Fractal Talk

[laxu]

When talking about vintage BBD delays, is it fair to assume that we typically associate most sounds to be below 500ms? and maybe some more experimental/modded BBD type tones to be around 1s, and anything more to be for extreme fringe use cases?

Because this has always baffled me - ALL of the delay times I want to control get a bees dick worth of taper. When playing guitar, the difference you get in that sub 500ms is way more critical than when the delays are more spread out. Its way too easy to jump from a small value to something massive, and I can't think of a single benefit of it being like this.

View attachment 36432

1 second isn't much better.

View attachment 36433

What % of that control is getting delay times longer than 1 second? Why wouldn't the sub 500ms delay times get the majority of the taper? This obviously isn't only true for BBD, I just used an example that is typically limited in what the ranges are, and where the most commonly used times live.

The same could be said for tape delays, or even how most guitarists use digital delays.

Same is true for the reverbs, it's WAY too easy to accidentally switch from 1 second to 11 seconds. Most of the taper benefits reverbs longer than 10 seconds which are basically useless for everyone except @Orvillain. Anything from 200ms to 1.5s is going to be common for more realistic spaces, aside from churches and cathedrals or FX which are more for specific uses. Certain algorithms that are optimised for smaller spaces should have their taper focussed in their optimal range.

This is an item on my list of "all the little low hanging fruit that Fractal could fix" that I posted on some thread on their wishlist forums several years ago.

I suggested adding a "short, medium, long, full" range selector.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

One of those baffling things that has been purposefully designed like this by someone, and remained the same through years of beta testing and feedback. Sometimes there’s a benefit/trade off but I can’t see it here.

I’d rather it was handled just by the scaling of the taper rather than having more switches. Or splitting some of the models into short/authentic and long models as it’s unlikely I’d want to toggle between them in a preset. It’s so rare and specific to need delay times that are really long that I’d be happy to work a bit harder to get those, in favour of making more “common” delay times easier to dial in.

 

[jellodog]

I suggested adding a "short, medium, long, full" range selector.

Yeah.

That might be nice via a press and hold

 

[MirrorProfiles]

It’s also not uncommon on reverb units for the decay time to scale proportionately depending on how parameters like size are set. You can still set things however you like, but you’ll have greater resolution and range around the values that will give more “intended” results

 

[metropolis_4]

That’s not a problem when you edit on device

 

[JiveTurkey]

That’s not a problem when you edit on device

 

[blandified]

Just checking in... Got the FM9 back in November and still loving it. It brings a smile to my face more than other piece of gear I've had.

I'm thinking of selling all my pedals, or maybe keeping 1 Tonex One and a few OD's for a mini-backup rig. I even thought about a Tonex One with a VP4, but haven't thought through it yet.

 

[dk_ace]

That’s not a problem when you edit on device

It isn’t? I may not have noticed this. I’m sure I’ve done it on device, just didn’t realize that it worked better than in axe edit.

D

 

[metropolis_4]

It isn’t? I may not have noticed this. I’m sure I’ve done it on device, just didn’t realize that it worked better than in axe edit.

D

The range of the controls is still huge, but it’s really easy to turn the physical knob to quickly get the exact value you want

 

[dk_ace]

The range of the controls is still huge, but it’s really easy to turn the physical knob to quickly get the exact value you want

Like 150 vs 170 ms? That’s where I mostly notice this is in the low end of the range trying to find the right slapback setting.

D

 

[FractalAudio]

Hold the CTRL key down when adjusting a parameter to adjust in fine increments.

Not near a Mac right now but it might be the COMMAND key.

 

[dk_ace]

Hold the CTRL key down when adjusting a parameter to adjust in fine increments.

Not near a Mac right now but it might be the COMMAND key.

Sweet, learned something here that sounds a lot easier than typing in various values.

D

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Hold the CTRL key down when adjusting a parameter to adjust in fine increments.

Not near a Mac right now but it might be the COMMAND key.

Thanks.

Even still, I’d like to see this improved properly at some point. When you have a guitar in hand, having to use 2 hands should be for the less essential features IMO. Longer delay and reverb times typically don’t need such a huge portion of the taper, so the default behaviour should prioritise shorter times. Longer times either won’t matter too much (is a 45s vs 60s reverb as different as a 0.5s reverb vs 3 second?), and for delays, I’d imagine anyone needing really long times probably needs something specific that they’d likely enter by mouse anyway. Finding a particular groove/swing by ear typically needs more refinement on shorter settings.

 

[makeitstop]

Hold the CTRL key down when adjusting a parameter to adjust in fine increments.

Not near a Mac right now but it might be the COMMAND key.

I did not know that. Great tip, thanks!

 

[deadpool_25]

VP4 is awesome. IJS

 

[Orvillain]

Same is true for the reverbs, it's WAY too easy to accidentally switch from 1 second to 11 seconds. Most of the taper benefits reverbs longer than 10 seconds which are basically useless for everyone except @Orvillain. Anything from 200ms to 1.5s is going to be common for more realistic spaces, aside from churches and cathedrals or FX which are more for specific uses. Certain algorithms that are optimised for smaller spaces should have their taper focussed in their optimal range.

Nah I agree with you.

 

[deadpool_25]

Bet 99.999% of people out there couldn't tell the difference.

I was gonna react to this post but I didn't wanna seem argumentative.

 

[deadpool_25]

Anyone ever do any drive pedal modding in Fractal?

My old rig pics reminded me how much I used to love grabbing cheap old SD-1 and DS-1 pedals and modding them. I was just trying some of the mods I used to do in Fractal and preliminary results are very good!

Doing things like swapping the clipping diodes behaves much how I would expect.

A DS-1 with LEDs as diodes and a few slight EQ tweaks can sound very jcm800-ish

This kinda thing could be especially handy for VP4 users. Especially so if using through a clean amp.

 

[metropolis_4]

Can you guys give me a quick sanity check on this idea?

I’m thinking about running a few analog pedals after my fm3.

I’m thinking I should be able to run an instrument level out from the fm3 into the pedals, and then go from the pedal output to a DI box to the board.

That shouldn’t be a problem right?

 

[iaresee]

That shouldn’t be a problem right?

Absolutely fine