Fractal Audio Systems AM4 - Amp Modeler

laxu said:
The AM4 is no different in this regard, expert view is just another list.
Click to expand...
To circle back to this, anything you would enter "expert view" to access is stuff that is not really in any other modeler, so trying to compare what that looks like compare to "how Helix does it" is just a baseless conversation. Ya know how Helix handles complete EQ curve inside every reverb block? By not even bothering to try, that's how.

The only reasonable way to compare AM4 to other modelers in terms of how the UI works/flows is to ignore expert view all together -- which, honestly, anyone whose wondering "has the Fractal UI improved?" will likely do 98% of the time. Even the most power user is ignoring that like 85+% of the time. How stuff in "expert view" works doesn't impact the "user experience" in any meaningful way because the "user experience" with it is "stuff that I rarely if ever touch so doesn't impact my experience using the device." Certainly nothing in there is something you need to be able to quickly tweak on the fly.
 
I'm not going to tell people they're not allowed to find the AM4 interface difficult to use. We all have our preferences, and we all learn things differently. But I personally find it to be a delight to use after only a few weeks and I absolutely love how the thing works and sounds. This is the modeler for me. I may be selling or at the very least mothballing a ton of gear thanks to the AM4 and the incoming VP4. This thing really works for me.
 
Last edited:
Other possibly useful information regarding my perspective for anyone reading -- I've got no MAJOR beef with the AxeFx III UI. It's...fine. I don't enjoy on unit editing, but...I also have my patches dialed in and so am not fussing with it too much.

THe 4-blocks, no need to go to even have a grid approach of the AM4 makes it totally usable as a "I like to sit down and build a rig from scratch everytime I play because who needs to bother hitting the 'save' button" device.
 
Yeah I don’t get the UI issues either. It looks like a virtual pedal board and the Controls are easily accessible and obvious. Of course expert edit is way more complex but in reality how often does the normal user need to go in there. Do we all mod amps and pedals on our board when we should just play 😎
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
Other possibly useful information regarding my perspective for anyone reading -- I've got no MAJOR beef with the AxeFx III UI. It's...fine. I don't enjoy on unit editing, but...I also have my patches dialed in and so am not fussing with it too much.

THe 4-blocks, no need to go to even have a grid approach of the AM4 makes it totally usable as a "I like to sit down and build a rig from scratch everytime I play because who needs to bother hitting the 'save' button" device.
Click to expand...
Then we will have to disagree on that, that's fine. I hated using the Axe-Fx 3 front panel, it was a real chore to me because it always took more time to do things than I liked. I don't have major beefs with e.g Helix user interface, it's not perfect but even without a touchscreen it's quite alright. QC and Hotone are the touchscreen versions that make it even faster. HX Stadium elevates it further.

I see a lot of those same issues on the VP4/AM4, just diminished because there's less blocks to go through, and less pages in each block. I don't like the Select knob, I don't like that there isn't a quick way to jump between blocks when editing (but that might be coming in an update based on Fractal forums, as double clicking some buttons). Otherwise the AM4 has a lot to love.
 
I don’t find the AM4 UI to be cumbersome at all, but I came up during the age of TRULY archaic digital rack gear. I realize this is contextual though.

Sure, maybe there are a few knob turns to be saved here or there, but I was able to intuitively stumble through figuring things out without having to read the manual.

The sounds and features are killer.
 
EOengineer said:
I don’t find the AM4 UI to be cumbersome at all, but I came up during the age of TRULY archaic digital rack gear. I realize this is contextual though.

Sure, maybe there are a few knob turns to be saved here or there, but I was able to intuitively stumble through figuring things out without having to read the manual.

The sounds and features are killer.
Click to expand...

I never found any Fractal very hard to use, but then again, I still manually tweak a Lexicon MPX-1 sometimes. 😀
 
Shask said:
I never found any Fractal very hard to use, but then again, I still manually tweak a Lexicon MPX-1 sometimes. 😀
Click to expand...
Yeah I’m used to old lexicon and alesis stuff. This is better than that and really as good as I need it to be in terms of navigating it.
 
Fractal AM4.jpg


Well, well, well...look what the local used market just happened to have. Right before my birthday too...

Ready your horse carcasses!:horse
 
Ok, so first impressions.

Hardware
  • Very good form factor!
  • Excellent headphone out, as expected.
  • I like the simplified footswitches. Don't really need much more than color coding here.
  • Stereo TRS main input would have been nice so you could use it as a stereo input multifx box. I guess they want you to buy the VP4 for that.
  • Not fond of the push-in power button. A little toggle switch would've been nicer. Obviously this is a very minor complaint and doesn't really matter as long as that switch keeps working.
  • Power supply with switchable plugs for different regions is nice.
  • Not a fan of the Select knob. I totally understand why they chose that and in practice it's less bad than I thought...but I still feel like I'd prefer a small game controller style D-pad in its place.
  • Knobs not being clickable sucks! That would have opened up so much potential functionality.
User interface
  • It's pretty easy to get confused by the different switching modes as you scroll through the Home screen. I'm sure I get more used to them with time. Mostly just used Effects and Amp modes, whereas with past Fractal products it was always Scenes.
  • Amp mode is great! I really want this for every block so you can easily switch channels and tweak them at the same time!
  • Love the levels screen! It makes leveling your preset so easy!
  • The streamlined UI (less pages) really does help.
    • Turning on Expert mode especially in the Amp block instantly brings you into the bad parts of Fractal's previous products where you have to scroll past half a dozen pages you don't care about.
  • Being able to easily go in and out of Expert View is great.
    • I wish it did a bit better job at keeping the current page as it sometimes jumps to the first page of the block even when you are on a "normal view" page like say Cab.
  • Having some amp models bundled into one is a good improvement.
  • Already made a thread about Cab block improvements on Fractal's forum.
Functionality
  • I miss the Multitap, Plex Delay and Pitch blocks. Don't give a damn about the rest, or having only 1 of everything but drives. Multitap especially would be a good substitute for my Strymon Volante.
  • MIDI is again lacking. I wish there were commands to activate the different footswitch modes for example, or to replicate onboard buttons and footswitches like Helix can. It's clear the Sysex commands for this exist because you can pick the different footswitch modes via AM4-Edit.
  • AM4-Edit IR management sucks donkey balls. Why can't it arrange the IR browser on the side panel into folders but just vomits all IR files in one list? Even the default sorting option is not just alphabetical.
  • Modifiers could be better, same issues as on Axe-Fx 3.
    • The big issue with it is that it doesn't show how the current parameter reacts to different settings. If it showed the param value changing it would be much easier to work with.
    • For example I set up Pitch follower to control Amp block Treble and Bass with my 8-string. so that it turns down bass and turns up treble when I play the lowest strings for a clearer sound. As the pitch goes higher, it turns up bass and turns down treble. It's just very hard to figure out optimum settings for these when you have to go back and forth to see the effect on value.
  • No way to quickly jump between editing blocks. I read on Fractal forums that they think of adding "double click Page" for that. I hope they do.
  • Footswitch hold: Custom mode's Channel Picker seems to be broken. It will always show the channel picker for the channel of that footswitch, rather than the currently selected block.
I think like 2 hours just flew by having fun with this thing. It feels like coming home, all the familiar and great tones I had with the Axe-Fx 3. Took me no time at all to churn out a preset on the onboard UI because it was so familiar in many ways.

Unsurprisingly, it sounds absolutely fantastic and it took me very little time to get my favorite amps in play.
 
laxu said:
Ok, so first impressions.

Hardware
  • Very good form factor!
  • Excellent headphone out, as expected.
  • I like the simplified footswitches. Don't really need much more than color coding here.
  • Stereo TRS main input would have been nice so you could use it as a stereo input multifx box. I guess they want you to buy the VP4 for that.
  • Not fond of the push-in power button. A little toggle switch would've been nicer. Obviously this is a very minor complaint and doesn't really matter as long as that switch keeps working.
  • Power supply with switchable plugs for different regions is nice.
  • Not a fan of the Select knob. I totally understand why they chose that and in practice it's less bad than I thought...but I still feel like I'd prefer a small game controller style D-pad in its place.
  • Knobs not being clickable sucks! That would have opened up so much potential functionality.
User interface
  • It's pretty easy to get confused by the different switching modes as you scroll through the Home screen. I'm sure I get more used to them with time. Mostly just used Effects and Amp modes, whereas with past Fractal products it was always Scenes.
  • Amp mode is great! I really want this for every block so you can easily switch channels and tweak them at the same time!
  • Love the levels screen! It makes leveling your preset so easy!
  • The streamlined UI (less pages) really does help.
    • Turning on Expert mode especially in the Amp block instantly brings you into the bad parts of Fractal's previous products where you have to scroll past half a dozen pages you don't care about.
  • Being able to easily go in and out of Expert View is great.
    • I wish it did a bit better job at keeping the current page as it sometimes jumps to the first page of the block even when you are on a "normal view" page like say Cab.
  • Having some amp models bundled into one is a good improvement.
  • Already made a thread about Cab block improvements on Fractal's forum.
Functionality
  • I miss the Multitap, Plex Delay and Pitch blocks. Don't give a damn about the rest, or having only 1 of everything but drives. Multitap especially would be a good substitute for my Strymon Volante.
  • MIDI is again lacking. I wish there were commands to activate the different footswitch modes for example, or to replicate onboard buttons and footswitches like Helix can. It's clear the Sysex commands for this exist because you can pick the different footswitch modes via AM4-Edit.
  • AM4-Edit IR management sucks donkey balls. Why can't it arrange the IR browser on the side panel into folders but just vomits all IR files in one list? Even the default sorting option is not just alphabetical.
  • Modifiers could be better, same issues as on Axe-Fx 3.
    • The big issue with it is that it doesn't show how the current parameter reacts to different settings. If it showed the param value changing it would be much easier to work with.
    • For example I set up Pitch follower to control Amp block Treble and Bass with my 8-string. so that it turns down bass and turns up treble when I play the lowest strings for a clearer sound. As the pitch goes higher, it turns up bass and turns down treble. It's just very hard to figure out optimum settings for these when you have to go back and forth to see the effect on value.
  • No way to quickly jump between editing blocks. I read on Fractal forums that they think of adding "double click Page" for that. I hope they do.
  • Footswitch hold: Custom mode's Channel Picker seems to be broken. It will always show the channel picker for the channel of that footswitch, rather than the currently selected block.
I think like 2 hours just flew by having fun with this thing. It feels like coming home, all the familiar and great tones I had with the Axe-Fx 3. Took me no time at all to churn out a preset on the onboard UI because it was so familiar in many ways.

Unsurprisingly, it sounds absolutely fantastic and it took me very little time to get my favorite amps in play.
Click to expand...

Considering the source, I read this as a glowing review! :beer
 
My VP4 arrived today. I'll go to that thread as well, but I just thought I'd mention here: Yep. This is the combo for me. Quite small, even together. The AM4 is plenty for me in many cases and I can use it and take it to play/record with others when a simple rig does it for me, but the VP4 lets me offload everything pre-amp and load the AM4 blocks with things like trem, delay, and reverb. So simple and fun, yet powerful!

Now I just need to get a cable for S/PDIF. I can't find one anywhere in my house!
 
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