drnat
Inspired
Firstly, thanks for all the help in my previous thread, that turned into a problem solving for the screen issue on my FM3.
So, had an evening playing with the unit & thought I’d share some first impressions:
The stock presets are much better than other units, though I’d want to adjust them all to my taste - mainly adding high & low cuts etc.
There are SO many to try & will takes a long time to get through them all.
Had a go at making a basic preset - this seems relatively easy to do & was able to get some good tones, evan as a beginner. The adjustments seem to act as you would expect and are useful for shaping your tone. Need to go through the cabs to find some favourites. Again SO many amps to play with and for me, wasn’t always easy to work out which amps they were modelled on.
The tone is much easier to shape than the Helix or Headrush that I’ve tried and was able to dial it in reasonably well. I have a lot to learn re how tube amps & cabs work in real life. I think my headphones are a limiting factor but are OK for now - will upgrade. There are a lifetime of tones in here!! May detract from me actually learning guitar though! I really liked the Soldano 100 preset….nice clean & overdriven tones & used this as the basis for my first proper preset.
The looper is good, and like the fact that you can trim the beginning & end of the loop - cool for me!
UI: The FM3-Edit is easy to use for doing basic presets. Think it will take a bit longer to learn to more advanced stuff like adjusting FCs & controllers etc. The front panel is relatively easy to use, though the switching & dials are not intuitive - esp with the use of the main big know (not sure what it’s official title is!). However, it is easy to work out, even if have to think about it. I did manage to delete all the footswitch configurations, but was eventually able to re-load them via the front panel, so pleased with that.
Form-factor: It is still a relatively large unit and I have it on my desk so I can adjust things and programme it - may be best to move it to the floor & use FM3-Edit, one the volume is set, can manage not to need to use the device itself I guess. I have sciatica due to a herniated disc, so bending is very painful for me. Wonder if having the rack on my desk would be better, with the switches on the floor & a computer sat on top of the device??
USB audio: As a beginner I am using some apps to help - these are all iPad based. When the iPad is connected I can’t adjust the volume from my device, so I have to go menu diving to get to the USB volume which is a pain. Not all the apps I use are available on the Mac - this may be better when I upgrade to an apple silicon Mac that can run iOS apps? FracPad may be a solution if I can adjust performance page parameters from it. I couldn’t get my BT MIDI adapter to work yesterday, so can’t test this yet.
Headphone playing: I have been using the Waza-air for playing recently which is fun, but also limiting. I can’t use a looper with it & editing & swapping presets is not great. Not tried the waza-air with the FM3 yet, will do. Not so keen on being tethered to a wire, but not sure there is a great solution to that, at least not without spending a lot of money or sacrificing stereo? Otherwise, sound wise is fine.
Definitely a better start tone wise than the other units I’ve tried, but a steep learning curve re modellers in general for me!!
Not sure if I would prefer an FM9 for quicker changes or an FX III for better separation of unit and switches - will see how my thinking goes on this.
Can’t wait to play some more tonight!
So, had an evening playing with the unit & thought I’d share some first impressions:
The stock presets are much better than other units, though I’d want to adjust them all to my taste - mainly adding high & low cuts etc.
There are SO many to try & will takes a long time to get through them all.
Had a go at making a basic preset - this seems relatively easy to do & was able to get some good tones, evan as a beginner. The adjustments seem to act as you would expect and are useful for shaping your tone. Need to go through the cabs to find some favourites. Again SO many amps to play with and for me, wasn’t always easy to work out which amps they were modelled on.
The tone is much easier to shape than the Helix or Headrush that I’ve tried and was able to dial it in reasonably well. I have a lot to learn re how tube amps & cabs work in real life. I think my headphones are a limiting factor but are OK for now - will upgrade. There are a lifetime of tones in here!! May detract from me actually learning guitar though! I really liked the Soldano 100 preset….nice clean & overdriven tones & used this as the basis for my first proper preset.
The looper is good, and like the fact that you can trim the beginning & end of the loop - cool for me!
UI: The FM3-Edit is easy to use for doing basic presets. Think it will take a bit longer to learn to more advanced stuff like adjusting FCs & controllers etc. The front panel is relatively easy to use, though the switching & dials are not intuitive - esp with the use of the main big know (not sure what it’s official title is!). However, it is easy to work out, even if have to think about it. I did manage to delete all the footswitch configurations, but was eventually able to re-load them via the front panel, so pleased with that.
Form-factor: It is still a relatively large unit and I have it on my desk so I can adjust things and programme it - may be best to move it to the floor & use FM3-Edit, one the volume is set, can manage not to need to use the device itself I guess. I have sciatica due to a herniated disc, so bending is very painful for me. Wonder if having the rack on my desk would be better, with the switches on the floor & a computer sat on top of the device??
USB audio: As a beginner I am using some apps to help - these are all iPad based. When the iPad is connected I can’t adjust the volume from my device, so I have to go menu diving to get to the USB volume which is a pain. Not all the apps I use are available on the Mac - this may be better when I upgrade to an apple silicon Mac that can run iOS apps? FracPad may be a solution if I can adjust performance page parameters from it. I couldn’t get my BT MIDI adapter to work yesterday, so can’t test this yet.
Headphone playing: I have been using the Waza-air for playing recently which is fun, but also limiting. I can’t use a looper with it & editing & swapping presets is not great. Not tried the waza-air with the FM3 yet, will do. Not so keen on being tethered to a wire, but not sure there is a great solution to that, at least not without spending a lot of money or sacrificing stereo? Otherwise, sound wise is fine.
Definitely a better start tone wise than the other units I’ve tried, but a steep learning curve re modellers in general for me!!
Not sure if I would prefer an FM9 for quicker changes or an FX III for better separation of unit and switches - will see how my thinking goes on this.
Can’t wait to play some more tonight!
