The Fractal Thread

welshboyo

Editing on the unit is fine for me too and it’s good to get familiar with it for gigging.

my advice is get a cab that you are happy with and stick to it for everything, I find changing IR and Amp a bit too jarring. I’ll only totally change both if there’s a specific sound for a specific song, otherwise it’s the same preset all night and just scenes to change in out what I need Clean/Crunch/ Lead wise.

I tend to use either Deluxe Reverb or CAE clean for my cleans and a mixture of Bogner Euro Blue or 1959 for my gain sounds - just bear in mind I’m stuck in 1987…

I quite like Marco Fanton’s patches and there are a number of them free on G66 that are very good

willo

thomasw88 said:

Dare I ask...     Peoples recommendations for a 1 or 2 amp/cab setup which covers clean to crunch for a live band scenario going to FOH and potentially output 3 going to return of my quilter toneblock (no cab sim req on the FM9)

For covers band  ranging from 50s to present day.   I can see me going down the usual rabbit hole of tweaking, so ideally just want to keep it simple with using one amp with multiple channels or two amps.  Ideally using the same cab/s.

This is what I really liked about the Tsalakis Mothership,  Its very easy to set up 4 channels on the unit that cover clean to heavy and easy to tweak a bit without having to get a spade and tunnel into the damn thing.

Theres so much in here its mind blowing.  starting to get to grips with editing on the unit as well as pc.  It's not as bad on the unit as some people have said .

I find that as long as the IR is consistent I can change between amps quite easily. But you can easily take an amp like the Ac20 or Deluxe Reverb or JTM45 from clean to bags of sustain using the pre-amps boost and saturation settings. 

How I cover a lot of ground is

FS1 clean scene
2. Light gain
3. Crunch
4. Lead gain
5. Volume boost (done as filter so EQ neutral)
6. Chorus (hold for Phaser)
7. Delay
8. Tap tempo/tuner

I then set up a performance page that includes reverb mix and EQ so that I can quickly tune my preset to the room 

Nerine

willo said:

thomasw88 said:

Dare I ask...     Peoples recommendations for a 1 or 2 amp/cab setup which covers clean to crunch for a live band scenario going to FOH and potentially output 3 going to return of my quilter toneblock (no cab sim req on the FM9)

For covers band  ranging from 50s to present day.   I can see me going down the usual rabbit hole of tweaking, so ideally just want to keep it simple with using one amp with multiple channels or two amps.  Ideally using the same cab/s.

This is what I really liked about the Tsalakis Mothership,  Its very easy to set up 4 channels on the unit that cover clean to heavy and easy to tweak a bit without having to get a spade and tunnel into the damn thing.

Theres so much in here its mind blowing.  starting to get to grips with editing on the unit as well as pc.  It's not as bad on the unit as some people have said .

I find that as long as the IR is consistent I can change between amps quite easily. But you can easily take an amp like the Ac20 or Deluxe Reverb or JTM45 from clean to bags of sustain using the pre-amps boost and saturation settings. 

How I cover a lot of ground is

FS1 clean scene
2. Light gain
3. Crunch
4. Lead gain
5. Volume boost (done as filter so EQ neutral)
6. Chorus (hold for Phaser)
7. Delay
8. Tap tempo/tuner

I then set up a performance page that includes reverb mix and EQ so that I can quickly tune my preset to the room 

Interestingly enough, I made a thread a while ago stating the cab is probably more important than the amp in terms of overall sound and was totally shot down. 

It’s so apparent when using modellers. You keep the same IRs and the amp choices all of a sudden become VERY samey sounding if you use a similar level of gain and broadly similar EQ settings… 

The amount of “very different” amps I tried that sounded VERY SIMILAR when you remove the speaker and cabinet from the equation was huge. 

It’s almost like there aren’t actually that many ways to distort a signal… who’d have thought it. ffs

Roland

Nerine said:

Interestingly enough, I made a thread a while ago stating the cab is probably more important than the amp in terms of overall sound and was totally shot down. 

Strange, because Cliff Chase said the same thing when he started creating IRs

thomasw88

had a good ol fiddle tonight.. then went onto the FM9 .

hooked it up to my PA monitor speaker (RCF708mk4).   Went through a bunch of amps, and  Settled on the Dirty Shirley 1. Liked it straight away, can do a nice clean and a nice meaty crunch which seems to sound decent through a pa speaker anyway.  Obviously I’ll hate it the moment get into a rehearsal room, but got a few other amps in other channels can try out fairly easily.  It seemed to work quite well going into fx return of my quilter tb202.

At the moment just got two scenes (Clean & Crunch)  which flip between the two amp blocks.  Using two blocks as I've got expression pedal affecting the gain range and also the mastervolume.  So for amp1  gain will go from clean to light crunch and amp2 up to quite dirty.  The expression pedal will also,lower the volume a bit to compensate.  Appreciate this could probably be done with 1 block but what the hell,, gives me 8 amps to choose from all the channels.

  Loaded up a few other options in the cab and amp channels so I can try out what works best in a band situation, ie long press will increment the effect block channel.


 Will probably look to reduce the number of options I have available once I work out which models I like but basically have shit loads of options on tap which is good for me I think!  Got a couple gigs at weekend, but going to use my vp4 and tsalakis mothership for those as that combo sounds tremendous.

Roland

This is an interesting interview with Cooper Carter. It’s long, but I think worth it. I actually listened to it while doing something else, and didn’t watch the screen.
https://youtu.be/Ey91tBEt2Uk

FarleyUK

AFX3 FW 29.01 official release is out - main thing is the improved pitch tracking. Very handy for anyone using the virtual capo with a singer who can't sing in the original key and decides to change the key on the fly (AHEM).

willo

FarleyUK said:

AFX3 FW 29.01 official release is out - main thing is the improved pitch tracking. Very handy for anyone using the virtual capo with a singer who can't sing in the original key and decides to change the key on the fly (AHEM).

Jeez ...what do you do, assign the pitch control to an expression pedal and dial it in on the fly???

thomasw88

willo said:

FarleyUK said:

AFX3 FW 29.01 official release is out - main thing is the improved pitch tracking. Very handy for anyone using the virtual capo with a singer who can't sing in the original key and decides to change the key on the fly (AHEM).

Jeez ...what do you do, assign the pitch control to an expression pedal and dial it in on the fly???

I used to play with a singer who would often come in at various points in a  different key to the one she was meant to.   This would have been handy then!

FarleyUK

willo said:

FarleyUK said:

AFX3 FW 29.01 official release is out - main thing is the improved pitch tracking. Very handy for anyone using the virtual capo with a singer who can't sing in the original key and decides to change the key on the fly (AHEM).

Jeez ...what do you do, assign the pitch control to an expression pedal and dial it in on the fly???

Thankfully he gives us a few minutes notice  

What I did at last night's rehearsal was to assign both the virtual capo and an EQ block (to EQ the slight frequency change the pitch block introduces) to the performance screen, as well as another couple of dials for the pitch offset and the tracking mode.

I found that for any song reliant on either fast-ish single note runs or fast-ish finger style across multiple strings (i.e. Wasted Years and the Rebel Yell intro), the chords mode had too much latency - really threw me off. Notes mode seems better - but I have a Digitech Drop arriving tomorrow to compare it to.

Nerine

FarleyUK said:

willo said:

FarleyUK said:

AFX3 FW 29.01 official release is out - main thing is the improved pitch tracking. Very handy for anyone using the virtual capo with a singer who can't sing in the original key and decides to change the key on the fly (AHEM).

Jeez ...what do you do, assign the pitch control to an expression pedal and dial it in on the fly???

Thankfully he gives us a few minutes notice  

What I did at last night's rehearsal was to assign both the virtual capo and an EQ block (to EQ the slight frequency change the pitch block introduces) to the performance screen, as well as another couple of dials for the pitch offset and the tracking mode.

I found that for any song reliant on either fast-ish single note runs or fast-ish finger style across multiple strings (i.e. Wasted Years and the Rebel Yell intro), the chords mode had too much latency - really threw me off. Notes mode seems better - but I have a Digitech Drop arriving tomorrow to compare it to.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts comparing them. 

I’ve had 2 Fractal FM9’s, including a MkII Turbo and the pitch shifting algorithm isn’t as good as the Digitech Drop to my ears. You can do more with the Fractal for sure, but tonally and latency-wise, the Drop is still top of the pile IMO. 

Unless they’ve changed the Virtual Capo algorithm since I last owned one, obvs… 

FarleyUK

Nerine said:

FarleyUK said:

willo said:

FarleyUK said:

AFX3 FW 29.01 official release is out - main thing is the improved pitch tracking. Very handy for anyone using the virtual capo with a singer who can't sing in the original key and decides to change the key on the fly (AHEM).

Jeez ...what do you do, assign the pitch control to an expression pedal and dial it in on the fly???

Thankfully he gives us a few minutes notice  

What I did at last night's rehearsal was to assign both the virtual capo and an EQ block (to EQ the slight frequency change the pitch block introduces) to the performance screen, as well as another couple of dials for the pitch offset and the tracking mode.

I found that for any song reliant on either fast-ish single note runs or fast-ish finger style across multiple strings (i.e. Wasted Years and the Rebel Yell intro), the chords mode had too much latency - really threw me off. Notes mode seems better - but I have a Digitech Drop arriving tomorrow to compare it to.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts comparing them. 

I’ve had 2 Fractal FM9’s, including a MkII Turbo and the pitch shifting algorithm isn’t as good as the Digitech Drop to my ears. You can do more with the Fractal for sure, but tonally and latency-wise, the Drop is still top of the pile IMO. 

Unless they’ve changed the Virtual Capo algorithm since I last owned one, obvs… 

Will do!

That's the main update in 29.01 - an overhauled virtual capo. It's definitely better, but will be interested to see in comparison.

FarleyUK

So the Digitech Drop arrived, and I've been comparing it to the updated virtual capo. I have the guitar going in to the Drop, then into the front input. The VC block is straight after IN1 in the grid.

I have to say, there's not too much in it, but the Drop just edges ahead IMO. Feels a lot more immediate and sounds better I think.

You could certainly get away with using the VC, but I think I'll be sticking with the Drop for now.... just must remember to turn it on and off for the correct songs!

DavusPG

Does it track chords well, or just mainly single notes?

FarleyUK

DavusPG said:

Does it track chords well, or just mainly single notes?

The Drop tracks chords very well, it’s fully polyphonic. 

The new VC version tracks simple chords in ‘notes’ mode, but any complex chords mean you need to have it in ‘chords’ mode with higher latency. 

DavusPG

Look forward to the update reaching the FM9

thomasw88

Quick question for the gurus..

I've set up some patches for a band using the Dirty Shirley 1 amp and the Leon Todd TV mix 7 & 2 cabs running together.  Output 1 going to FOH and output 3 going to the return of an amp on stage (I just like the sound of  an amp behind me)

I put cut in the preamp block at 100hz and 7.5k rather than the cab (after watching some vids on YT). but I'm thinking should I actually be better using the cut at the cab rather than the preamp as it'll affect the output 3-real amp.  Or will it not really matter.

I've got the levels of the presets sounding pretty decent, think I'm going to cut a bit more of the presence in the amp settings as it was a bit bright, and I had the bass eq rolled off quite substantially so think I'll add a smidge more back in.

Also, with regards to eq cuts on the LT IR's, any suggestions?  they sound ok to me but I've only used them in a rehearsal room and tonight is at a decent size venue

FarleyUK

Hmmm... I would assume that you wouldn't need any EQ for the signal going to the head and cab, as you would want the cab to sound 'natural' on stage? However, not to say you couldn't adjust it to remove some nasty peaks etc. if you wanted to.

If you have a sound guy tonight, leave it up to them - focus on getting the sound YOU hear correct and to your liking. If you don't have a sound engineer, I think if it sounded OK in rehearsal you should be OK - however, I'd maybe set the hi and lo cut params to be easily accessible via the performance page so you can adjust quickly if needed.

Personally, I use an EQ block at the end of the chain to do my cuts - lo and hi cut, and also a couple of surgical notches at around 2k and 4k I believe to remove some nasty frequencies. My hi and lo cuts tend to be around 110Hz and 6.5kHz at 12dB.

Roland

You need something which you can get at quickly in an emergency. How about putting a Filter block somewhere between Amp and the Cab which goes to Output1. Copy this to every preset you’re intending to use. Set high and low cuts in the Filter block, with 12dB per octave roll off. Then edit the Perform page to include put the high cut and low cut frequency dials. This gives you immediate access to the dials from the front panel using physical knobs on the front of the unit.

mrkb

The other option is the global Output Eq capability - allows global EQ adjustments for each output - would allow the cab output to be tuned depending on the room/cab position vs closeness to a wall, etc.