Never used any Fractal product before this week, but my FM9 arrived 4 days ago. There are some really puzzling choices apparent to me in my first impressions of this product and the Fractal Way Of Doing Things!
For one, does anybody else think it's baffling and backwards to have a button labeled with where you aren't instead of where you are? I'm talking about the button that says "Scenes" when you are in Presets, and "Presets" when you are not in Presets, you are in Scenes. When I look down at this device, I want it to tell me or remind me what mode we are in, not where the exit is. I suppose one can unlearn common sense and intuition and learn to do things backwards, but it's just another layer to have to get through to learn this thing.
Another is the total absence of any hardwired failsafe bypass button. In a live situation, I always want to know I can bypass any piece of gear if it starts glitching or misbehaving. Digital products especially are susceptible to getting scrambled up when certain kinds of hash or noise are on the power line! I don't know the track record of this or any other Fractal product, but in my experience, the digital product hasn't been born yet that isn't vulnerable to getting scrambled when the right kind of interference shows up. Instead of such a bypass, I've been told that I can go in and construct, in software, a Scene that has no effects but goes straight through, which is fine and dandy when everything is working right. But since that solution exists inside the system I might need to to escape from, it's kind of a fantasy solution.
I can see already that it's a fantastically capable and powerful machine - it seems to have every feature, tweak, option and I/O you could ever need, but the operation of it just seems to be based on... well, I really don't know what, but it's a kind of logic I haven't encountered before!
I do have some experience, I have bought every type of pedal ever made when they were new, all the way back to the Fuzz-Tone and the Echoplex, I've been making pedalboards for decades, I have and use a GigRig programmable switcher, and recently picked up a Katana MK2 50w and spent a day turning it into a real-sounding amp using their ToneLab software. So I'm not a total naïve idiot, although I do have my moments.
I just wonder if anybody else questions the Fractal logic at times?
For one, does anybody else think it's baffling and backwards to have a button labeled with where you aren't instead of where you are? I'm talking about the button that says "Scenes" when you are in Presets, and "Presets" when you are not in Presets, you are in Scenes. When I look down at this device, I want it to tell me or remind me what mode we are in, not where the exit is. I suppose one can unlearn common sense and intuition and learn to do things backwards, but it's just another layer to have to get through to learn this thing.
Another is the total absence of any hardwired failsafe bypass button. In a live situation, I always want to know I can bypass any piece of gear if it starts glitching or misbehaving. Digital products especially are susceptible to getting scrambled up when certain kinds of hash or noise are on the power line! I don't know the track record of this or any other Fractal product, but in my experience, the digital product hasn't been born yet that isn't vulnerable to getting scrambled when the right kind of interference shows up. Instead of such a bypass, I've been told that I can go in and construct, in software, a Scene that has no effects but goes straight through, which is fine and dandy when everything is working right. But since that solution exists inside the system I might need to to escape from, it's kind of a fantasy solution.
I can see already that it's a fantastically capable and powerful machine - it seems to have every feature, tweak, option and I/O you could ever need, but the operation of it just seems to be based on... well, I really don't know what, but it's a kind of logic I haven't encountered before!
I do have some experience, I have bought every type of pedal ever made when they were new, all the way back to the Fuzz-Tone and the Echoplex, I've been making pedalboards for decades, I have and use a GigRig programmable switcher, and recently picked up a Katana MK2 50w and spent a day turning it into a real-sounding amp using their ToneLab software. So I'm not a total naïve idiot, although I do have my moments.
I just wonder if anybody else questions the Fractal logic at times?
