Help, I bought the FM3 a week ago and have spent a few hours everyday trying to find a great high gain tone like what I have in my Kemper stage.
I'm playing through an EV ZLX200 speaker, guitar is a Suhr standard with EMG 85/SA/SA pickups.
Tried many combinations and the best I found so far is 5153 100w red, Splawn nitrous, and the IR I use factory 5153 SM57 H (It's no. 338 in the list) paired with something darker. Even then it falls short of what I'm looking for. Will try to tweak the unit for another 1-2 weeks and sell it if I still can't anything satisfactory.
I'm playing through an EV ZLX200 speaker, guitar is a Suhr standard with EMG 85/SA/SA pickups.
- The FM3 sounds very good and "real" for cleans and mid-gain crunch sounds. The top-end is very realistic compared to when playing real amps.
- But the high gain sound I get were too "clear", not liquid or and saturated like what I get through my kemper or real amps. Cranking the gain, input boost or saturation result in more gain and mud but does not "liquify" or thicken the sound.
- Strangely, palm muting the low E produce little bass while the low A produce too much resonating bass. I know the EQ of EMG pickups have some kind of a low cut, but this guitar sounds fine through my kemper and amps (marshall jubilee and orange TH30), the low end on my FM3 just felt very unnatural.
- Adding a drive in front of the amp always sound worse than the amp on its own, unnatural bass cut and honky solid-state like mids. My Maxon OD and BB preamp does not do this with my amps.
Tried many combinations and the best I found so far is 5153 100w red, Splawn nitrous, and the IR I use factory 5153 SM57 H (It's no. 338 in the list) paired with something darker. Even then it falls short of what I'm looking for. Will try to tweak the unit for another 1-2 weeks and sell it if I still can't anything satisfactory.