Fractal Talk

[metropolis_4]

Can you give me specifics on what you find deficient in the drive pedal models? Perhaps post some clips exhibiting this.

When I do A/B tests against the real pedals I can't hear the difference.

I wish I could describe it better, but I don’t really know how. It might be just the inherent qualities of digital that my ears seem sensitive to, I don’t know. Compared to my analog drive pedals the models seem just a little more… hi-fi… in a way. There’s this “edge” and extra definition where the analog pedals seem to sort of meld together. It kind of reminds me a little of the old complaints about the delays - that they were a little too clean and pristine.

I don’t know. I’m sorry, I know that’s a terrible description. I don’t think the drive pedals in Fractal are bad at all, and they’re light years beyond what digital modeled drive pedals used to be like. And the recent updates to them have been massive improvements! It’s just a little different to me in ways that are hard for me to put into words.

 

[yek]

I wish I could describe it better, but I don’t really know how. It might be just the inherent qualities of digital that my ears seem sensitive to, I don’t know. Compared to my analog drive pedals the models seem just a little more… hi-fi… in a way. There’s this “edge” and extra definition where the analog pedals seem to sort of meld together. It kind of reminds me a little of the old complaints about the delays - that they were a little too clean and pristine.

I don’t know. I’m sorry, I know that’s a terrible description. I don’t think the drive pedals in Fractal are bad at all, and they’re light years beyond what digital modeled drive pedals used to be like. And the recent updates to them have been massive improvements! It’s just a little different to me in ways that are hard for me to put into words.

You have an FM3 I think, how do you compare the real pedal and the model?

- Analog pedal before the FM3, or in its loop, with "FRFR"?

- Or FM3 as a pedalboard before your traditional amp?

 

[DLC86]

Here’s a question that just popped into my head while watching an interview with Jim Gaustad…

Given the fact that FAS tries to replicate physical gear in the digital space, if I throw say, one of the vintage pedal models into my chain, does it replicate the tone suck that might have occurred with the actual pedal? Is there interaction in regards to input impedance when adding blocks to the signal chain?

For sure it happens if that pedal is the first in the chain and input impedance is set to "auto", but I don't know if it also simulates impedance matching between blocks, or if it's needed at all...

One fascinating thing I discovered recently by messing with the powerboost model is that, when I roll off the volume knob on my guitar, it replicates the low frequency roll-off the real pedal shows when doing so (sorta like a treble bleed mod), and that also happens with input impedance set to 1M and doesn't happen if I turn the input level down in the digital realm, so it's basically caused by the interaction with the pickups but doesn't seem much dependent on the input impedance or level.

I don't know what kind of sorcery Cliff made but he totally nailed the behaviour of the pedal in that regard (even though it doesn't match other aspects of my real pedal like gain amount/taper and output volume), I wish the same sorcery could be applied on the fuzz face model as well, cuz my real one behaves very similarly to the powerboost but the model does not.

 

[hemmelight]

Interesting, I’ve never used a real fuzz face but I do quite like the one in the Fractal stuff. It seems to do the same behaviour you described with the volume knob on my guitars. I suppose the real thing is even more exaggerated / dramatic?

 

[metropolis_4]

You have an FM3 I think, how do you compare the real pedal and the model?

- Analog pedal before the FM3, or in its loop, with ""FRFR""?

- Or FM3 as a pedalboard before your traditional amp?

I did two things:

• Ran my pedalboard before the fm3 and toggled between my drive pedals and the fm3 drives into the Fractal amp models. Monitoring through headphones
• Ran the fm3 in front of my amp as a pedalboard

 

[DLC86]

Interesting, I’ve never used a real fuzz face but I do quite like the one in the Fractal stuff. It seems to do the same behaviour you described with the volume knob on my guitars. I suppose the real thing is even more exaggerated / dramatic?

Yeah, it sounds quite good regardless, but my real one (which has silicon BC108 transistors) does it much more noticeably, just like the powerboost.

Btw, here's what Power Boost > Fuzz Face > Twin Reverb sounds like
(Rhythm part is Power Boost > Hiwatt)