Highlights include our industry-leading amp modeling, UltraResTM IR speaker cab simulation, a suite of stompbox and studio effects, expandable FC foot switching, incredibly flexible I/O, 8x8 USB audio interface capabilities, a world-class Mac/PC editor, and more.
The centerpiece of the FM9 is "Cygnus", the latest version of Fractal Audio's critically acclaimed amp modeling technology. Cygnus uses Fractal's proprietary SpectrumTrackTM technology, which improves the response of amp models across the entire range of input levels, especially for amps with cascaded gain stages. The result is truer and more dynamic "voicing," remarkable touch sensitivity, and exceptionally satisfying "chugs." The FM9's two amp blocks each have four channels which can run any of 280+ vintage, modern, and original models covering everything from pristine clean, edge of breakup, and crunchy overdrive, to modern distortion, and insane gain. The FM9 also includes the entire Ultra-ResTM cab collection from the Axe-Fx III, with 2,200+ "Factory" cabs including selections from the today's best producers, plus 1,024 "User" locations for loading your own Impulse Responses ("IRs").
The FM9 is an outstanding multi-effects unit, packed with hundreds of incredible stomp box and studio effects, featuring accurate recreations of many classics, plus exciting originals. Selections include 57+ drive pedal models, dozens of delays, numerous choruses, flangers, phasers, tremolo, and other modulation effects, 50+ reverb types from classic spring to real spaces and beyond, multiple compressors, wahs, EQs and filters, a 2-minute looper, an entire suite of pitch effects including detune, harmony, and virtual capo, plus rotary, synth, "plex" effects including shimmer, and much more. With HumbusterTM and unity gain, the FM9 also works great with a traditional rig for "pre" effects, "post" effects, or both at the same time using the "four cable method."
The FM9 features the same audiophile signal path design as the Axe-Fx III for the utmost in sonic performance and signal integrity. Physically, it is built tough for the road, with a rugged 16-gauge steel chassis and protective endcaps that double as feet. The unit is remarkably easy to use, with intuitive and comfortable controls, plus the same large, full-color main display as the Axe-Fx III and FM3. Nine on-board footswitches, each with its own vari-color LED ring and mini LCD display, provide both tap and hold functions that can be customized to control countless aspects of your rig in realtime. "Footswitch Layouts" provide nine different complete sets of tap and hold functions. At the same time, a FASLINK II port allows connecting up to two Fractal Audio FC-12 or FC-6 foot controllers for extended "pedalboard real estate" or remote control.
The FM9 has numerous inputs and outputs for a great range of different setups. Analog inputs include Fractal Audio's "Secret Sauce" 1/4" instrument input, plus two separate stereo pairs of balanced 1/4" jacks for use as "aux ins" or "returns." The main stereo output is equipped with both XLR and 1/4" outs, plus a headphones jack. Two additional independent stereo outputs — one XLR and one 1/4" — can be used as "aux outs" or "sends." All 1/4" outs feature Fractal Audio's HumbusterTM technology to help combat noisy ground loops. Digital I/O includes 48k SPDIF in and out, plus 5-pin MIDI In and Out/Thru. Finally, three on-board jacks each allow you to connect an external switch or expression pedal such as the Fractal Audio EV-1 or EV-2.
The FM9 also serves as a high-quality USB Audio interface with 8-channel recording and 8-channel playback capabilities. You can record processed signals, a "DI" for re-amping, and stereo aux ins. Audio can be played back directly to the unit's outputs (for DAW monitoring or "backing tracks," for example) or routed through the FM9 for re-amping or for effects processing like a virtual plugin.
FM9-EDIT, a full-featured software editor, is included free. The FM9 is also fully compatible with Fractal-Bot for preset sharing, easybackups/restoration, plus firmware updates in the tradition of continual improvement that has become a hallmark of Fractal Audio.
Above all, the FM9 was designed "by musicians for musicians" to deliver Fractal Audio's uncompromising signature sound quality, fantastic features, and roadworthy reliability in a highly portable format that musicians are sure to appreciate and enjoy.
Direct Price: $1,599.99 - Availability: NOW SHIPPING.
Learn more at https://www.fractalaudio.com
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In the early ’60s, some of the British guitarists who would shape the direction of our instrument for decades to come all found themselves at a concert by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. What they heard from Tharpe and what made her performances so special—her sound, her energy—must have resonated. Back at home in the U.S., she was a captivating presence, wowing audiences going back to her early days in church through performing the first stadium rock ‘n’ roll concert—which was also one of her weddings—and beyond. Her guitar playing was incendiary, energetic, and a force to be reckoned with.
On this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re joined by guitarist Molly Miller, who in addition to being a fantastic guitarist, educator, bandleader, and performing with Jason Mraz, is a bit of a Sister Rosetta scholar. We chat with Molly about Sister Rosetta’s “immediately impressive” playing, which blends jazz, gospel, chromaticism, and blues into an early rock ‘n’ roll style that was not only way ahead of its time but was also truly rockin’.
While creating her new solo record, Kim Deal was drawn to exploring the idea of failure.
Deal isn’t smiling on the cover of Nobody Loves You More, her new album, but the art bears some similarities: Deal is floating on a platform in an expanse of gentle, dark blue waves, accompanied only by a few pastel-colored amps, her guitar, a stool, and a flamingo. It’s an unmistakably lonely image, but for Deal, failure doesn’t mean loneliness. It’s not even necessarily a bad thing.
“I mean, at least something magnificent was tried, you know?” says Deal. “At least there was something to fail. That’s an endearing thing. I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their ass kicked, because they were in it. It warms my heart to see that, just people getting out there. Maybe it gives me the courage and confidence to try something. It’s okay if I get my butt kicked. At least you’re trying something.”
“I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their fucking ass kicked, because they were fucking in it.”
Nobody Loves You More feels at least a little like Van Ader’s journey: an artistic project so long in the making and so precious to its creator that they’re willing to break from all conventions and face the abject terror of being judged by the world. That might seem like nothing new for Deal, who’s played music professionally for over 35 years, first with Pixies, then with the Breeders. But this LP marks her first proper solo album under her own name—a thought that mortified her for a long time. (“I like rock bands,” she says.) Even when she recorded and released what could be called “solo” music, she released it under a pseudonym. Initially, it was to be Tammy and the Amps. “I still was so uncomfortable, so I created Tammy and the Amps,” explains Deal. “I’m Tammy, who are my band? It’s the amplifiers downstairs in my basement. But the Tammy thing sort of got on my nerves so I just dropped it, so it was called the Amps.” She also assembled a band around that concept and released Pacer under the Amps’ name in 1995.
The cover art for Nobody Loves You More echoes the doomed last voyage of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader.
This new record hums with the soft-loud energetic alchemy that defines much of Deal’s previous works. The opening title track is a slow, romantic strummer with string arrangements, while “Coast” is faintly ska-indebted with horns and a ragged Blondie chord progression. “Crystal Breath” gets weirder, with distorted drums, synthy bass, and a detuned, spidery guitar lead. “Disobedience” and “Big Ben Beat” continue the darker and heavier trajectories with fuzzy stompers interspersed with ambient, affective interlude tracks like “Bats in the Afternoon Sky.” It’s a patient, sensitive, and unmistakably scrappy record.
Some of the songs on Nobody Loves You More are as up-close and personal as solo records get. One in particular that’s drawn attention is “Are You Mine?,” a sleepy-eyed, lullaby ballad. At first listen, it could be taken for a love song. (In fact, Deal encourages this interpretation.) But it’s a song about her mother, for whom Deal cared in her home while she died from Alzheimer’s. The song title comes from a gut-wrenching moment.
“I was in the house, she doesn’t know my name,” explains Deal. “She’s still walking, she can form words, but she doesn’t know what a daughter is or anything. She passes me in the hallway, stops, grabs my arm and says, ‘Are you mine?’ She doesn’t know my name, she doesn’t know who I am, but there was a connection. I knew she was asking if I was her baby. I said, ‘Yeah, mama, I’m yours.’ I’m sure five seconds later, she forgot that conversation even happened. It was just a flicker, but it was so sweet. To have her not see me in so long, and then for one brief second, be recognized in some capacity…. She was such a sweet lady.”
Deal’s mother wasn’t the only loss that went into this collection of songs. Her father passed, too, after a prolonged illness. “My dad was this big bravado sort of personality and watching them get extinguished a little bit every day… I don’t know,” she says. “They both died at home. I’m very proud of that.” But writing “Are You Mine?” wasn’t painful for Deal; she says it was a comforting experience writing the gentle arpeggio on her Candelas nylon-string acoustic.
Deal assembled the bulk of Nobody Loves You More in her Dayton, Ohio, basement, recording with Pro Tools and a particularly pleasing Electrodyne microphone preamp. (Some of the songs date back more than a decade—versions of “Are You Mine?” and “Wish I Was” were initially recorded in 2011 and released as part of a series of 7" singles.) Deal recorded a good part of the record’s drums, bass, and guitar from home, but other contributions came in fits and spurts over the years, from old faces and new. Her Breeders bandmates, including Mando Lopez, Jim MacPherson, Britt Walford, and sister Kelley Deal, all pitched in, as did Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan from British post-punk band Savages, and the Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence.
Kim Deal cared for her parents in their Dayton, Ohio, home until their passing, an experience that colors the music on her new solo record.
Photo by Steve Gullick
Kim Deal's Gear
Guitars
- '90s Fender Stratocaster
- '70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul
- Candelas nylon-string acoustic
Amps
- Marshall JCM900
- 4x12 cabinet
- Kalamazoo combo
Strings & Picks
- .011-gauge strings
- Dunlop Tortex Standard .60 mm
One day, ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer stopped by the studio to see what Deal was working on. He listened to “Wish I Was,” and scrambled together a lead idea. Deal kept the part and expanded it over time, leading to Klinghoffer’s writing credit on the record.
Deal used her trademark red ’90s Fender Stratocaster HSS along with a ’70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul for most of the electric work, pumped through either her long-time Marshall JCM900 or a tiny vintage Kalamazoo combo. Deal has never been a gearhead—at one point on our video call, she uses a tooth flosser as a pick to demonstrate some parts on her Candelas. “Kelley is a pedal person,” she says. “I’m not doing leads. I’m just doing a rhythm that needs to sound good.”
“I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually, or I’m a sociopath because I don’t even talk about [Steve Albini] in the past tense.”Over the years, Deal’s sonic thumbprint has been tied up in the work of her good friend and frequent collaborator Steve Albini, the producer, engineer, and musician who died unexpectedly in May 2024. (Deal quips, “Steve’s the lead character in my own life.”) Albini and Deal began working together in 1988, on Pixies’ debut LP Surfer Rosa. Their friendship continued over decades—Deal even performed at Albini’s wedding in Hawaii, for which he gifted her a ukulele—and the final sessions for Nobody Loves You More were under Albini’s watch. His parting hasn’t been easy.
“I got a text: ‘Call me,’” remembers Deal. It was a mutual friend, telling Deal that Albini had passed. “He told me and I just said, ‘You’re absolutely wrong. That didn’t happen.’ I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually. I don’t even talk about him in the past tense. I say, ‘What he likes to do is this.’ I never think, ‘What Steve used to like to do.’ My head never goes there. I wanted to record a song that wasn’t working and I said, ‘I need to do it from top to bottom at Albini’s.’ That’s not going to happen.”
YouTube
Along with Rob Bochnik and Spencer Tweedy, Kim Deal plays two tracks from Nobody Loves You More for a holiday fundraiser in November 2024 in Chicago.