New Fractal FM9 floor unit - looks good!

Vibetronic · October 2022

mrkb said:

You might as well get your name down on the waitlist, there’s no deposit or obligation to buy once it gets to your turn.

I know…but I’d feel a bit rude if I refused after going on the list…

Nerine · October 2022

Had a nice experience with the FM9 this evening.

It was regarding monitoring.

Only this week have I been able to try it out with a wedge. I borrowed one of the tops from the singer in the band.

It’s a Yamaha DZR12. Very nice speaker.

Have been using it this week to dial in tones ready for when I start using it live.

Also it’s unbelievably loud. It would bury my Friedman (Small Box 50) for sheer volume, I think.

My mate came over tonight, though and brought his Yamaha DXR10 with him. Think his is the Mk1.

So my initial reaction when using the DZR12 was that it’s overkill, but sounded real good. It’s too large and no more portable than my actual amp in real terms. Similar footprint. And that’s not really why I got into the modelling thing.

But… the kicker is I much preferred the DXR10 that my mate brought round tonight. It just sounded better for guitar. The midrange was much better to my ear. It had presence in the right places. The DZR - which is a much pricier speaker was a bit too smooth sounding and didn’t sound as raw.

I was a bit dubious about a 10” monitor for guitar. I expected a 12” to be what I needed.

But no. It still sounded HUGE, had tons of low end (the low end on the DZR12 is beyond ridiculous if you want it to be) but just had a better presence and sounded more “amp like”. Represented the guitar better.

What was even better was that we had an AB box setup so we could switch between them.

I was seriously impressed with it. The cheaper, smaller, less complicated alternative legitimately sounded superior.

I then also decided to randomly change the IR on my current preset I have setup for gigging and holy SHIIEEETTT!!

I’ve really liked the 1x4 pignose cab with a 57 so far. It sounds balanced. But I’ve been thinking the top end has a slightly too direct kind of feel to it. I randomly changed to an Ownhammer Diezel/Mesa blend or something and it now sounds monstrous. Present but the feel has improved no end.

Man, it sounded killer.

Was a really enlightening and enjoyable evening.

We ended up just jamming, trading licks and stuff and didn’t really think about what we were playing through. It became secondary. That’s the thing. At no point when I play through the Fractal do I have that thing in the back of my mind where I’m conscious about the tone or what I’m playing through. I just play, the same as I would with my traditional amps.

You have to kind of unlearn everything you think you know about reproducing guitar sounds when using modellers. It’s been a really fun, inspiring journey so far.

I am gonna get (I think) a couple of DXR10 Mk2’s for my rig. A pair in stereo would sound ridiculously huge. The possibilities for gigs and stuff would be awesome. I’m also gonna get an expression pedal soon, too. I really wanna try out the internal wahs.

As an addendum, I think one thing that can potentially ruin the modeller experience is that everything is so easily modifiable and comparisons are very easy. It makes the changes in tone very jarring. If you have been playing a sound and have been enjoying it, you might switch a cab or preset or something and instantly think NOPE!! But actually if you acclimatise yourself to that cab or setting it starts to sound “normal” and good again. It’s something to be very wary of. Also, when possible, listen to the presets and tones in the context of a mix. Play along to backing tracks or whatever.

All of the sounds in the FM9 sound really natural when played along with a band.

I think I’m nearly ready to use it live, and when I do, if it goes well, I’d be very surprised if I’d use my valve amps again. It’s the absolute bollocks. It’s put the fun, exploratory, nerd out side back into guitar playing for me.

You can never get bored of your tone. You can create just about anything imaginable. The possibilities are endless. The modelling is also “there” now. There’s no “this doesn’t sound or feel like a valve amp”. It does.

I’ve further AB’d the Small Box model into the Fx return of the Small Box against straight into the amp. It’s the same. It has convinced/won over a very skeptical guitarist over here.

Beyond impressed at this point.

FarleyUK · October 2022

Nerine said:

I’ve really liked the 1x4 pignose cab with a 57 so far.

....not sure if you're being serious here.....

Nerine · October 2022

FarleyUK said:

Nerine said:

I’ve really liked the 1x4 pignose cab with a 57 so far.

....not sure if you're being serious here.....

Deadly serious. I was building a patch, added an amp, added a cab, made some EQ and gain adjustments, strummed a few chords and played a few lines and thought, yep, Sounds cool, what else shall I add to the chain. I didn’t think to check what cab it was until later.

The cab ultimately ended up being the limiting factor, though. I shan’t build a rig using the Pignose again.

Nerine · October 2022

Okkkkkkkk……..

First gig with the the FM9 tonight.

My concerns before soundcheck were monitoring and whether the band would sound disjointed with one guitarist playing through an amp and cab and me going direct.

My rig was the FM9 and EV-1 expression pedal into a Yamaha DXR10 MkII. I cloned outputs one and two. One went to my monitor. One went to the desk.

Drummer had kick mic’d, Bassist had his amp head direct to desk through the subs.

Soundcheck sounded really good.

A few observations and feedback:

Singer loved the guitar sound in his IEMs.

Yamaha monitor was superb. Sounded fucking great. Not shy on volume. May get another just ‘cos…

Band could hear me just fine. Said it sounded great.

Sounded bloody lovely out the front.

Setup was easy.

Band didn’t sound weird having one guitar through a cab and one going direct.

My guitar sound was just loads more varied and interesting. Some of the 80’s rock stuff sounded much more authentic.

The rig is dead silent. No hiss or noise etc.

The monitor… I think the Yamaha DXR10 seems a popular choice. I can see why. Bags of headroom, goes insanely loud, sounds excellent, is lightweight etc. etc. can’t say enough good about it. Very impressed. Getting that monitor sound and the feeling of it going through the PA was very satisfying.

I couldn’t have had a better first gig with it really. I’ve been a valve amp Luddite for yonks and have always felt that I needed a high end amp behind me. It’s how I’ve always rolled. Tonight has blown that wide open.

At no point did I feel like it was a compromise. At no point did I think my sound would be better with my amp and pedalboard. In fact, I’d say the opposite was true, during both sets I just kept thinking, damn!! This sounds fucking awesome!

I’ve got a couple of small low cut tweaks to do on my gigging preset for one of the amp channels, but other than that, it was a seamless transition. I’ve spent quite a lot of time dialling in the sounds these last couple of weeks and it’s just worked out great.

Other than rehearsals, I’m not sure I’d need my amp (Friedman Small Box, ergo not a crap amp) for gigs anymore.

Setup was easy and chilled, it took up no room, it sounded brilliant in the band mix, performed flawlessly, everybody could hear me, it cut through, sounded absolutely massive when I needed it to etc.
I forgot I was playing through a completely digital/solid state rig. I enjoyed the gig and at no point did I feel compromised or that it was less capable or was lacking in any way.

Brilliant experience for the first time out. A few small tweaks and getting used to the setup and I cannot see any reason to take my “real” amp out live anymore.

It worked superbly. I understand the hype and plaudits Fractal gets. I thought it was pure fanboyism and trying to justify the purchase when I’ve read the (what I thought was nonsense) online, but it’s really not.

It’s ridiculously good. I’m beyond pleased with the FM9. I was always skeptical, I was always a traditionalist, I always thought a valve amp was the be all and end all, I always thought modelling hadn’t got there.

In the case of the FM9, I was very wrong. What an absolutely fucking killer piece of gear. The value proposition is insane, there isn’t a sound you can think of it can’t do beyond well, and it’s an absolute joy to use.

It’s so good. Spend some time with it, get a decent monitor and it will deliver in spades.

What a machine.

March · November 2022

Mine arrived last week and like @Nerine I had some initial scepticism. I half expected to try it, decide I did not like it and just send it back for a refund. Well, I was wrong on that score. As others have commented, the patches are just so usable out of the box, and the tones from the huge selection of amps available are more or less spot on - my reference points being the Bogner Shiva 20th Anni, Bogner Ecstasy and Fender VibroVerb - with the Ecstasy the midrange chewiness is there, something I really did not think the Fractal would be able to capture.

Colour me impressed. BTW, I'm running it into a Laney LFR-112

welshboyo · November 2022

You guys will be in for a treat when the current FM3 firmware makes it to the FM9 - its transformed the FM3 for me..the amp models have had a fresh lick of paint and the Friedmans in particular sound wonderful.

FarleyUK · November 2022

I think I’m going to have to take the plunge and get one; I love my AFX3 turbo, and just makes more sense having another Fractal unit as backup / simpler fly rig compared to the Quad Cortex that I have now.

Roland · November 2022

https://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/237069/fm9-turbo-uk-for-sale

Nerine · November 2022

welshboyo said:

You guys will be in for a treat when the current FM3 firmware makes it to the FM9 - its transformed the FM3 for me..the amp models have had a fresh lick of paint and the Friedmans in particular sound wonderful.

Oooooh!

Is this imminent? Strange how they've not rolled it out on the FM9, but have the FM3.

My current main gigging preset is built around a Friedman Small Box, so this sounds intriguing!

welshboyo · November 2022

Nerine said:

welshboyo said:

You guys will be in for a treat when the current FM3 firmware makes it to the FM9 - its transformed the FM3 for me..the amp models have had a fresh lick of paint and the Friedmans in particular sound wonderful.

Oooooh!

Is this imminent? Strange how they've not rolled it out on the FM9, but have the FM3.

My current main gigging preset is built around a Friedman Small Box, so this sounds intriguing!

Its because the FM9 is inferior to the FM3

I think its actually with the firmware development timelines as the FM9 is the new-boy on the block and is playing catch up - they'll catch up soon surely

mrkb · November 2022

welshboyo said:

Nerine said:

welshboyo said:

You guys will be in for a treat when the current FM3 firmware makes it to the FM9 - its transformed the FM3 for me..the amp models have had a fresh lick of paint and the Friedmans in particular sound wonderful.

Oooooh!

Is this imminent? Strange how they've not rolled it out on the FM9, but have the FM3.

My current main gigging preset is built around a Friedman Small Box, so this sounds intriguing!

Its because the FM9 is inferior to the FM3

I think its actually with the firmware development timelines as the FM9 is the new-boy on the block and is playing catch up - they'll catch up soon surely

And the current customer userbase for FM3s must be much larger at the moment - so makes sense to do that firmware after AXEFXIII and before FM9.

FarleyUK · November 2022

Got my FM9 last week, and have ported all my AFX3 presets to it. I've had to make quite a few (understandable) changes so they work on the FM9, but I'm very impressed so far!

Going to make getting to rehearsals much easier and simpler, that's for sure.

mrkb · November 2022

Theres a price gouger trying to sell one for £2300 on ebay - they're only £2049 new and in stock at G66 UK!

FM9 Turbo | Incl. S size T-shirt | 1122 (g66.eu)

Nerine · November 2022

One thing I have noticed is that I tend to get better results when only using one cab/IR in the cab block.

Anyone else noticed that? Even after using the align function to check the phase and whatnot, I don't find another cab tends to add too much to the sound. I was messing around with one of my presets the other day and thought it sounded just slightly shy in the low end. I removed the second IR I had loaded and it fattened it right up.

Worth experimenting with muting cabs, if you tend to just add cabs and set and forget type of thing.

I'm using a Diezel/Mesa 4x12 blend from Ownhammer currently. Perhaps it's already a pretty massive sound so doesn't really benefit from adding another IR into the mix.

Should also add that I am currently running in mono until I get another DXR10 - well looking forward to hearing all the chorusing/delays/reverbs etc when i've got that, - they'll sound frigging awesome in stereo.

One thing I love is the proximity control in the cab block. You can add some seriously fat low end to proceedings.

To be fair, the low reproduction on all of the amp models is really nice.

If you have a brighter amp selected, like an 800, you can really dive into it and turn it into a fat modded 800. It's so cool how you can essentially mod the internals of the amp to create new custom amps.

I've borrowed, used or owned all of the main modellers/profilers - Helix, QC, Kemper, Fractal.

The Fractal/FM9 is by far my favourite in just about every instance. The only thing I would poach from the others is the touch screen from the QC. That said, the FM9 isn't that difficult to use without the editor and is actually fairly intuitive once you spend a bit of time with it.

Roland · November 2022

Nerine said:

One thing I have noticed is that I tend to get better results when only using one cab/IR in the cab block.
Anyone else noticed that? Even after using the align function to check the phase and whatnot, I don't find another cab tends to add too much to the sound. ..

I'm using a Diezel/Mesa 4x12 blend from Ownhammer currently. Perhaps it's already a pretty massive sound so doesn't really benefit from adding another IR into the mix.

That doesn’t surprise me about that type of sound, where you’re looking to provide clarity on what is a very saturated signal.

At the clean end of the spectrum I prefer to blend two IRs of the same cabinet with different mics. I’ve tried aligning, but prefer the sound without.

Wazmeister · November 2022

Nerine said:

Had a nice experience with the FM9 this evening.

It was regarding monitoring.

Only this week have I been able to try it out with a wedge. I borrowed one of the tops from the singer in the band.
It’s a Yamaha DZR12. Very nice speaker.
Have been using it this week to dial in tones ready for when I start using it live.
Also it’s unbelievably loud. It would bury my Friedman (Small Box 50) for sheer volume, I think.

My mate came over tonight, though and brought his Yamaha DXR10 with him. Think his is the Mk1.

So my initial reaction when using the DZR12 was that it’s overkill, but sounded real good. It’s too large and no more portable than my actual amp in real terms. Similar footprint. And that’s not really why I got into the modelling thing.

But… the kicker is I much preferred the DXR10 that my mate brought round tonight. It just sounded better for guitar. The midrange was much better to my ear. It had presence in the right places. The DZR - which is a much pricier speaker was a bit too smooth sounding and didn’t sound as raw.

I was a bit dubious about a 10” monitor for guitar. I expected a 12” to be what I needed.
But no. It still sounded HUGE, had tons of low end (the low end on the DZR12 is beyond ridiculous if you want it to be) but just had a better presence and sounded more “amp like”. Represented the guitar better.

What was even better was that we had an AB box setup so we could switch between them.

I was seriously impressed with it. The cheaper, smaller, less complicated alternative legitimately sounded superior.

I then also decided to randomly change the IR on my current preset I have setup for gigging and holy SHIIEEETTT!!

I’ve really liked the 1x4 pignose cab with a 57 so far. It sounds balanced. But I’ve been thinking the top end has a slightly too direct kind of feel to it. I randomly changed to an Ownhammer Diezel/Mesa blend or something and it now sounds monstrous. Present but the feel has improved no end.

Man, it sounded killer.

Was a really enlightening and enjoyable evening.
We ended up just jamming, trading licks and stuff and didn’t really think about what we were playing through. It became secondary. That’s the thing. At no point when I play through the Fractal do I have that thing in the back of my mind where I’m conscious about the tone or what I’m playing through. I just play, the same as I would with my traditional amps.

You have to kind of unlearn everything you think you know about reproducing guitar sounds when using modellers. It’s been a really fun, inspiring journey so far.

I am gonna get (I think) a couple of DXR10 Mk2’s for my rig. A pair in stereo would sound ridiculously huge. The possibilities for gigs and stuff would be awesome. I’m also gonna get an expression pedal soon, too. I really wanna try out the internal wahs.

As an addendum, I think one thing that can potentially ruin the modeller experience is that everything is so easily modifiable and comparisons are very easy. It makes the changes in tone very jarring. If you have been playing a sound and have been enjoying it, you might switch a cab or preset or something and instantly think NOPE!! But actually if you acclimatise yourself to that cab or setting it starts to sound “normal” and good again. It’s something to be very wary of. Also, when possible, listen to the presets and tones in the context of a mix. Play along to backing tracks or whatever.
All of the sounds in the FM9 sound really natural when played along with a band.

I think I’m nearly ready to use it live, and when I do, if it goes well, I’d be very surprised if I’d use my valve amps again. It’s the absolute bollocks. It’s put the fun, exploratory, nerd out side back into guitar playing for me.
You can never get bored of your tone. You can create just about anything imaginable. The possibilities are endless. The modelling is also “there” now. There’s no “this doesn’t sound or feel like a valve amp”. It does.
I’ve further AB’d the Small Box model into the Fx return of the Small Box against straight into the amp. It’s the same. It has convinced/won over a very skeptical guitarist over here.

Beyond impressed at this point.

That's a great insight mate - thank you

FarleyUK · November 2022

Used the FM9 at rehearsal on Monday, and it made setting up a breeze - so awesome basically having much more easily transportable version of my AFX3!!

DavusPG · November 2022

Yes, 1st world problems and all that, but since getting the FM9, getting in and out and set up at rehearsals and gigs is ludicrously easy.

I have my FM9 on a Temple board with my wireless underneath, and Temple power and XLR side modules, so my setup has become: Arrive, open case, plonk the board on the floor, kettle lead in 1 side, XLRs in the other, grab a guitar and I'm ready to go. If that wasn't lazy enough I've also put the board in an SKB case on wheels and invested in a Mono Dual M80 so it's 1 trip to and from the car and the same sounds i was getting from the AxeFx 3. Love it

mrkb · November 2022

DavusPG said:

Yes, 1st world problems and all that, but since getting the FM9, getting in and out and set up at rehearsals and gigs is ludicrously easy.

I have my FM9 on a Temple board with my wireless underneath, and Temple power and XLR side modules, so my setup has become: Arrive, open case, plonk the board on the floor, kettle lead in 1 side, XLRs in the other, grab a guitar and I'm ready to go. If that wasn't lazy enough I've also put the board in an SKB case on wheels and invested in a Mono Dual M80 so it's 1 trip to and from the car and the same sounds i was getting from the AxeFx 3. Love it

What’s the skb case you use? And what size temple board is it? cheers.

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New Fractal FM9 floor unit - looks good!

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