chillybilly
Member
TLDR executive summary: it will surprise no one here that the FM3 passed its first gig test with flying colors and converted a skeptic.
_________________________
A sensation similar to that of flying in an airplane gripped me as I set up for the first gig with the FM3: confidence level 99% but still a sliver of doubt and annoyed with myself for focusing on the sliver.
This is a covers act…I suppose the ethos can be described as ‘as soundalike as possible and if that occasionally falls short get the feel right at least.’ How many ads/posts have you read searching for musicians that say ‘vocals a plus?’ Serendipity meant that all five members of this band do vocals and they ain’t half bad. So source material with harmonies can also be replicated.
It will come as no shock to any reader here that the adoption of modeling in general, specifically Fractal, had multiple aims:
-Tone: Always the primary goal.
-Versatility: In this context, songs and presets are often effects-heavy. Not post-rock, ambient-space, infinite-reverb, reverse-looper heavy but the usual doses of drive, chorus, delay, compressor etc.
-Organization: By this I mean arranging presets & scenes in their performance order or at least where they can be dialed up quickly between songs. Full & frank confession: I began songs/setlists using the software but haven’t finished the process yet. Based on this performance I’m not convinced it’s an absolute must but I’m willing to give it a try. But in this particular band even if I'd had all the effects I'd need on a pedalboard I would still be twiddling knobs and stomping footswitches between most songs. The FM3 was orders of magnitude easier and quicker in this regard.
-Setup/teardown: It’s odd how the mindset of ‘a complex rig sounds better’ can take hold. I once wheeled a Pedaltrain Pro with a hard case around giving it the big ‘un until I realized that I looked as if I were transporting a casket (it was about that heavy) and that a dizzying array of pedals usually only produced dizziness given that only a few were engaged at any one time. Although tempted many times, I never got to the point of using two amps as a backline even when the combination (no pun intended) sounded brilliant at home. It just seemed overkill for a club gig.
I have always been a conscientious objector to the Four Cable Method, however, on the grounds that it at least doubles the number of potential points of failure. And I already had enough cables snaking around the place anyway.
At some point in the past I might have been a good candidate for a rack setup since racks are designed for transport, rack units pack a lot of features into a small space, most connections are ‘permanent’ and it lends itself to a plug-in-and-go approach as evidenced by their presence on the stages of countless touring acts.
I won’t belabor the point any further except to say that the FM3 was obviously miles easier to deploy. Power connection, one XLR to the board, one ¼ in to a powered cab, wireless receiver plugged in and…and…that was it.
After the gig, I wrapped and packed cables, the Fractal, the lightweight cab and…and…and nothing else. A strange feeling came over me. The feeling of not grunting, cussing, bumping into things and people and attempting to open doors while hauling a 40-50 lb amp around with one hand. Shoulder ligaments unstrained, I was at a loose end and helped pack the PA gear up out of habit or even a bit of guilt? In future if a quick teardown and departure is required at least I know it’s quite easily done.
-Live mix. I suppose this might fold into the Tone item above but perhaps not. The internet is filled with laments of ‘this sounded brilliant at home/in store/in studio/in a recording but it disappeared/washed out in a live setting with bass, drums, keys, vocals and all the overtones and reflections. I freely admit that soundcheck was an exercise in selfishness – I just had to hear the FM3 when everything else was going full tilt. Mr Wireless Freedom hopped down and walked out 20 ft in front of the stage and…behold! FM3-based guitar holding its own alongside the other instruments! I realize that for nearly all of you this is like discovering the sky is blue but skepticism is often called healthy for a reason.
Although I was confident, I pestered a friend who attended at breaks and after the gig: ‘Could you hear the guitar OK in the mains?’ He replied ‘Yes and that’s the 10th time you asked me the same question.’
-Monitoring: Isn’t this yet another battlefield for the guitarist? There’s even a longstanding name for it: The Volume Wars. The soundman, who should be our friend, is often our enemy when it comes to being able to hear oneself properly onstage. Levels are dutifully set. You get a dirty look, harsh words or both if your amp is too loud, which usually means it’s beamy. So you obey and turn down and tell yourself you can rely on the amp being mic’d. A tame, brief soundcheck follows. Then the gig starts, the adrenaline flows (especially to the drummer with his cymbal-smashing), all hell breaks loose and…oh God I can’t hear myself at all. Not the amp. Not the monitors. Survival instinct kicks in between songs or even mid-song and you bump the amp volume up. 4 becomes 6 becomes 8 (to be fair, doesn’t that amp ‘breathe’ when cranked up?). You might do it more than once, soundman be damned – and he probably should be for never putting enough of you in the monitor mix.
Which brings us back to the FM3. Rack users may have gone direct for many years but to a traditional amplifier user it can be difficult to wrap one’s head around the concept of having a cab or FRFR onstage serving mostly or exclusively as a monitor…backline, side fill or wedge. NOW I could adjust my own monitor (thank you Output 2) and hear myself properly without parting the hair of audience members with amp volume, annoying the soundman, ruining the overall mix or ending up in that typical guitarist ‘sound cocoon.’ You are hearing the EXACT same thing through the monitor that the audience is hearing through the mains. Some may read that and say ‘Yes you fool that’s the entire %#@*! point of the exercise!’ But for me it was a particularly glittering aspect of New Toy Syndrome.
In the case of this venue, this also ties into…
-Space factor: Another aspect of the Magic Box Phenomenon. What appears to be a decent-sized stage at first becomes less-decent and even cramped quickly once you realize the modest drum kit is going to take up half its depth and half its width. Add a keyboard rack (mercifully one of these fancy slanted monopod numbers), a bass rig and mic stands for 5 players doing vocals and you have precious little real estate remaining. It’s no exaggeration to say that if I’d had a traditional amp I don’t know where I would have placed it. We ended up in a ‘two deep’ arrangement and it would have been blasting the drummer or keys player in the head or back and drawing their ire. I also wouldn’t have been able to reach the controls even if I wanted to.
If I’m honest I wanted to use the cab (a GR Guitar AT-G210A-ST as it happens – thanks to the recommendation I read here some time ago...much more on this unit elsewhere in forum) in a backline configuration…maybe it was the traditional amplifier user conditioning affecting me. But there wasn’t enough room. So I got out the old Ampwedge (had it for years, rarely used it) and moved the cab to the front of the stage facing up at me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t bump that volume up through the set but at least it affected (or benefited) only me.
-Final thoughts:
-Despite viewing dozens of YouTube videos from discerning pros who wouldn’t use gear if it weren’t up to scratch and who repeatedly assured the viewer that the FM3 was capable of replacing an amp, I wasn’t quite convinced. I may never get to 100% but I’m much closer than I was before.
-If you are gigging, leveling presets is time-consuming, fiddly work but well worth it. In crafting presets with all the various components I ended up with some dramatic variances in volume between those presets. Having a visual marker (the meters) in addition to one’s own ears is a big help in the QA process and another mind-at-ease factor onstage.
-I did mostly OK with just the three FM3 footswitches for scene-switching, tuning etc. But with 30+ presets and changing to a different preset for nearly every song in the setlist I resorted to the bend-down-and-dial-up-the-next-preset rather than tap-dancing through my views. An add-on controller even an FC6 may be in my future. I have no worries about doing the next gig with the FM3 alone again but would be curious to experience the OMG9.
-At the risk of patting myself on the back (some more), I put in some serious hours building good-sounding presets from scratch. In this, at least, years of experience with traditional gear were an asset. But as a new owner it was equally valuable as a learning opportunity from the rather self-evident basics of effects and amps to the more Fractal or modeler-specific considerations of cabs, IRs, outputs, scenes, levels and use of FM3-Edit and Fractal-Bot.
-As Geena Davis declared after her night with Brad Pitt in ‘Thelma & Louise’ – now I know what all the fuss is about.
_________________________
A sensation similar to that of flying in an airplane gripped me as I set up for the first gig with the FM3: confidence level 99% but still a sliver of doubt and annoyed with myself for focusing on the sliver.
This is a covers act…I suppose the ethos can be described as ‘as soundalike as possible and if that occasionally falls short get the feel right at least.’ How many ads/posts have you read searching for musicians that say ‘vocals a plus?’ Serendipity meant that all five members of this band do vocals and they ain’t half bad. So source material with harmonies can also be replicated.
It will come as no shock to any reader here that the adoption of modeling in general, specifically Fractal, had multiple aims:
-Tone: Always the primary goal.
-Versatility: In this context, songs and presets are often effects-heavy. Not post-rock, ambient-space, infinite-reverb, reverse-looper heavy but the usual doses of drive, chorus, delay, compressor etc.
-Organization: By this I mean arranging presets & scenes in their performance order or at least where they can be dialed up quickly between songs. Full & frank confession: I began songs/setlists using the software but haven’t finished the process yet. Based on this performance I’m not convinced it’s an absolute must but I’m willing to give it a try. But in this particular band even if I'd had all the effects I'd need on a pedalboard I would still be twiddling knobs and stomping footswitches between most songs. The FM3 was orders of magnitude easier and quicker in this regard.
-Setup/teardown: It’s odd how the mindset of ‘a complex rig sounds better’ can take hold. I once wheeled a Pedaltrain Pro with a hard case around giving it the big ‘un until I realized that I looked as if I were transporting a casket (it was about that heavy) and that a dizzying array of pedals usually only produced dizziness given that only a few were engaged at any one time. Although tempted many times, I never got to the point of using two amps as a backline even when the combination (no pun intended) sounded brilliant at home. It just seemed overkill for a club gig.
I have always been a conscientious objector to the Four Cable Method, however, on the grounds that it at least doubles the number of potential points of failure. And I already had enough cables snaking around the place anyway.
At some point in the past I might have been a good candidate for a rack setup since racks are designed for transport, rack units pack a lot of features into a small space, most connections are ‘permanent’ and it lends itself to a plug-in-and-go approach as evidenced by their presence on the stages of countless touring acts.
I won’t belabor the point any further except to say that the FM3 was obviously miles easier to deploy. Power connection, one XLR to the board, one ¼ in to a powered cab, wireless receiver plugged in and…and…that was it.
After the gig, I wrapped and packed cables, the Fractal, the lightweight cab and…and…and nothing else. A strange feeling came over me. The feeling of not grunting, cussing, bumping into things and people and attempting to open doors while hauling a 40-50 lb amp around with one hand. Shoulder ligaments unstrained, I was at a loose end and helped pack the PA gear up out of habit or even a bit of guilt? In future if a quick teardown and departure is required at least I know it’s quite easily done.
-Live mix. I suppose this might fold into the Tone item above but perhaps not. The internet is filled with laments of ‘this sounded brilliant at home/in store/in studio/in a recording but it disappeared/washed out in a live setting with bass, drums, keys, vocals and all the overtones and reflections. I freely admit that soundcheck was an exercise in selfishness – I just had to hear the FM3 when everything else was going full tilt. Mr Wireless Freedom hopped down and walked out 20 ft in front of the stage and…behold! FM3-based guitar holding its own alongside the other instruments! I realize that for nearly all of you this is like discovering the sky is blue but skepticism is often called healthy for a reason.
Although I was confident, I pestered a friend who attended at breaks and after the gig: ‘Could you hear the guitar OK in the mains?’ He replied ‘Yes and that’s the 10th time you asked me the same question.’
-Monitoring: Isn’t this yet another battlefield for the guitarist? There’s even a longstanding name for it: The Volume Wars. The soundman, who should be our friend, is often our enemy when it comes to being able to hear oneself properly onstage. Levels are dutifully set. You get a dirty look, harsh words or both if your amp is too loud, which usually means it’s beamy. So you obey and turn down and tell yourself you can rely on the amp being mic’d. A tame, brief soundcheck follows. Then the gig starts, the adrenaline flows (especially to the drummer with his cymbal-smashing), all hell breaks loose and…oh God I can’t hear myself at all. Not the amp. Not the monitors. Survival instinct kicks in between songs or even mid-song and you bump the amp volume up. 4 becomes 6 becomes 8 (to be fair, doesn’t that amp ‘breathe’ when cranked up?). You might do it more than once, soundman be damned – and he probably should be for never putting enough of you in the monitor mix.
Which brings us back to the FM3. Rack users may have gone direct for many years but to a traditional amplifier user it can be difficult to wrap one’s head around the concept of having a cab or FRFR onstage serving mostly or exclusively as a monitor…backline, side fill or wedge. NOW I could adjust my own monitor (thank you Output 2) and hear myself properly without parting the hair of audience members with amp volume, annoying the soundman, ruining the overall mix or ending up in that typical guitarist ‘sound cocoon.’ You are hearing the EXACT same thing through the monitor that the audience is hearing through the mains. Some may read that and say ‘Yes you fool that’s the entire %#@*! point of the exercise!’ But for me it was a particularly glittering aspect of New Toy Syndrome.
In the case of this venue, this also ties into…
-Space factor: Another aspect of the Magic Box Phenomenon. What appears to be a decent-sized stage at first becomes less-decent and even cramped quickly once you realize the modest drum kit is going to take up half its depth and half its width. Add a keyboard rack (mercifully one of these fancy slanted monopod numbers), a bass rig and mic stands for 5 players doing vocals and you have precious little real estate remaining. It’s no exaggeration to say that if I’d had a traditional amp I don’t know where I would have placed it. We ended up in a ‘two deep’ arrangement and it would have been blasting the drummer or keys player in the head or back and drawing their ire. I also wouldn’t have been able to reach the controls even if I wanted to.
If I’m honest I wanted to use the cab (a GR Guitar AT-G210A-ST as it happens – thanks to the recommendation I read here some time ago...much more on this unit elsewhere in forum) in a backline configuration…maybe it was the traditional amplifier user conditioning affecting me. But there wasn’t enough room. So I got out the old Ampwedge (had it for years, rarely used it) and moved the cab to the front of the stage facing up at me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t bump that volume up through the set but at least it affected (or benefited) only me.
-Final thoughts:
-Despite viewing dozens of YouTube videos from discerning pros who wouldn’t use gear if it weren’t up to scratch and who repeatedly assured the viewer that the FM3 was capable of replacing an amp, I wasn’t quite convinced. I may never get to 100% but I’m much closer than I was before.
-If you are gigging, leveling presets is time-consuming, fiddly work but well worth it. In crafting presets with all the various components I ended up with some dramatic variances in volume between those presets. Having a visual marker (the meters) in addition to one’s own ears is a big help in the QA process and another mind-at-ease factor onstage.
-I did mostly OK with just the three FM3 footswitches for scene-switching, tuning etc. But with 30+ presets and changing to a different preset for nearly every song in the setlist I resorted to the bend-down-and-dial-up-the-next-preset rather than tap-dancing through my views. An add-on controller even an FC6 may be in my future. I have no worries about doing the next gig with the FM3 alone again but would be curious to experience the OMG9.
-At the risk of patting myself on the back (some more), I put in some serious hours building good-sounding presets from scratch. In this, at least, years of experience with traditional gear were an asset. But as a new owner it was equally valuable as a learning opportunity from the rather self-evident basics of effects and amps to the more Fractal or modeler-specific considerations of cabs, IRs, outputs, scenes, levels and use of FM3-Edit and Fractal-Bot.
-As Geena Davis declared after her night with Brad Pitt in ‘Thelma & Louise’ – now I know what all the fuss is about.
