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Okay, so this is all pretty premature as I've only had the FM3 for a couple of weeks, but as I read through the 250-ish pages of manual I'm struck by something: these folks are tone nerds. There's no way around it. The way the manual is worded, the settings you can change, all the little tricks they've built in to the unit... Fractal loves tone. The process of building it. The history of it. The differences that slight tweaks can make. The relationship between different parameters. The reason I keep coming back to this forum out of all the other options is that there's a genuine love of and appreciation for building tone from the ground up. I get the same feels from the FM3. There's so much built in that doesn't need to be there, but is simply because to leave it out would do a disservice to the engineers and musicians throughout the years that have embarked on the Tone Quest. Sure I'm definitely reading into it and making things romantic, but I do think there's something to it. And this unit has dang near everything I've ever read about over the years from effects to routing to cabinets and on and on.
If you've read my stuff before, you probably know my story - I started playing music in 1995, adding instruments and tools every few years and taking lessons until I was decent enough to hang on guitar, bass, drums, sax, piano, organ/synths, singing, producing, beatmaking, sequencing, performing, band management, songwriting, improvising, recording. And because of this musical ADD + money scarcity/frugality I relegated my collection to budget gear. But in the past couple years I've made the choice to invest in quality gear, piece by piece. The FM3 is part of this upgrade, and I hope to have it for a long time and use it to process all kinds of signals beyond just electric guitar.
Sure, but how does it sound? I've had digital gear before... modeling amps, multi-effects pedals, VSTs... Lots of options does not necessarily mean good sound. In this case, to my ears, it absolutely does. In about 45 minutes of cruising presets with a Tele I dialed in several of the best high-gain sounds I've ever had. Ever. High-gain beauty has always been a tough nut for me to crack, but not on the FM3. Turn the wheel, OMG, so many sounds are absolutely amazing. Djent, hard rock, metal, liquid solos, it was all just *there* with minimal tweaking and searching. That alone is worth the price of admission. The effects are unreal and beat the pants off of the old school Digitech and Boss effects that I'm so, so familiar with. Lush, wide, all these things I've been hearing on recordings for years (can't ever turn off that inner analyzer of tone!) are again, just *right there*. And not just guitar - I used a microphone while working through the 150 page main manual (there are 3 manuals) and easily added clarity and punch to my voice by experimenting with basic settings on preamps and EQs.
The interface is very easy to navigate and intuitive. Getting around different windows is a breeze. There are shortcuts built in that make things easier and the manual tells you about them. The editing software interface is easy on the eyes. I've only seen it in videos, but it has some extra tricks that make signal chain manipulation easier like saving favorite blocks or saving CPU by using a drive boost in the Amp block and a scene switch so that you can toggle the drive without using a separate Drive block. Only three footswitches, but they each have two default functions per mode, and you have total customizability over those functions. I'm particularly excited about Performance mode, which simplifies things considerably and makes it act more like an amp with a couple of pedals.
The support network is quality. The 3 manuals, despite being 250-ish total pages, are well-written and easy to understand for this guy who knows about a lot of things in theory but has little hands-on experience with studio gear. The writer comes across as actually excited about teaching the reader about the unit. There's entire Wiki pages about the FM3 and the blocks and they're filled with not only "this is how you use this" instructions but little tricks and tips. YT videos abound on settings and tones (Leon Todd being my favorite so far, he's just excited about sharing info and is actually fun to listen to), there's an active community of preset-sharers, and the Fractal forum is small but knowledgeable.
No doubt, plugging into the FM3 gave me the best tone I've ever had simply by spinning the preset selector. Different presets actually *feel* different. In some cases, this felt just like home - in others, it was a bit jarring (for example I enjoy hot Marshall tones from others, but never got along with Marshall amps in person... it's been the same so far with the FM3!).
Anyways, not a sales pitch, just reflecting on my lunch break about my first 10-ish hours on this device and how it very well may completely change how I approach music. So far it satisfies my techie-nerdy-wanna-be-studio-rat side and my just-sit-down-and-play side, and it really feels like the possibilities are both endless and good-sounding. But there are some downsides. I've come face to face with some items I've successfully avoided all these years (line/mic/instrument, balanced/unbalanced, TS/TRS), because using the wrong cables has given me some terrible-sounding artifacts (extra noise, high frequency buzz, intense feedback). I've fixed the issue, but I'll need to beef up my knowledge and my cable bag. It also means I might not want to do mono signals anymore, so more gear to setup and break down at gigs. And it means I might want more gear like a mixer so that I can easily process a bunch of different signals. And it also means I might spend even more time messing around with tone and gear rather than writing and performing music, at least at times. But, such is life.
If you've read my stuff before, you probably know my story - I started playing music in 1995, adding instruments and tools every few years and taking lessons until I was decent enough to hang on guitar, bass, drums, sax, piano, organ/synths, singing, producing, beatmaking, sequencing, performing, band management, songwriting, improvising, recording. And because of this musical ADD + money scarcity/frugality I relegated my collection to budget gear. But in the past couple years I've made the choice to invest in quality gear, piece by piece. The FM3 is part of this upgrade, and I hope to have it for a long time and use it to process all kinds of signals beyond just electric guitar.
Sure, but how does it sound? I've had digital gear before... modeling amps, multi-effects pedals, VSTs... Lots of options does not necessarily mean good sound. In this case, to my ears, it absolutely does. In about 45 minutes of cruising presets with a Tele I dialed in several of the best high-gain sounds I've ever had. Ever. High-gain beauty has always been a tough nut for me to crack, but not on the FM3. Turn the wheel, OMG, so many sounds are absolutely amazing. Djent, hard rock, metal, liquid solos, it was all just *there* with minimal tweaking and searching. That alone is worth the price of admission. The effects are unreal and beat the pants off of the old school Digitech and Boss effects that I'm so, so familiar with. Lush, wide, all these things I've been hearing on recordings for years (can't ever turn off that inner analyzer of tone!) are again, just *right there*. And not just guitar - I used a microphone while working through the 150 page main manual (there are 3 manuals) and easily added clarity and punch to my voice by experimenting with basic settings on preamps and EQs.
The interface is very easy to navigate and intuitive. Getting around different windows is a breeze. There are shortcuts built in that make things easier and the manual tells you about them. The editing software interface is easy on the eyes. I've only seen it in videos, but it has some extra tricks that make signal chain manipulation easier like saving favorite blocks or saving CPU by using a drive boost in the Amp block and a scene switch so that you can toggle the drive without using a separate Drive block. Only three footswitches, but they each have two default functions per mode, and you have total customizability over those functions. I'm particularly excited about Performance mode, which simplifies things considerably and makes it act more like an amp with a couple of pedals.
The support network is quality. The 3 manuals, despite being 250-ish total pages, are well-written and easy to understand for this guy who knows about a lot of things in theory but has little hands-on experience with studio gear. The writer comes across as actually excited about teaching the reader about the unit. There's entire Wiki pages about the FM3 and the blocks and they're filled with not only "this is how you use this" instructions but little tricks and tips. YT videos abound on settings and tones (Leon Todd being my favorite so far, he's just excited about sharing info and is actually fun to listen to), there's an active community of preset-sharers, and the Fractal forum is small but knowledgeable.
No doubt, plugging into the FM3 gave me the best tone I've ever had simply by spinning the preset selector. Different presets actually *feel* different. In some cases, this felt just like home - in others, it was a bit jarring (for example I enjoy hot Marshall tones from others, but never got along with Marshall amps in person... it's been the same so far with the FM3!).
Anyways, not a sales pitch, just reflecting on my lunch break about my first 10-ish hours on this device and how it very well may completely change how I approach music. So far it satisfies my techie-nerdy-wanna-be-studio-rat side and my just-sit-down-and-play side, and it really feels like the possibilities are both endless and good-sounding. But there are some downsides. I've come face to face with some items I've successfully avoided all these years (line/mic/instrument, balanced/unbalanced, TS/TRS), because using the wrong cables has given me some terrible-sounding artifacts (extra noise, high frequency buzz, intense feedback). I've fixed the issue, but I'll need to beef up my knowledge and my cable bag. It also means I might not want to do mono signals anymore, so more gear to setup and break down at gigs. And it means I might want more gear like a mixer so that I can easily process a bunch of different signals. And it also means I might spend even more time messing around with tone and gear rather than writing and performing music, at least at times. But, such is life.
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