Let's see those FM3 rigs!

So ... after a couple of hundred posts in these forums, and a few adventures with both a friend's FM3 and my own eventual purchase of an FM3T, I have finally built my rig!!

Behold my creation :)

This is a Rockboard 4.1, with the Mod 3 Patch Panel, a Mission Engineering EP1, and a DIY two button footswitch. I also installed a carry handle and a USB extension. Everything is pre-patched into the Mod 3, so no wear and tear on the FM3T sockets ...

There is a Sennheiser XWS2 wireless mounted underneath, with flip out antennae on extension cables on the top of the board. These fold away for easy transport. The wireless runs to the outside of the patch panel, which then connects from the other side to the Input on the FM3T. This means that if the wireless ever goes down, I can unplug it from the back of the rig, and swap over to a guitar cable which effectively just gets sent into the FM3T input.

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I really like how the undersides and such are attached. Aside from the way you plug in and out, I did a similar thing with old 1u rack shelves. I ended up having to order 2 more once I figured out where everything went. I drilled 5x’s as many holes as were needed with the first draft lol
 
Just mounted on a board... but I have the editor on a tablet, and nice tiny Moyo volume and control pedals. Plus, I 3d printed all my brackets.

pedals and brackets.jpg

But the real star is my one-of-a-kind Multi-kord pedal steel. Upgraded with rods instead of cables, two knee levers added, custom string-through pickup, bespoke fretboard design and tablet stand. This is the only MK I've ever seen with a steel tray, so it actually stays in tune. Boy does that pickup give a lot of nice tone for the FM3 to work with. The little keyboard is there because FM-edit doesn't implement windows touch protocol, and there is no way to right-click. I'm hoping they fix that soon.

cheers!FM3 and MKord.jpg
 
woodslanding said:
Just mounted on a board... but I have the editor on a tablet, and nice tiny Moyo volume and control pedals. Plus, I 3d printed all my brackets.

View attachment 133928

But the real star is my one-of-a-kind Multi-kord pedal steel. Upgraded with rods instead of cables, two knee levers added, custom string-through pickup, bespoke fretboard design and tablet stand. This is the only MK I've ever seen with a steel tray, so it actually stays in tune. Boy does that pickup give a lot of nice tone for the FM3 to work with. The little keyboard is there because FM-edit doesn't implement windows touch protocol, and there is no way to right-click. I'm hoping they fix that soon.

cheers!View attachment 133927
Click to expand...
That is a sweet steel!
 
Here is my current setup:
FM3 Turbo - Voes MX-9 - Hotone Soul Press II - Rockboard Quad 4.2 - Cioks DC7

I do have a bit of buyers remorse for the MX-9 not because it is a bad device (quite the opposite tbh) but I don't really need the 9 switches, could easily do with less switches and navigate between Page A and B on the Voes, as you can see from what I use the switches for.
Page B on my MX-9 is empty, all located on Page A with only a single function programmed per switch.
Now planning to ditch the MX-9 and Quad 4.2, to replace them with a MX-5 and a Temple Audio Duo 17.
5 switches is plenty for me and saving more than 2kgs (±1kg pedalboard, ±500g MX-5, ±500g Cioks DC-7 and ±500g for the Rockboard MOD 3) is also appreciated, especially since I am using public transport to get to my rehearsal space.
IMG_3977.JPGIMG_3978.JPGIMG_3979.JPGIMG_3980.JPG
 
Since a thousand words are worth a picture...here's my current signal chain.
1) Iris Compressor. Sweet and simple. A mini toggle for low, medium or high compresssion and a volume knob.
2) Steel String Clean Boost
3) ISP Decimator for my single coil and P-90 guitars
4) Band of Gypsys Fuzz
5) Toadworks Texas Flood. A tube screamer with smoother mids.
6) Morley George Lynch Tripler Pedal. This has an input with a boost and three outputs each with an on/off footswitch to send your signal to three
different devices/inputs. One output goes to the Radial (see #9) and another to the...
7) Carvin Steve Vai Legacy Drive Preamp. The preamp section of his Signature amp in pedal form.
8) Atomic Amplifire. My pre-FM3 pedal. I only use it for its power amp modeling (which Fractal doesn't do) with the Legacy Drive.
9) Radial Big Shot I/O. Two inputs and one output with a footswitch to choose which input, and a mute footswitch. So one input is my whole signal chain and the other is minus the Legacy/Amplifire.
10) Fractal Audio FM3. With this setup I can go from normal use to an IR/effects unit for the Carvin with a press of a switch. Output One to my
headphone amp (90% of the time) and Two out to a pair of Adam 5" monitors.
11) My ears, which love what they are hearing.
 
Hi folks. Just finished up my pedalboard. Lot's of inspiration and information in this thread.

2 Hotone double switches mounted from underneath used as stand-in switches.

Midi Baby gives me a switch for tap tempo and tuner and also an input for an expression pedal through midi.

FasLink powers the Midi Baby and LED's through the Engl Portable Power Tap.

I use a tweaked version of @Patzag excellent FM3 Alone https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...w-to-use-the-3-switches-by-themselves.161070/

I'm also a big fan of @austinbuddy Live Gold https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...-1000-livegold-tonepack-for-cygnus-x2.164305/

Everything works perfectly. Lots of options. Compact and powerful without being crowded and totally self contained. This is ideal for me.

I love my FM3. Such an inspiring and creative tool.


NDPQDRf.jpg
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2Ci660k.jpg
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8Je1qM3.jpg
 
woodslanding said:
Just mounted on a board... but I have the editor on a tablet, and nice tiny Moyo volume and control pedals. Plus, I 3d printed all my brackets.

View attachment 133928

But the real star is my one-of-a-kind Multi-kord pedal steel. Upgraded with rods instead of cables, two knee levers added, custom string-through pickup, bespoke fretboard design and tablet stand. This is the only MK I've ever seen with a steel tray, so it actually stays in tune. Boy does that pickup give a lot of nice tone for the FM3 to work with. The little keyboard is there because FM-edit doesn't implement windows touch protocol, and there is no way to right-click. I'm hoping they fix that soon.

cheers!View attachment 133927
Click to expand...
I'd love to hear some recordings of your steel through the FM3! That's what I use with my steel guitar, too.
 
Bladester said:
Hi folks. Just finished up my pedalboard. Lot's of inspiration and information in this thread.

2 Hotone double switches mounted from underneath used as stand-in switches.

Midi Baby gives me a switch for tap tempo and tuner and also an input for an expression pedal through midi.

FasLink powers the Midi Baby and LED's through the Engl Portable Power Tap.

I use a tweaked version of @Patzag excellent FM3 Alone https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...w-to-use-the-3-switches-by-themselves.161070/

I'm also a big fan of @austinbuddy Live Gold https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...-1000-livegold-tonepack-for-cygnus-x2.164305/

Everything works perfectly. Lots of options. Compact and powerful without being crowded and totally self contained. This is ideal for me.

I love my FM3. Such an inspiring and creative tool.


NDPQDRf.jpg
dnNr27u.jpg
VYopVEe.jpg
2Ci660k.jpg
bfh0wkk.jpg
zkjoQfP.jpg
qqtUYRa.jpg
8Je1qM3.jpg
Click to expand...
What size board is that? Looks smaller than the 18 …
 
Bladester said:
FasLink powers the Midi Baby and LED's through the Engl Portable Power Tap.
Click to expand...

This would be my perfect backup board. I love it. Can you tell me more about the cable you're using to go from faslink to the power tap? Did you make it yourself? (and could you make me one :sweatsmile: j/k (sorta)). But yeah, very nice.
 
MicroMort said:
This would be my perfect backup board. I love it. Can you tell me more about the cable you're using to go from faslink to the power tap? Did you make it yourself? (and could you make me one :sweatsmile: j/k (sorta)). But yeah, very nice.
Click to expand...

Hi there. I didn't make it myself. I cut the XLR cable I needed. Cut the barrel connector that came with the Engl. Brought it to a local electronics shop to splice together. Not expensive and works perfectly. There's lots of information about it in this thread and others on the forum.
 
Guitar nerd alert. Downsized my small board to an even smaller footprint. The goal was to fit nicely in a double gig bag. I wound up with room to spare.

Here’s everything I’m getting out of this little rig, on one preset, in terms of pedals it would be replacing:

Noise Gate, Volume Pedal, Pitch Shifter, Octave Down, Whammy, Wah, Phaser, Flanger, UniVibe, Trem, Vintage Delay (Pre), 2 Drives (Klon & Zendrive), 2 Amps (Friedman BE100 & Plexi), 2 412 cab IRs (GB/V30 - SM57 & R121), Stereo Chorus, Stereo Tape Delay (Post), 2 Reverbs, Volume & Gain boosts…

There’s much more I could add, but that’s typically what I would want access to on the fly. It wasn’t that long ago that it would’ve taken a massive pedalboard and lots of heavy, expensive gear to make that happen. Especially in stereo. Gigging in mono is also a snap… one button push.

What a time to be alive! 🤣😎

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Tonedeaf said:
Since a thousand words are worth a picture...here's my current signal chain.
1) Iris Compressor. Sweet and simple. A mini toggle for low, medium or high compresssion and a volume knob.
2) Steel String Clean Boost
3) ISP Decimator for my single coil and P-90 guitars
4) Band of Gypsys Fuzz
5) Toadworks Texas Flood. A tube screamer with smoother mids.
6) Morley George Lynch Tripler Pedal. This has an input with a boost and three outputs each with an on/off footswitch to send your signal to three
different devices/inputs. One output goes to the Radial (see #9) and another to the...
7) Carvin Steve Vai Legacy Drive Preamp. The preamp section of his Signature amp in pedal form.
8) Atomic Amplifire. My pre-FM3 pedal. I only use it for its power amp modeling (which Fractal doesn't do) with the Legacy Drive.
9) Radial Big Shot I/O. Two inputs and one output with a footswitch to choose which input, and a mute footswitch. So one input is my whole signal chain and the other is minus the Legacy/Amplifire.
10) Fractal Audio FM3. With this setup I can go from normal use to an IR/effects unit for the Carvin with a press of a switch. Output One to my
headphone amp (90% of the time) and Two out to a pair of Adam 5" monitors.
11) My ears, which love what they are hearing.
Click to expand...
Update to this rig now. No longer using the Radial I/O. Instead I send the Legacy Drive preamp chain into a TE Electronics G-Maor. I then send that chain and the FM3 chain into seperate channels of my headphone amp/mixer, which means I can listen to both at the same time. Ears are very happy.
 
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