FM3+ Could this be a thing?

RobbyDeeMusic said:
Or how about a switch out of the processors or an internal board upgrade inside the FM3 for more horsepower? Not sure what that would entail but sounds like a really good solution to me...:fearscream: Just unplug the existing board, bring in the new one, plug it in, load the firmware and Voila... done. $300 upgrade...I'm in.
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While it seems like such a simple thing on the surface and that it could happen with the wave of a hand, it takes years to design a unit like this, and there are big considerations when you involve untrained people in the process. There is no “voila!”

Of the $999 price for a FM3, probably at least half of it is the board and the chips, so figure at least a $500 upgrade.

How many would Fractal sell? It’d be a small percentage of overall FM3 sales, so they wouldn’t get volume discounts when purchasing the chips. Plus, there’s a problem getting chips right now, factor those in.

The unit is not manufactured to be upgraded by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, so damaging the new board or connectors is a risk that would result in a a broken system. At that point people would blame Fractal and demand a new board or unit. Factor that into the cost.

People not paying attention to the safety warnings and cutting, burning, or shocking themselves, and blaming the company is another risk. This is a litigious society and you know people would sue for things they did wrong. Factor that into the cost too.

What is to be done with the old boards? Throw them in the trash? Return them to Fractal? What are they going to do with them? Build new units with potentially damaged boards? The boards can’t be thrown in the trash because they’re considered hazardous waste, and recycling them is a complicated process. The cost for recycling has to be factored in, or the cost of PR when reused boards fail or someone hurts themself and the forum and press explode.

Manufacturing doesn’t occur with the snap of a finger or on a whim. Fractal spent years designing the current generation and how to use common designs and parts to drive down costs. This is a very competitive market with very tight margins and Fractal is a small company compared to their competitors. They’re not going to do something that doesn’t have a sound reason behind it.

A better path for us is to wait for a subsequent generation of smaller and more efficient chips and technologies to lead to a new generation of Fractal modelers, or the CPU/DSP foundries come out with chips that allow a speed bump and can be integrated into the current line along the idea of the FX3 Turbo. A do-it-yourself solution is very unlikely.
 
DJD100 said:
So many love the small form-factor but could use additional DSP (I think the FM9's CPU is a good compromise), so maybe Fractal will address this at some point with more likely a upgraded product, though for a small company just selling a replacement PCB and firmware along with a better fan would be an easy way to leverage the current hardware (ASSUMING that the additional heat would be able to be controlled in that small enclosure?).

Sign me up for either a FM3 Big Block Turbo or a PCB Upgrade...
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FM3 MKII Turbo Player Plus+

FM3MKIITurboPlayerPlusPlus.jpg
 
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Greg Ferguson said:
While it seems like such a simple thing on the surface and that it could happen with the wave of a hand, it takes years to design a unit like this, and there are big considerations when you involve untrained people in the process. There is no “voila!”

Of the $999 price for a FM3, probably at least half of it is the board and the chips, so figure at least a $500 upgrade.

How many would Fractal sell? It’d be a small percentage of overall FM3 sales, so they wouldn’t get volume discounts when purchasing the chips. Plus, there’s a problem getting chips right now, factor those in.

The unit is not manufactured to be upgraded by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, so damaging the new board or connectors is a risk that would result in a a broken system. At that point people would blame Fractal and demand a new board or unit. Factor that into the cost.

People not paying attention to the safety warnings and cutting, burning, or shocking themselves, and blaming the company is another risk. This is a litigious society and you know people would sue for things they did wrong. Factor that into the cost too.

What is to be done with the old boards? Throw them in the trash? Return them to Fractal? What are they going to do with them? Build new units with potentially damaged boards? The boards can’t be thrown in the trash because they’re considered hazardous waste, and recycling them is a complicated process. The cost for recycling has to be factored in, or the cost of PR when reused boards fail or someone hurts themself and the forum and press explode.

Manufacturing doesn’t occur with the snap of a finger or on a whim. Fractal spent years designing the current generation and how to use common designs and parts to drive down costs. This is a very competitive market with very tight margins and Fractal is a small company compared to their competitors. They’re not going to do something that doesn’t have a sound reason behind it.

A better path for us is to wait for a subsequent generation of smaller and more efficient chips and technologies to lead to a new generation of Fractal modelers, or the CPU/DSP foundries come out with chips that allow a speed bump and can be integrated into the current line along the idea of the FX3 Turbo. A do-it-yourself solution is very unlikely.
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Tldr the Unit would cost as much as a FM9 basically so from a business standpoint it makes zero sense
 
Greg Ferguson said:
While it seems like such a simple thing on the surface and that it could happen with the wave of a hand, it takes years to design a unit like this, and there are big considerations when you involve untrained people in the process. There is no “voila!”

Of the $999 price for a FM3, probably at least half of it is the board and the chips, so figure at least a $500 upgrade.

How many would Fractal sell? It’d be a small percentage of overall FM3 sales, so they wouldn’t get volume discounts when purchasing the chips. Plus, there’s a problem getting chips right now, factor those in.

The unit is not manufactured to be upgraded by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, so damaging the new board or connectors is a risk that would result in a a broken system. At that point people would blame Fractal and demand a new board or unit. Factor that into the cost.

People not paying attention to the safety warnings and cutting, burning, or shocking themselves, and blaming the company is another risk. This is a litigious society and you know people would sue for things they did wrong. Factor that into the cost too.

What is to be done with the old boards? Throw them in the trash? Return them to Fractal? What are they going to do with them? Build new units with potentially damaged boards? The boards can’t be thrown in the trash because they’re considered hazardous waste, and recycling them is a complicated process. The cost for recycling has to be factored in, or the cost of PR when reused boards fail or someone hurts themself and the forum and press explode.

Manufacturing doesn’t occur with the snap of a finger or on a whim. Fractal spent years designing the current generation and how to use common designs and parts to drive down costs. This is a very competitive market with very tight margins and Fractal is a small company compared to their competitors. They’re not going to do something that doesn’t have a sound reason behind it.

A better path for us is to wait for a subsequent generation of smaller and more efficient chips and technologies to lead to a new generation of Fractal modelers, or the CPU/DSP foundries come out with chips that allow a speed bump and can be integrated into the current line along the idea of the FX3 Turbo. A do-it-yourself solution is very unlikely.
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It's a computer, so the user installs the new PCB and recycles the old PCB or keeps it as a spare, and I figured $600 for the upgraded PCB and Fan, which would leave a nice profit margin if manufactured in reasonable numbers etc (I have friends who are international manufacturing engineers, so I understand the costs involved).

Warranty issues are the killer though, as they couldn't cover people screwing up the install (computer component mfg's don't etc), so are there enough technically proficient people desiring the upgrade sans warranty?

Probably not, so forget about it LOL!

As for a small company doing the upgrade via shipping, the man-hours do not make sense, so it's better for them to design a new product ("FM3 MKII Turbo Player Plus+" LOL!).
 
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Greg Ferguson said:
... a subsequent generation of smaller and more efficient chips and technologies to lead to a new generation of Fractal modelers, or the CPU/DSP foundries come out with chips that allow a speed bump and can be integrated into the current line along the idea of the FX3 Turbo. A do-it-yourself solution is very unlikely.
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This. At some point, there will be a new gen of chips that will enable the FM to have the power of the FX3.

Of course, at that point, there will also be more powerful chips to run an AFX4, so people will still complain because they want the FM to have the power of the 4... <sigh>
 
frankencat said:
I don't know if that is true but to everything there is a solution. Anyway, let's consider this as such...if all things were possible what would this look like?
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It would look like a FM3. Just the insides would be different.

But I don't see this happening because Fractal wants to maintain the price point of the FM3. I am sure there are users who would pay more for a "FM3+" but as an entry to the Fractal ecosystem, the FM3 price point is important.
 
No doubt it is coming.
Fractal's whole M.O. so far is to keep selling us something better and better. I have bought the last 4 versions of the Axe-FX.
Why wouldn't they keep improving the FM3 in the same fashion?
 
Good stuff guys. Keep in mind that this is a fantasy topic just to see what a high horsepower FM3+ Turbo Mega might be and how many folks would dig it. It’s about the form factor most of all. Reality of business model and other limitations need not be applied here. 😎
 
Shredology said:
No doubt it is coming.
Fractal's whole M.O. so far is to keep selling us something better and better. I have bought the last 4 versions of the Axe-FX.
Why wouldn't they keep improving the FM3 in the same fashion?
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i disagree with this. i don't think it's their MO.

they create the best thing possible with the available technology at every step. when tech improves, chips become available, and prices come down so it can be sold to many people, then they make the next device.

so they aren't holding back so you buy the next thing. they do the opposite and put in as much as possible at the time - and then keep updating it for free.
 
Newbie here, but perhaps my approach may be helpful to some eventhough I'm sure it's been done on the forum before. I love the sound of amps and their thud and I need my amps to not sound like mic'd cabinets because the clubs I play generally only mic vocals and my amps have to sound like they're in the room, otherwise they would sound artificial. I absolutely love my fm3 and I use it in a way that may address the limitatins you're discussing.

I've turned off the cab block and use a Line6 Powercab 1X12 as my guitar cabinet. This gives me the feel, thud, and sound of a real cabinet, and if I want to load IR's and run it that way, I can. This saves a juicy amount of CPU, but not as much as the second way I have the FM3 configured:

I use a Source Audio Collider (killer midi controlled combo delay / reverb or twin delay or twin reverb pedal) connected to output 2 of the fm3 and back into input 2 as a midi controlled loop. This gives me a fantastic pallet of reverbs that are automatically selected and configured every time I change scenes and I can turn on and off as I like. I can do that with delays, too (but I don't).

This allows me to turn off the reverb block, which saves a ton of CPU. This configuration saves about 25% CPU and lets me make complex presets without ever having to worry whether my reverb needs to be in economy or that I can only have one at a time. Regular gigging presets with two drives, delay, comp, wah, amp, trem, rotary, phase, flanger, all routed and controlled with control switches now run in the 60% range for me and while YMMV, this has given me a zippier unit that inspires me every time I play it.
 

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TANSTAAFL

More horsepower means more heat. Thermodynamics cannot be ignored. You put something with more horsepower in there, it's gonna be hotter. And if somehow it's not, it sure as hell isn't going to be cheaper. At least, not for this generation.

We may end up at some point with a more powerful unit in the FM3 form factor. But I'd be shocked if it happened before the AxeFX IV. You're going to get a new flagship before then, guaranteed.
 
AlexMania said:
Newbie here, but perhaps my approach may be helpful to some eventhough I'm sure it's been done on the forum before. I love the sound of amps and their thud and I need my amps to not sound like mic'd cabinets because the clubs I play generally only mic vocals and my amps have to sound like they're in the room, otherwise they would sound artificial. I absolutely love my fm3 and I use it in a way that may address the limitatins you're discussing.

I've turned off the cab block and use a Line6 Powercab 1X12 as my guitar cabinet. This gives me the feel, thud, and sound of a real cabinet, and if I want to load IR's and run it that way, I can. This saves a juicy amount of CPU, but not as much as the second way I have the FM3 configured:

I use a Source Audio Collider (killer midi controlled combo delay / reverb or twin delay or twin reverb pedal) connected to output 2 of the fm3 and back into input 2 as a midi controlled loop. This gives me a fantastic pallet of reverbs that are automatically selected and configured every time I change scenes and I can turn on and off as I like. I can do that with delays, too (but I don't).

This allows me to turn off the reverb block, which saves a ton of CPU. This configuration saves about 25% CPU and lets me make complex presets without ever having to worry whether my reverb needs to be in economy or that I can only have one at a time. Regular gigging presets with two drives, delay, comp, wah, amp, trem, rotary, phase, flanger, all routed and controlled with control switches now run in the 60% range for me and while YMMV, this has given me a zippier unit that inspires me every time I play it.
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Hmmm, you've used the Send Block at the end of your chain, where you actually need the Output 1 Block.

The Send/Return Blocks are for sending to another row for more grid room.

Indeed, extending the FM3 with outboard hardware via the FX Loop - I/O 2 is a popular method to counter the FM3's available DSP limit.
 
Another way to turn around this, instead of spending precious time on the internet, is spending hours and hours, playing and tweaking the FM3, digging the blocks and the way they function really, and you might be surprised how much you can get of the FM3.
 
lauke-lux said:
Another way to turn around this, instead of spending precious time on the internet, is spending hours and hours, playing and tweaking the FM3, digging the blocks and the way they function really, and you might be surprised how much you can get of the FM3.
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You can get a lot out of the FM3...

I get the following blocks: 2 Inputs, 2 Outputs, 2 Gates (via the Input Blocks), Wah, Amp, Mixer, Cab, Pan/Trem, Pitch (no problems with latency, used for Smart Harmony, Arpeggiator, Whammy, and Detune), Send, Return, 2 Delays, Vol/Pan, Plex Delay, and 3 EQ's (two via the outputs), all from the FM3 at roughly 76% average DSP, in addition to up to 6 additional FX from external hardware (currently just another Delay and a Reverb in use externally).

In my case, which is more involved than most with a all-in-one "kitchen sink" preset that needs to seamlessly cross-fade electric and acoustic tones, while providing seamless reverb/delay tails), the FM3 with a little help from external hardware gets the job done just fine.

That said, a quad-core FM3 could do all of this and more all by itself.
 
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It's not impossible to think a MKII could be in the pipe eventually. Didn't FAS do this with the AXE II/III and FX8? It depends on having a sensible justification for it though, from a business standpoint as well. There's no guarantee that would include more DSP or that there'd be a "turbo" version though. Perhaps pending cost/availability of a higher-clocked, lower wattage verson of the "Griffin" DSP? I don't know, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
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