Pedals and FM3/FM9 your opinion

Sisofly

Member
I need your opinion guys, I have a big pedal board that I use and has the following pedals: BigSky, Timeline, Iridium, H9, Boss EQ, JHS Timmons, keeley Comp, Friedman BEOD all connected to Boss Es8 Switcher and powered by two power supplies Onespot CS12 and Cioks dc10. I mostly all the options I need and I can get beautiful sounds the problem is that it’s super heavy and noisy and when I connect to my amp (Mesa boogie Markv25) it’s a hassle using the 4 cable method.

I stopped using it live and bought a Sansamp flyrig rk5v2 which is useful, compact and convenient to practices and live performances but again still limited, even though I miss the big sound from my big board but I appreciate convenience.

So my question is I want something more than the flyrig while selling most of the pedals (strymons maybe or/and h9) and keep the amp. So I considered to buy the HXstomp or HX stomp XL but then the FM3 got introduced and I decided to buy it but couldn’t again the Fm9 got released and I pitched myself into the waitlist without knowing what I should go with.

I’m not familiar with modeling at all and the thing they say about the power capability being twice the FM3, I play with 3 bands with different genres and sometimes acoustic gigs too so I need something versatile.

Should I go with FM9 or Fm3… should I downsize and stick to my guitar pedals? Please send me what do you think I should do.
 
I cannot give my opinion on BigSky, Timeline or Iridium, but I had the H9 and I can tell that the quality of the delays, reverbs and chorus is very poor compared with the Fractal Audio quality, even with the FAS Reverb block set at minimum quality. You may not want to play with the H9 again after doing an A/B comparison.

The only advantage of the H9 is that you have these plug-and-play algorithms, but they can be easily copied with a couple of FAS blocks, and the flexibility is unlimited.

I did copy some H9 algorithms to the Axe-FX before selling it. They can also be translated to the FM3/FM9

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...d-beyond-chapter-1-crystals-algorithm.157686/

Regarding the overdrive/distortion/boost pedals, the FAS clones are identical (with extended flexibility, since you can change the diodes, surgical EQ, Bias, slew...You can find the complete list here:
https://wiki.fractalaudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=Drive_block

A further details at Yek's guide:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/931hz6uhmplp7d5/Yeks_Guide_to_the_Fractal_Audio_Drive_Models.pdf?dl=0
 
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I need your opinion guys, I have a big pedal board that I use and has the following pedals: BigSky, Timeline, Iridium, H9, Boss EQ, JHS Timmons, keeley Comp, Friedman BEOD all connected to Boss Es8 Switcher and powered by two power supplies Onespot CS12 and Cioks dc10. I mostly all the options I need and I can get beautiful sounds the problem is that it’s super heavy and noisy and when I connect to my amp (Mesa boogie Markv25) it’s a hassle using the 4 cable method.

I stopped using it live and bought a Sansamp flyrig rk5v2 which is useful, compact and convenient to practices and live performances but again still limited, even though I miss the big sound from my big board but I appreciate convenience.

So my question is I want something more than the flyrig while selling most of the pedals (strymons maybe or/and h9) and keep the amp. So I considered to buy the HXstomp or HX stomp XL but then the FM3 got introduced and I decided to buy it but couldn’t again the Fm9 got released and I pitched myself into the waitlist without knowing what I should go with.

I’m not familiar with modeling at all and the thing they say about the power capability being twice the FM3, I play with 3 bands with different genres and sometimes acoustic gigs too so I need something versatile.

Should I go with FM9 or Fm3… should I downsize and stick to my guitar pedals? Please send me what do you think I should do.
I have the FM3 and the FM9. The FM3 is perfect if you need a small, portable rig with great sounds, as long as you don't expect too much from a single preset. The CPU is easily overloaded if you try to create a "kitchen sink" preset. I use it for steel guitar primarily, but I also use it for some less demanding regular guitar gigs. I have two signal chains in the grid. Input 1 is for regular guitar, and input 2 is for my acoustic guitar. My regular guitar chain includes amp, cabinet, chorus, delay, wah, phaser, and reverb. My acoustic chain includes EQ and compressor. I run the acoustic output to the input of the guitar reverb so it can be shared by both instruments. The CPU runs at about 78% on that patch. If I push it to 80%, the reverb will shut off, so I keep all of my presets at 78% or less. My only irritations with the FM3 are the three buttons and the limited CPU power.

The FM9 is perfect for virtually anything I want to do. The additional footswitches make it much easier to function in a live setting, and the CPU runs around 50% on a similar preset with an additional block or two added. The FM9 is so good that I sold my FX III. I prefer the all-in-one floorboard to the bulky rack and pedalboard case I had to carry when I used the III.

If you don't mind the larger size and weight, the FM9 is much more versatile than the FM3, but both units sound great.
 
By the way, I feel confident that I could replicate any time-based pedal effect with the FM3 or FM9. There are so many options. I wouldn't hesitate to switch to an all-in-one unit and dump the pedals.

Also, I don't use any of the drive blocks in the Fractal units. The amp blocks have all the drive I need. You can get crazy amounts of drive by tweaking the input level on the amp block, too. Having switchable channels on the amp block makes it easy to kick in your lead or rhythm tone when you need it. It's nice to have the option of the drive blocks if you want something different like a fuzz tone, though.
 
I have owned the Fm3, and now Fm9 and III Turbo. I think the Fm3 is my ideal travel live size because it is so portable and fits in the front pocket of my gig bag. The III Turbo is if I am building crazy presets and want the ultimate resolution. But that is not always needed esp if you are playing live and the room noise is high - etc. I think the Fm9 is right down the middle. I get enough quality and the size is not terrible. I think having that in a Fm3 footprint for travel would be great, but an extra gig bag is worth the usability you get carrying the 9. Also - I don't feel it is too much more of a stretch with the AXIII and an FC6 vs the Fm9 as far as lugging around and set up - esp if it is not air travel etc. It usually comes down to space and configuration of the gig. So if I HAD to pick one, it would be the Fm9. I did end up selling off the Fm3 at this point because I like my presets to be as transferable as possible when it comes to the units I am using and the Fm3 just was too much variance - but as as far as sound quality it doesn't matter too much. There is not too much of a fight between the Stomp and Fractal. You can get a great sound out a Helix - it just is much more work...
 
I was in a similar situation. I had a giant board with a Gigrig G2 switcher and parted it all out to buy a Helix, and now Fractal FM3. I kept an H9 to use with the Helix, but can safely say that I don’t need any outboard gear to get the sounds I need with the Fractal. The modeling and fx are top notch.
 

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I've owned the FM3 + FC-6 and had it mounted on a Temple Audio board, sharing with an EV-1, H9 + Digitech Drop. The additional pedals were used because of the limited processing power of the FM3. I received my FM9 over the weekend and was able to replace everything with just the FM9 + EV-1. No longer dealing with frustration of battling the FM3 CPU and now all I need is a simple padded gig bag for the FM9.

On a separate note, I was able to sell my FM3 + FC-6 within 5 minutes on Reverb for $100 less than MSRP per unit. I figured, I got good use out of it for the past year.
 
I was in a similar situation. I had a giant board with a Gigrig G2 switcher and parted it all out to buy a Helix, and now Fractal FM3. I kept an H9 to use with the Helix, but can safely say that I don’t need any outboard gear to get the sounds I need with the Fractal. The modeling and fx are top notch.
I just did a gig and I went direct to PA with just the sansamp flyrig and wah pedal, honestly my sound was great... I didn't have options to choose from but everyone was amazed by the sound of my guitar... so I think the verdict is that I'm gonna go with the FM3 and cancel the waitlist email on the FM9 thing even though my turn will come in two weeks I think
 
I just did a gig and I went direct to PA with just the sansamp flyrig and wah pedal, honestly my sound was great... I didn't have options to choose from but everyone was amazed by the sound of my guitar... so I think the verdict is that I'm gonna go with the FM3 and cancel the waitlist email on the FM9 thing even though my turn will come in two weeks I think
You will love the FM3, and it's a great fly rig.
 
I currently have the FM3, Axe-III and just got the FM9 last week. The FM9 is perfect for me because I always used the FC6 with the FM3 anyway. The FM3 is good but the extra power of the FM9 is pretty liberating. I always have the FM3 on the edge of it's CPU. I will stop dragging out my Axe-III to gigs now and probably just use the FM3 as a backup. It's the first non-headphone version and probably not worth selling. Might consider selling the Axe-III rig though since it's become a bit much to haul around with a power amp racked up with it.

You can't go wrong with any of the Fractal offerings today. I have never gotten along with the L6 stuff. I've heard some folks get good sounds out of them on YouTube, but I'm not one of them.

YMMV
 
No need for any Reverbs and the FM9 has a dedicated chip just for Reverb and 2 Reverb blocks at full res, uses nothing for CPU. I think a dedicated moducation effects pedal would be a great added pedal if you wanted to ease some CPU. But not necessary depending on your patch build.
 
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts, my name just came up on the FM9 and I think I'm ordering it ... I'll update you once received and played XD thanks
 
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