Troubleshooting

The FM9 has nine layouts and each reassigns all nine switches. Holding a switch usually steps between them.

Only Input 1 has the Secret Sauce IV instrument circuit.

Use a Humbuster cable from the quarter-inch output. On the XLR side, use the ground lift switch.

Scenes load nothing and switch seamlessly. Build song sections as scenes.

Replace duplicate blocks with channels — four channels in one block cost far less than four blocks.

They were designed around the FM9's own switches. Adding an FC means writing custom layouts, and Layout Link is what keeps the two boards coherent.

Press STORE. The edited indicator lights as soon as you change anything, and changing preset discards it without a prompt.

Most of the time it really is a faulty or disconnected cable. Plug headphones straight into the unit: if the preset sounds fine there, the fault is downstream and nothing on the unit needs changing.

A grid can look connected and not be. Check the preset begins with an Input block and ends with an Output block, and that those correspond to the jacks you have actually cabled. Then change each block to a shunt in turn, leaving the Amp and Cab until last, and listen for where the sound returns.

If something is assigned to a volume or level control and the pedal or switch it expects is not plugged in, the level sits wherever that missing controller says — usually silence. Either remove the modifier, or set the external controller's initial value to 100% instead of 0%.

Presets you downloaded often reference a cab IR that lives on the author's unit and not yours. Point the Cab block at a factory cab and the sound comes back.

Fractal put this first for a reason — it is startling how often a brand new or long-trusted cable turns out to be the problem. Swap before you diagnose.

Check whether you are clipping the inputs or the outputs. Clipping that only appears on the loudest notes reads as a crackle rather than as distortion.

Above about 80% the unit starts running out of room and the artefacts are audible. Remove a block and see whether they stop.

The analog outputs ship set for consumer line level. If you are feeding professional gear at +4 dBu, change the Output Level for that output under SETUP : I/O : Audio.

A pedal has to be calibrated to the jack before the unit knows its travel. Until then it may read as a fixed value rather than a sweep.

Expression needs a TRS cable, not a standard guitar lead — and a volume pedal is not an expression pedal, even though it has the same socket.

Calibrating the pedal does not connect it to anything. It has to be attached to a parameter with a modifier before it does a job.

Power down, wait five seconds, then power on holding HOME until the progress bar appears. It comes up on an empty preset you can store over the problem one.

Power down, wait five seconds, power on holding EDIT until the progress bar appears, then SETUP > Utilities > Reset and run Reset System Parameters. Your presets are not touched.

Power down, wait five seconds, then power on holding both PAGE buttons until the emergency utility page appears, and update as normal with Fractal-Bot.

A preset is a list of settings, and those settings are interpreted by whatever firmware is running. The usual culprits are a firmware version change, a different guitar, a different amp at the other end, or external controllers sitting at different values than they were. Global Blocks that have since been edited will also change every preset that references them.

Presets do not move freely between Fractal generations. Axe-Fx II, AX8 and FX8 presets do not import; the models are largely the same, so transferring settings by hand usually lands where you expect, and the older factory cabs are in the Legacy bank.