FM3 Arrived Yesterday!

Kidmag

Kidmag

Member
Long time AX8 user here who just bit into the FM3. Wow - I'm pretty darn impressed and overwhelmed! Just the sheer number of presets! I gave up last night , bleary eyed at about preset 300. I didn't want to get into the FM3 editor, I just wanted to feel/listen and go through the presets, learn the basic switching and identify a few presets to start focusing on. I guess I figured there would be 65 or so, similarly to the AX8. So I plugged in my guitar and monitors and kicked it off with preset 1.

One thing I immediately loved was that the early presets really were pretty dry tones - just highlighting the amps/cabs with maybe a touch of reverb and delay. So many good sounds! Anyway my mind went dead at around preset 200 or so, but I soldiered on. Really I think I only properly took in the first 50 or so. Dang this thing sounds good through my monitors!

Ok - now a question. My AX8 presets that I built for live, sound pretty mediocre at home. I know why, I had to roll down the low end and crank up the mids to fit in the mix and cut through.

Do you find you have to materially change these FM3 factory presets for them to work live?

When dialing for the band, do you edit right there on the system, or do you bring the laptop and use the editor?
 
Not a direct answer to your question, but I try to emphasize this for anyone using modelers live: dial in your presets at a nice, LOUD volume. Decent studio monitors translate pretty well to FRFR PA speakers, as long as you keep the Fletcher Munson curve in mind.

Crank up that volume and see how the factory presets sound, then tweak from there.
 
Just looked up the Fletcher Munson curve - found this below. That explains why my live presets sound lifeless in the bedroom, and the presets that I build at home sound amazing in the bedroom but get buried live.


"The Fletcher Munson Curve is a graph that illustrates an interesting phenomenon of human hearing.

When listening to music through your studio monitors or headphones…

As the actual loudness changes, the perceived loudness our brains hear will change at a different rate, depending on the frequency.

Here’s what I mean:

  • At low listening volumes – mid range frequencies sound more prominent, while the low and high frequency ranges seem to fall into the background.
  • At high listening volumes – the lows and highs sound more prominent, while the mid range seems comparatively softer.
Yet in reality, the overall tonal balance of the sound remains the same, no matter what the listening volume."
 
So ideally one would like a high cut/low cut live/rehearsal and have it turned off at home. One problem is though that the freq cut for those is different for different patch (in my opinion). Is it possible to have a eq a PEQ in each patch (different values) and globally turn it in and off?
 
It can be overwhelming. What I do is keep a notepad open on my iPad and make notes of the tones I like and what they could be used for. I also keep my band's setlist handy and note the tones that would work well for our songs.
 
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