First gig/tour with FX8 mkII

Budda

Budda

Axe-Master
My first gig with my FX8 was actually the beginning of a 25-day tour to the West Coast and back from Ontario. I like to think that by this point, I know how to dial in useable tones for my band (post-hardcore/spacepunk/whatever).

The first stop was Columbus, Ohio. We played in the basement of a pizza spot (Donato's). As expected, I didn't have any awkward hum or anything once we were set up (2 of 4). The FX8 handled quite well, as I expected it to. Essentially I have the footswitch layout very similar to my previous traditional board, which helps keep guesswork to a minimum. I keep my reverb, main delay and boost (I run an OCD in front of the unit) on the bottom for easy access.

I had made my live preset at home and had about 5 practices to tweak before we left. While there's a lot more to explore with the unit (ex. I'd love to get my expression pedal going, I've never used it before) I'm very happy with the simplified plug-and-play nature of the FX8. I've avoided critique of effects from my bandmates, which is a sign of success :p. I'm excited to dig into making another preset I can use live, and trying to come up with some weird sounds. Someone has made a wish for a glitch/sample block and I back that 100%!

For upcoming tour dates and general shenanigans, follow the band via @sparrows613 on all social media.
 
Now that tour is over, I can say that the FX8 performed pretty well. It was quite nice not to worry about what might fail and just plug everything in (TU-2 and OCD out front as part of backup/main dirt) and go. I made some guffaws with X/Y's and accidentally changing presets, but that's not remotely due to the pedal haha. Now that we're home for a bit I'm thinking about making a preset per song and investigating this preset manager I read about.

Is anyone else logging lots of hours (and rooms) with theirs?
 
Budda said:
Is anyone else logging lots of hours (and rooms) with theirs?
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I've used a Fractal (either the FX8 or AX8) exclusively every week for the last 2+ years. I usually play on a Worship team and we have a list of 20 songs per quarter that we choose from for setlists so the Preset Manager is one of the most important tools for me. I've decided that one preset per song is the most efficient way for me to use either of them. I don't have to worry about tempo changes between songs, making sure the right delay and reverb are selected etc....

Both of these Fractal products are by far the best gear purchases I've made in the 15+ years I've been playing live. They're the only products of their kind I've used that haven't required some sort of compromise in effect quality to gain increased functionality and simplify my setup.

The only G.A.S. I have now is caused by guitars.
 
@Sonofiam I'm fortunate in that I can get away with only a few effects for the core of our set. Since our next tour isn't until July, I want to try things out with my expression pedal and see if I can't make things a little more interesting. I have never used an expression pedal live, however my bandmate uses his + DL4 to great results (when the DL4 works haha). I did have a second preset set up mostly for a different ambient reverb type, but never found myself using it on this tour. Is the preset manager fairly straightforward?
 
The Preset Manager is pretty easy to use. Drag and drop single or multiple presets, right click the mouse to select copy, cut, paste, rename etc.... I typically use banks J through O to store the presets and banks A and B for setlists.
 
I will add that I do use the FX8 both with and without effects loop equipped amps. I've categorized the presets with the prefix of 'PRE' for non loop amps, 'ST' for stereo presets and no prefix on presets for single amps with an effects loop.
 
Sonofiam said:
I've used a Fractal (either the FX8 or AX8) exclusively every week for the last 2+ years. I usually play on a Worship team and we have a list of 20 songs per quarter that we choose from for setlists so the Preset Manager is one of the most important tools for me. I've decided that one preset per song is the most efficient way for me to use either of them. I don't have to worry about tempo changes between songs, making sure the right delay and reverb are selected etc....

Both of these Fractal products are by far the best gear purchases I've made in the 15+ years I've been playing live. They're the only products of their kind I've used that haven't required some sort of compromise in effect quality to gain increased functionality and simplify my setup.

The only G.A.S. I have now is caused by guitars.
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That sounds interesting, please elaborate. I'm not familiar with preset manager. Will it hold more presets than the FX8 and you just pull the songs you want and import them as needed?
 
The Preset Manager is a tool FX8 Edit (In AX8 Edit it's called 'Axe Manage Presets') and it's found in the <Tools> tab. It doesn't allow for more presets, it simply displays all of the presets currently in the device and allows you to relocate them from their current position to wherever you need to place them. In FX8 Edit, I have all of the most recent song presets in the last half of the banks and drag-and-drop them into either bank A or B depending upon the set.

Basically, the Preset Manager is an editable library of all of the presets currently in the FX8.
 
Sonofiam said:
The Preset Manager is a tool FX8 Edit (In AX8 Edit it's called 'Axe Manage Presets') and it's found in the <Tools> tab. It doesn't allow for more presets, it simply displays all of the presets currently in the device and allows you to relocate them from their current position to wherever you need to place them. In FX8 Edit, I have all of the most recent song presets in the last half of the banks and drag-and-drop them into either bank A or B depending upon the set.

Basically, the Preset Manager is an editable library of all of the presets currently in the FX8.
Click to expand...
Got it. Very good, thanks. How do you manage the volume levels among all your presets?
 
With the FX8, it's pretty simple for me. I typically leave all of the effect levels at 0.00 with the exception of the Drive block which of course needs to be set higher than zero. Sometimes the Multidelay or Tremolo will need to be increased 1-3 dB to help them stick out a bit more but other than that, I try to keep them all at zero.
 
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