For background I am an electric violinist playing psychedelic jam, rock, and electronic influenced musics therefore my particular use case may be a little different than many on this forum. Also worth noting I am a complete newb to the fractal-verse with the fm3 being my first foray into hardware digital modeling.
Here's my preliminary setup with my Nektar Pacer midi board acting as additional switches and as a dynamicly assigned expression pedal controller (honestly feel this is something that should be built into scenes). The midi board was the only way I could get my Yamaha FC7s to work and I am glad they do because despite their comparatively large footprint I am a way bigger fan of them than the highly recommended mission pedal I got in the mail earlier this week to try. The Pacer currently has three pages programmed, one for scenes, one for modulation parameters, and one for delay parameters. The FM3 stays on per-preset view for quick access to stomp switches like compression, drive, or changing amp channels for a different core tone in addition to quick access to the tuner screen which doubles as a mute.
Loving the size/portability of this rig, did a bunch of sit-ins with a few groups at a private party this last weekend and I was consistently able to be setup and totally ready to go in less than 5 minutes. Many complements from fellow musicians on the sound coming from the fm3 as well. Took me all of five minutes to dial in that Jon Luc Ponty phaser sound everyone loves lol
I think the biggest thing I miss from my previous computer plugin based rig is the ability to attach a modifier to quantised values. For instance one psychedelic effect I like to do involves cycling through subdivisions of modulation or delay. The tonality is psychedelic/otherworldly but the quantised tap division changes give it a rhythmic electronic feel that works well with the boots n cats n beats I like to jam on. Currently the only way to do this is to utilize channels on the delay or modulation block which doesnt seem very efficient to me. I can only access 8 subdivisions this way (ideally I need 12, four each for regular, dotted, and triplet divisions) and this also limits my ability to additionally incorporate different types of delay modules (like reverse delay) within a preset.
In the end though I revel in comments akin to "I've never heard a violin sound like that before" and the FM3 nails that right out of the park. I'm super excited to continue digging into the tonal possibilities with this incredible little box of magic
