First hours with FM3 coming from kemper stage

Joshua_L

Joshua_L

Experienced
Hi !

Long time tube amp user here, Marshall plexi /cornford kind of guy (even owned a rk100 that belonged to Richie « god » Kotzen).

Due to the conditions of nowadays work and the more and more silent stages required to play I had to downsize a few years ago.

Started by amp + torpedo + pedalboard then a H&K GM40 deluxe + torpedo.

Then decided to go the modern way with a Kemper Stage. I first wanted an fm3 but I couldn’t afford the time of the waiting list back then. So bought the kemper.

Even if I knew it wasn’t gonna be like my amp, I spent 1 year and a half spending countless hours trying to get a tone that would not be stellar but just usable and playable for me and my ears.
Never enjoyed playing it but for the Foh it was not that bad, not awesome, but enough for the sound guys.
But I just couldn’t stand to play the kemper anymore, the cocked wha, compression, attack etc was a big NO for me

So I decided to downsize more, sold it and bought a brand new fm3 last week. I Received it and plugged it a few hours today.

And I just want to say it’s amazing, really

As a Marshall guy, I’m in pure amps heaven.
The dynamic, the feel, it reacts so much as real tube amps. It’s so alive and 3D even dry.

I knew it’s gonna be great but I didn’t expected it will be so great.

After having played through a lot of presets I Tried to create a plexi preset.
In - amp - cab -out , few adjustments here and there and boom 3 minutes later a usable tone. Lead tone? Drive and delay and that’s it … like in the real world.
Not perfect but more than usable, and above all enjoyable for hours.

And I barely even scratched the surface of it.
Effects are stellar.

I’m sure I’m gonna have problems understanding some things soon or gonna go in the IR and infinite combination rabbit hole and lose hours of my life but as long as it can keep a smile on my face like playing amps do, that’s ok for me.

And the myth about Fractal units being complicated and made for nerds is so false lol.
Sure you can, but sure you don’t have to

Long post but just to say I’m more than happy and thanxs to the fas team for making such enjoyable piece of gear.


See you soon for all my futures questions.

Josh.

Ps: sorry if the language is not perfect.
 
Welcome aboard! Congrats! The FM3 is amazing. Try the Gift of Tone Mikko’s IR with the Marshalls. Also Leon Todd’s LT TV Mix 7 free IR included in Leon’s GOT preset.
 
I've used Kemper, Axe2 and FM3. I think Kemper is on par with Axe2, Axe3/FM3 is better than both. Not just the amp models, it somehow feels higher quality, like flac vs mp3, especially the highs.
 
oskansavli said:
I've used Kemper, Axe2 and FM3. I think Kemper is on par with Axe2, Axe3/FM3 is better than both. Not just the amp models, it somehow feels higher quality, like flac vs mp3, especially the highs.
Click to expand...
My thoughts too. The highs on the kemper are weird, not the great kind of highs I wanted to hear.
Fm3 is much more 3D and feel real. Playing the kemper was like playing a picture of the amp.
It could sounded great but the feel was the same as playing through a dry DI
 
Joshua_L said:
Hi !

Long time tube amp user here, Marshall plexi /cornford kind of guy (even owned a rk100 that belonged to Richie « god » Kotzen).

Due to the conditions of nowadays work and the more and more silent stages required to play I had to downsize a few years ago.

Started by amp + torpedo + pedalboard then a H&K GM40 deluxe + torpedo.

Then decided to go the modern way with a Kemper Stage. I first wanted an fm3 but I couldn’t afford the time of the waiting list back then. So bought the kemper.

Even if I knew it wasn’t gonna be like my amp, I spent 1 year and a half spending countless hours trying to get a tone that would not be stellar but just usable and playable for me and my ears.
Never enjoyed playing it but for the Foh it was not that bad, not awesome, but enough for the sound guys.
But I just couldn’t stand to play the kemper anymore, the cocked wha, compression, attack etc was a big NO for me

So I decided to downsize more, sold it and bought a brand new fm3 last week. I Received it and plugged it a few hours today.

And I just want to say it’s amazing, really

As a Marshall guy, I’m in pure amps heaven.
The dynamic, the feel, it reacts so much as real tube amps. It’s so alive and 3D even dry.

I knew it’s gonna be great but I didn’t expected it will be so great.

After having played through a lot of presets I Tried to create a plexi preset.
In - amp - cab -out , few adjustments here and there and boom 3 minutes later a usable tone. Lead tone? Drive and delay and that’s it … like in the real world.
Not perfect but more than usable, and above all enjoyable for hours.

And I barely even scratched the surface of it.
Effects are stellar.

I’m sure I’m gonna have problems understanding some things soon or gonna go in the IR and infinite combination rabbit hole and lose hours of my life but as long as it can keep a smile on my face like playing amps do, that’s ok for me.

And the myth about Fractal units being complicated and made for nerds is so false lol.
Sure you can, but sure you don’t have to

Long post but just to say I’m more than happy and thanxs to the fas team for making such enjoyable piece of gear.


See you soon for all my futures questions.

Josh.

Ps: sorry if the language is not perfect.
Click to expand...

That's great, Josh. Congrats, and I am not surprised. :)

I was using a Kemper Stage prior to an FM3 3 years ago. I also live on the Marshalls.

Welcome home! :)
 
Joshua_L said:
Hi !

Long time tube amp user here, Marshall plexi /cornford kind of guy (even owned a rk100 that belonged to Richie « god » Kotzen).

Due to the conditions of nowadays work and the more and more silent stages required to play I had to downsize a few years ago.

Started by amp + torpedo + pedalboard then a H&K GM40 deluxe + torpedo.

Then decided to go the modern way with a Kemper Stage. I first wanted an fm3 but I couldn’t afford the time of the waiting list back then. So bought the kemper.

Even if I knew it wasn’t gonna be like my amp, I spent 1 year and a half spending countless hours trying to get a tone that would not be stellar but just usable and playable for me and my ears.
Never enjoyed playing it but for the Foh it was not that bad, not awesome, but enough for the sound guys.
But I just couldn’t stand to play the kemper anymore, the cocked wha, compression, attack etc was a big NO for me

So I decided to downsize more, sold it and bought a brand new fm3 last week. I Received it and plugged it a few hours today.

And I just want to say it’s amazing, really

As a Marshall guy, I’m in pure amps heaven.
The dynamic, the feel, it reacts so much as real tube amps. It’s so alive and 3D even dry.

I knew it’s gonna be great but I didn’t expected it will be so great.

After having played through a lot of presets I Tried to create a plexi preset.
In - amp - cab -out , few adjustments here and there and boom 3 minutes later a usable tone. Lead tone? Drive and delay and that’s it … like in the real world.
Not perfect but more than usable, and above all enjoyable for hours.

And I barely even scratched the surface of it.
Effects are stellar.

I’m sure I’m gonna have problems understanding some things soon or gonna go in the IR and infinite combination rabbit hole and lose hours of my life but as long as it can keep a smile on my face like playing amps do, that’s ok for me.

And the myth about Fractal units being complicated and made for nerds is so false lol.
Sure you can, but sure you don’t have to

Long post but just to say I’m more than happy and thanxs to the fas team for making such enjoyable piece of gear.


See you soon for all my futures questions.

Josh.

Ps: sorry if the language is not perfect.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the club!

Don't be afraid to ask questions, we've all got to start somewhere. When I got my first Fractal, an AX8, the community were great and I was soon unlocking all the capabilities of the unit
The Fractals will do everything you want them to once you learn how to get what you want from them
 
Joshua_L said:
I’m sure I’m gonna have problems understanding some things soon
Click to expand...
Do yourself a favor and take Cooper Carter's masterclass, those 13h will save you months :)


Joshua_L said:
gonna go in the IR and infinite combination rabbit hole
Click to expand...
The Vendors section of the forum has all major IR vendors there and will save you even more hours. You can find York Audio favorite list coming from horse's mouth and save yourself more months!
 
Personally I never had big issues with fractal tweaking. With Kemper, I'd make profiles every time I wanted a new tone, or hope to God I'll find something proper another person has made.. or rely on tweaking profiles, which was far from satisfying for me personally.

From some point on, most of that felt like a waste of time when I could get great results way faster with a modeling approach (at least for amp part).. and have the tone feel better to me under the fingers anyway.

A usual narrative is that Kemper gets the "soul" of amps; something that fractal units supposedly lack. But I saw more uniformity between profiles than fractal amp sims, at least in some ways. Not what I'd expect from the real amps.
 
Last edited:
It is true that you really can get a working sound out of it easily.
But I'm one of the guys who wanna try the options you have if they are there- alle of them :sweatsmile:
So i find myself again and again, tweaking presets to death.

Now I finally hold myself back an use some free presets from Leon Todd or actually some of the Gift of Tone series and bought Austin Buddy presets.

And only do slight adaptions (Controls Switches) and tweaks (other IRs and Speaker thumb and little gain or tone adaptions) and leave the deeper stuff alone.

And hope I can stand, not grabbing the many oter paramaeters again at my working presets and only do this on dedicated "test" or "tweaktodeath" presets in future.:tearsofjoy:
 
raccoon said:
It is true that you really can get a working sound out of it easily.
But I'm one of the guys who wanna try the options you have if they are there- alle of them :sweatsmile:
So i find myself again and again, tweaking presets to death.

Now I finally hold myself back an use some free presets from Leon Todd or actually some of the Gift of Tone series and bought Austin Buddy presets.

And only do slight adaptions (Controls Switches) and tweaks (other IRs and Speaker thumb and little gain or tone adaptions) and leave the deeper stuff alone.

And hope I can stand, not grabbing the many oter paramaeters again at my working presets and only do this on dedicated "test" or "tweaktodeath" presets in future.:tearsofjoy:
Click to expand...
Personally, the basic amp controls typically give me most of what I want, if not all. I'll get into deeper parameters if there's something specific I want to achieve that I'm not getting, and other amp sims aren't better for this.
 
Yes sure...
It is not a complaint what I've wrote.
It is my personal thing to try everything thats possible.
Others only need and want the basic stuff and thats working fine with the FM3.
 
porieux said:
I understand both of those words, but now how they fit together…
Click to expand...
No amps, only in ears. Tue only thing that is making noise is drums. And not always.
Some place also require electronic drums.

I live in France and even on big stages that’s more and more what you have to do to work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom