Fractal Audio Systems FM9 Mark II Turbo

Fractal Audio’s high-end hardware units offer a vast and richly detailed sonic environment – more like an entire world of gear, than a single device. With endless creative possibilities, cutting-edge engineering, and intuitive tools to navigate its depths, each session reveals something new. We recently reviewed the VP4, a streamlined take on Fractal Audio’s technology, but I was eager to dive into the FM9 – a larger, more expansive platform that invites players to explore a full range of capabilities.

Laying It Out

The FM9 is a “floor-based,” 9-footswitch, 3-input/3-output guitar and bass amp modeler and effects processor, as well as 8×8 audio interface and looper. The revision we tested – the Mark II Turbo iteration, with a quartet of DSP processing cores – is arguably the most powerful floor processor ever produced. While newer entrants to the market, such as Quad Cortex and a small handful of others, attempt to aim themselves toward the throne, I feel that Fractal Audio remains the undisputed king of professional-level amp and effects modeling in a holistic sense; their expertly crafted hardware, USB functionality, and MIDI control additionally considered. But as is the case with many top-notch products in their classes, this superiority comes with its fair share of complexity.

When I reviewed Fractal Audio’s AX8 back in 2018, I really enjoyed the functionality they included to swap between different values of an effect or preset via an additional press of the same footswitch, with LED indicators showing you which of two different X/Y settings you were currently hearing for the item in focus. The functionality behind that concept has been greatly expanded in the FM9, with many more channels for each item, with the tradeoff being that it’s requires custom settings if you want to cycle through them via additional presses of the same footswitch. That said, Scenes can switch channels for you, and the FM9 makes it easy to put the unit into scene selection mode via the dedicated Scenes switch – a feature of the Layout 1 switch map – and just as easy to switch back again via the same switch in Layout 2, labeled PRESETS in that secondary mapping. The user can access the Master Layout Menu by pressing down on the rightmost bottom footswitch and rocking their foot forward to engage the switch immediately to the north, as well, offering access to control the onboard looper, options pertaining to effects, and a whole lot more.

A number of encoders and buttons with primary and secondary functions are also included on the faceplate, below and to the right of the color, non-touch LCD screen, as are convenient multi-segment LED input and output signal strength/clipping indicators. But frankly, with this much variability and complexity at hand, this is when I reach for the computer editor to help put things into a more easily digestible, graphically based, user-friendly interface, to help escape option paralysis and to better visualize the signal chain. Thankfully, Fractal Audio always invests in top-notch desktop editors, with FM9-Edit certainly not bucking that trend. I find FM9-Edit a much clearer and easier way to initially set up the floorboard the way I want, using the onboard controls to make subtle tweaks in the moment, when needed.

Stocking It Up

The FM9’s stock presets are mainly organized with amplifier-oriented options upfront (to allow a user to cycle between different amp voicings and feels), giving way to presets with more of an effects-bias around preset 127. There are 1024 presets in total, and each contains eight different scenes – combinations of effect on/off and channel settings of the same signal chain. Standouts for me were presets 104 (Leon’s Djent Bass FM), 134 (Reverb Crystals), 165 (Ric-O-Twelve), 238 (PolyOctaveGen Pedal – especially Scene 4 for my favorite octave up sound), 283 (Uber Chugga FM9), and 294 (Jeff and Jan). There are a few effect types that I think could be improved in their ability to detect or process bass signals, such as the polyphonic octave-up and synth blocks. But on the whole – and we’re talking about dozens and dozens of other stompbox-style and studio effects, not to mention the mind-boggling amp and cabinet list – the algorithms are near totally guitar/bass-agnostic, super-high-fidelity, often times refreshingly unique, and all-around top-dollar-sounding. Modulation is lush and multidimensional, even while sending just a mono out. Drives run the gamut from resplendent to ruthless. I could go on and on!

While there are a number of bass guitarist-aimed inclusions here, I always preach in these processor reviews that the modern bassist should divorce themselves from notions of what’s “appropriate” or not for bass, based solely on a label or on a digital model’s physical analog IRL. Different amplifier, cabinet, effect, microphone, and even physical space algorithms are really all just kinds of filters, and they affect a timbre that’s already the product of a signal chain that’s longer than you may realize. This chain begins with the way in which you play; moving through string type and materials; sensed by the number, shape, interconnection type, and placement of pickup coils; processed through onboard passive or active electrical components; then passing that signal through varying lengths of cable; perhaps meeting with other effects, etc. Two players are able to have such distinctly different tonal envelopes by the time their signal hits the FM9, that one player using an amp model with a massive mid scoop might realize similar sonic results to a completely opposed, mid-heavy model used by the other player. In other words, there’s very little useful generalization that can be made about the viability of one type of filter (say, a 5150 guitar amp) over another (perhaps a Darkglass B7K with a cabinet IR loaded). Use what sounds good; listen not with your eyes, but with your ears.

I appreciate the FM9’s finer hardware touches quite a bit. It’s no larger than it needs to be, the footswitch indicators – customizable for color and intensity – are fantastic, the large scribble strip screens are highly effective, there’s a generous encoder count as well as independent, physical output volume controls, and the whole thing is wrapped in 16-gauge steel. I would have loved an integrated expression pedal, especially for some of the FM9’s more adventurous effects, but it’s very easy to set up external switches and pedals, and to map them to a plethora of modifiers within the unit’s software.

Wrapping It Up

Fractal Audio Systems’ FM9 is world class; touring class; professional grade. To get the most out of it, which is to say, to personalize it, you’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and get a bit dirty – unless you’re already familiar with Fractal Audio methodology. But those efforts will undoubtedly be rewarded with some of the finest and most flexible tones and timbres available today – at any price point. Speaking as someone who routinely brings a computer to gigs, Fractal Audio’s FM9 is the most robust and complete solution for ultimate sonic mastery short of bringing a computer to the gig … yet is far more dependable, sleek, and purpose-built.