Might fall into the FM9 Rabbit hole LOL !

  • Thread starter Thread starter Panhead5
  • Start date Start date
Before you give up on digital completely: buy a Kemper and compare your experience of not playing it versus not playing the Fractal. You may find that you have a strong preference for not playing one over not playing the other.
 
If I had been blessed with the opportunity to play for a living, I would have forced myself to learn the fractal platform. I’ve got 2 friends who use fractal live for 2-3 nights a week every week. They each have incredible live tone. The consistency, reliability, and simplicity (once dialed in…) cannot be beat. Front of house gets the exact same signal every night to tweak to the room. Your on-stage guitar sound through the monitors never changes. Even if I used my beloved tube amps to record, I’d use fractal for playing out.

Me? I’m a hobbyist and have been for a long time. For the few live shows I get to play these days, I don’t mind bringing a box of glass and a cab. It’s an indulgence.
 
Skolphy said:
I am also a die hard tube guy, since my first Peavey Classic 2x12 combo back in 1982. I have both the AX8 and just a few months ago got the FM9.

A lot of the patches right out of the box don't need much more than what you would do spinning knobs on a head...I sold my rack stuff and I'm almost ready to sell my Fireball 100...I've used both the head and the modelers at practice and the added convenience and access to any sound you'd ever need just makes sense to me...the difference in the feel/sound is close enough to make the decision almost easy to move on to the digital world.

One caveat though..I was using the FM9 through a SS power amp but A/B'ed it with my old Marshall 9005 rack power amp through my 2x12 cab ...just a 57 mic on the speaker...didn't even turn off the cab/amp sim either...tube power amp gave it more presence and "life"...and sounded great with the cab modeling on as well. I would spend some time with the FM9...believe you will be pleasantly surprised at the sound quality and the versatility it offers.
Click to expand...

Next time you’ve got the FM9 plugged into cabs, try fucking around with the Speaker Impedance Curves. I know it’s not technically “right” to mismatch them, but I tried it for shits and giggles and was surprised how they almost seemed like they were ‘lifting’ the sound up or down, hard to describe what it’s actually doing sonically, but you’ll see what I mean when trying it. I got to one where it felt like it put my cabs right in front of my face, despite them being across the room.
 
You can get great live tone on any of the units out there. FOH is easy. It's what you hear with your ears for monitoring that is the issue for many. Either you like it or you don't. Playing at home through my monitors or an FRFR is fine. It sounds great. Using it live for backline or monitoring is a whole other story and just does not work for me.

I tried the Orange pedalbaby 100, another SS power amp unit and those did nothing for me for monitoring. The Orange unit was ok but not great.
What did work for me is a small tube power amp into a closed back 1x12 cab or larger. The KSR PA 50 is killer for this! Lots of control over what you hear and great reliability and most of all really portable and light weight.

I use both a Kemper stage or QC depending upon what I feel like hearing or using. The both work amazingly well and sound great.
 
FM9 is great for bedroom rehearsal to track recording writing solos! I have used it live with good and bad results
Big pa it works in the house -listen to clip below. My pub pa outside very un inspiring and thin. My Friedman and Wizard will be used for live gigs this summer!

FM9 live I will say I wish I spent more time dialing in pre set for house but it seemed to work


Same venue different gig with real amp

Bigger bolder tone for sure



All words apart from live clips!
 
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