Fractal FX8 users question

Moltisanti

If you have a very technical question they can be helpful but I know what you mean

sherpa_man

Anybody have any good fx-8 drive blocks?

this is my 3rd unit and i cant seem to get a good usable drive setting?

octatonic

sherpa_man said:

Anybody have any good fx-8 drive blocks?

this is my 3rd unit and i cant seem to get a good usable drive setting?

Ruckus.

Turn the tone all the way up (it is a hi cut).

What amp are you going into?

I find the drives the best thing about the FX8 and I'm really picky.

John_P

sherpa_man said:

Anybody have any good fx-8 drive blocks?

this is my 3rd unit and i cant seem to get a good usable drive setting?

What don't you like about them?       I found I had to reduce the low pass filter and up the high pass a little to get them how I wanted but there were plenty of nice drives.

sherpa_man

John_P said:

sherpa_man said:

Anybody have any good fx-8 drive blocks?

this is my 3rd unit and i cant seem to get a good usable drive setting?

What don't you like about them?       I found I had to reduce the low pass filter and up the high pass a little to get them how I wanted but there were plenty of nice drives.

I just cant get my head around them, everything else works well, but the drives, there to sharpe or to fizzy etc etc. I am sure its how i am using them but it would be nice to have a few presets to have a play about with.

John_P

If they are fizzy then page over til you see the low pass filter and drop it til you're happy. It worked for me.

Wazmeister

@sherpa_man - im a FX8 fan boy, but i must admit, its the drives where i find i need more tweaking...

Interestingly, Ive just had a AX8 and a Atomic CLR... im sorting thru all the possibilities. Its a head spin at the moment !!!

Moltisanti

sherpa - what drive sounds are you looking for ? Into a clean or dirty amp ?

i have some killer drives boosting a JCM800 dirty, and some nice ones into a clean amp too

sherpa_man

Moltisanti said:

sherpa - what drive sounds are you looking for ? Into a clean or dirty amp ?

i have some killer drives boosting a JCM800 dirty, and some nice ones into a clean amp too

I am using a friedman JJ but I want some nice brit sounding drives, Oasis and so on.

Moltisanti

from memory there was nothing "nice" about drives on Oasis tunes

into a clean amp I use the Blues OD for AC30 type very light crunch, and the FAS LED Drive for a bit more gain, but still what i would call low gain

Wazmeister

FX8 or AX8 ????

Hmmm... tough question.

The FX8 is perfect to use with a quality amp. The secret is the fact that you don't have to set any volume levels; it is unity straight away and has some of the best verb/delay I've ever heard. Two amp operation is simple and easy...

The AX8 is much more difficult to set up, and it has been a bit of a bastard to try to get 'unity'. I bought a CLR to try with it, but thus far, overdriven (e.g. Marshall) types sounds are poor and elusive. Just now, the unit has stopped producing sound ! User error or a problem ? 

We shall see...

But the AX8 is stunning, when I ran a modelled amp into the CLR and then the Rambler via the FX loop. Huge array of sound of options including the brilliant option to have the amp assigned to a switch to switch on and off.

I'm still undecided and may yet keep both, but the FX8 will never leave me...

Wazmeister

The FX8 remains the single most impressive purchase that I have made... It started a huge pedal cull, and put thousands back into the bank !

I'm not 100% convinced by the amp modelling in the AX8 yet; but with tweaking (of which I am not a fan generally) it could produce anything Im sure. For me, having the Rambler one side and Lazy J/Blue Cube (a mighty amp !) the other, sounds way way better than the Atomic CLR...

Having said that, I did get the Rambler setting on the AX8, into the CLR and added a 4x10 'cab' model; bloody hell, it was really good - better and fuller than the Rambler. Go figure...

The amp models CAN be used as drives though, and that Andy Timmons kinda sound was easily reached.

We shall see with more experimentation !

Waz

Moltisanti

i'm with you Waz, my FX8 has turned a single channel JCM800 into whatever I want it to be, all in one small package.

The fact that all the unity stuff just works is arguably the best thing about it - when you want to do something it just handles it with no drama and headaches

Wazmeister

Rebooted the AX8 and all fine... must have been user error !

jaytmon

So I bit the bullet and bought a second hand fx8. The reverbs are sublime, and I love the multi-tap delays. There is an awesome totally OTT fuzz sound on there and that's coming from someone who's never done fuzz. 

However, I do have one or two gripes, especially as I was expecting perfection(!)

I know it's digital, but I've noticed some digital 'noise' as notes die off, mostly when using drive sounds. I admit I'd be hard pushed to notice it live, but it's there, and it offends my analogue drive sensibilities. 

I've created a few different banks of effects, and a couple of times hit the processor limitation error. To me, if you're going to build something like this then more is more. I don't expect to have to compromise. 

Also, to get unity volume on a number of drives, the level needs to be backed off to the point where I swear it doesn't sound as good. Possibly subjective, but I've struggled to get really decent rhythm crunch sounds for live playing. I may just need to fiddle more/visit fx8 forums etc, but I am inherently lazy. I did find a lush Blues OD sound that inspired me to noodle for a while though, so it's not all bad. 

Finally (for now!) it's never going to be as easily tweakable on the fly as a simple stomp box, even allowing for a degree of getting used to it.

As it stands I haven't sold any of my pedals yet. Thinking about a setup incorporating one or two analogue drive units, but I worry that could be a slippery slope!!

It's good, but not yet as great as I hoped. I haven't given up yet mind. 

Moltisanti

the CPU usage can be helped by a couple of things - turn the reverb quality to normal rather than high, disengage the looper (unless you want to use it), check what you have in the Y position of each effect, sometimes it's something using a ton of CPU that you didn't even know was there

jaytmon

Moltisanti said:

the CPU usage can be helped by a couple of things - turn the reverb quality to normal rather than high, disengage the looper (unless you want to use it), check what you have in the Y position of each effect, sometimes it's something using a ton of CPU that you didn't even know was there

Thanks for this. I have set up effects in Y positions but I haven't disabled the looper at all and reducing reverb quality makes sense, as that does seem to take a lot of processing power. 

My approach has been to cram as much into one patch as possible but maybe there's a better way. Per song patch maybe? Seems a bit overkill. I had 3 different drive pedals on my board, plus boost & acoustic sim, then chorus, delay, phase & sometimes reverb in the fx loop. Trouble is I had 3 different delays and 3 different choruses (per pedal!), so replicating that across one patch isn't possible. I did break it all down into what I need per song...maybe I need to go back to that and spend more time setting it up. This is when inherent laziness kicks in!

Wazmeister

I have never exceeded my CPU usage at all; maybe it's because I use the scenes and settings to spread them out, I dunno

jaytmon

Wazmeister said:

I have never exceeded my CPU usage at all; maybe it's because I use the scenes and settings to spread them out, I dunno

I tried to cram as much into one patch as possible that's the problem. I'm just a bit disappointed the fx8 couldn't cope with my demands! 
Havent even started trying to incorporate amp channel switching yet, probably cos I feel I'm being robbed of a couple of virtual stomp boxes...
I guess I need to rethink how I've got the whole thing set up before I give up and sell it on...!

johnonguitar

Should have bought a Helix mate