Best practices I/O setting of FM9 output level (+4 or -10) for connection to external amp or powered FRFR.

Tritium3H

Tritium3H

Member
I suspect there is not a hard and fast rule, here. However, I would like to poll other Fractal AXE-FX/FM9/FM3 users, in regards to how they setup the Output Level in the "Setup: I/O"menu. More specifically, is there a "best practices" when connecting to an external amp such as a TC Electronics BAM200, or to a powered monitor such as an Electro Voice PXM-12mp?

Would I be correct in presuming the aforementioned devices would be considered Pro Level (i.e. "Professional-Grade") audio equipment, and as such, the FM9 output should be set for +4 dBu?

If so, what would be examples of devices that would fall under the category of "Consumer" Line Level devices (-10 dBV)? I guess it is the "Professional" versus "Consumer" terminology that is a bit opaque to me.

Cheers,
John
 
I generally think of things along the lines of "Pro" gear & "Consumer" gear as you mentioned. I have had mixed results with different pieces of "Pro" gear though. I normally gravitate to the +4 setting, but certian mixers I send to, 1 in particular, doesn't work well with that setting. For that mixer If I'm at +4, the volume fader hase to be way down on it's travel so the range of adjustment is not great without getting overly loud. On another mixer recently, I was set to -10 and everything seemed overly distorted, more than intended anyway. I didn't have any clean headroom even with relatively cleaner presets. I reset it to the +4 setting and it was much better. That seems to me to be the opposite of what I would expect (+4 setting "hotter" than -10) which totally suprised me on that mixer (a low level behringer which someone bought for a practice space).

So I usually use +4 but not always depending on what I am running into. I do have a pair of EV PXM-12MP's and I normally use +4 with them.
 
+4 with the PXM! I can't really say on the TC micro bass head. I would think that would be ok but probably revert to how it sounds when hit with that much signal.
 
I just looked at the PXM engineering data sheet and flyer, and it never says what the max input level is. I imagine it's spotty across the range of products available.

As a rule, set the input to an FRFR as high as you can, but with the FRFR volume down low. Turn up the FRFR slowly until you can hear it at moderate volume. If it's distorted, then lower the level you're sending to it. If you are near the limit of the input, you'll notice, guitar is very peaky and the clipping should be audible.
 
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