The impression I've gotten online is that while the FM3
can do 4-cable-method, that it isn't as good as the FM9/Axe3/VP4, because it is missing some of the sonic wizardry at the input stage that the main units have. But I've never tried it myself.
Cliff did say this to me in 2021:
I got a VP4 last month, and I think it is really good. Actually kind of insane value-wise when you compare it to variations on the competition - the Meris LVX and MercuryX I have cost me something like £1200 combined. They do a lot, but they're not as intuitive as the VP4 is. Think of the classic Stryfecta - Mobius, Timeline, Big Sky - even now, if you wanted those new, you're looking at over £1200, and if you wanted that to be a BigSky MX, you're looking at just shy of £1500; and you've still not covered all of the food groups, so you'd need to spend more to add some drives, compression, a gate, whatever it is.
In short - very good value for money in my eyes.
Signal quality-wise, I have no complaints. It sounds very transparent, and I don't
feel anything sitting in the middle of my rig, if you get me. There's no perceived latency hit, and the raw tone of the thing is definitely comparable to the Axe FX III; which I also have as a comparison.
FWIW, when I compared the noise floor of the Helix, Axe FX III, and Quad Cortex... there was an insanely clear separation in quality - the Quad Cortex is a noisy piece of shit, compared to the Helix and Axe FX III. Axe FX III edges out the Helix a small amount, but not a significant amount. VP4 is a similar deal. What I would say is, the JVM loop is not the most transparent. Worth bearing in mind.
Editing-wise, it really isn't any more complicated than say a DD500, or a BigSky. In fact I'd say the overall user experience is markedly better than most multi-effect pedals in terms of getting up and running quickly. The footswitch modes are quite powerful, and once you get your head around the unit, it is very easy to move from presets to scenes, from scenes to effects, and jump from channel A to channel D for a particular effect; all with pretty decent spillover.
As I understand it, the FM3 dynamically controls the quality of the reverbs based on whether you are using amp modelling or not. I could have that wrong though.
There's also a mode (that I don't use) that will set the unit to true-bypass when all your effects are off. But you do lose spillover and trails when you do this, iirc.
I love the Fractal tuner. The older I get, the more I have mole vision, so having a really responsive full screen tuner is important to me. This is also the reason I don't really care about scribble strips - can't read them on stage anyway!! The ones on the Helix were never really that useful for me in terms of live performance. I prefer to look at some blocks of colour, coz I can recognise at least what the category is.
I won't lie - I wish the thing had more than 4 blocks.
As you know Jay, I am a bit of a gear slut, and I've been round the houses with pedalboard setups and multi-effects and modellers and all the rest of it.... there's absolutely nothing bad about the VP4, and it brings a fuck ton of stuff to the table. Fractal support is second to none as well, and they do release firmware updates fairly regularly that enhance the devices. Axe FX III tends to get them first, then the other units later on. But it is sometimes a good heads up as to what
might be coming to the FM3/FM9/VP4. I do get the impression that they're more or less maxed out on the CPU for the FM3 though.
