Bruce Sokolovic
Fractal Fanatic
For starters, my FM9 dropped right in place of my AX8 on my board after clearing a little space. I lucked out and used all existing cabling so I suggest at least giving that a shot. Connected the 2 XLR outs to my Apollo X8. Wrote a preset with 7 scenes and it was pretty simple coming from the AxeFXIII. Everything was familiar minus the FC assignment page, but it was easy enough to figure out. Hardest thing I had trouble with was getting the scenes to send PC messages to outboard midi. When did y’all add the midi block?!?! That was so simple compared to the AX8. Also finding the OMf9G setting seemed somewhere I wouldn’t have looked. I googled and found it, ultimately. I’m not sure if you can get there from Axe edit 9, but if you cant, you should be able to.
The sounds were as expected, stellar. No other modeler or plugin I’ve played quite has this complexity and maturity of sound. I wrote a patch using my Adam A7s for my band and maiden voyage gig Friday and I’m not even a little concerned. It’s going to sound great.
My sole gripe: I still cant seem to send tempo information to outboard gear. This is a huge pain in the ass for me. The Fractal is kind of made to be in the front of the board, or even the only thing on the floor. My H9 needs tempo info to sync up and the FM9 wont send it. The work around for 4 years now has been to set up an external switch (so I can actually reach it) and set the Eventide tempo and send that to the Fractal. It works, but it added complexity to my setup, including Y cabling an expression pedal. The Y cable also makes the expression pedal send wonky values. It’s still workable, but meh…..
Larry Mitchell and Leon Todd presets sounded great. Larry really doesn’t play with a ton of gain and still makes the guitar sing wonderfully. All presets in general were fun to scroll thru. I really need to give this some more time.
Anyway, these are my initial thoughts. I’m sure the FM9 like the AX8 before it will serve me for years and pay back far more than it cost me. If you’re on the fence, take the plunge. It’s a remarkable value.
The sounds were as expected, stellar. No other modeler or plugin I’ve played quite has this complexity and maturity of sound. I wrote a patch using my Adam A7s for my band and maiden voyage gig Friday and I’m not even a little concerned. It’s going to sound great.
My sole gripe: I still cant seem to send tempo information to outboard gear. This is a huge pain in the ass for me. The Fractal is kind of made to be in the front of the board, or even the only thing on the floor. My H9 needs tempo info to sync up and the FM9 wont send it. The work around for 4 years now has been to set up an external switch (so I can actually reach it) and set the Eventide tempo and send that to the Fractal. It works, but it added complexity to my setup, including Y cabling an expression pedal. The Y cable also makes the expression pedal send wonky values. It’s still workable, but meh…..
Larry Mitchell and Leon Todd presets sounded great. Larry really doesn’t play with a ton of gain and still makes the guitar sing wonderfully. All presets in general were fun to scroll thru. I really need to give this some more time.
Anyway, these are my initial thoughts. I’m sure the FM9 like the AX8 before it will serve me for years and pay back far more than it cost me. If you’re on the fence, take the plunge. It’s a remarkable value.