Fractal Talk

Across the three main albums that Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster has, I have 53 unique combinations of amp channel and range of pedals/effects.

This means I would need 53 presets in Fractal land, if I wanted to just make a preset for each one and make use of the gapless switching to switch between them.

If I drop 3 of the least important ones, then I can get away with just having 5 banks on my FC-12 controller.... 10 preset switches for each one.... and then tuner and tap tempo on the last two switches. Otherwise it is 5 full banks, and a 6th partial bank.
Can you reduce some of the combinations by having effects that ignore scenes or some kind of modifier or channel switch?
 
Can you reduce some of the combinations by having effects that ignore scenes or some kind of modifier or channel switch?
Yeah possibly. But really what I wanted to know was.... if I just rely on having presets for every combination... how many would I need....

Turns out, not that many really!
 

Holy shit this makes me want a fractal.
 
Holy shit this makes me want a fractal.
GIF by The Jerry Springer Show
 
Still no global blocks for the FM9. In fact, makes me "phew" a whole lot because otherwise serious GAS might be triggered.
 
What's the difference between global blocks and just starting a preset with your favorite blocks in your block library? Genuine question as I've never understood the appeal.
 
What's the difference between global blocks and just starting a preset with your favorite blocks in your block library? Genuine question as I've never understood the appeal.
You can change the block in any preset afterwards, and all other presets will update with the new settings. Good for making widespread changes to all of your presets at once.
 
With a globabl block you can tweak it in one preset and it will automatically update in all presets linked to that global block, as soon as you save the presets

This!

as I've never understood the appeal.

"Appeal" might be too big of a word, it's more of a utilitarian thing - but IMO an incredible one. Or, the other way around: the lack of global blocks on the Helix made me go back to a hybrid board.

It might not be relevant for many (maybe even most) people, but for my kind of gigs/jobs, it's absolutely crucial to be both flexible while still being able to adjust my entire setup to accomodate some situations.
And most often it's really simple things. Such as: Clean channel not loud enough generally? Well, with 10+ patches using clean sounds, it's impossible to adjust those during a soundcheck. And even if you managed, what if you overcompensated? You're f*cked. With global blocks it's every bit like a traditional amp setup (controlled by a loopswitcher). Turn your clean channel up once, done. And even if you went too far, no problem, you could even fix this while a chord/note is ringing out.
There's a bunch more of useful "side effects", but the above is the most important thing for me.
 
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