Neal Schon Fractal FM9 Rig Tour 

Unreal!

Had the pleasure of opening for journey years back in Sacramento at Raley Field, and Neal was the kindest dude. I was only 16 at the time, and I remember watching in awe of his playing during their soundcheck. He even stuck around during our line check, introduced himself. A true Bay Area legend and class act!

FANTASTIC!! Thanks so much CC!! Blessing to you!!

Just seeing this - wow, what a great vid! Thanks for sharing...He's just an amazing player.

Aw man, Neal’s the best! I’ve been a huge fan since the early days… Fantastic you’ve gotten to work with him, Cooper! Best, Daniel 🤘🏼😎🎸💥

So cool to see this rig up close. Neal is truly a master. What a privilege!

Thanks for this… truly wonderful all round … with love n best wishes to you, neal and the band from London UK 🇬🇧

Fantastic! and happy birthday, Cooper!

Really great presentation.Thank you

It's so cool that you get to work with artist's like Neal Schon and help them with their tone! ✌🏻

This was great Cooper !

Cooper all of us need more Mr schon. You must and have to do an update to this video. Neal is the best.

What a honour to collaborate with Neal Schon, one of the most inspiring musicians in my opinion. Thank you for sharing this video.

Neal has such an awesome sense of melody!

What a Honor it must be to be able to work & witness the legend close up! Must get me one of these Fractals 😋

Great video. Thanks.

Holy crap that sound is MASSIVE. It sounded damn good just from the side of those speakers, but when you stood in front...wow. I can't imagine how that stage must've felt when you shot the soundcheck footage. What a tone, and let's not forget the chops that dude has. thanks for sharing this with us

the first song i heard that made me want to play guitar was "Dont stop believin'" still love the son to this day. seeing him jam like that is amazing to watch. just a looper and go.

Neal its an amazing artist really i love this videos its wonderful 🌟🌟🌞🌞🌞🎸🎸🎸🎸

Agreed. Great stuff dude

One hell of a rig

Bravo et merci pour la vidéo filmée et musicale @ G66 👏👏👏👩‍🦱

Neal is such an awesome player. Love to haer him noodle around like that.

Thank you G66 - that was so awesome,,, Always loved Neil and journey,,, saw them in New haven ct. In 1978. Neil is a Real guitar player/musician,,,NO bullshit ,,, just honest musicianship, What ALL players should live up to. - RJ Bacha.

Before I even press play on this video I have to say….I have not been this excited for a newly released video in ages. It’s like Christmas morning. Neal is one of my all time favorite guitarists and to get a current look at his rig is going to be amazing (going to be Becusee I’m hitting play now) lol. Cooper….THANK YOU!!! UPDATE… GReat video. So, Cooper, Neal is using all the amps and cabs in the fractal to FOH for his sounds? Is this a new change? I thought he used the 5150 amps with the fractals for the effects. If so then seems he has made a true shift. Either way he sounds fantastic as a always. I caught Journey at the UBS arena by me not too long ago. Was my first time getting to see them live. Neal’s guitar sound was beyond amazing. It just filled the arena. Great work on your part and many thanks to you for being such an important part of his rig and sound. Any plans to put out some Neal presets for fractal?

Great stuff .....

Holy shit that sounded epic!

Sounds great...yeah man, he has written how many hits?..a ton!...his music will live forever for sure.

I really dig mixing my FM3 full on rig tones with cab sims and all with my tube heads. Really sounds great in 4CM for all wet effects and as wet cab sims for those effects in a WDW rig. Can even use 2 FRFR speakers in that setup and it’s the lightest and easiest WDW rig I can think of. Cool video!

4:36 looks like Sting and Trudy in the front row, during the orchestra set, excellent video as always.

Great video. Journey is soooo great live. I have a friend who played in the orchestra with Journey in Vegas - what a great experience for her. She LOVED it. I can't wait to get my FM9.

And someday I’ll get my FM-9. On the waiting list for a year now

I feel so lucky to have a manufacturer like Fractal going to bat for us guitarists. Prior, things were nowhere near as good as they are now.

Gimme one!!

Nice. I’d be interested to see how he sets up his fractal

I can definitely see the FM9 being a better fit when using pedals at the feet. The 2 EVH stacks not so much but it's all about the musician being inspired so if he digs it he gets it.

Killer! Can’t wait till he discovers his left hand pinky!

Can you give us any hints regarding the amps he uses to get that tone in the video at the end? Sounds absolutely killer.

Nice! Can you make a Rig Rundown with Edo Scordo - Brit Floyd

I’m a pedals/valve guy, but I think the point here is the capability to have the sound you need and get the valve feel on stage but save the ears. These guys have learned to play smarter with what hearing they have left! Like he said, it’s relatively quiet on stage. Hence the use of the newer tech. Still get the balls and tone without cranking the cab to “11” and blowing your head off the stage! ;)

Neil is a fantastisc Player.

can someone PLEASE share his delay settings? been trying to get them for years, sounds killer

great video thanks ! 2:44 what model is it? best side speakers mario? give us name pls I don't understand 🙏 thank you 🙏

Cooper, can you share any of Neil's presets? What amp block, cab etc?? Appreciate it!

Does he use stock cabs or third party IR's? What cab sims does he use?

Wow!!!!!!!!

Listen to journey records and focus on Neal. Stone in love is a great example. No overdubs. No punches ins. He plays the intro, main song, fills and solos in a single take. He is amazing. That comes from the days on recording to tape. You had to get it right.

Will you be in Chicago this Friday??

Neal always has always had great TONE. I will always remember how he came and smoked all those metal players during his solo section of Stars that benefit song🤣🤣🤣🤣🔥🔥👌🏾✊🏾🤘🏾🕺🏾🕺🏾

How does he run a wireless unit with that fuzz pedal? Whenever I don’t run a cable direct to the fuzz the impedance change makes the fuzz sound terrible

How is the connection from the wireless units to the board being made? XLR cable from the wireless? How does it connect to input 1?

GReat run down

This is really well integrated, but it strikes me as almost, just almost "too much". I'd have been 100% OK sending the FM9 out pre-IR to a power amp and some Marshall cabs. Sending to two EVH half-stacks with yet another Fractal tripped some sort of breaker for me. Not that he doesn't sound great, not that he doesn't totally know what he's doing; it was just a whole second FX rig.

can you please share what his delays/times are and reverbs?

Does anyone know what size pedal train board that is ?

Hey Cooper, you can't tease us like that. I've been trying to replicate Neal's sound for many years. C'mon please post Neal's preset(s) for us to have a play with :)

Man, can I have one of those FXIIIs, if Neal isn't using them??? 😁

Neal missed the memo about how the FM9 is designed to simplify your live set up.

What direct cab pedal does neal use

Impressive rundown CC! Ironically, with all the high tech, the sound will be coming though old PA's inside an echo chamber. Grab some Fractal gear and head out to Red Rocks Amphitheatre!

Notice the tonal difference near the end of this vid when the camera points towards the EVH amps as opposed to towards the seating. Looks like Neil still wants to feel the sound and he is not wearing IEMs either.

Are Neal’s presets available?

hi what is the brand of that monitors?

my guestion is the distorted tone is straight from AXe fx FM9 or from EVH?

So much for the "one cable from guitar straight into the amp" 🙃

Gimmie the presets!!!!!

You mentioned that Neal switched to the FM9 from the fx-lll because he wanted the latest and greatest, but the fx-lll is still Fractal's flagship model.

I’m surprised he’s on ulxd and not Axient digital tbh

Neal Schon Tom Scholz Steve Lukather Eric Johnson David Gilmour = top 5 Rock guitar players of ALL TIMES!

Neal must have gotten on the waitlist early. 🤣

😎🎸

Damn ..a lot of technical stuff and equipment ..

Nobody makes a LP sound like Neal does. Well, maybe Frampton.

Awe...I see. Neal Schon uses the EVH head for the main sound. Then he have three AXE-FX on the rack for only backup. On the FM9, he only uses it for Effects on the board. This tells me, Fractal's effects are good enough for professional bands too - just not for us regular/local/medium-size bands. Nice.

So I’m assuming he’s all stereo. No wet dry??

I've seen Journey going back to when Greg Rollie was in the band. As time has gone on Neal has been using more reverb and delay to the point you really can't tell what he's playing and that's a shame because he's a monster player.

What in IEM headphones are you using there Cooper? What about Neal?

Love Neal. Phenomenal player. Love the Fractal stuff. Best in the biz... But most of this is just stupid overkill. He can get ALL of that through one Axe FX out to monitors and FOH. There are guys that do coverband shows doing dozens of different styles and songs, all from one FM9 or AX3. Simple is always best. Always.

Come on man, you are going to tell us what brand PA speakers he uses like that matters , but not what amp blocks, or pedals he uses?

Good grief wasn’t that long ago that rockets being launched into space used less processing power!

Neal....the guitar player that you can hear the first note,and the last note...the notes between are mostly messy and muddy, especially when he tries to play fast, unsuccessfully. Fractal is the best by far....!!!

nice! for all you modeling, profile haters -

SLOW DOWN NEAL!!! I loved your playing when you were playing from the soul. Now it appears that you are playing shredder licks and lost that soulful playing that was your trademark and that we loved so much. Precisely the reason I wont pay $261 minimum gouge price to see ya here in Hawaii. (Why they are so expensive here in Oahu? when they are way cheaper on the mainland).

Right before the pandemic saw him with Def Leppard and they blew Journey off the stage. Neal's sound was way too loud compared to everyone else so the mix was out of balance and it had some weird not good distortion that was apparent to my girlfriend who knows nothing about guitar distortion. She asked me "what's wrong with their sound". Both bands used the same front of house mixing equipment and people, so it was something to do with Neals setup.

Neal has a complicated rig. Signals going everywhere. Analog, digital, pedals, monitors, FOH, in-ears, stage amps.

I am pretty sure I ordered my FM9 before Neal….

Old better !!!!!!!!!!

I hear the FM9 is relatively weak, compared to the AXE-FX III.

The thing is, you hear its a fractal Just like you can hear its a Boss multi unit no matter how your setting are. I will stuck to my stompboxes, no one has the same pedals and pedal order like I have-)

How much better can the FM9 be over the HeadRush or other cheaper unites..$2,500 bucks is a ton of money.

🤓OLD SCHOOL PEDALS & 1990'S RACK GEAR ARE STILL THE BEST......PERIOD !!!!!!!

Absolute overkill... I mean come on, there're like 3 sounds throughout the set. Whatever, got the money, go nuts.

All slaves around the talent must wear masks

Good God!! What a mess🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

In the studio (besides "any way you want it") Journey's tone is amazing, but live Schon sounds awful tonewise. He is a legend, his licks are legendary, but his live tone is just not the same quality as the studio. He insists on using that toneless PRS and his digital setup and its bad. Guessing he goes with whoever sponsors him.

Jesus Christ that is an expensive rig 😂.

Nope

After watching this I was dizzy, whatever happened to just plugging into a amp? I get that this rig is probably very consistent at every show but for normal players this kinda gear is out of reach for most people buying range.

Sorry but that guys head is too big and all I hear is clashing guitar riffs. Love my AFX III.

Stop reviewing gear that is unobtainable.