Newbie: Help me get my FM3 sounding like the YouTube videos

[prakhar1989]

Hello Fractal community,

I'm a new guitar player (< 1.5 yrs of playing guitar) and recently got a FM3 seeing Leon Todd's excellent videos. I really like the tone Leon has going on in this video:




I tried to set a preset to match it exactly (I'm even using the same IR). However, when I record a sample riff in reaper and export it as a mp3, it sounds a bit different. Somehow the volume is too low on my exported recording (please ignore the sloppy guitar playing)

.


It does not sound as massive and awesome as Leon's video (I'm sure his playing has a lot to do with that too). Another example is this recording that sounds really loud (not from FM3 though) -



This might be a recording question instead of a Fm3 so pardon my ignorance. Would love to hear what I'm doing wrong.

My signal chain: Guitar -> FM3 -> Reaper (recorded two tracks). Post processing: Added a limiter (ReaLimit) to bump up the volume of the master track.



Thanks a lot for the help!

 

[martijne]

Hello Prakhar,

Merry Christmas and welcome to the club. I’m also an amateur guitarist and the FM3 is just plain awesome. I presume your preset is identical to Leon’s as he is very generous in sharing.

Some factors that come in play may include

• Leons fingers & technique
• Leons guitars might be of a different level than ours. Especially pickups can make a lot of difference.

Possibly maybe its got also to do with the audio levels in het video. The guitar is quite loud in comparison to Leon’s voice. So maybe there are some psychoacoustics at play..

 

[fractalz]

Hello Fractal community,

I'm a new guitar player (< 1.5 yrs of playing guitar) and recently got a FM3 seeing Leon Todd's excellent videos. I really like the tone Leon has going on in this video:




I tried to set a preset to match it exactly (I'm even using the same IR). However, when I record a sample riff in reaper and export it as a mp3, it sounds a bit different. Somehow the volume is too low on my exported recording (please ignore the sloppy guitar playing)

.


It does not sound as massive and awesome as Leon's video (I'm sure his playing has a lot to do with that too). Another example is this recording that sounds really loud (not from FM3 though) -



This might be a recording question instead of a Fm3 so pardon my ignorance. Would love to hear what I'm doing wrong.

My signal chain: Guitar -> FM3 -> Reaper (recorded two tracks). Post processing: Added a limiter (ReaLimit) to bump up the volume of the master track.

View attachment 113215

Thanks a lot for the help!

It may be gain staging. What does reaper read as the level coming in from the FM3? -12dB or so would be a good start.

 

[Texan_II_Driver]

I imagine there is some post-processing going on. Maybe @2112 could give us some insights, or maybe it's in a past video?

 

[prakhar1989]

It may be gain staging. What does reaper read as the level coming in from the FM3? -12dB or so would be a good start. (attached a screenshot)

Great question. Yes, it does come in at -12db

 

[prakhar1989]

Hello Prakhar,

Merry Christmas and welcome to the club. I’m also an amateur guitarist and the FM3 is just plain awesome. I presume your preset is identical to Leon’s as he is very generous in sharing.

Some factors that come in play may include

• Leons fingers & technique
• Leons guitars might be of a different level than ours. Especially pickups can make a lot of difference.

Possibly maybe its got also to do with the audio levels in het video. The guitar is quite loud in comparison to Leon’s voice. So maybe there are some psychoacoustics at apply..

Hmm, that's possible. I do have good pickups on my guitar (Seymour duncan JB /Jazz) so I don't think its the pickups. I do agree that the guitar is quite loud in that video.

 

[MikeBrooklyn]

Different monitors

 

[GitGuy513]

One thing to consider is this is a 3 year old video and the Firmware and amp models have changed quite a bit. For the better. This is probably more a case of not using the same settings and letting your ears do the dialing. In all honesty while the tone you got isn’t exact it’s not bad for a new user and first attempt at matching. I would stay away from matching exact parameters on demos that are old and use your ears.

There could also be some sonic difference with guitars and recording signal chain. Usually Leon tries to keep things as minimal as possible in regards of direct from the unit. Try to tweak and use your ears and not your eyes. Don’t give up because you’re sounding good. Maybe Leon will see this and give some pointers how to approach with Cygnus modeling and everything added since then.

 

[skolacki]

I’m not recording yet but usually other peoples presets don’t sound like the demos on my setup. Which is FM3 amp and FRFR cab. Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised and they do work. But more often than not I need to adjust to my liking. For instance, LT’s GOT sounded super bright on my setup, except for the clean amps preset which was ok. Marcos sounded perfect. So did Whitford’s. Justin York’s sounded very bright.