Factory presets are not the same between those two units, fm3 versions have various things cut-down to save cpu, and among those things there's normal res IRs for sure.It's the stock brown sound preset
Who's busting on him? If you read through the thread, you'll see folks are genuinely curious about his experience because this is not the norm. It's a pretty helpful community and it seemed like he wanted advice.Give Steve a break. 1) he doesn’t owe y’all anything and 2) he gave you his process notes. His experience can be different from yours and that’s ok. You don’t have to blast him for it. If you’ve got a better experiment, do it. Otherwise you’re just nerd sniping.
While I mostly agree with you, Fractal has stated from the beginning that both the FM3 and FM9 may have differences in the modeling.Important point: when comparing presets be sure that the input impedance is identical on each unit. The impedance on the Axe III and the FM9 are variable and user-defined. The FM3's is fixed at 1 megaohm.
Computers are computers and Fractal uses identical components across devices to keep their production costs in check. I suspect any differences people hear between devices are due to either processing limitations, features that aren't available (like variable input impedance) or, most likely, users listening with their wallets.
That said, I'm not interested in anyone's "opinion" of wether or not the devices sound the same.
Show me the null test.
Good to know, thanks for learnin' me!While I mostly agree with you, Fractal has stated from the beginning that both the FM3 and FM9 may have differences in the modeling.
So there may be inherent differences that we cannot control or access...
There's a big difference between comparing the modeling to comparing a preset.Completely agree, OP. They do NOT sound the same no matter what anyone says. Even assuming you're on the most current FW with both versions, there's just something the FM3 lacks in comparison to the Axe Fx III. It's still 99% there, but there's always that little something you can't really put your finger on. The FM3 lacks several important tone-shaping features the Axe Fx III has, so it's no wonder, let alone being able to have everything on the highest quality in the III whereas you have to make compromises in the FM3.
Obviously, my experience goes against the grain with all of the top brass and all of the big boys in this forum, but we just agree to disagree. A lot of folks say they can transfer a preset from one unit to the other and it'll sound identical, but I don't believe them. I don't think they're lying or deluded, but my experience won't let me believe it's possible. I could just be more sensitive to certain nuances of the tone: for instance, I can't ever hear a difference in the FW updates, whereas some people praise each .x update as the second coming. But when I compare the same preset in the FM3 and the Axe III, they do not sound the same and, assuming it's even possible to make them sound the same, which I maintain that it's not the fact that you have to go down a checklist a mile long to make sure things are set properly to make them sound the same means that effectively, they do not sound the same. But again, I just accept that I do not maintain the same position as most folks around here in this regard. I think you can get VERY close, but not exact.
All that said, I choose to use the FM3 because of the convenience of having everything I need in one little box. I'm happy with the compromise. I just plug in an EV-1 and I'm good to go.