Will Chen
Experienced
Thanks for the explanation.. I can see there would be a bit of tap dancing involved! This is probably the only area that I would be losing from the Helix. I don't tend to edit presets or use individual effects on the fly, I set out all of my presets with the various snap shots assigned to each of the 8 available foot switches and just use those, so it's easy to just hit whichever foot switch you want, no toggling involved, this is why I'm now starting to wonder if FM9 might be better for me.
My fear is, once I have my hands on an FM3 and love it, I'll be too limited with three foot switches, then invariably spend the same money again on an FC6, which is probably a bit silly at this point with the FM9 being available now
If the 3 switches for the Fm3 won't work for you, at least you tried the most flexible 3 button system there is.
In the default scene layout the 3 buttons correspond to scene 1-3 of your preset. To access 4-6 to long press the right switch and then the switches apply are assigned to 4-6. Long press the left switch and you're back to 1-3. I don't believe I've ever had a song which needed 8 distinct sounds in it, rarely more than 3 playing live. In the case that you'd need 4 at hand in the default layout you'd need 2 steps to access that 4th sound in the default scene layout.
That said...the layout is completely customizable. For example...if you're the type to create presets per song you can simply assign Switch 1 to increment through scenes and have each scene correspond to parts of the song, for example scene 1 clean, scene 2 crunch, scene 3 high gain, scene 4 crunch (copy of scene 2), scene 5 high gain (copy of scene3), scene 6 lead, and scene 6 high gain (copy of scene 3). This way there is no thinking involved, for the next part of the song you simply hit the same switch.
Or...set left switch to toggle between 2 scenes, middle switch as a lead boost which you can engage on either scene, and right can be for any mod effect/tap tempo/whatever. Or...switch 1 cycles Amp Channel A/B, switch 2 toggles volume boost and delay, switch 3 increments preset. Or....literally whatever.
It's a different way of thinking without question. All my life I've felt I needed more switches in order to handle performance needs. Once I tried the HX Stomp and Boss GT Core I saw how a 3 switch box could almost do everything I wanted, the FM3 completely shifted my perspective to questioning why I'd personally ever need more than 3 switches.