FM9 is perfect (an FM3 perspective)

[flametop]

Here we go again...

@laxu made some good points above. Unless you are on the design team I'll take your second guessing with a huge grain of salt.

There is no egoism in my OP (maybe some humor), but you have to come to reality. The reality is the Fractal has a business to maintain. Could the FM9 have been launched in a smaller form factor by sacrificing some footswitches? I believe so. Would it have been smart from a business sense? Absolutely not.

And I do believe we will absolutely see a smaller more powerful version of the FM9 on the horizon. The market will demand it and other companies are continuing to refine their products as well to supply what consumers want. Like it or not Neural is really close with the QC and has garnered a lot of attention.

Again common sense is not always so common.

IDK...I tried the QC and found the effects NOT very good. As far as the touch screen and all, It was cool and easy to use but the FAS editor is so damn good I would really never miss touch screens. Maybe we get something like that down the road, maybe not. I do know that FAS is so far ahead of anyone else with effects alone. It will take the QC years to catch up. In the mean time FAS gets better and better. No one updates like FAS and that is the real key to success no matter how many buttons or how small the unit gets.

 

[Pete1959]

IMHO, I am on the wait list for the FM9 for the extra power and switches, given that some of my own presets hit current limits on the FM3. In terms of footprint, my use of a two button MIDI switcher starts creeping on space that the FM9 would occupy. No regrets having bought the FM3 at all and neither the AX8 before it. There is a lot to like about the FM3 however I do miss the extra switches of my old AX8.

 

[JfT]

"FM6" would be super cool for me ... FM3 size is perfect, adding 3 more buttons is enough

 

[fcs101]

Well said, Greg.

Yes, we are to believe no thought went in to how launching a new product affects the existing product line.

I'm sure it was all by accident because the designers/engineers had a lot of blank space available and decided to add to footswitches to fill it up so it wouldn't look odd.

Tell yourself what you need to.

 

[fcs101]

IDK...I tried the QC and found the effects NOT very good. As far as the touch screen and all, It was cool and easy to use but the FAS editor is so damn good I would really never miss touch screens. Maybe we get something like that down the road, maybe not. I do know that FAS is so far ahead of anyone else with effects alone. It will take the QC years to catch up. In the mean time FAS gets better and better. No one updates like FAS and that is the real key to success no matter how many buttons or how small the unit gets.

I haven't used a QC and have to rely on reviews and input from people like @laxu. I think his analysis agrees with yours. I hadn't known their amp models were apparently so good though.

 

[lauke-lux]

FM9 simply is the best design and the f***ing best and powerful floor modeller available for the years to come. FM3 is the best design for me. If I want more in my case I'd go for the III but I maintain : FM9 like FM3 leaves the competition at least 5 years behind, it's a wonderful unit that meets the needs of thousands .of performing artists

 

[bdrepko]

View attachment 87944
But photoshop kidding aside, while I might have preferred this form factor I have to say. Given a choice between the real Fractal FM9 and the competitor's product that resembles this mockup, for me it's absolutely no contest. Fractal gets my money. In the end, for me, it's about the sound and live usability. Smaller form factor, touchscreens, footswitch encoder knobs, all just extra stuff in the "nice to have" category.

Buttons are too close together for me.

 

[Lumikut]

I’m a mechanical engineer. Their approach to this product family/standardization is brilliant, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more to come

 

[Intoodeep1113]

I’m a mechanical engineer. Their approach to this product family/standardization is brilliant, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more to come

More to come? I wonder what the guys at Fractal could do with the "FMX" crammed into one of the EV eXpression pedals!

 

[laxu]

And I do believe we will absolutely see a smaller more powerful version of the FM9 on the horizon. The market will demand it and other companies are continuing to refine their products as well to supply what consumers want. Like it or not Neural is really close with the QC and has garnered a lot of attention.

I see that as being the 4th generation Fractal products maybe 3-5 years from now. I would love to see them embrace modularity and do their next flagship in a roughly FM3 sized I/O+DSP box and sell peripherals for stomping on it and support computer/mobile devices for editing with wireless support. This could help reduce the number of different units to maintain from 3 to just 1.

With Fractal getting ever more complex I just don't see it worth putting a lot of effort in a custom UI on a tiny LCD when we could all be running Axe-Edit on our computers, mobile phones, tablets that already offer a lot of the hard to implement stuff. At the same time better MIDI knob controller support could mean that your studio setup has Axe-Edit open on a tablet or computer and you use your favorite MIDI controller to turn the controls based on what block you have selected.