One Fractal Audio FM3 Preset For All Gigs?

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Only One Fractal Audio Fm3 Live Preset

One Fractal Audio FM3 Live Preset For All Gigs?

The ‘Get Me Through Most Gig Types’ Setup

The Fractal Audio FM3 is an incredible piece of guitar gear. I am constantly astounded by the guitar tones I can create and the functionality of this guitar amp modeller.

With all this power, it can be overwhelming when creating guitar sounds and deciding on the best way to navigate the endless possibilities. For this reason, my latest YouTube video shows how I have recently set up the FM3 for live performances with my Fender Strat.

If you would like to download this preset, please click on the button at the bottom of this page.

Prefer To Read Rather Than Watch?

I walk through how I set up the presets, scenes and switching in the video, although it might be easier for Fractal FM3 users to read about the various amp types, cab types, etc. I have therefore added the video transcript below.

Video Transcript for "Only One FM3 Live Preset? "

December 2024 was an extremely busy, gig filled month. All Fridays, Saturdays and New Year’s Eve were taken up with party night band gigs and I also played Christmas shows and many other types of gigs. The month was a great test for my FM3 as I needed presets to cover many styles of guitar playing.

My challenge was to create a preset that covered everything I needed from jazzy cleans to soaring rock leads and I succeeded, as one preset was used for all my gigs.

I will demonstrate the main tones I used at the end of this video, although first, I will walk you through the set up.

I created all my sounds to work with my newly customized Fender Strat that now has a Suhr Thornbucker Plus pickup in the bridge position.

FM3 Switching Choices

Up until creating this preset, I had been using the Per-Preset layout, although with my latest preset, I have been using the Scenes layout. This is partly to do with having an extra dual footswitch, but I have also found it useful for navigating the entire FM3 in a gig situation.

Holding the centre footswitch brings me back to the master layout and I have instant access to preset switching, going back to the scenes layout once in a preset, and engaging or disengaging any effects if I need extra control. This will be extremely helpful when I create more presets as there will be minimal tap dancing on stage.

Fm3 Edit Software For Fractal Fm3

FM3 Edit software for Fractal Audio FM3

FM3 Scenes Walkthrough

The scenes in my latest preset are set up quite simply. The first scene in view 1 gives me the trusty 'AC-20 12AX7' Treble amp type through a 1 x 12 'AC-20 DLX 160 A' cab and a 1 x 12 'G12T 121B cab'. This worked extremely well with my Tele and sounds great with my Strat for a clean tone with a bit of grit. I love playing funky rhythm parts using this tone.

Switch A on my Ampero Switch engages a Tube Drive 3-Knob. I often use the first scene with drive 1 with my bridge humbucker for a dirty rock tone. A pedal compressor 1 is also engaged before the amp.

The Ampero’s B switch engages the Volume/Pan block with a 2.5db boost. This gives me a clean lead tone, and a dirty lead tone with drive 1 engaged.

Holding switch A on the Ampero engages delay 2 which is set to Stereo Mind Guy for this scene if I need more swirliness in the sound.

Holding switch B on the Ampero switches on the tuner which is handy to have as an option always available.

The expression pedal engages the FAS Wah when I start to move it. This is the same for all scenes.

Scene 2 gives me an FAS Lead 1 amp through a 4x12 'Fractal GB M160' cab. The added Ampero dual switch once again lets me transform the scene into a lead tone by adding a boost, Zen Master Drive and a Stereo BBD delay.

Scene 3 is the Recto 1 Orange Normal lead amp through a 1x12 'G12T-100' Dyna-Cab. Much fun has been had with this huge lead tone.

The next bank of three scenes is essentially the same, except I have swapped out scene 5 for a jazzier clean tone. Scene 5 features a Deluxe Verb Normal amp through the 1x12 'G12T-100' Dyna-Cab. I needed big, fat, clean jazz tones with my Strat for chord melody type accompaniment in some shows. The tone worked well for this type of sound.

The final bank of 3 switches in view 3 gives me one extra type of sound. A clean tone is set up in scene 7 with added Analog Stereo chorus and Stereo Mind Guy delay, along with a Wide Hall reverb for extra depth. The far-right switch allows me to engage Drive 2, which is set to a T808 Mod drive for this scene. I can quickly come back to this bank of pedals if I want to add drive 2 to any other scene, or even stack drive 1 and drive 2.

The centre switch in view 3 gives me my Recto 1 lead tone once again.

With the addition of added delay, volume boost and drive 1 via the Ampero switch, along with the option of drive 2 using switch 3 in view 3 on the FM3, there are so many tonal possibilities within this single preset.

FM3 Sounds - Audio Examples
Click Image To Listen

Video Outro

I hope this video has given you some ideas in how to set up the FM3 for your own live use. There are so many ways to navigate this well-thought-out piece of guitar gear, and it can be overwhelming trying to figure out the best approach. The set up explained in this video worked extremely well for me and having one preset for multiple types of gigs saves me having to think too much about how different presets are configured.

If you did enjoy this video, please give it a like and hit that subscribe button so you can keep up to date with my FM3 explorations, and all the other guitar and music related videos coming soon. Bye for now.

FM3 Preset Download

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