass distortion pedal
I think a hybrid setup is where it’s at. Pushing some kind of digital preamp into a valve power amp into a cab gets great results
Ok boomer
Bla
What you didn't mention is that you need more gear to run an amp sim as a guitar rig especially when playing live. One of the biggest issues to deal with is latency. A cheap laptop won't give you a high quality signal and the same can be said for a cheap interface. On top of that, you will then need to amplify the signal and run it through an FRFR system.
I did mention it but yeah the fm3 is one of the best units out there for live use! If I was gigging regularly I would have kept it just for that. Run one output into a poweramp/cab and the other with an IR to FOH, so good
MATE - ITS HARDWARE. ITS FOR LIVE USE!!!.
I got a helix but i play out live & better than fractal - it came with amp plugin for FREE!!! 100% of the pedal in a plug in. no re-amping ever or waiting.
How good would it be if fractal did the same!
WELL - they should pull their finger out!@@ampspedalspickups
Thx for the thoughtful view on these modeler boxes. I have an olde Roland VG-99 sitting around looking pretty... dusty. I was going to sell when I could have gotten $1100, but now it's worth $500; if anyone wants it let me know :) Can you explain modeling subscription options? I didn't quite catch what you said there. Thx!
I was talking about subscriptions like STL Amphub which is $10/month but if you wait for deals like Black Friday I think they go as low as $60/year. There are so many amp sims these days it’s really hard to dump down 50-100 for a bunch of them that’s why I suggested a subscription where they keep adding things to it.
I’ll be doing some Black Friday sales roundup vids cause there’ll definitely be a ton of deals going around