First Fractal experience

The Interceptor

The Interceptor

New Member
My FM3 MkII Turbo arrived on Friday but my wife said I wasn't able to open it until Sunday (Father's Day in Australia). Fair enough, and what a Father's Day it was.

This is my first Fractal unit after owing all sorts of units below the top tier: Boss GT-1000, Line 6 Pod Go and Headrush MX5. Of that bunch, only the GT-1000 stayed around. I had got the GT-1000 humming along nicely so I was concerned that the FM3 would be worth the investment.

After a very selfish day of testing and tweaking, I'm happy to say the FM3 is an absolute rip-snorter. I have spent the day chasing boosted JCM800 tones, and I've had excellent results. I haven't A/B'd with the GT-1000 but my sense is that the FM3 tones are fatter and more realistic. The FM3 sounds pretty close to my DSL40CR, which is a good place to start for me.

Regarding the challenge of navigating Fractal menu structure, I haven't found it too difficult at all. I haven't gone deep at this stage but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as steep a mountain as the critics would have you believe.

I'll be spending the next few weeks getting my core tones sorted and I am very confident I will nail them all. Very happy with my decision.
 
Hey there

Congrats on your Fractal experience tour
And -> WHAT A FATHERS DAY PRESENT 🤩 WOW!

For starters: All of the 2112 (Leon Todd) youtube tips are a great starting point. Cant go wrong with that learning curve.
There is somuch in the unit that is editable tweakable, it will somehow be overwhelming that you cant stop tweaking because of curiosity (what if I turn this knob, what will it sound like 😅) <- and then you are screwed!

My personal experience is to buy packs from vendors. These packs are full of instandly usable presets and configured with use of wah, volume and maby FC6 controller settings (I know for the FX3 the FC controllers are configured in most packs). But also the AxeChange page has great usable presets. From AxeEdit you can audition them and store them on your unit.

Good luck and welcome to the Fractal forum 🤘

Cheers 🍻
 
The Interceptor said:
...I haven't A/B'd with the GT-1000 but my sense is that the FM3 tones are fatter and more realistic...
Click to expand...
I think you probably sense correctly. I like Boss, but to me at least, it's just not on quite the same level as Fractal. Sounds like maybe you enjoy tweaking so you'll find infinitely more satisfaction in that regard as well. Enjoy!

Congrats on the new FM3 and welcome to Fractalverse! :p
 
Welcome!

Nice to see more Aussies here.

Thanks
Pauly
The Interceptor said:
My FM3 MkII Turbo arrived on Friday but my wife said I wasn't able to open it until Sunday (Father's Day in Australia). Fair enough, and what a Father's Day it was.

This is my first Fractal unit after owing all sorts of units below the top tier: Boss GT-1000, Line 6 Pod Go and Headrush MX5. Of that bunch, only the GT-1000 stayed around. I had got the GT-1000 humming along nicely so I was concerned that the FM3 would be worth the investment.

After a very selfish day of testing and tweaking, I'm happy to say the FM3 is an absolute rip-snorter. I have spent the day chasing boosted JCM800 tones, and I've had excellent results. I haven't A/B'd with the GT-1000 but my sense is that the FM3 tones are fatter and more realistic. The FM3 sounds pretty close to my DSL40CR, which is a good place to start for me.

Regarding the challenge of navigating Fractal menu structure, I haven't found it too difficult at all. I haven't gone deep at this stage but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as steep a mountain as the critics would have you believe.

I'll be spending the next few weeks getting my core tones sorted and I am very confident I will nail them all. Very happy with my decision.
Click to expand...
 
OP here after nearly a couple of weeks.

I'm very happy with what I've been able to extract out of the FM3 so far. I've got a great suite of high gain amps doing their things. A big surprise for me was the 5153; previously my modeller experience with the 5150 amp has not been positive. The Fractal version is fantastic and might be capable of covering everything north of crunchy.

York IRs have made my job easy (no surprise, based on previous good results with other modellers).

I haven't been able to entirely nail a great bass tone yet. I'd like a Dave Ellefson/Rust In Peace kind of sound. Not doubt a bit of Googling will resolve that.

Only complaint? Boot-up time!
 
The legacy amp models in the GT are absolutely atrocious on every level. So it's no wonder you're digging your new toy. Congrats!
 
JiveTurkey said:
The legacy amp models in the GT are absolutely atrocious on every level. So it's no wonder you're digging your new toy. Congrats!
Click to expand...
I thought the X-amps were pretty good, plus the Natural Clean, Deluxe Reverb and Twin Reverb were all decent. Not that I'm going back, mind you.
 
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The Interceptor said:
I thought the X-amps were pretty good, plus the Natural Clean, Deluxe Reverb and Twin Reverb were all decent. Not that I'm going back, mind you.
Click to expand...
I like the Xamps a lot. Truly. But anything with high gain compared to its real world counterpart or counterpart in other modeler? God no.
 
The Interceptor said:
My FM3 MkII Turbo arrived on Friday but my wife said I wasn't able to open it until Sunday (Father's Day in Australia). Fair enough, and what a Father's Day it was.

This is my first Fractal unit after owing all sorts of units below the top tier: Boss GT-1000, Line 6 Pod Go and Headrush MX5. Of that bunch, only the GT-1000 stayed around. I had got the GT-1000 humming along nicely so I was concerned that the FM3 would be worth the investment.

After a very selfish day of testing and tweaking, I'm happy to say the FM3 is an absolute rip-snorter. I have spent the day chasing boosted JCM800 tones, and I've had excellent results. I haven't A/B'd with the GT-1000 but my sense is that the FM3 tones are fatter and more realistic. The FM3 sounds pretty close to my DSL40CR, which is a good place to start for me.

Regarding the challenge of navigating Fractal menu structure, I haven't found it too difficult at all. I haven't gone deep at this stage but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as steep a mountain as the critics would have you believe.

I'll be spending the next few weeks getting my core tones sorted and I am very confident I will nail them all. Very happy with my decision.
Click to expand...


The DSL40 is an impressive amp. Pre-covid prices (in USA) were like $600 which was a steal. A couple of my friends have them and I enjoy the tones they get out of it. I always like to have a tube amp in the house just for fun, I don't right now, but I'd consider a DSL40.

With that said, enjoy the FM3. They're a lot of fun. And don't be afraid to try playing it directly into your DSL40 FX Return (With CAB modeling off) to get the best of both worlds (tube power amp, real guitar speaker cab, and versatile FM3 amp modeling). DSL40 power section is fairly clean as far as I know, so not a lot of power amp distortion, though it may color it a bit.

Enjoy!
 
OP here, about 4 weeks in.

I have achieved better high gain tones on this unit than I did in 5 years with my GT-1000. I am listening to old recordings I made with the Boss and re-doing a few with the FM3 with great results.

As for the alleged difficulty in navigating the unit: I call BS on that. It isn't hard, and nothing Google can't resolve in 5 minutes. Besides, I can nail a good tone in the FM3 in half an hour whereas it could take me days (or more) of fiddling on a so-called user friendly unit to get even near it.
 
The Interceptor said:
After a very selfish day of testing and tweaking, I'm happy to say the FM3 is an absolute rip-snorter.
Click to expand...
Excellent! Thank you.
The Interceptor said:
Regarding the challenge of navigating Fractal menu structure, I haven't found it too difficult at all.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Especially if you use FM3-Edit. I believe that many of the "critics" you refer to are mostly just trying to stir up controversy to earn YouTube monetization dollars.
 
Admin M@ said:
Agreed. Especially if you use FM3-Edit. I believe that many of the "critics" you refer to are mostly just trying to stir up controversy to earn YouTube monetization dollars.
Click to expand...

Hahah. That might be the case.

Or they're very young and don't know what interacting with technology is like without an iPhone.

I still prefer button menus to touchscreen menus. Literally every touch screen I own (other than phones) shows calibration drift...it's annoying to have to remember how I have to aim next to the buttons for each stupid one.

It kinda reminds me of something I saw on twitter or something years ago: "I'm stuck away from home for a while, and my book and cigarette are both out of battery...why is the future better again?"
 
Boss is trying to do the normal corporate thing where they piggyback on their other products and capitalize on their previous sales without making any changes to their “signature” sound.

They have some good pedals but I have never found them to be great. I quit using their products years ago though I think I still have a compressor of theirs stuck in my old Anvil briefcase. There are companies who are after “good enough” and others who want to be as accurate as possible and are always looking to improve their products.

Fractal is the latter type. The hardware is an excellent platform for modeling and was designed to support an increasingly sophisticated and accurate firmware. They can’t upgrade the circuits and switches in the hardware, it isn’t practical, but they sure upgrade what it will do.

The FM3 is a sweetheart. It’s not the most powerful or most capable but it’s easy to grab and go, and we can expand the switches to make it easier to use.
 
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