Fractal Talk

Spent a couple hours with my FM9 and Electra Dyne in 4CM, using the ED as a clean platform and just using the Fractal Drives for all the dirt. I very quickly run into the same traps I do with same pedals, where I’ll have 3 different drives all doing relatively the same thing that I should just use the guitar’s volume knob for but I get hung up on the small characteristics of each one and get attached.

The Tube Driver (4-knob) and the BBE Timmons are at the top of my favorites list, by themselves and stacked. I’m finding with stacking drives that I’m able to retain much thicker single-note tones without things getting boomy when switching to chords, that’s not something I’m generally able to do with amps, you end up sacrificing one thing for the other.
 
DrewJD82 said:
Spent a couple hours with my FM9 and Electra Dyne in 4CM, using the ED as a clean platform and just using the Fractal Drives for all the dirt. I very quickly run into the same traps I do with same pedals, where I’ll have 3 different drives all doing relatively the same thing that I should just use the guitar’s volume knob for but I get hung up on the small characteristics of each one and get attached.

The Tube Driver (4-knob) and the BBE Timmons are at the top of my favorites list, by themselves and stacked. I’m finding with stacking drives that I’m able to retain much thicker single-note tones without things getting boomy when switching to chords, that’s not something I’m generally able to do with amps, you end up sacrificing one thing for the other.
Click to expand...

The easy fix is to put those different drives on different channels in the same drive block, then assign the hold function (on the same foot switch as the drive bypass) to cycle through the different channels.
 
Frodebro said:
The easy fix is to put those different drives on different channels in the same drive block, then assign the hold function (on the same foot switch as the drive bypass) to cycle through the different channels.
Click to expand...

Kinda doing a bit of that, I ended up with several drives spread across a couple different channels. Once I figure out exactly what I want I’ll do some editing/housekeeping, I just need to get out of the “I love this one for 3% of that but this other one for 4% of this” kind of thinking.
 
May be a bit smitten with the Engls at the moment. Love the tones
I am hearing from Jim Lill of Vanden Plas and he runs a dual amp
setup with a Powerball and a JVM410.
 
DrewJD82 said:
Spent a couple hours with my FM9 and Electra Dyne in 4CM, using the ED as a clean platform and just using the Fractal Drives for all the dirt. I very quickly run into the same traps I do with same pedals, where I’ll have 3 different drives all doing relatively the same thing that I should just use the guitar’s volume knob for but I get hung up on the small characteristics of each one and get attached.

The Tube Driver (4-knob) and the BBE Timmons are at the top of my favorites list, by themselves and stacked. I’m finding with stacking drives that I’m able to retain much thicker single-note tones without things getting boomy when switching to chords, that’s not something I’m generally able to do with amps, you end up sacrificing one thing for the other.
Click to expand...

I know exactly what you mean, I fall into that same trap sometimes and realize I’ve got like 7 overdrives on my pedalboard when I could just have a couple and use my volume knob. But then you hate to give any of them up
 
Any thoughts/tips on the Engls, @TTZ? Aren't they your go to?

I had a Fireball 60 years ago and never bonded with it. :idk
 
la szum said:
Any thoughts/tips on the Engls, @TTZ? Aren't they your go to?

I had a Fireball 60 years ago and never bonded with it. :idk
Click to expand...
Yeah, for me the newer generation ENGLs are the best. The older models - like the 1st gen Powerball and Savage - were responsible for the brand‘s reputation of being fizzy, scooped and easily drowned in the mix. The Mk II versions of these amps - as well as the Fireball 100 - have much more mids and sound more balanced overall.

Unfortunately, the Fractal models of the Savage and PB are the dreaded Mk I versions.

I currently don‘t own any tube amps. But of all the amps I ever owned the Powerball Mk II is probably my favorite, followed by the Artist Edition. The AE is much less compressed than most other ENGLs, but it has a little bit more of that 1st gen mid scoop. It‘s the perfect Thrash machine.
 
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makeitstop said:
I'm diving in on a couple of new presets next week - I signed on for a night of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden at the end of January.
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Soundgarden and AIC were two of my favorite bands back in the day. I saw them both live in NYC, Soundgarden at Roseland and AIC at Lollapalooza '93 at Standhope Village.

The AIC guitar tone on Dam That River is one of my favorite high gain tones of all time. Apparently Cantrell used three amps to get it.

 
DrewJD82 said:
Kinda doing a bit of that, I ended up with several drives spread across a couple different channels. Once I figure out exactly what I want I’ll do some editing/housekeeping, I just need to get out of the “I love this one for 3% of that but this other one for 4% of this” kind of thinking.
Click to expand...

That’s EXACTLY where I’m at right now, I have been working on a 4CM preset for my Studio JTM, and I have eight different drives going between the two blocks. The challenge is paring it down to a single overdrive and a single distortion, and I’m just not getting there. I’ll probably wind up using the preset I’m working on as a template, copy it into a few more slots, and then refine each one by era or something like that. Like a 60s preset with the period appropriate effects, 70s, 80s, etc. I really don’t need everything shoehorned into a single preset, and I really have to break that habit.
 
DrewJD82 said:
Spent a couple hours with my FM9 and Electra Dyne in 4CM...
Click to expand...

Oh, you are sweet-talking me something fierce, @DrewJD82... :love

In Love Bunny GIF by Space Jam
 
Frodebro said:
That’s EXACTLY where I’m at right now, I have been working on a 4CM preset for my Studio JTM, and I have eight different drives going between the two blocks. The challenge is paring it down to a single overdrive and a single distortion, and I’m just not getting there. I’ll probably wind up using the preset I’m working on as a template, copy it into a few more slots, and then refine each one by era or something like that. Like a 60s preset with the period appropriate effects, 70s, 80s, etc. I really don’t need everything shoehorned into a single preset, and I really have to break that habit.
Click to expand...


All a testament of how great the drives are!

That said, I still find myself going into the EQ section of almost every drive and lowering the mid to 3.5. I don’t know if it’s a me-thing or what, but that’s something I’ve been doing with the Fractal drives for quite a while now. It’s entirely possible that it’s just the way my ears are hearing things, but it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a drive going into a real amp/cab or a model/DynaCab, to get them sounding transparent I gotta drop the mids by pretty much the exact amount.

I also started playing with compressors into drives (cuz Gilmour, big surprise) as I’ve only used compression on clean tones previously. Keeping the compression under 5 and putting a quicker attack on them can really beef up a tone without killing the dynamics.
 
Stratzrus said:
Soundgarden and AIC were two of my favorite bands back in the day. I saw them both live in NYC, Soundgarden at Roseland and AIC at Lollapalooza '93 at Standhope Village.

The AIC guitar tone on Dam That River is one of my favorite high gain tones of all time. Apparently Cantrell used three amps to get it.

Click to expand...


Yep, the general makeup of that album is one cleanish track hard panned, one dirtier track hard panned the opposite and then one fully gained out track straight down the middle. The Bogner Fish, the 5150’s Ed gave him, Dual Recs and the infamous Snorkler were the brunt of the amps used on it.
 
DrewJD82 said:
All a testament of how great the drives are!

That said, I still find myself going into the EQ section of almost every drive and lowering the mid to 3.5. I don’t know if it’s a me-thing or what, but that’s something I’ve been doing with the Fractal drives for quite a while now. It’s entirely possible that it’s just the way my ears are hearing things, but it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a drive going into a real amp/cab or a model/DynaCab, to get them sounding transparent I gotta drop the mids by pretty much the exact amount.

I also started playing with compressors into drives (cuz Gilmour, big surprise) as I’ve only used compression on clean tones previously. Keeping the compression under 5 and putting a quicker attack on them can really beef up a tone without killing the dynamics.
Click to expand...

I’m a midrange junkie, but that’s a habit I developed back in my bar band days. Less dirt, more midrange. I just got used to hearing things that way, and it stuck with me.
 
Frodebro said:
I’m a midrange junkie, but that’s a habit I developed back in my bar band days. Less dirt, more midrange. I just got used to hearing things that way, and it stuck with me.
Click to expand...

I’m partially convinced it’s my picking hand. I can go back to posts from 20 years ago where I was griping about ‘mids following me around’, which is how I ended up with a Mark IV, after someone told me “Get a Mark, you can cut all the mids you want!” Whenever I go for the scooped metal tone I find myself using what I’d consider extreme EQ settings to get there just because of the mids.
 
DrewJD82 said:
I’m partially convinced it’s my picking hand. I can go back to posts from 20 years ago where I was griping about ‘mids following me around’, which is how I ended up with a Mark IV, after someone told me “Get a Mark, you can cut all the mids you want!” Whenever I go for the scooped metal tone I find myself using what I’d consider extreme EQ settings to get there just because of the mids.
Click to expand...

I run the midrange knobs on my Mark V around 2:00, and the middle slider is NEVER below zero! :clint
 
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