FM9 demo videos

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golfnut

Member
I've watched many FM9 videos as I made my decision to purchase one. There were some that sounded great, which helped influence my decision. Although its really tough to give compressed videos credibility. So in the end its somewhat a leap of faith based on the many reviews I've read. I'm not really afraid of the common opinion that they are hard to learn. I've been an IT professional for 30 years and am use to complicated technology. The real challenge for me is to over come laziness and impatience. I tend to be impatient when it comes to playing with my gear. I like to turn it on, adjust a couple knobs and away I go. Now I have to spend the day at work with technology, then come home and work on this.
One thing I noticed with many of the video reviews\demos that I don't like is many players have these settings that are heavy with delays\reverbs and ambient sounds. To me a lot of them don't even sound useful in a live setting.
My philosophy with effects is using them so sparingly they hardly sound like they are there. With compression I have always had a love hate relationship. My Cali 76 CD with its blend knob has half the signal blended dry. So its their slightly but most of it mixed out.
My Boss DM2 I use only for slap back and again the mix is very light. Just enough to thicken the sound but not to sound like rockabilly. My drives are mid to low gain, nothing high gain. The most noticeable effects is a Nana pog for octave, which I might use once or twice a night and a Diamond memory lane for long delays, which again used very sparingly when needed. With the FM9, at least initially I just want to replicate this. I want to have 3 quality sounding amp types (Vox AC30, Fender blackface, Marshall Plexi) and rely heavily on the quality of amp sounds. Of course there will be some simple delays involved, compression. Mild over drive and mid gain. But thats about it.
So I'm wondering, with the FM9 does it sound like it would be a long hard road to get there? Or Should this be somewhat simple to accomplish. having no experience with Fractal and minimal experience with digital modelers in general.
Do I sound like would benefit from the Cooper master class or would it be going in to a lot of detail that I may not be interested in?
I'm sure eventually I may dabble in some advance features way down the road. But I'd like to get stage ready with this within a month or 2 so I can't stop lugging tube amps and heavy 2X12 cabinets.
 
chris said:
turn the mix down in the effect blocks to get what you want.
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I guess the point I was trying to get at, not to clearly, are all these demo videos I'm watching exaggerating these ambient effects and high gain sounds to cover up that possibly these digital modeling units are weak at emulating the tube amps they're supposed to be? I certainly don't want to have to exaggerate these effects to get a good sound. My preference is to hear an amp, not fx.
I am prepared to accept that digital modeling won't replicate a tube amp in the room sound. I just hope that an important part of the sound doesn't have to be relying on exaggerated fx.
 
I use very minimal effects and love the sounds. I think most of what you’re seeing on YouTube is style specific stuff. Cooper’s class is amazing and would definitely recommend it to anyone new to the fractal world. It’s not hard to learn, I’m not a tech expert and it was easy with the class and some experimentation.

If you don’t want to spend a ton of time building and tweaking, the factory presets are quite decent and there’s phenomenal packs from Austin Buddy that are 99% plug and play. Once you get your sounds dialed in, there’s no more fussing unless you want to. Some people struggle with the option paralysis and can’t stop building and tweaking, but that’s all up to the individual and how neurotic you are.
 
I also prefer minimal effects and think the amp sounds are great in the AxeFx3.

Most of my presets use only In, Out, Amp, Cab, Reverb, and Tremolo blocks. Reverb is set fairly minimally as is the Tremolo depth when I enable it.
 
I own a lot of great amps and the FM9 was my first experience with the modeling world. It took a little time to figure it out, but it was well worth it. I still can’t believe how many great tones I can cover in that box. Most of my gigs don’t require a lot as far as effects, but if I do I have it covered.

I’m nowhere near as experienced with Fractal like a lot of guys are here are, but I’ve found that the high and lowpass eq in the cab blocks are the key to great live tone. Some guys take a different approach and use a PEQ block to shape their live and recorded tones.

I’m no butt kisser, but Fractal is amazing!
 
golfnut said:
I guess the point I was trying to get at, not to clearly, are all these demo videos I'm watching exaggerating these ambient effects and high gain sounds to cover up that possibly these digital modeling units are weak at emulating the tube amps they're supposed to be? I certainly don't want to have to exaggerate these effects to get a good sound. My preference is to hear an amp, not fx.
I am prepared to accept that digital modeling won't replicate a tube amp in the room sound. I just hope that an important part of the sound doesn't have to be relying on exaggerated fx.
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no, they are like that because that's how the people playing them want them to sound. if Jon Cordy's videos can't convince you then nothing can, check him out if you haven't already.

and no, it's not a long hard road to get there. There's a learning curve but it's only as complex as you make it.
 
Here’s are few clips. One is country and the other is my half @ssed attempt to copy EJ’s tone. I didn’t spend a lot of time dialing in the tones either, so I could probably get even closer. It doesn’t matter what tones you’re going for you can find them in the FM9. I’m not 100% sold on the raw blues tones, but I’m sure it’s in there with the right settings and player.


 
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