Thinking of swapping my FM3 for an HX Stomp

jzucker

Experienced
I love the FM3 but the lack of a SS bass amp head is a bit of a disappointment. I play mostly jazz ala janek gwizdala, matt garrison, tony grey, etc. Janek is using the hx stomp. The hxstomp has over 10 bass amps. The fractal has 2 and none of them work for me. I've been using a JC120 and the 8 band output EQ for a bass amp and it's not horrible but also not ideal.

Just wondering what others have found to be successful?

[edit] - @Postretro has been helping me dial in the JC120 to be more like a bass amp. The bass parts on this were recorded using his preset so at this point, the thread is obsolete because I'm now getting very good results with the FM3 for bass.

 
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Fractal has more than 2 bass amps.



SVTs are in there too. IRs are everything with amps.

None of those are even close to the kind of amp I need for my music. Not a single one unfortunately. I have tons of IRs for bass cabs. bergantino and Aguilar SL112 (which is what I use for my real amp). I'm sure for rock band stuff it's sufficient but I feel like hx stomp offers way more in the way of bass amp specific stuff. The fractal tube pre is particularly disappointing for the kind of stuff I play. Just as a reference, here's a quick clip I recorded on guitar and bass.

I like the bass sound but when I compare it to my real markbass, the real amp blows away the fractal. If I run the fractal with any of the amp models through the effect return of my markbass without the cab IR engaged, the result is dull and lifeless.

 
When I use my bass with a Fractal I just DI with no amp or cab but thats just me, I prefer the DI bass sound. After that you can do literally anything you can imagine to the sound or tone with EQ and compression in the FM3.
 
Just to help clarify, from the Amp models list, searching for "bass":
  1. 11 59 BASSGUY BRIGHT (1959 Fender Tweed Bassman, 5F6-A)
  2. 12 59 BASSGUY JUMPED
  3. 13 59 BASSGUY NORMAL
  4. 19 65 BASSGUY BASS (Dweezil Zappa's 1965 blackface Fender Bassman, AB165)
  5. 20 65 BASSGUY NORMAL
  6. 84 CITRUS BASS 200 (Orange AD200B bass amp)
  7. 123 FAS BASS (custom model)
  8. 212 PORTA-BASS (Ampeg Portaflex bass amp)
  9. 225 SV BASS 1 (Ampeg SVT bass amp)
  10. 226 SV BASS 2
  11. 259 TUBE PRE (generic tube preamp model)
  12. 262 USA BASS 400 1 (Mesa/Boogie Bass 400 bass amp)
  13. 263 USA BASS 400 2
There's nothing that says a guitar amp model can't work well for bass with some judicious tweaking of the parameters, swapping out tone-stacks, power-tubes and other components, which Fractal gives us access to. Combinations that'd be ludicrous in the real world can work fine in the modeling world because the needed wattage for stage volume isn't the modeler's responsibility, the actual power-amp connected to the modeler or the FRFR and/or FOH has to do that heavy lifting.

If I run the fractal with any of the amp models through the effect return of my markbass without the cab IR engaged, the result is dull and lifeless.

So engage the IR. As has been said again and again, use your ears, not your eyes.
 
When I use my bass with a Fractal I just DI with no amp or cab but thats just me, I prefer the DI bass sound. After that you can do literally anything you can imagine to the sound or tone with EQ and compression in the FM3.

I did that for a while. I really like the Aguilar SL112 IR though. I have tried using a 10band EQ instead of the amp. I may go back to that. My feeling was that the JC120 with the 8 band output EQ was flat enough that it basically gave me some amp characteristic but with a more intuitive EQ.
 
Just to help clarify, from the Amp models list, searching for "bass":
  1. 11 59 BASSGUY BRIGHT (1959 Fender Tweed Bassman, 5F6-A)
  2. 12 59 BASSGUY JUMPED
  3. 13 59 BASSGUY NORMAL
  4. 19 65 BASSGUY BASS (Dweezil Zappa's 1965 blackface Fender Bassman, AB165)
  5. 20 65 BASSGUY NORMAL
  6. 84 CITRUS BASS 200 (Orange AD200B bass amp)
  7. 123 FAS BASS (custom model)
  8. 212 PORTA-BASS (Ampeg Portaflex bass amp)
  9. 225 SV BASS 1 (Ampeg SVT bass amp)
  10. 226 SV BASS 2
  11. 259 TUBE PRE (generic tube preamp model)
  12. 262 USA BASS 400 1 (Mesa/Boogie Bass 400 bass amp)
  13. 263 USA BASS 400 2
There's nothing that says a guitar amp model can't work well for bass with some judicious tweaking of the parameters, swapping out tone-stacks, power-tubes and other components, which Fractal gives us access to. Combinations that'd be ludicrous in the real world can work fine in the modeling world because the needed wattage for stage volume isn't the modeler's responsibility, the actual power-amp connected to the modeler or the FRFR and/or FOH has to do that heavy lifting.



So engage the IR. As has been said again and again, use your ears, not your eyes.

Right but literally none of those sound anything like the amps I'm talking about. A single markbass, aguilar or bergantino SS amp would really solve all the issue. i'm not a rock player so most of those amps don't work for me. I tried using the tube pre and it just didn't work at all for me. The JC120 actually works way better for my music than any of those.
 
I did that for a while. I really like the Aguilar SL112 IR though. I have tried using a 10band EQ instead of the amp. I may go back to that. My feeling was that the JC120 with the 8 band output EQ was flat enough that it basically gave me some amp characteristic but with a more intuitive EQ.
We have no idea how you've set up that amp model and its cab, but, in general, there's a bass-cut for guitar amps that will affect the lows on a bass.

Attach your preset(s) and we can offer suggestions much more quickly, if you want a solution. If the post was merely rhetorical, well, we can't help much then.
 
I had an HX stomp. The pro is thats its smaller. Otherwise the Fractal FM3 is light years better. Im sure Janek would be using an FM3 had he tried one. The HX stomp feels like a McDonals Happy meal toy.

I'm guessing janek (who is a gear head) has tried the fractal stuff...
 
We have no idea how you've set up that amp model and its cab, but, in general, there's a bass-cut for guitar amps that will affect the lows on a bass.

Attach your preset(s) and we can offer suggestions much more quickly, if you want a solution. If the post was merely rhetorical, well, we can't help much then.

I appreciate your offer but I'm not really looking for help with a particular preset. I'm just offering that a modeling processor that has more of the amps that are closer to what I use IRL would be helpful.
 
I appreciate your offer but I'm not really looking for help with a particular preset. I'm just offering that a modeling processor that has more of the amps that are closer to what I use IRL would be helpful.

Unfortunately for your use case, Fractal is focused pretty exclusively on tube amp emulation. Personally, for that modern clean bass sound I think running without an amp model and using compression and EQ would go a long way towards where you want to be. And really, I thought the bass tones in the vid you posted sounded pretty good. I'd audition the Stomp prior to selling the FM3. I have the HX Stomp as well, and it's an absolutely capable unit, though it gets very little usage as I much prefer the FM3.
 
Oh, one more thing. If you really want to use an amp model...you can kinda make yourself an SS bass amp in the FM3 by changing the tone stack on the Jazz 120 model to one of the bass tone stacks and then try to tune the Speaker impedance curve (unfortunately there likely isn't something to match your IRs, 1X15 Portabass or 4X10 SV Bass maybe).
 
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