FM3: still awesome in 2025

C

Chris Hurley

Power User
I gotta sing the praises of the FM3 again. I've got an Axe-FX III as the cornerstone of my main rig which incorporates tube amps, an x-load, a power amp, etc... It does everything under the sun but I don't want to tear it down to move it.

I've got an FM3 for situations where I want to grab and go without tearing down my big rig. I've been doing some online lessons at work over lunch and the FM3 gives me the tone I want in a laptop bag. Sometimes I want an EQ and/or other effects to go in the loop of a tube amp. Sometimes I want to experiment with a different preamp into a tube amp FX return. Instead of buying a new Synergy module, the FM3 stands in admirably.

I was showing a buddy the FM3 yesterday and reminded myself of how packed to the gills with features this little guy is. It doesn't have everything the Axe-FX III has but it has a ton of it.

The amp modelling seems to have almost no compromises. The cab block is cut back but still very nice compared to other products, many of which don't even allow mixing or panning cabs.

The horsepower is limited compared to the big brothers but it is still very capable of making in-depth rigs. There is so much stuff packed into the blocks that you can often do in one block what takes 2 or more in another product. You can't do everything but you can do almost anything.

For the price of a few nice pedals... Highly recommended... and a great addition to other gear...
 
It’s a little baddass no doubt. For me I don’t use much. If I had the extra cpu I guess I would add blocks that wouldn’t get used. There are plex and reverb modes I can’t run and I use economy settings but they still sound very good to me.
 
Some people say all modern digital modelers sound great now and you can’t really hear the difference. I listened to some Helix stadium clips recently and wasn’t impressed, I'm hearing digital fizziness. Sound wise, FM3 is just better.
 
linshunghuang said:
Some people say all modern digital modelers sound great now and you can’t really hear the difference. I listened to some Helix stadium clips recently and wasn’t impressed, I'm hearing digital fizziness. Sound wise, FM3 is just better.
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It is a lot harder for me to be happy with the Helix in terms of amp tone. Lots of other people have no trouble so the problem is me I guess. I haven't had one (HX Stomp) for a few years and the Friedman model was relatively new at the time but it didn't behave like the real amp does. It could sound good but unlike the Fractal which dials up and behaves like the real one, the HX was... different.

For Kemper, ToneX or Cortex, I can shoot a capture of something I like and it is close enough so the core tone can be fine. It is generally much easier for me to get effects that I like on the Fractal, partially because nothing else seems to have the 2290-style out of phase delay repeats (which even the Axe-FX Ultra had)
 
Let me start a list...

In addition to the complete package thing that it is, what all can the FM3 do as a pinch hitter?

  • Multichannel preamp for your tube amp with fx return: Use it like a Synergy SYN-2, etc...
  • Box full of stomp boxes: use it with your amp or whatever
  • 4-channel EQ unit (some adapters needed)... anywhere an EQ could be handy. Again, FX loop duty comes to mind
  • Boutique Stereo Reverb Unit/Pedal (or Delay [or both])
  • Stereo IR/Cabinet simulator and effects unit
  • Basic Looper Pedal
  • Power amp simulator for your Synergy SYN-1 or similar
  • 3 button MIDI controller :)
 
I have an FM3 connected to a VP4 with an SPDIF cable. I use VP4 post-effects and FM3 others. It's a good combination by the way. ;)
 
+1

Been a while since I fired up the FM3, except for beta testing.

I set out to recreate my main preset on the III and got far. Moved some lesser used fx to separate presets.

The FM3 still is a capable beast.
 
I do about 50 fly dates a year and the FM-3 has effortlessly traveled in the overhead bin.
At the gig, it's performed flawlessly and turned many a head of the listeners who had no idea this little guy could sound like such a beast!
Thank you FAS.
 
Hey, don't mean to hijack, perhaps I should start a "Wish" thread...

With the arrival of the VP-4, and the fact that the FM-3 is pretty heavily laden with all the goodies for an end-to-end signal chain-- would it be possible, or make sense from Fractal's POV, to OFFLOAD all or most of the fx, and repurpose the FM-3 as strictly an "amp + cab", or at most, "amp+cab+drive" solution?

If possible, and the device can accommodate, those of us with pedals or multifx could use them, and perhaps the offloading of fx might leave enough processing power to add more Dynacabs, allow dual-amp configs (FM-3 can't do this natively), and ultra-res IRs, essentially using 100% of the unit's processing power to generate the amp+speakers sounds, and offload the delays, reverbs, phasers, etc., and allowing outboard fx to be provided by a VP-4, Line6 M-9 or HX effects, or even standalone units?

I have not been elbow-deep in either the Fractal hardware or firmware, but I suspect this would be a difficult ask, perhaps impossible, and perhaps this possibility was thought about and discarded long before the FM-3 became so full that tradeoffs were required. But IF possible, it would enable those of us with external fx solutions to stop spreading the FM-3 so thin, with 82% presets, using "economy" verbs, etc.

Moderators, pls feel free to move/convert this to a feature request.
 
Dave Merrill said:
You can do this now, just do amp and cab on the FM, and everything else with a VP4 or two and/or third party pedals.
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Well, sure, not using the FM-3 for fx processing is certainly an option, but my point was to REMOVE "everything else" from the FM-3 and ADD a lot of the FM-9/AFXIII capabilities the FM-3 doesn't currently have (like the capability to add more Dynacabs, using ultra-res IRs, dynamics processing, perhaps even dual amps, etc.).

I can already offload the fx processing without posting in the forum, but I can't add requested features. Which is the crux of the matter, IMO. Again, this may or may not even be possible, let alone feasible from Fractal's POV, but I thought it was worthwhile to ask.
 
I gig mine all the time. I actually prefer it to the FM9 for gigging. I do use it with a 5 button midi controller but for gigging around town etc it’s excellent. It’s on a duo 17 and it’s small, light and sounds amazing. FM9 is large and unwieldy and I don’t find I miss all that much really, certainly not from a practical standpoint. I find I out stuff into FM9 and III prsssts just because.

Axe FX III comes out for bigger gigs!
 
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