Any anti modelers have religious conversion?

I'm not 'converted' but then again I don't want to be!

I like my old amps just as much as I like my Fractal stuff. It's all ..... well .... just stuff that works.

I don't subscribe to the 'my new thing is so good I got rid of everything else' point of view at all. Most of us own more than one guitar and to me at least, having a few different amps/FX etc lying around are just part and parcel of the same deal.
 
Hahaha I brought my III over to a buddy’s band practice a few weeks ago because I wanted them to check it out and I wanted to play his Friedman JJ head. The guy who owns the JJ is a total tube-devotee, I plugged into the return of the JJ and in about 30 seconds he chuckled and goes, “That sounds fucking great but there’s no way I’m dealing with all those buttons and menus” :D
 
I've been playing guitar for four decades. Back in the 70s, I had a tube amp and some pedals. As multi-effects devices became available, I began to migrate toward rack-mounted gear and MIDI control. It never occurred to me that my equipment with circuit boards was somehow "less pure" than my hand-wired amp; it was just the gear that was available. Gear got better; fidelity increased; power and flexibility AND RELIABILITY increased. I toured a lot with tube amps, and had some harrowing experiences with tubes failing post-flight (I eventually took to de-tubing the amp before shipping, and carrying the tubes with me on the plane). Some of my pedals were sensitive to battery voltage / temperature. Nobody was mass-producing stable power supplies for pedals, and those 1970's era transistors were finicky.

I have used other modeling gear in the past. I had some early versions of Digitech (remember the DSP128?), Yamaha (SPX90), ART (SGX) units. In the 90s it was a TC Electronic G Force. Switching to Fractal was partially based on the list of endorsers, and partially on seeing the obvious power and flexibility of the system. AxeFX II was my introduction to this world, and within a year, I sold all of my tube amps and all but one of my pedals. My rig now is an AxeFX III with FC12, plus a second "grab and go" rig that is an FM3. I don't use any other system or signal processing (except that single pedal: a Digitech Freqout).

So, yes. I suppose I became converted to Fractalism. The things that really made me a convert weren't "things". It was this forum community, awesome company folks like @Admin M@, meeting awesome people like my "brother from another mother" @ZenRigs Man, and so on. This group is all about hearing the music, laughing at the goofy nerd humor, and digging the obsessive quest for great tone.

I demo my system when doing workshops, or even just after soundcheck if someone has a question. There's nothing in it for me personally. I don't get anything for doing it, and I pay for my gear like anybody else. I figure if people try it and like it, that's cool. And if they don't, that's also cool. There are plenty of choices out there. There are much better things to do in the world than argue about guitar gear. I'm only going to become a Crusader if the accompanying knighthood status allows me to park in loading zones.
 
Sleestak said:
I've been playing guitar for four decades. Back in the 70s, I had a tube amp and some pedals. As multi-effects devices became available, I began to migrate toward rack-mounted gear and MIDI control. It never occurred to me that my equipment with circuit boards was somehow "less pure" than my hand-wired amp; it was just the gear that was available. Gear got better; fidelity increased; power and flexibility AND RELIABILITY increased. I toured a lot with tube amps, and had some harrowing experiences with tubes failing post-flight (I eventually took to de-tubing the amp before shipping, and carrying the tubes with me on the plane). Some of my pedals were sensitive to battery voltage / temperature. Nobody was mass-producing stable power supplies for pedals, and those 1970's era transistors were finicky.

I have used other modeling gear in the past. I had some early versions of Digitech (remember the DSP128?), Yamaha (SPX90), ART (SGX) units. In the 90s it was a TC Electronic G Force. Switching to Fractal was partially based on the list of endorsers, and partially on seeing the obvious power and flexibility of the system. AxeFX II was my introduction to this world, and within a year, I sold all of my tube amps and all but one of my pedals. My rig now is an AxeFX III with FC12, plus a second "grab and go" rig that is an FM3. I don't use any other system or signal processing (except that single pedal: a Digitech Freqout).

So, yes. I suppose I became converted to Fractalism. The things that really made me a convert weren't "things". It was this forum community, awesome company folks like @Admin M@, meeting awesome people like my "brother from another mother" @ZenRigs Man, and so on. This group is all about hearing the music, laughing at the goofy nerd humor, and digging the obsessive quest for great tone.

I demo my system when doing workshops, or even just after soundcheck if someone has a question. There's nothing in it for me personally. I don't get anything for doing it, and I pay for my gear like anybody else. I figure if people try it and like it, that's cool. And if they don't, that's also cool. There are plenty of choices out there. There are much better things to do in the world than argue about guitar gear. I'm only going to become a Crusader if the accompanying knighthood status allows me to park in loading zones.
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I can relate, but it’s good to make the distinction between digitally controlled FX processors and preamps and software/firmware based “amp modeling”. There’s quite a big paradigm difference.

I usually don’t sell stuff. As you can see I agonize over purchases and when I land on something it’s usually for keeps. I still own and have been debating whether to sell to offset the cost of the FM3 an excellent condition fully loaded original hardware based TC Electronics TC 2290 delay. That thing is from the early 90’s and still blows most everything away. It just makes everything that goes through it sound better. I have way too many guitars, but can’t bring myself to part with them. Basically, if it wasn’t for size, weight, upkeep, and loads of cables I had found my perfect sound with my self built Dumble clone, various high end and self made pedals, TC2290 and custom made cabinet with 2 different speakers. Oh and an NOS RCA 12AX7 in V1. Very sweet sounding. I didn’t know what touch sensitivity and perfect sag and natural compression was until I built my own amp.

I over think things sometimes. I will pull the trigger on the FM3 in only for the portability. Also, everything I’ve heard and seen it sounds awesome and looks like the players are very comfortable while playing. Especially impressed with the edge of breakup quality. Thanks to everyone!
 
Well... There's people who are snobbish about analog over digital (ok, you mention modelling specifically) for all kinds of irrational reasons, bad testing, dogma.

Some of them "see the light" and get converted to a particular digital unit, be it kemper, axe fx, whatever it is, or digital in general... And yet bring with them the same black and white, myopic thinking they had before, just from another direction.

Knowing this fairly well, I tend not to care much about "see the light" conversion stories when their nature seems to be such.

But there's certainly cases where people reasonably have changes of mind without pooping the brain out. If you're asking about that, I've certainly seen people who had well tested observations about the digital units they played, with the firmware they had.

And then eventually modelling (or digital, a wider spectrum) got good enough to where they were satisfied.

Personally I can't say I've had some "conversion". I've been using modelling from pod xt, to amplitude, to Kemper for profiling, fm3.. as well as tube amps (for the most part) all throughout.

There's always been observations about particular digital units vs others, or some modelling units over others (since you mention "modelling"). But I can't say I've had some epiphany moment, perhaps because I never thought modelling was or has to be as bad as some would claim.

But I'm also skeptical about extravagant claims about perfect accuracy and so forth and so forth depending on how that is measured and when such claims tend to be as vague as they usually are.

These days I'm fairly satisfied using an fm3 for most recording. Not quite as much as with my favorite amps in ideal conditions. But the convenience is really valuable for me now. And Cygnus will indeed be quite an improvement, especially for some amp sims.
 
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What first got me interested wasn't actually amp modeling per se (which didn't really exist anyway) but wanting to have different fx settings for various songs. One song wanted lots of chorus, the next song just a touch, different delays, etc that were a pain to always have to bend down and hopefully dial in correctly... or have a huge board, which I didn't want. So my first piece of digital gear was a Quardraverb, which was pretty decent gear for its' time. Wonder how it would sound today. Then later I discovered the Zoom 9030. The rest is history.
 
Dimi84 said:
Well... There's people who are snobbish about analog over digital (ok, you mention modelling specifically) for all kinds of irrational reasons, bad testing, dogma.

Some of them "see the light" and get converted to a particular digital unit, be it kemper, axe fx, whatever it is, or digital in general... And yet bring with them the same black and white, myopic thinking they had before, just from another direction.

Knowing this fairly well, I tend not to care much about "see the light" conversion stories when their nature seems to be such.

But there's certainly cases where people reasonably have changes of mind without pooping the brain out. If you're asking about that, I've certainly seen people who had well tested observations about the digital units they played, with the firmware they had.

And then eventually modelling (or digital, a wider spectrum) got good enough to where they were satisfied.

Personally I can't say I've had some "conversion". I've been using modelling from pod xt, to amplitude, to Kemper for profiling, fm3.. as well as tube amps (for the most part) all throughout.

There's always been observations about particular digital units vs others, or some modelling units over others (since you mention "modelling"). But I can't say I've had some epiphany moment, perhaps because I never thought modelling was or has to be as bad as some would claim.

But I'm also skeptical about extravagant claims about perfect accuracy and so forth and so forth depending on how that is measured and when such claims tend to be as vague as they usually are.
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This.

I love my FM3, but it's not without it's faults, and there is other gear out there that will produce just as good of results in the right situation.
 
Not for me, I've been interested in multi effects and amp modeling since I started playing guitar in the mid 90's.
 
OK guys I think I got the right info. This is starting to veer into the territory that’s not very helpful. It’s not about snobbery, analog vs digital or anything that’s contentious. I think we all have agreed that there was time when modeling and anything else designed poorly or not ready for prime time (including analog) was rather awful. Even though whole albums were recorded with a Pod in the late 90’s early 2000’s they were very generic sounding and forgettable. As an Electronic Engineer even then I understood much of it was trying to stuff too much into a box without the proper processing. That’s why I brought up the very digital TC2290. It was so over engineered that it still is killer with its 1 MHz sampling rate, etc..

My subject line was meant to be tongue in cheek and not 100% literal. Also, I’m not looking for the Axe FX III. Probably wouldn’t even if I had the money. I‘m just an older guy who is an above average (but not a prodigy) player and musician who was use to moving lots of air with my gear. I saw Eric Johnson a couple years ago during the Ah Via Musicom anniversary tour and it was so refreshing hearing real amps cranked and filling the whole theater with powerful electric guitar. It had been a while since I was at a show that wasn’t all direct and FOH sounding. It will be a shame if that ever goes away.
 
I haven't had a religious conversion, but I'm using the amp modelling in my FM3 way more than I expected and am considering it as an option for live use with my band. For me, that's a lot and not what I expected. I bought the FM3 as an over-powered replacement for my HXFX, primarily for 4cm with my Mesas. But I got an unexpected deal on a Friedman ASM-12 and have since been having a blast with the amp modelling at home. (Prior to that, using an EV 112p, I wasn't that excited with it and preferred my Rectoverb 25 combo).

The FM3 and ASM cab is really a killer combination. I'm now looking at ASC-12s and 10s to try with the band, which will be the big deciding factor: how well it all fares in a live, loud band setting. I'll still be happy if it's amp models at home and Mesas for live, but it would be fun to get the FM3 and Friedman gear happening in that setting, too.
 
Hi All, first post on this forum.

I have always been a tube amp guy. To the point where I started building my own. So yes, I was biased.

For the past 12 years or so I have tried a new modeller every coupĺe of years or so, but I was never happy. I love that marshall-ish aggressive, searing high end. The modellers I tried could never get it right.

That was until I decided to give FM3 a try a couple of months ago. First Fractal experience when it comes to modellers (I own a LB-2 X-load which I love).

Since then I have only turned my amps on once or twice, for comparison, and that was it.

No, I have not abandoned them for good. No I don't think FM3 sounds better. But FM3 is 99% as good as all the amps I own, plus the ones I don't.

So yes, I was pretty much converted by the hands of FM3!
 
As a pretty hardcore pedal and tube amp enthusiast, it only took an hour one afternoon for a friend to convince me the Fractal FM3 was all I need.

I’ve since sold all amps and most of my pedal collection. I run a FM3 and FC6 now and couldn’t be happier.
 
Never really understood (cared for) these types of threads. What is the point? Actually don't answer that please. Like this is a really deep subject (nope). You use what works for you-period.
 
Short answer: I like both.
I use my FM3 for effects and IR's with my Port City Pearl and Suhr Reactive Load
I run the FM3 through the Pearl's effects loop for a bit of reverb and delay - with a Port City OS 2x12 cab
I use the FM3's effects, amp sims, IR's for jamming to YouTube backing tracks through my computer
I have fun just farting around - building new presets
The amp sims are convincingly good and the effects are outstanding
Every few weeks, we get a bonus with a new firmware update
Something that I love about FM3 over tube amps is that you don't have to crank it to get great sounding/feeling tones
For an old-fart who has tinnitus - that's a big plus.
 
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