How To Make A Modeller Feel Good - Fractal, Helix, Quad etc. Guitar Daily Ep 180

In this video I discuss and demonstrate ways to make your modeller (Fractal, Helix, Quad Cortex etc) feel better - a common complaint people have about these. These are things I’ve learnt from a lot of tweaking and improving. I hope you find them useful.
Any questions or comments leave them below?
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Gear used in this video:
Ibanez AR520 guitar
Fractal Audio FM9
🎸 about Nick Granville:
Guitarist, Session Musician, Educator and Composer Nick Granville has worked with artists as diverse as Dave Weckl, Bob Mintzer, Dave Mathews, Chris De Burgh, Ronan Keating, Delta Goodrem, Steve Smith, Mike Stern, Joey Defrancesco, Eric Marienthal, Kurt Elling and with the band on New Zealand's "Dancing with the Stars". Nick leads his own groups that play regularly including at the major jazz festivals in NZ and he is a founding member of the Wellington Jazz Orchestra. He has released five CD's as a band leader and has played on many records, film scores, TV programs and radio. He has taught and taken workshops at the New Zealand School of Music, Goodtime Music Academy, Musicworks stores, Christchurch Jazz school (CPIT), Otago University, Auckland University and at jazz festivals all around NZ. Nick has performed around the world and recorded in the best recording studios (including Capitol recording studio A in Los Angeles). He hold a masters degree with first class honours in jazz performance from the University of Auckland.
Nick Granville proudly uses and endorses Ibanez Guitars and a Fractal Fm9. Thanks to these great companies (and associated - Musicworks! independent Music)
Cheers
Nick
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[@willrowe9920]

Invaluable advice. Cheers, Nick

[@NickGranville]

@@willrowe9920 cheers mate!

[@mikedwiles]

Started with a Line 6 POD in the early 2000's. One thing that always stuck with me from their manual was to build patches just like you were using a real amp and pedals. Pick the amp and cab and get it dialed in. Then, add effects one at a time dialing in each one individually. That really helped me sort out existing patches by turning off everything but the amp and cab and edit from there. Thanks for the tips on the gate and compression. I played at church for several years with a Kemper (mono signal to board) with personal monitors and in-ears. I made it work. But it was not fun. My Kemper has been parked on the desk for several years while I enjoy my tube amps. But you have me interested in dialing in the Kemper with reference monitors in stereo for the studio.

[@NickGranville]

Thanks! Good luck with that Kemper, I’m sure with some tweaking you can make it work. Cheers

[@periloustemple8290]

Fantastic advice and some great playing, mate! I would add only this: if you can and have access, try preamp out of a valve amp into the interface. I tube preamp pedal - even a starved plate style does warm thing up and gives a bit of the natural compression and complex harmonic structure that we associate with electric guitar (maybe more as players than listeners). I am going to stand by this: the feel under the fingers and the feeling of being connected is tangibly there for me going that route.

[@NickGranville]

Thanks! Good tip about the valve preamp warming things up. Cheers

[@stuntkiwi]

Picked up a used tonemaster deluxe reverb recently for a good price, first leap into modelling and it sounds pretty good. No ability to tweak like the fractal/helix etc. but certainly helps the analysis paralysis, plug and go. The simplicity, XLR out, attenuation and weight were definitely the selling points.

[@NickGranville]

@@stuntkiwi those modelling amps are great. They’re very light too. My buddy Graham used one for a while and it sounded good to me. Nice score

[@jimamsden]

Excellent advice!

[@NickGranville]

@@jimamsden thank you!

[@denniskrottje012]

Great video again! Thanks 👍🙂 Ps. I bought the Fender FR10 and I love it!

[@NickGranville]

@@denniskrottje012 Thanks! I’m really happy with my FR10. It’s works great 👍

[@simonwilliams7608]

Hey Nick. Interesting about the compression. I've always been one to have a compressor in my chain - even on the FX8 - but I really haven't bothered to since I got the FM9, and I didn't really understand why. Now I do. Thanks. One thing I've found helped get it sounding "comfortable" for me has been to shelve the more extreme highs and lows. It seems odd to me that the models don't do this by design. PS Perhaps you should consider setting up a buymeaheater link. ;-). I don't know how you can play when you're that cold!

[@NickGranville]

Ha, I had the heater on too. Had just taken the dog for a walk so was especially cold. Poor dog has hardly been outside this week. Yeah I do the same, low cut at 80hz and high cut at 8k. I’m glad they don’t to it automatically, cause that would be a problem for anyone who down tunes for example. Drop D or Drop C would be affected a lot by a cut at 80hz.

[@simonwilliams7608]

@@NickGranville Yeah. It's been biting cold here too. I must confess that I'm a bit naughty when it comes to keeping my studio warm though.

[@NickGranville]

Yeah, weather has fully moved into winter. Which is fine, more time inside means more guitar 😂

[@simonwilliams7608]

Ya know, I think turning up the input dynamics a bit is great for someone like yourself who is a lot more advanced than me, but I had a bit of a play with it today, and I don't think my technique is good enough to use that live. I might make a couple of presets with it for practice though, because I have been trying to improve my dynamics!

[@NickGranville]

@@simonwilliams7608 yeah, more dynamic range can take a bit to get used to but for me it’s an essential.

[@simonwilliams7608]

@@NickGranville I totally get that, and I hear it in your playing. Your control of dynamics is great! Mine isn't. I actually recorded a bit of playing with and without the dynamics boost this arvo. The playing with with the boost really highlighted how far I have to go in that department!

[@NickGranville]

Thanks Simon! It’s always a good idea to record oneself and evaluate (as you know). It’s been a very surprising outcome from doing daily videos - I’m hearing back what I do evaluating way more than I ever did

[@simonwilliams7608]

@@NickGranville It hadn't occurred to me that you'd be getting that from your videos, but it makes sense. Funny... when I took singing lessons, many years ago, I used to record my practice all the time and critique it as constructively as I could. I found it really helpful. And yet I rarely seem to do that with my guitar for some reason. I think I might start including a bit of recording as part of my practice schedule and see how that goes. Thanks.

[@NickGranville]

Good idea Simon! Keep me posted

[@localpm]

Great vid Nick. I never use gates or compressors either 👌

[@NickGranville]

Cheers, best to keep it simple I find

[@JoelVitu123]

For monitors try balanced armature, Etymotic have some with changeable cables, balanced armature has better definition. How is xotic bbpreamp 1.5 ? 😶

[@NickGranville]

@@JoelVitu123 thanks. I’m not sure what model my BB preamp is, but it rocks!

[@marceli155]

Are you cold ?????? I give you jumper

[@NickGranville]

Don’t worry I already had 2 of them on! Ha. Had just walked the dog so was especially cold