Fractal Talk

This weekend i watched a lot of the Metallica's tour show through my Hi-Fi and was amazed at the tones they got and yet not an amp head or cabinet in sight, they are full on Fractal AXE FX III live with IEM's
then i also watched the documentary on the tour Production and gear, man was it ever impressive

"I know the other companies do great stuff, but this (Axe FX III) was like the only thing that was going to do it."

we blended two or three different amps and got the overall sound together, and then we modeled it with the Fractal. And it was amazing because I had a studio-quality sound in my Fractal on tour live!!

:headbang
 
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Stone said:
I for one am Looking forward to the FM9 FW Update , as mentioned these are the kinds of update I prefer
Hoping that the AXEFXIII 26.02 FW also makes it to the FM9, this will be very interesting

Improved Amp block preamp algorithms, especially for amps with multiple gain stages​

improves accuracy when input of Amp block is driven by a Drive pedal​

​

:chef​

Click to expand...

I haven't lacked for gutsy tone that "pops" on my FM9, and I'm not even on the latest firmware. But I'm sure it's great.

Really hoping Cliff pivots to more QoL/UI improvements going forward.
 
Stone said:
Id consider Gapless and DynaCabs Huge QoL Improvements for my needs
as far as Revamped and or new UI and editor ID gather that will be next gen if at all


¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Click to expand...

There are simple QoL/UI improvements that can happen on the current hardware right now. Check out these requests in the WIsh List forum:

forum.fractalaudio.com

Wish - Workflow improvement - select a block and move it with arrow keys

Go to either layout view. Go to a block to highlight it. Push big rotary encoder. (nothing currently assigned to this command from what I can see) Block is selected. Use left/right/up/down keys to move the block around the layout. Press encoder again to drop it.
forum.fractalaudio.com forum.fractalaudio.com

forum.fractalaudio.com

Wish - Workflow improvement - Deletion mechanics

If you are on an empty block that has nothing in it (not even a shunt) ... change the DELETE quick action on knob 2, to 'DELETE COLUMN' and change the ghosted out 'BYPASS' quick action on knob 3 to 'DELETE ROW' This would allow a user to quickly delete out a parallel path or a column slice from...
forum.fractalaudio.com forum.fractalaudio.com

Also, going to keep screaming it from the rooftops: Let us load block libraries ON THE DEVICE. I want to be able to quickly call up every @2112 effect, cab and amp block preset on the go. Same for the Steve Vai and Petrucci ones from Gift of Tone. How can we possibly store hundreds of user IRs, but not this, @FractalAudio?
 
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Stone said:
This weekend i watched a lot of the Metallica's tour show through my Hi-Fi and was amazed at the tones they got and yet not an amp head or cabinet in sight, they are full on Fractal AXE FX II live with IEM's
then i also watched the documentary on the tour Production and gear, man was it ever impressive

"I know the other companies do great stuff, but this (Axe FX III) was like the only thing that was going to do it."

we blended two or three different amps and got the overall sound together, and then we modeled it with the Fractal. And it was amazing because I had a studio-quality sound in my Fractal on tour live!!

:headbang
Click to expand...
How did you watch that?
 
Stone said:
This weekend i watched a lot of the Metallica's tour show through my Hi-Fi and was amazed at the tones they got and yet not an amp head or cabinet in sight, they are full on Fractal AXE FX II live with IEM's
then i also watched the documentary on the tour Production and gear, man was it ever impressive

"I know the other companies do great stuff, but this (Axe FX III) was like the only thing that was going to do it."

we blended two or three different amps and got the overall sound together, and then we modeled it with the Fractal. And it was amazing because I had a studio-quality sound in my Fractal on tour live!!

:headbang
Click to expand...
I was at the show in Boston last night and can confirm the tones were impressive. There were some points though when Hetfield was playing a V that sounded like the tone was rolled off a bit. I found it odd. I also didn't like the overall mix much. Very Vocal and drum heavy. which I understand but there were times where the guitar was kind of buried. Any link to the doc. I'm interested because the stage setup is weird.

Nevermind. I now see the post above.
 
Stereo/mono signal flow. Its my understanding that the second you drop a stereo block on the grid, it auto-magically turns the preset into stereo. (With some exceptions) Questions:
  1. Effects before the amp get summed to mono correct? So if you want to use the Stereo Flanger, it needs to be placed after the amp block? (Unless you’re splitting to a duel amp configuration I assume)
  2. If you have a stereo effect block on the grid (after the amp) but a mono effect block following it, does the stereo block get summed back to mono by the later mono block, or does the initial stereo effect get retained? (And the later mono block is getting applied equally to the L/R stereo image)
 
Whizzinby said:
Stereo/mono signal flow. Its my understanding that the second you drop a stereo block on the grid, it auto-magically turns the preset into stereo.
Click to expand...
Not quite. The signal chain is _always_ stereo. It's just whether you use any blocks that make that apparent or not. Like, you can always pan the output block left or right, no matter what is in the preset.

Whizzinby said:
Effects before the amp get summed to mono correct? So if you want to use the Stereo Flanger, it needs to be placed after the amp block? (Unless you’re splitting to a duel amp configuration I assume)
Click to expand...
Mostly correct. If you want stereo in front of the AMP block to be preserved, you need to use _two_ AMP blocks. But summing to mono is NOT a given. It depends on how you set up the input on the AMP block.

1722874150641.png


If you set the input on the AMP block to Left or to Right it won't sum and you won't have any collapsing issues.

Whizzinby said:
If you have a stereo effect block on the grid (after the amp) but a mono effect block following it, does the stereo block get summed back to mono by the later mono block, or does the initial stereo effect get retained? (And the later mono block is getting applied equally to the L/R stereo image)
Click to expand...
It depends on the block and the input settings, but mostly: yes. It will get summed if you're not careful.

The block diagrams in the manual and in the wiki are incredibly helpful for understanding what happens in every case.
 
paisleywookiee said:
Pitch shifting of any sort (with the exception of micro pitch) kinda sucks, IMO.
Click to expand...
I use a quad diatonic pitch shift for a few songs in my band. I’ve always used a H9 and then when the H90 came out I used that. I always thought the Eventide stuff sounded so killer.
Then when I moved to a full FM9 rig, I tried to replicate that effect.
I thought the fractal pitch shift for that effect sounded spot on to the H90, after messing with the high cut.

It’s just the virtual capo that sounds VERY artifact-y. It almost sounds like there is a slight tremolo effect that warbles when playing chords.

I’ve been tracking some country baritone stuff and it just doesn’t sound great imo. It gets the point across but isn’t good enough to make the cut I don’t think. I’ll need to track down a real baritone and re track.
 
iaresee said:
Not quite. The signal chain is _always_ stereo. It's just whether you use any blocks that make that apparent or not. Like, you can always pan the output block left or right, no matter what is in the preset.
Click to expand...

So it’s kind of dual mono until something is placed in the grid to make it react in stereo?

iaresee said:
Mostly correct. If you want stereo in front of the AMP block to be preserved, you need to use _two_ AMP blocks. But summing to mono is NOT a given. It depends on how you set up the input on the AMP block.

View attachment 26044

If you set the input on the AMP block to Left or to Right it won't sum and you won't have any collapsing issues.
Click to expand...

Awesome block diagram. Basically, barring any additional configuration (input panning or duel amp blocks) it’s going to sum to mono at the amp.

iaresee said:
It depends on the block and the input settings, but mostly: yes. It will get summed if you're not careful.

The block diagrams in the manual and in the wiki are incredibly helpful for understanding what happens in every case.
Click to expand...

That’s kind of what I figured happens. Will experiment some with this.

Im assuming if you output a stereo block into a Y split, (with mono effects in the split paths) it will maintain the stereo image of everything before the split, provided the Y collapses back down to stereo block too.
 
Thermionic Aether said:
I was at the show in Boston last night and can confirm the tones were impressive. There were some points though when Hetfield was playing a V that sounded like the tone was rolled off a bit. I found it odd. I also didn't like the overall mix much. Very Vocal and drum heavy. which I understand but there were times where the guitar was kind of buried. Any link to the doc. I'm interested because the stage setup is weird.

Nevermind. I now see the post above.
Click to expand...

That's live music these days. There has been a progression to kill guitar in mixes
and hype drums (god damn drums are so fucking forward all the fucking time!)
that it pretty much ruins EVERY live show I end up going to---and I am going to
less and less as a result.

And it is not about putting the guitar front and center. Just don't fucking bury
beneath the drums and vox all the god damn time. You are supposed to be
"professionals." :facepalm

Oh, and I think it is both cultural (a trend long established and hard to upend),
and also a symptom of the technology and power that has allowed us to artificially
hype the low end beyond all reason, sense, or rationality. :rimshot
 
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