Flamma FX100- Quite Impressive

[Chris6542]

It's amazing how good modelers have gotten, even the entry level category. While I have an FM3, Kemper Stage, and nice tube amps, I respect a good value. Saw this little Flamma FX100, had been thinking about a backup to my backup (3rd string), and for the list price of $50 used in Excellent condition, said what the hell. Wow, I'm really stunned at how solid this thing is, both in construction and performance. It sounds really good and even the presets sound quite good. For those who like super simple menus interfaces, this one couldn't be easier, both on the unit and the laptop editor, super simple to understand within seconds. I paid $50 for this thing, and it sounds really very good, and a pretty good little drum machine in it with a good variety of drum loops styles. The collection of cabs sound really good overall with each offering mic, mic placement, mic distance, and poweramp tube type, all tasteful tones, very well done. Plus, it's really small and portable. It's so small it makes a Fractal FM3 (love mine) seem like an 18 wheeler! There's something to be said for something so small it can fit in the pocket of your guitar softcase. I've tried a lot of modelers, and alot of budget modelers and have been pretty shocked how fringe the tones are on many of them (esp the budget units), but the engineers of this one played it right down the middle on tones, great job. With just a little tweaking, you have what I would call "very good " tones that you'd be pleased to play a bar with, no shame at all. If you were thinking of a small, toss around, backup modeler, this is your man! It's incredibly cheap used, sounds very good, is small and portable, and is idiot simple to understand immediately. As someone with a lot of high end gear, I found myself smiling and having fun playing this unit.....and I'm a cranky, grumpy middle aged dude that's hard to convince on anything. How would I rank the tonal quality of my current modelers? Kemper Stage: 100, Fractal FM3: 96, Headrush Prime: 94, Flamma FX100: 89, Digitech RP360XP: 85. In the old days, the cheapest modelers would have scored 60 compared to the top units, but they continue to inch closer to the top dogs. For $50 I feel like I stole this Flamma!

 

[DankStar]

Great deal and congrats. Reminds me of my HB git pro in looks and probably similar software/sounds, I think these kind of units borrow from each other but not sure.

If you haven't loaded any IRs yet, it'll prob sound even better with your faves. I have some go-to v30 ones that seem to make everything shine.

What I find interesting is, even though these units seem to borrow from each other, they all have an amp or two the others don't. Like mine has an oddball marshall preamp that I thought was a dumb idea at first, until I realized piggy from voivod used to use it and I started dialing in some voivod tones.

My question would be - if these companies have some sort of stockpile of modeled amps how do we get the random oddballs in there?

Does yours have a cool amp that's sort of unexpected or not in your other units?

I just picked up a cheap expression pedal for mine and still need to calibrate the pedal for the wah.