Questions about the FM9 before purchasing

mr_fender said:
All the IN blocks have a built in noise gate and there's also a separate noise gate block that can be placed anywhere on the grid. Both can be totally transparent.
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Alright.....I'll just take the plunge. So when you say anywhere on the grid. If I am running through a syn 2 to a LXII, that shows up on the grid? Or are you referencing that to only work with the modeled amp and cabinet combinations?
 
Depends on where you run the FM9 in that rig. If you run the FM9 in four cable method, you'll be able to use its noise gates both before and after the Syn 2 preamp.
 


So everyone has been super helpful here and thank you for that. I'm wondering what the fractal can do for my next question. I got the vai module and am using the LXII. This is identical to Steve Vai's rig set up. He uses the AX III as basically for effects exclusively, no modeling. What I'm wondering is how he is able to get such a clean distortion. When I play through his module with my jem, I get his tone, but with lots of noise/mess/fuzz/resonance whatever word you want to describe it. I say a lot of junk with it. I'm not sure what he is using through his fractal to clean the sound up. The video is for his tone in the very beginning. Even right after he is done playing you can hear the hum/buzz coming from his amp.

In comparison my BE-100 Deluxe head sounds like this right out of the box, no effects, no nothing added to it. It gives a very clean distortion with no "junk" with it, and has a very low level of hum even in the highest gain settings. It's really an amazing head.
 
911ap said:
Alright.....I'll just take the plunge. So when you say anywhere on the grid. If I am running through a syn 2 to a LXII, that shows up on the grid? Or are you referencing that to only work with the modeled amp and cabinet combinations?
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I have the gate after my amp and cab blocks, with its trigger sidechained from the input for better response....
 
Noise with high gain can be a tough nut to crack. Distortion is a rudimentary form of compression, which raises the noise floor considerably. Any underlying noise in the signal will get increasingly magnified as you turn up the gain. You have to keep the source signal as free of noise as possible using good shielding, grounding, good cables, etc. Beyond that it's mostly going to be playing and muting techniques and using noise gates. Notice he quickly rolls off the guitar volume knob with his pinky the instant he stops playing. A good side chaining noise gate goes a long way in controlling the amp's own self noise. Fractal's Noise Gate block can be placed after the preamp to control its noise but can be side chained to the guitar input, so the original input signal can be used to control the gate independent of any noise the amp itself adds.
 
mr_fender said:
Noise with high gain can be a tough nut to crack. Distortion is a rudimentary form of compression, which raises the noise floor considerably. Any underlying noise in the signal will get increasingly magnified as you turn up the gain. You have to keep the source signal as free of noise as possible using good shielding, grounding, good cables, etc. Beyond that it's mostly going to be playing and muting techniques and using noise gates. Notice he quickly rolls off the guitar volume knob with his pinky the instant he stops playing. A good side chaining noise gate goes a long way in controlling the amp's own self noise. Fractal's Noise Gate block can be placed after the preamp to control its noise but can be side chained to the guitar input, so the original input signal can be used to control the gate independent of any noise the amp itself adds.
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So do those noise gates fractal has cause the tone to sound cleaner? I don't know the words to describe what I hear honestly. I'm not so big in the correct musical terminology to describe it. His tone is just more full, clean, detailed... not sure what he is using beyond what I have seen in the schematics his techs have posted, or he himself as said in interviews. The best way I can describe it is my Friedman does the same. I got rid of my EVH 5150 because it just had way too much noise with the high distortion channels. The hum was bad, but even playing there was just so much nonsense noise coming with the playing. Granted an amp like the Friedman forces you to play good. You can't hide your mistakes whereas the EVH you could.
 
Ideally, a noise gate should only be active when you are not playing. When the input signal is above the trigger threshold, the signal is not changed at all. As soon as the input signal drops below the threshold, the gate closes. It's basically an fancy volume control that only lets signal through while your playing.

One of the biggest culprits for excess noise is using too much distortion. The gain levels than many players use is often less than you might expect. Beyond a certain point, adding more gain just makes it more noisy, fizzy, mushy, and flabby.
 
mr_fender said:
Ideally, a noise gate should only be active when you are not playing. When the input signal is above the trigger threshold, the signal is not changed at all. As soon as the input signal drops below the threshold, the gate closes. It's basically an fancy volume control that only lets signal through while your playing.

One of the biggest culprits for excess noise is using too much distortion. The gain levels than many players use is often less than you might expect. Beyond a certain point, adding more gain just makes it more noisy, fizzy, mushy, and flabby.
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^this guy nailed it with the vai module. Again not sure what he is using with it to get it to sound good like that.
 
Gain is tricky. When we’re playing at low volume at home we want to increase It, but that’s the worst thing to do when playing live.
 
911ap said:


^this guy nailed it with the vai module. Again not sure what he is using with it to get it to sound good like that.
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I will note in the video I just posted here at 15:41 he has the gain setting pretty much where I have it, and you can hear the module hum from the head. It's much lower than what I have, which I noticed as well the hum through my Friedman head as the power amp was lower than the LXII as the power amp. Not sure why that is.
 
If you've never explored it in detail, you may be surprised to learn just how far a refined technique goes towards keeping noise in check, when using high gain.
Doing a pull-off and getting the slightest brush against an adjacent string from the finger you just used..., very slight overlap of notes when switching strings..., a harmonic from an open string you don't have muted, etc. All these tiny things, and more, contribute to unwanted noise.

Try this simple exercise with a high gain tone: Play a C-B-A on B/13-12 G/14. If you don't have your palm draped over the A string, and end the G with the tip of your finger resting against the D string, both the A & D string will produce a harmonic. Further, if you don't lift your finger off the B just enough to mute it at the instant you land the A, and/or don't drape the bottom of your finger over the B string as you land the A note, you can get just a millisecond of dissonant note overlap that also adds just a touch of noise.

Play those same 3 notes, but all on the B string, while making sure all the other strings are muted, and each note should sound nice and clear. If playing it the first way doesn't sound just as clear, then the noise you hear has to be dealt with via your technique.
911ap said:
but even playing there was just so much nonsense noise coming with the playing.
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This may not be your exact issue, but this part of your post is why I thought to mention what I posted above.
 
Yeah, a lot of it is player technique too. A rig that sounds great for one person might be a mushed out, noisy mess for someone else, especially at gig volume where acoustic coupling can take things to a whole other level. Your picking, muting, and fretting techniques have to be really clean and articulate to pull off really high gain well. Players like Vai are masters at that.

A standalone head will often have less noise than a separate preamp and power amp rig. In a head, the circuit is all contained in one shielded chassis and the lead dress and/or PCB routing can be dialed in to best control the noise. With a separate preamp and power amp, you have more components, connectors, and cables in the signal chain to add noise and interference. They each also have separate power supplies that might lead to ground differentials in the circuits and more hum.
 
TSJMajesty said:
If you've never explored it in detail, you may be surprised to learn just how far a refined technique goes towards keeping noise in check, when using high gain.
Doing a pull-off and getting the slightest brush against an adjacent string from the finger you just used..., very slight overlap of notes when switching strings..., a harmonic from an open string you don't have muted, etc. All these tiny things, and more, contribute to unwanted noise.

Try this simple exercise with a high gain tone: Play a C-B-A on B/13-12 G/14. If you don't have your palm draped over the A string, and end the G with the tip of your finger resting against the D string, both the A & D string will produce a harmonic. Further, if you don't lift your finger off the B just enough to mute it at the instant you land the A, and/or don't drape the bottom of your finger over the B string as you land the A note, you can get just a millisecond of dissonant note overlap that also adds just a touch of noise.

Play those same 3 notes, but all on the B string, while making sure all the other strings are muted, and each note should sound nice and clear. If playing it the first way doesn't sound just as clear, then the noise you hear has to be dealt with via your technique.

This may not be your exact issue, but this part of your post is why I thought to mention what I posted above.
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I'll try that. I thought maybe it was my playing. Could be messy. But I didn't experience this issue playing out of my Friedman so that's why I say that EVH head was just noisy. But this vai one is not as bad by any means, it just doesn't sound full for some reason and every note hits clear which is why I'm wondering is there another effect in the chain I'm missing. Right now I'm just playing it with delay, a bit of reverb, and very little chorus since that's what I know he uses. If I go through a scale, lets say lydian for instance fast using legato on my Friedman.... I can clearly hear every single note no matter how fast I go. I could do the same thing on the vai module and some of the notes sound mushed together. Each individual note is not as clear. But on these videos I see other people using the same module, everything is clear even when they run up and down a scale.
 
mr_fender said:
A standalone head will often have less noise than a separate preamp and power amp rig. In a head, the circuit is all contained in one shielded chassis and the lead dress and/or PCB routing can be dialed in to best control the noise. With a separate preamp and power amp, you have more components, connectors, and cables in the signal chain to add noise and interference. They each also have separate power supplies that might lead to ground differentials in the circuits and more hum.
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For this ^ would a hum eliminator like the Morley be worth getting to put between the syn2 and the LXII? Or would the FM9 and the noise gates be better?
 
911ap said:


So everyone has been super helpful here and thank you for that. I'm wondering what the fractal can do for my next question. I got the vai module and am using the LXII. This is identical to Steve Vai's rig set up. He uses the AX III as basically for effects exclusively, no modeling. What I'm wondering is how he is able to get such a clean distortion. When I play through his module with my jem, I get his tone, but with lots of noise/mess/fuzz/resonance whatever word you want to describe it. I say a lot of junk with it. I'm not sure what he is using through his fractal to clean the sound up. The video is for his tone in the very beginning. Even right after he is done playing you can hear the hum/buzz coming from his amp.

In comparison my BE-100 Deluxe head sounds like this right out of the box, no effects, no nothing added to it. It gives a very clean distortion with no "junk" with it, and has a very low level of hum even in the highest gain settings. It's really an amazing head.
Click to expand...

I’ll tell you this much. Saw him live at HOB in Anaheim and you can audibly hear the gate closing on the noise when it actually closed.
Video I shot, 5:30 for reference but it’s worth a watch because he’s just amazing anyway.
 
911ap said:
For this ^ would a hum eliminator like the Morley be worth getting to put between the syn2 and the LXII? Or would the FM9 and the noise gates be better?
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I think the hum eliminator and a noise gate both aim to solve 2 different problems with some overlap. Hum eliminator is for 60 cycle hum. Noise gate may handle that if you can get it set to a point you’re happy with, but a noise gate will kill other noise problems too. Really I’ve found the best solution is fix the noise problem if possible. Gates and such are the best of a bad situation. Hard to balance killing sustain and noise at the same time.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
I think the hum eliminator and a noise gate both aim to solve 2 different problems with some overlap. Hum eliminator is for 60 cycle hum. Noise gate may handle that if you can get it set to a point you’re happy with, but a noise gate will kill other noise problems too. Really I’ve found the best solution is fix the noise problem if possible. Gates and such are the best of a bad situation. Hard to balance killing sustain and noise at the same time.
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So based on my set up what could I do? I got the syn 2 going into the LXII and both of those going into the Furman PC Plus. I have the LXII connected to my 4x12 cab. I'm using gold monster cables for the cable to my guitar that connects to the syn 2, and for my FX loop coming out of the syn 2 to a Boss ME 70 (soon to be replaced by the FM9). I'm using 1.5ft jumper cables to connect the syn2 to the LXII.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
I’ll tell you this much. Saw him live at HOB in Anaheim and you can audibly hear the gate closing on the noise when it actually closed.
Video I shot, 5:30 for reference but it’s worth a watch because he’s just amazing anyway.
Click to expand...


Another example that always comes to mind is the silent section in Eruption by EVH on the original cut of VH1. You can really hear that cranked Marshall hissing like a pissed off snake when he stops playing for a second and the compressors back off. You can hear it again after the droning tape delay note in the silent section just before You Really Got Me kicks in too. In the remaster, they gate the noise out so it's actually quiet.
 
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