4 cable method FM9 turbo questions

Yeah, the humx for me resolved putting stuff in the loop of the power station, however I could never get 4cm to work will with the Power Station. Regardless of how many "ground loop defeating" trix I tried. And it did not matter what device I use. Fractal, Line 6, same weird grounding issue.

Using 4cm with an amp and the FM9 works great. I am not setup at the moment to test it out, but I remember the humbuster cables depended on the amp I used. I vaguely remember my Mark V needing it, where the other amps not so much.

SO glad someone else can confirm what I ran into with the power station. I worked with there tech support on that and initially they were helpful, but as we got more in detail and I sent them videos they stopped replying. Fryette power station still a great product, but limitted due to this weakness IMO
 
Correction, I was actually able to getting a working and acceptable "4 CM" solution to work with the Power Station and FM9, but I had to introduce an additional reactive load. I used a Suhr Reactive load cause it's what I had, but a Fractal LB-2 would work just as well.

Basically the connections look like this (remember, this is for an amp with no loop)
Guitar->FM9 Input 1->FM9 Output 3->Front of Amp->Amp Speaker Out->Reactive Load Input(Suhr or Fractal LB2)->Reactive Load Output->FM9 Input 3->FM9 output 1->Fryette Power Station Input->Speaker Cab

It sucks you need the additional piece of gear, but I used this method with an old Marshall JCM 800 and it sounded killer. I did use the humbuster cables where appropriate, but not sure how big of a difference they made. The Suhr Reactive load is completely passive.

(Of course you could simply skip all that and just use Brit 800 going directly into the power station and get basically the same results lol)
 
sarge said:
Correction, I was actually able to getting a working and acceptable "4 CM" solution to work with the Power Station and FM9, but I had to introduce an additional reactive load. I used a Suhr Reactive load cause it's what I had, but a Fractal LB-2 would work just as well.

Basically the connections look like this (remember, this is for an amp with no loop)
Guitar->FM9 Input 1->FM9 Output 3->Front of Amp->Amp Speaker Out->Reactive Load Input(Suhr or Fractal LB2)->Reactive Load Output->FM9 Input 3->FM9 output 1->Fryette Power Station Input->Speaker Cab

It sucks you need the additional piece of gear, but I used this method with an old Marshall JCM 800 and it sounded killer. I did use the humbuster cables where appropriate, but not sure how big of a difference they made. The Suhr Reactive load is completely passive.

(Of course you could simply skip all that and just use Brit 800 going directly into the power station and get basically the same results lol)
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Thanks for the tip. So, as I understand it, you still weren’t able to use 4CM with the Hum X? I also contacted support, and they suggest adding an iso transformer between the FX unit and amp input.
 
I have tried to follow this thread and understand the issues.
Fortunately I have not encountered any of this hum. I am using a FM9 turbo in 4cm.
Over time I have used quite the array of power amps in various configs.
I have not encountered any interference at the levels described here.
My only suggestion would be to isolate the electrical circuit. I use two electrical circuits in my studio, both dedicated to guitar.
Other than that, I am baffled by the amount of experimenting done with little to no success.
Do your buddies own fractal? Can u inter switch other fractals to see if it persists?
Maybe this has been suggested and I missed it. I did mention that I was trying to keep up.
Good luck to all. Fractal Rocks!
 
Fractur3d said:
I have tried to follow this thread and understand the issues.
Fortunately I have not encountered any of this hum. I am using a FM9 turbo in 4cm.
Over time I have used quite the array of power amps in various configs.
I have not encountered any interference at the levels described here.
My only suggestion would be to isolate the electrical circuit. I use two electrical circuits in my studio, both dedicated to guitar.
Other than that, I am baffled by the amount of experimenting done with little to no success.
Do your buddies own fractal? Can u inter switch other fractals to see if it persists?
Maybe this has been suggested and I missed it. I did mention that I was trying to keep up.
Good luck to all. Fractal Rocks!
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I think this is an issue specific to the Fryette Power Station and 4CM. Unfortunately all of my real amps are NMV so I have to use the the Fryette’s loop.
 
Farador said:
Thanks for the tip. So, as I understand it, you still weren’t able to use 4CM with the Hum X? I also contacted support, and they suggest adding an iso transformer between the FX unit and amp input.
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Correct, the humx only allowed me to run the FM9 in the loop of the power station. Any device with a ground lug on the power chord appear to have this issue with the power station. And select ground lift had no effect. My HX stomp doesn't have a ground lug and I did not need the humx, however I noticed if I were using it with the power station and had a USB cable connected to the HX Stomp, you started getting that weird comb filter effect with that as well.

I mean with the humx it... sort of worked. What I found was that for whatever reason, the input signal going into the front of the amp was weak when I went 4cm. Weak to the point I felt it was unusable. If I only went to the front of the amp with say a drive block (and disconnected from the power station loop) it sounded exactly as you would expect. As soon as I plugged the loop in, even with literally no effects blocks active in the loop, the tone acted as if either the signal going into the front dropped of the input impedance changed. It just sounded way off.

And yes, this 4cm issue is strictly with the power station. I have used the FM9 with many amps 4cm and it sounds great.

The only way I ever got 4cm to work with the power station, was inserting a separate reactive load and using the power station as really a power amp only.

I tried 4cm using an HX stomp with the power station, and it was even worse. I got no output.
 
sarge said:
Correct, the humx only allowed me to run the FM9 in the loop of the power station. Any device with a ground lug on the power chord appear to have this issue with the power station. And select ground lift had no effect. My HX stomp doesn't have a ground lug and I did not need the humx, however I noticed if I were using it with the power station and had a USB cable connected to the HX Stomp, you started getting that weird comb filter effect with that as well.

I mean with the humx it... sort of worked. What I found was that for whatever reason, the input signal going into the front of the amp was weak when I went 4cm. Weak to the point I felt it was unusable. If I only went to the front of the amp with say a drive block (and disconnected from the power station loop) it sounded exactly as you would expect. As soon as I plugged the loop in, even with literally no effects blocks active in the loop, the tone acted as if either the signal going into the front dropped of the input impedance changed. It just sounded way off.

And yes, this 4cm issue is strictly with the power station. I have used the FM9 with many amps 4cm and it sounds great.

The only way I ever got 4cm to work with the power station, was inserting a separate reactive load and using the power station as really a power amp only.

I tried 4cm using an HX stomp with the power station, and it was even worse. I got no output.
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Are you pushing your amp through the power stations attenuation in conjunction with the loop?
 
Farador said:
Correct? the amps power stage is loaded down by the PS-2a and reamped to a 1x12.
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I would expect a hum at least, that’s a lot of wattage. Why not invest in a quality amplifier that has a fx loop? Especially when using 4cm. Your amps tone stack and power section and a redundant power stage from the ps2 power section? Sorry, but it strikes me as nonsensical.
 
Fractur3d said:
I would expect a hum at least, that’s a lot of wattage. Why not invest in a quality amplifier that has a fx loop? Especially when using 4cm. Your amps tone stack and power section and a redundant power stage from the ps2 power section? Sorry, but it strikes me as nonsensical.
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What is nonsensical about using a power station in 4CM? I have a number of vintage amps which don’t have an fx loop or master volume. That’s a huge benefit of the power station. Perhaps there’s a language barrier here, but I don’t understand what is even remotely confusing about this.
 
Because one of the main reasons for using a ps2 is to push your amp into it so you can set the amp to open up the valves while the power soak controls the volume output.
Running effects through a complete gain structure of your amp then into another power fx loop where half of your signal chain is receiving an additional boost of wattage remains nonsensical from my perspective. Peace.
 
Fractur3d said:
Because one of the main reasons for using a ps2 is to push your amp into it so you can set the amp to open up the valves while the power soak controls the volume output.
Running effects through a complete gain structure of your amp then into another power fx loop where half of your signal chain is receiving an additional boost of wattage remains nonsensical from my perspective. Peace.
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It’s fairly common to run some fx before the amp (I.e. dirt, vibe, etc) and some in the loop, hence 4CM being a thing.

Regardless if this makes sense to you or not, I am simply trying to figure out how to make it work.
 
I run 4cm
I know about routing effects before the eq stack on the amp and in the fx loop
You are adding a power stage your chain, unnecessarily imo
Hey, but u do u
Good luck with creating ground loops
 
Ok we will agree to disagree 👍

Back on topic. Assuming I havent taken crazy pills today, has anyone run their FM9 in 4CM using a slaved amp and their Fryette Power Station? I really would like to make this work if I can.

I.e. Guitar > FM9 > Amp > Power Station > FM9 > Power Station Return > Speaker Cab
 
Fractur3d said:
Because one of the main reasons for using a ps2 is to push your amp into it so you can set the amp to open up the valves while the power soak controls the volume output.
Running effects through a complete gain structure of your amp then into another power fx loop where half of your signal chain is receiving an additional boost of wattage remains nonsensical from my perspective. Peace.
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Afaik (+ I believe its mentioned on the Fryette website), a use case of the Power Station is, in addition to attenuation, to boost the power output of a smaller wattage amp, hence the additional PS2 tube power amp stage after attenuation which I believe is clean / higher headroom with low coloration so as to preserve the character of the incoming external amp's attenuated pre + power stage signal. If one does not need the additional volume, then using the PS power amp would seem unnecessary, however, in a case like above where no fx loop is available in the external amp, it would make sense to use the fx loop and p.a. of the PS.

I don't have a PS but I run my amp head with integrated load box (amp-in to load-box-di-out) in a unity gain loop (3) of Ax3, then run external post fx if any, in a subsequent 2nd loop of Ax3, then finally out from Ax3 Out1 to a SS power amp (Matrix) + various cabs. Works great, and basically the same as running 4CM with a PS + using the PS' clean hi-headroom / low coloration power amp for final monitoring (except in the case of my Matrix, the 2nd power stage is SS - not tube based). I run 2 amps this way - one is dead silent, one has a slight ground loop that I've never been able to diagnose despite many attempts (frustrating indeed - just seems to be the way it is with some configs).

Imo, a bridgeable stereo power amp (ie Fryette Lx2 or Matrix) + a separate attenuator with good quality line out and speaker output defeat / bypass is more flexible with Ax3 (or FM9 (maybe not FM3 with only one loop)) than PS2 since you get the stereo option and can use the 2nd Axfx loop for external post fx.
 
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sprint said:
Afaik (+ I believe its mentioned on the Fryette website), a use case of the Power Station is, in addition to attenuation, to boost the power output of a smaller wattage amp, hence the additional PS2 tube power amp stage after attenuation which I believe is clean / higher headroom with low coloration so as to preserve the character of the incoming external amp's attenuated pre + power stage signal. If one does not need the additional volume, then using the PS power amp would seem unnecessary, however, in a case like above where no fx loop is available in the external amp, it would make sense to use the fx loop and p.a. of the PS.

I don't have a PS but I run my amp head with integrated load box (amp-in to load-box-di-out) in a unity gain loop (3) of Ax3, then run external post fx if any, in a subsequent 2nd loop of Ax3, then finally out from Ax3 Out1 to a SS power amp (Matrix) + various cabs. Works great, and basically the same as running 4CM with a PS + using the PS' clean hi-headroom / low coloration power amp for final monitoring (except in the case of my Matrix, the 2nd power stage is SS - not tube based). I run 2 amps this way - one is dead silent, one has a slight ground loop that I've never been able to diagnose despite many attempts (frustrating indeed - just seems to be the way it is with some configs).

Imo, a bridgeable stereo power amp (ie Fryette Lx2 or Matrix) + a separate attenuator with good quality line out and speaker output defeat / bypass is more flexible with Ax3 (or FM9 (maybe not FM3 with only one loop)) than PS2 since you get the stereo option and can use the 2nd Axfx loop for external post fx.
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I like to use the KISS method for electricity. If I get a negative effect from something that I have created I usually don’t add anything to overcome symptomatic issues arising from my own work. I’m more apt to use subtraction and circumvent that which creates more issues than delivering a positive result. But I am also lazy. It’s a Heinlein thing. Peace.☮️
 
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