My oppinion after a year

[MrCrossroads83]

This has my first review of the FM 3:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/a-fm3-review-from-germany.163380/

In two weeks I have the FM 3 in use for a year and it is time to write something about it.

I absoluteley felt in love with the unit from the beginning.

Everything does sound right and after pulling the trigger and also purchased the Austin Buddys Goldpack a few days later last summer everything was fine and well organised to built up my own tones for rehearsal and music production.

With other digital units (tried out the Kemper Profiler Stage back in August 2019 only because I already sold my AX 8 in May 2019 and was frustrated about the big release delay of the FM 3 and returned it after one day as it did not felt and sound right for me) I always had to search and tweak to get the right tone. With the FM 3 it is sooooo easy to get good tones right from scratch

Then, a few weeks ago, I saw Cliffs first posting about „Cygnus“ amp modeling and could not wait to get this technology for my FM 3.

I had no issues at all with any betaversion that I installed and the final firmware is killer!

Believe me or not but as I work a lot and also have a young son I could not check ALL amps and presets of the Austin Buddys Goldpack till today :-D

But I did not miss anything as I found my actual favorite amps (Fender Blackface types, Marshall JTM, Fender Vibroking and Tweed Deluxe) and could achieve any kind of tone I wanted to have (playing classic rock in a band, producing my own written songs (pop/rock/rnb).

One thing that people often mention are the three footswitches:

It would be better to have more switches and make the unit more flexible.

I use one footswitch to toogle between two favorite presets (Marshall and Fender), one to toggle between two scenes per preset and one to toggle between two kinds of reverb within a preset.

In addition to that I use two 2-button footswitches for switching between different gainsettings and tonal settings.

It is absolutely enough for me

And another killer feature is the fact that I can program MORE THAN ONE FUNCTION on a single button (e.g. for soloying: Increasing gain, engaging cut function and fat mode).

This is what I call flexibility

With traditional gear you need a lot of cables and time to built a rig that could do these things with a single footswitch

At the end just something in general:

Since I bought my AX 8 in June 2018

I stopped watching Youtube-videos of amps and stompboxes searching for the perfect gear to achieve my dreamtones. It is all there in these smallboxes from FAS and I can concentrate on being creative, make music and record it

 

[maxdown]

I stopped watching Youtube-videos of amps and stompboxes searching for the perfect gear to achieve my dreamtones. It is all there in these smallboxes from FAS and I can concetrate on being creative, make music and record it

To me this is an important point you've raised.

A while back I semi-jokingly said I'd given up on watching comparison videos of all the new modelling products being produced (such as those from QC, Line6 ... whatever) and just had decided I'd stick with deciding which products to buy from 1 or 2 companies range of gear - FAS obviously being one of them. It was really not that much of a joke. There's just endless hype out there and it's not a bad idea to sometimes just take stock and tell yourself "My gear made by <enter manufacturer here> has worked for me previously so this new product by them is going to work too". Brand loyalty is fine by me .... but if they drop a lemon and catch me out ... bye bye. (A few Line6 pre-Helix products are in there for me - so no more from them ever)

I remember the days where monthly guitar mags were once practically the only source of what was happening new gear wise out there .... then you'd try and cajole your local musical instrument shop owner to buy one of the new 'things' in or sometimes you'd travel hours or even plan days to visit big distributor shops in cities far from you. Yes, a bit prehistoric in it's method ..... but you worked with whatever you had and usually we got a good enough result if the product was from a reputable and proven company. Most of the time you simply trusted the more famous manufacturers' new products to be worth the risk ..... Marshall bring out a new amp ... you've happily played Marshall amps already for a few years so something new from them was going to be good. Maybe you got it and it wasn't quite there ... but an FX pedal fixed it.

Now? Well in the digital realm it's a seemingly endless choice of stuff. Yep, having choices is good and all that but it also starts to irritate and distract (well for me it does).

Any 'dreamtone' I've had in my head has usually indeed just been a dream .... when I try to put it into generated tone from a device it usually becomes something else ... a bit similar but something real that works so there's been little point in further time wasting by speculating and box swapping with what else is out there to make it sound somehow 'better'.

I acknowledge their are people out there who like to chop and change their gear and I'm certainly not saying they're wrong to do so. Increasing workflow utilising new features or experimenting or the excitement of new things in their hands or maybe just being in the 'in' set whatever ... do your thing and be happy.

If however you are just trying to find a tool to help you carry on playing/creating in the longer term then I think you need to decide on something and then put some effort in to make it do what you need. Time is required ..... and if you've done your homework on the capabilities of the device/listened to examples etc. that required time might be considerably more than a 14 day returns period. There's a lot to tweak and try in these types of devices.

I really don't think there will ever be a guitar processor product out there that just works for everyone without putting some effort in .... but there's plenty of manufacturer advertising and enthusiastic users postings to suggest otherwise. My rule of thumb is to base my decision on reputation or past experience and then - as long as it isn't a constantly bug ridden disaster or prone to physical faults - be prepared to work at it a bit. My FAS experience has been good over the years so I'll be staying with the devil I know.

So for me a 'Year On from buying' review is a good thing to look out for ......

In the FAS way of doing things as in firmware upgrading is never finished and the use of a prolonged public beta testing methodology I'm happy to be a tortoise biding my time playing 'legacy' Ares FAS gear but I appreciate and thank the hares for helping me in decisions on the next bit of kit I'll get once the software based 'epiphanies' have slowed down a bit and leave a bit more room for my own epiphanies with settings.

 

[MrCrossroads83]

Great answer and thoughts on my review I remember these prehistoric times as I started playing electric guitar in 1995 and guess what? My first amplifier was a used Park combo and I played it for weeks and NONE of those Nirvana licks sounded well like a rock guitar. It was dead clean and then without having a manual for the amp I learned the meaning of the word "pull" and what it means in german language and then on the volume knob of the amp was stated "pull for overdrive" You know what came next...
I found out channel switching in general and boom! There was that rock sound As I got this amplifier as a present no one could tell me how to engage the overdrive channel

And speaking of FAS:

I can trust in their stuff and it is great, too

 

[Necr0lancer]

You make some great points. Gear hunting seems obsolete after the FM3. I remember about 10 years ago when I started playing music as a serious hobbyist and needing pedals and amps so I could be loud enough. $2000 for a nice head/cab, $1000 for various pedals, more money for cords, gas money, time. I still own those things as a backup but now I don't need them. I'm also future-proofed from wanting cool sounding pedals that come out in the next several years. Sure, there's probably going to be some cool new toy, but FM3 will have me satisfied for years.

I remember when my brother bought the BOSS GT-100 (I think that's what it was called). It was like $600 or something. Even then I wasn't very impressed with the guitar tones. The tones were passable but not satisfactory to my ears. I remember thinking "one day, technology will be good enough to not be able to tell the difference between digital and real amps."

We made it y'all!

Also, I'm primarily a bass player but I do play guitar too. Always wanted a block 5150 combo. Thought they sounded amazing. When I tried it out the first time on the FM3, I actually said out loud "yes this is it. This is the sound.". Pure love. Same goes with the PRS Archon.

 

[bgeorge]

Ditto - most of my gear is obsolete since I got the FM3. I most certainly won’t be buying any expensive amps or pedals any time soon. In anticipation of modelling getting even better, I don’t think I’ll ever spend big on amps again.
On the bright side, less money spent on gear means more money to be spent on guitars .