Fractal Talk

[iaresee]

We’ll see how it turns out. I used to do it with a Graphtech system on an Ibanez RG into a Fishman Aura Sixteen; and it was cool.

Turns out pretty good for me

 

[dk_ace]

I just wish I didn't have to pay the lazy tax. I really have zero need for scribble strips.

Dude forget the scribble strips, you want the fc12 for ease of programming. Unless you just hate yourself and want to make your life unnecessarily difficult…

D

 

[2112]

I use in2 on the FM3 for the piezo input of my JP7 which I often use as my "acoustic" guitar for duo gigs. means i can loop some chords and then widdle over them on electric to fill out some space.

 

[DrewJD82]

I have a GCP and an AxeFX III, no way in hell would I bother spending any time figuring out how to program them to work together.

@Spaced Out Ace, I highly recommend going for the FM9 opposed to a III/GCP. The GCP is great and dependable for what it does, but in comparison to what the FC stuff does it's quite literally a one-trick-pony and even if you got great at the programming, you'd be missing out on a SHITLOAD of functionality that right now you have no clue how you'd use, but once it's in front of you a whole world opens up of possibilities you never considered.

 

[OrganicZed]

Anyone using input 2 on the FM9T for piezo? Thinking of picking up a piezo equipped electric, and wondering how I’d run it. Also wondering if I can use a second cab block to run an acoustic IR from someone like Sigma Audio.

Yep, I do that. It works well.

Yeah, it works great. I did that with my cover band for years with my OG Axe Std.

IR's never worked for me. Always sounded hollow or phasey. But some people seem to get good results.
It could be my cave man approach. I had graphtech ghost saddles wired directly to the stereo output jack with no preamp.

The pahsey sound happens when your source guitar isn't very similar to the source guitar used in creating the tone match IR. The WT acoustic IR packs have several options for the source guitar pickup type including multiple piezo options, a Taylor expression system, and an LR Baggs Anthem. This allows you to match the IR to your guitar more closely and avoid some of those phase issues. The piezo matches sound good with my piezo equipped electric guitar.

I recently created some of my own acoustic tone match IRs using the Axe-FX III. When applied to the exact guitar that they were created with they sound astonishingly good. When I try the same IRs with the piezo equipped electric guitar the results were not good.

 

[Rock Chalk]

Another cool thing about using CS Midi is that no matter how much you use the switches you set up, that damn "edited" light does not come on....that's one of my favorite things about it.......

 

[JCW308]

And how did you feel about "only" having 3 switches? Did you use them as double-function, and did you switch layouts?
I'm just curious how an FM3 can be set up to do more than it may seem at first, in a real-life gig situation.

I can get 8 scenes, tap tempo and tuner from 3 switches with no issues at all using press and hold functions. It's awesome. No page left and right either.

 

[State of Epicicity]

The FC6 and FC12 not only have many pages of layouts you can completely custom program, then override to be different for each preset, but they have layout links, where you can press a footswitch for any action and at the same time open a new layout, so that the function of the footswitch you just pressed changes. You could play a whole song tapping only one switch over and over, changing function each time. The power of these things is mindblowing.

 

[iaresee]

Holy shit! Is that off of the piezo of your guitar?

Yup. Direct to Logic. No post processing or plugins.

 

[dk_ace]

Holy shit! Is that off of the piezo of your guitar?

This used to be one of my favorite tricks in the Axe standard. Unfortunately the piezo bridge electric I had was rubber necked so I moved on from it. Using an expression pedal to seemlessly move between a beautiful acoustic sound and a raging high gain sound with delay/reverb trails was glorious.

D

 

[Fremen]

Hey guys :) I wanted to share a couple of recordings I made with firmware 24.05 of the Axe-Fx III ! I'm using a live backing track of my band, The Mauritian Tribute to Pink Floyd, in which I removed my guitar track

Shine on you crazy diamond :


On the turning away :


Comfortably numb :


Enjoy !

 

[Enchilada Jones]

Yup. Direct to Logic. No post processing or plugins.

makes me want to put piezos on all my electrics!

 

[iaresee]

makes me want to put piezos on all my electrics!

To be clear that was my J-45's piezo not a piezo on an electric. But it was running through one of my Fractal units into Logic via USB. No mics.

CC @paisleywookiee in case that part wasn't clear.

I quite like the 3 Sigma IRs for making piezos sound not piezo-ish. I tend to mix a bit of piezo in on the preset just to get some high end. I do it with the Air setting on the CAB block. But it's mostly IR-processed sound.

 

[TSJMajesty]

The FC6 and FC12 not only have many pages of layouts you can completely custom program, then override to be different for each preset, but they have layout links, where you can press a footswitch for any action and at the same time open a new layout, so that the function of the footswitch you just pressed changes. You could play a whole song tapping only one switch over and over, changing function each time. The power of these things is mindblowing.

See that's the kind of shit that needs to be in the manual.
I actually understood that!

Before going into the "how", it should give real-life examples of how you might use a function in a gig, then explain how to make it happen.

 

[Orvillain]

See that's the kind of shit that needs to be in the manual.
I actually understood that!

Before going into the "how", it should give real-life examples of how you might use a function in a gig, then explain how to make it happen.

Yeah, what could this be used for???

 

[Orvillain]

Ohhhhh I get it.

Presets layout. But links make it so that when you select a preset, it automatically goes into the scenes or effects layout, for example.

Yah that is pretty cool.

 

[Elric]

Is the Axe FX III able to change channels on a Synergy Syn-2?

Yes, I do it w/ mine every day pretty much. It's dirt simple.

 

[Elric]

I'd basically have 8 fs for scenes, and four for changing my Synergy Syn-2 channels.

I do not separate my channels from the AxeFx. i.e. I use the 'Scene MIDI' block to change the Synergy Channel based on the scene I have selected. As the scenes change FX the Syn changes channels as needed. If you switch presets the Scene MIDI block will change the channel based on default scene of the preset.

I have my Axe integrated w/ multiple amps like that. F.ex if you had two Syn2s you could have it select one with the FX Loop and have the MIDI Scene block change to the correct channel for that one. You could even do two in parallel since the controller can send multiple messages on different channels at once.

I generally have an amp on one FX loop and then the Syn2 in another. So basically I have all the channels of the amp and all of the channels of the Syn at my disposal for any given preset.

I don't see much upside to having dedicated switches to change the Syn channels when the Axe is so flexible. The foot controller in use is irrelevant in that setup. You just have to get a message to the Axe saying what scene you want and it controls everything else.

I use a Morningstar MC8 with it. I do not want a foot controller just for the Axe. I want something that works with any MIDI device. So the Morningstar was less expensive and more compact. The FC12 looks totally awesome, though. Nothing against it other than it being dedicated to the Fractal.

 

[State of Epicicity]

See that's the kind of shit that needs to be in the manual.
I actually understood that!

Before going into the "how", it should give real-life examples of how you might use a function in a gig, then explain how to make it happen.

The sky's the limit on what it can be used for in that manner. @Orvillain named a good use right there. I actually use the top two Layouts both as preset selection, but in one it also links to Layout 1 for whatever I want per preset. That way I can choose if I feel like just navigating presets the normal way, or, if I know I want to access the scenes, channels, or per preset overrides in a particular preset, I'll use my other preset browing layout with the Layout Links. I set the upper right switch to be the master MLM selection in every Layout.

But for one random example I think this is a hugely helpful thing for songs that use different kinds of harmonies, or ones where you'd be better off, for instance, going between momentary control switches to throw in harmony for just part of a measure, to a latching control switch when a completely different harmony comes in for an extended period of time; in that scenario, maybe you have CS1 momentary for your pitch block with the bypass modifier in channel A only set to switch 3 in Layout 1 with a Layout Link to Layout 2, where switch 3 is now a selection to Scene 4, which changes channels on your pitch block and has that block defaulting to be engaged and now on channel B, with your different type of harmony. If something in your song tonally or effects-wise changes really quickly, using the Layout Link feature is maybe a helpful way to do it.

Or if you need to turn on one effect then another, then turn them both off, but then you need a different preset altogether, you could use the same button four times, each time linking to the next layout on your FC6 or FC12. In this example, it looks like this:

Layout 1, button 3: Effect 1 On, Link to Layout 2
Layout 2, button 3: Effect 2 On, Link to Layout 3
Layout 3, button 3: Next Scene (turning off both effects), Link to Layout 4
Layout 4, button 3: Next Preset, Link to Layout 1

I mean, you could do so much, especially if you incorporate the Song and Setlist feature too. I think of it really as a great tool for weirdly complicated switching situations. Like, I'd love to hand Eric Johnson an Axe-FX III with an FC12 in the 80s so he could chill out with his tap dancing and have more space just to breathe with his guitar haha.

 

[State of Epicicity]

One more important and awesome thing about Layout Links: they're available not only for global layout buttons but also for per preset overrides. Like, for my two different preset browsing layouts, they're both global on my FC12, but for the two examples I named, for harmonies and for turning on and off effects in a particular order, those would be ones you'd want to program as per preset Layout Links.

And I'm not an owner of an FM3 or FM9, but I'm guessing this feature is probably available on those units too.