Fractal Audio Systems FX8
Iintended the second part of my report to concern the FX8’s performance in a live setting but, as I’ve not actually had the opportunity to use it live yet, that will have to wait until next time. However, I was lucky enough to recently interview Guthrie Govan who has been using the FX8 live exclusively since The Aristocrats tour of the USA in 2015. In fact, Guthrie was one of the players who inspired me to drop my scepticism about multi-effects units and try out the FX8…
What was the main motivation behind eschewing your pedalboard in favour of the FX8? “During the recording of The Aristocrats’ Tres Caballeros album, I experimented with all manner of weird pedals, purely in an attempt to make the album a little more sonically diverse than its predecessors. It was only when I listened back to the finished product that I realised just how ambitious and unwieldy my pedalboard would need to become if I really intended to approximate all of those tones in a live setting. The decision to go with the FX8 was based partially on the fact that I already had an Axe-FX II and was consequently very aware of the company’s track record in terms of both sound and build quality. Well… that, and perhaps also the hope that my existing knowledge of the Axe-FX might save me from having to read a whole new manual!
“Fractal actually sent me an evaluation unit back in the summer of 2015, just before we started The Aristocrats’ summer tour of the US, and I was able to A/B it with my existing pedalboard before making a final call on which floor-based solution would eventually graduate to the back of the tour van. My main fear was that the overall tonal character of the FX8 might sound unpleasantly ‘digital’ – particularly when using the four-cable method, which converts the signal from analogue to digital and back again twice – but it quickly became clear that the Fractal guys had spent a lot of time working on the input stage and the converters, so the resulting tone actually sounds very ‘pure’ to my ears.”
What have been the main advantages over your previous pedalboard setup? “First and foremost: portability! Touring with a band like The Aristocrats usually tends to involve some degree of air travel and one of my First Rules Of Flying is to ensure that my pedalboard fits into the same suitcase as everything else: that way, my second piece of luggage can be a guitar – in a very hard case, needless to say – and my Victory V30 head can come onboard with me as carry-on luggage. The FX8, together with all the necessary cables and two Boss EV-5 expression pedals, actually weighs slightly less than my previous pedalboard and it’s capable of covering a lot more sonic territory.
“I also like the added flexibility. These days, I’m gravitating towards having a dedicated preset for each song in the set, using the ‘sticky scenes’ function to select different pedal combinations – and amp channels! – for the various sections in each. This isn’t the way I’ve normally worked in the past, but it’s certainly made aspects of my life much simpler in terms of performing the current Aristocratic repertoire.”
Have you had to make any significant tonal compromises thus far? “Everything sounds ‘close enough for rock ’n’ roll’, I’d say! If I’m going for a specific ‘effects’ kind of tone in a studio situation, my first port of call will still be one or more of my trusty analogue pedals, but the whole point of embracing the FX8 was that it would enable me to approximate a wide variety of effects in a live context… which I think it does very well.”
Do you miss any pedals you used before? “Well… I still have those pedals, so I guess they’ll still be there whenever I might need them! I’ve occasionally been tempted to switch out one of my expression pedals for my real Xotic Wah, and I’m still not 100 per cent sold on the way the envelope filter responds in the FX8, but then again, there’s so much scope for parameter-tweaking in that unit – it’s quite possible that I simply haven’t dialled everything in perfectly just yet. I’m often guilty of getting a patch ‘close enough’ and then losing interest in programming the nuances any further. Ultimately, I always have a lot more fun just playing.”