Fractal Audio Systems mystery product speculation

[timbuck3]

If its 599 I'm in trouble

why?

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Being able to have analog bypass turn on automatically when all effects are bypassed is a godsend for people using germanium fuzzes. I keep my hx stomp in a loop Switcher to get it out of the signal path when I use a germanium fuzz.
I've been through most of the manual now and this is looking like a perfect device for my use case. I'm definitely getting one if the price is sensible.

 

[Desertdweller]

That manual link is no longer working lol

 

[Whizzinby]

This is a FAS H90/Meris/Stryfecta pedal.

 

[holoholo]

The manual showed fm3 to vp4 for post effects via spdif too. Pretty smart

 

[jellodog]

The manual showed fm3 to vp4 for post effects via spdif too. Pretty smart

Only one round of conversions is...

 

[JCW308]

looks like roland is dropping something soooon

https://roland.ac-page.com/vqd?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Sssssssh!%20It%20s%20Quiet%20Time&utm_campaign=Roland%20%7C%20VQD%20Series%20Opt-In%20%7C%20Non%20Drummers%20%7C%20Phase%201%20%7C%20Interests%20%7C%20RAM%20EN_US

What do digital drums from Roland have to do with a new guitar unit from Fractal?

 

[SillyOctpuss]

What do digital drums from Roland have to do with a new guitar unit from Fractal?

Also who the fuck wants a quiet revolution? If you're gonna revolt you need to be making some noise.

 

[Los-D]

I like this

 

[ian_dissonance]

I’m pretty sure old boy just posts in the top thread for attention sometimes.

 

[Desertdweller]

I like this
View attachment 30566

This is exactly what the TC Plethora is missing. The PC app is incredible - you can turn a compressor into an overdrive, but you can’t do anything really on the pedal deeper than 3 knobs. Expert Edit will be where I live on this device for sure.

 

[Whizzinby]

I like this
View attachment 30566

Great way to allow deep editing, but not overwhelm anyone that doesn’t want to bother with it.

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

4CM IS MONO ONLY
When using the VP4 with 4CM, keep in mind that it is mono only. Global settings for Input Mode and Output Mode (except "MUTE") are IGNORED when 4CM Routing is set to ENABLED, and only the left channel of the last Pre- or Post effects is passed to the respective output.

that's my one bugaboo....oh well ..still gonna get it

 

[Jarick]

I like this
View attachment 30566

I need this on the Axe 3 too lol

 

[Cactusprick]

What do digital drums from Roland have to do with a new guitar unit from Fractal?

chalk one up on won't buy list.

 

[DrewJD82]

My general "I've got effects on" signal chain is a ping pong/2290 delay feeding a reverb that then feeds a reverse delay at half the tempo of everything else. Previous to this I was looking to pull this off with individual pedals, but I'm stoked I won't have to be concerned with that now!

Still most likely going to get a small loop switcher to use specific dirt pedals in front of an amp, but I'm pretty sure this hits all my hot buttons.

 

[Whizzinby]

that's my one bugaboo....oh well ..still gonna get it

Yeah I’d love to be able to go mono into the front of my amp and then stereo into my JC fx loop to hit pre and post. I’ll go full stereo in the loop rather than mono anything. Which is fine, because the main thing is getting that FAS stereo mod/delay/verb thing going. I BYOB with my drives/fuzzes anyway.

 

[Elric]

I’ve run 4CM with both the FM3 and the FM9. With the FM3 I didn’t like that I had to use output 1 and do an XLR to 1/4” to run 4CM. Something always felt missing, I don’t want to say tone suck, but it didn’t sound 100% right with my amps. The FM9 and my older Axe FX 2 were perfect in 4CM, but I wasn’t thrilled with my sound using the FM3 in 4CM.

Fair 'nough; thanks for sharing your experience with it. It's been long enough since I used to remember the details of my config, but yeah, I would not hesitate to use that way if I needed to again (what with it just sitting there, idle, at the ready and all). It may just have to do w/ the amp's loop etc, so it may just vary.

The VP4 however from what Cliff was saying will be great, so I’m stoked. I want to just put the VP4 on top of my amp, run a MIDI cable from my MC8 and be happy.

Yeah it looks like a cool product!

 

[laxu]

Ok, so had a look through the manual.

• I'm never a fan of "press these two switches or buttons together". They are often not that easy to activate consistently, but I can understand you have to make some compromises when you have limited footswitches and buttons. But it seems you can customize the Press and Hold functions, so you can build your own setup like with other Fractals!
• 4 blocks (each with 4 channels) per preset is enough for probably 90% of usecases. I think it's quite rare for me to have that many active at once. If you need something different, gapless switching (confirmed, it's one of the Setup menu options) and another preset should do the job.
• Channel select via "Hold a switch -> tap ABCD" switch should work pretty fast to swap a channel if needed.
• Expert Edit feature seems like a good way to hide the complexity of Fractal fx parameters.
• Changing each block and model seems easy enough, but I worry a bit that it's the Axe-Fx style "cycle one by one through fx icons" which is worse than "scroll through a list of available categories." With a list you can see what's coming next and can get to where you want faster.
• Fx editing seems to borrow a good bit from Axe-Fx so I'm a bit cautious how quick it will be to work with in practice when you have to scroll to the right block, then find the right page and tweak.
• VP4 MIDI out capabilities seem very limited. It seems to be able to send Program Change messages but those don't look very configurable. So it's definitely not going to work as a MIDI controller for your other MIDI capable pedals. That's a shame.

@FractalAudio, I think the manual needs some flowcharts so users can understand the different pages, param editing etc without the VP4 in hand. Similarly flowchart images through the Preset tutorial would help. In fact, go to town on flowcharts because one pic can often show what many words can tell. The Setup menu tables for example make those menus easy to visualize without having the unit.

The manual seems to jump from "Preset tutorial" to various pages but I have no idea how those pages are meant to be accessed other than a little "Home ... Page right 1x" hint in the corner. Have a page that shows like a little "Home -> Noise Gate -> Main Levels -> Preset EQ" diagram. Then the manual jumps to Preset Mix/Routing and I'm not sure if it's a continuation of the Home pages or something else.

Not sure if the manual is copy pasted from other manuals, but the Setup menu pages refer to 8 scenes in a few places, but the footswiches seem to only be able to access 4. Typo, or are there actually 8 scenes like on other Fractals?

Feature set seems mostly great with all the staple Fractal features in there. I'm not completely sold on onboard editing of blocks yet, I'll have to see how it actually works as the manual kind of glosses over this part.

Are the ABCD knobs just knobs or are they push button encoders as well like on the FM3? If they are push button, I could see these being the fast track to editing each block...

Depending on the price, I think this will show up on a lot of pedalboards and VP4 + QC/Tonex/Nano Cortex setups.

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

Yeah I’d love to be able to go mono into the front of my amp and then stereo into my JC fx loop to hit pre and post. I’ll go full stereo in the loop rather than mono anything. Which is fine, because the main thing is getting that FAS stereo mod/delay/verb thing going. I BYOB with my drives/fuzzes anyway.

I'm just going to do what I planned anyway, just swap EFx devices....HR for Fractal..... split off my loop of my amp...and send that to the fx4.....and run wdw with a power amp I am getting....so I'm good.....hahahaha....well in 6 month to a year when I can purchase it.