Drive pedal sim into clean tube amp question

Dimi Guitar

Dimi Guitar

Experienced
Hello all,

I'm playing through a monoprice stage right 15 with a clean tone. I would like to get my distortion from the fm3 running in front of the amp.

The goal is a metal thrash tone. I tried getting this with drive sims boosting a distorted tone from the monoprice, but not getting satisfactory results -- too loose, because of the monoprice distortion.

So I'm after getting all the distortion from the fm3.

But then as far as I see fractal doesn't model many full on distortion pedals, at least for this tone. What would be your recommendations for sims?
 
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And I did try turning amp sims into drive models, by disabling the power amp modelling. For whatever reason the amp sims I tried were quite harsh/something felt off about them, and I went back to looking for a drive sim.
 
Dimi Guitar said:
And I did try turning amp sims into drive models, by disabling the power amp modelling. For whatever reason the amp sims I tried were quite harsh/something felt off about them, and I went back to looking for a drive sim.
Click to expand...
If you haven't already, try it with the Power Amp modeling on, it won't hurt anything to try.

One thing I've found that helps a lot when running the FM3 into the front of an amp using the FM3 modeling, is turning the Treble on the physical amp almost all the way down. Somewhere between 1 and 2 on the Treble control yielded better results for me.
 
From what I can see, that amp has an FX Loop. So, a couple of options could be:
  • Run FM3 into the Monoprice FX return using FM3 clean and distorted models.
  • Run FM3 and the Monoprice in a 4 Cable Method (4CM) config (see manual). In 4CM the Monoprice's preamp could be used for cleans, and Axfx models could be used for distorted sounds. FM3 fx could be placed before or after the Monoprice preamp section.
  • Run FM3 in front of the Monoprice' clean channel with desired amp model set for distorted and amp block bypassed for clean.
In all cases amp/cab modelling off is logical but not a hard and fast rule.

Imo, 4CM is by far the best option, but can be susceptible to ground loop noise (luck of the draw to some extent with one amp or another)
 
you can try stacking some drive pedals as well, I have a tone that is blowing me away puting the Suhr Riot Pedal (distortion at like 2 for rock, 5 for metal) infront of a Greer Lightspeed with the gain around 7.
 
Thanks to all for your advice. I'm getting weird noise from the effects loop of the amp, so I'm not using that ATM -- I tried different alternatives and ended up modifying a couple of boost pedals in the fractal to make them "tighter". Level max and then added a volume boost afterwards to hit the amp harder.

Still experimenting but got better results than before, doing this. I'll also try stacking pedals. Experimented a lot with preamp Sims, but for whatever reason couldn't get the result to feel as nice as boosting the monoprice amp.

Thanks a lot
 
Give this preset a try. It's on the latest FM3 beta firmware 11.00

Kind of similar to what you are already doing. Use the Horizon drive as your clean boost to tighten things up into the Suhr Riot that is acting as a preamp. EQ at the end to shape the overall tone.

Horizon Drive --> Suhr Riot LED/Si --> Graphic EQ
  • Horizon Drive with the drive set to zero - adjust the attack knob to the tightness of your liking.
  • Suhr Riot LED/Si - You can try the other Riot models also. I kept the level low to not push the amp so turn that up if it sounds better with your amp pushed.
  • Graphic EQ - I like the Mesa 5 band or JMP EQ for the sake of simplicity. Adjust to your liking. You could use a parametric EQ if you wanted to get even more specific.
 

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Dimi Guitar said:
The goal is a metal thrash tone. I tried getting this with drive sims boosting a distorted tone from the monoprice, but not getting satisfactory results -- too loose, because of the monoprice distortion.

So I'm after getting all the distortion from the fm3.

But then as far as I see fractal doesn't model many full on distortion pedals, at least for this tone. What would be your recommendations for sims?
Click to expand...
If you haven't, I'd recommend reading through the Drive Block page in the Wiki, which includes the Turn an Amp into a Drive tips above. The drive types modeled in the Fractals cover a lot of different pedals and there are a lot of ways to adjust them to bend them to your will.
 
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