Scenes vs Channels

[caballero59]

Hello, just received my FM3. I've used tube rigs and Amplifire in the past. Should I be setting up multiple scenes or multiple channels to switch rhythm. lead, boost, effects, etc.

 

[chris]

Scenes can change multiple channels for you and turn blocks on and off. Channels allow a block to have multiple different settings.

You’d most likely use both. And you can still change Presets as well. Many options, use what makes the most sense.

 

[strumminsix]

My reco... Start by approaching it like you would a traditional single channel amp.

1 amp, 1 set of pedals, 1 cab. Set the footswitches to be per patch and use the footswitches to turn effects on and off. I'm working on my main electric right now and finding I only need 2 rows which gives me 12 options of footswitches is more than enough to do anything I want including: effects on/off, tuner and switching between my electric and acoustic presents. Went in thinking I'd be limited and now thinking could probably do all I really ever need on 1 row with 6 options (tuner, preset, drive, phaser, envelope, delay)

Once you're loving your sounds move on towards more advanced functions like: Channels (amp settings), Scenses (effects on/off), Presents (new amps and effects).

Go old school with a nice rhythm tone and boost it with your favorite overdrive pedal!

 

[Johan Allard]

I'd say you should setup both. Channels (on the amp block) are like channels on a multi-channel amp. So you can setup the 4 channels like you would on a 4 channel amp (Marshall JVM or Diezel VH4). With Scenes you select which of the channels you want to engage so Scene 1 can select Amp Channel A, Scene 2 Amp Channel B and so on. For each Scene you can enable/disable any other block as well so Scene 3 can select Amp Channel C and enable the Delay block.

 

[caballero59]

My reco... Start by approaching it like you would a traditional single channel amp.

1 amp, 1 set of pedals, 1 cab. Set the footswitches to be per patch and use the footswitches to turn effects on and off. I'm working on my main electric right now and finding I only need 2 rows which gives me 12 options of footswitches is more than enough to do anything I want including: effects on/off, tuner and switching between my electric and acoustic presents. Went in thinking I'd be limited and now thinking could probably do all I really ever need on 1 row with 6 options (tuner, preset, drive, phaser, envelope, delay)

Once you're loving your sounds move on towards more advanced functions like: Channels (amp settings), Scenses (effects on/off), Presents (new amps and effects).

Go old school with a nice rhythm tone and boost it with your favorite overdrive pedal!

Favorite OD pedal is a Kingsley. It works very nice in front of the FM3.

 

[IronSean]

Channels make it so every block is like a 4 channel amp. 4 channel delay, 4 channel wah, etc.

You can manually toggle the channels if you want, and it would be like a normal footswitch and pedalboard where you have to manually toggle effects. But you might find this is a lot of dancing.

That's why I think a lot of people use scenes:
Scene 1: Amp block on a clean channel, chorus pedal engaged
Scene 2: Crunch amp channel, reverb engaged.
Scene 3: Higher gain amp channel, drive pedal engaged, phaser engaged
Scene 4: Higher gain amp channel, Drive pedal on different channel to smooth leads, ducking delay engaged.
Scene 5: clean amp channel, chorus disabled, digital delay with one repeat at 8th note temp.
etc.

Ultimately it depend what you want to do. Do you want to manually swap amp channels, manually engage delay pedal, manually activate the chorus after you go to your clean amp channel like you have the amp footswitch and a pedalboard?

Or do you want to set up a clean sound with one combination of effects, a different clean sound with another, and a different gain sound with a third combination of effects and jump between them?

Or you can even do a bit of both.

 

[IronSean]

Another way to think about scenes could be:
Scene 1: intro tone
Scene 2: verse tone
Scene 3: Chorus tone
Scene 4: Solo tone
etc

Where each can be any combination of channels and engaged/bypassed effects you want.

 

[caballero59]

Channels make it so every block is like a 4 channel amp. 4 channel delay, 4 channel wah, etc.

You can manually toggle the channels if you want, and it would be like a normal footswitch and pedalboard where you have to manually toggle effects. But you might find this is a lot of dancing.

That's why I think a lot of people use scenes:
Scene 1: Amp block on a clean channel, chorus pedal engaged
Scene 2: Crunch amp channel, reverb engaged.
Scene 3: Higher gain amp channel, drive pedal engaged, phaser engaged
Scene 4: Higher gain amp channel, Drive pedal on different channel to smooth leads, ducking delay engaged.
Scene 5: clean amp channel, chorus disabled, digital delay with one repeat at 8th note temp.
etc.

Ultimately it depend what you want to do. Do you want to manually swap amp channels, manually engage delay pedal, manually activate the chorus after you go to your clean amp channel like you have the amp footswitch and a pedalboard?

Or do you want to set up a clean sound with one combination of effects, a different clean sound with another, and a different gain sound with a third combination of effects and jump between them?

Or you can even do a bit of both.

That was super helpful.