Kemper user here who just got an FM3 - blown away

Jimmykonsta

Member
Hello everyone and nice to meet you!

A couple of days ago the Fm3 was delivered at my door and...all the problems I've had with the Kemper suddenly dissapeared!

My initial intention was to get the Fm3 as something more portable (I have the toaster), and maybe get some extra tones I can hear at some demos which I couldn't quite get with the Kemper. But it turned out much better than I expected.

The noise gate is awesome, it doesn't kill your transient or sustain, the effects are much better (finally a great and musical reverb), the editor is super fast, light and works with win7 (which Kemper editor doesnt).

And the tones? Omg the tones! It's like having the best of the best profiles of every amp, but you can also tweak them as much as you like without getting unnatural results. There is no cocked wah effect anymore which I couldn't get rid of in half the Kemper profiles, the sound is much more 3D, amp-like and open, and the feel/response is as good as in the kemper.

The stomps are doing what actual stomps are supposed to do and inside one preset I can basically dial in a whole lot of my favourite profiles but with better tone and more possibilities ☺️ I had been searching for years for the best Marshall, Fender, Boogie and Vox tones but with the kemper there was always something missing.

And of course, the icing on the cake, it's more affordable and more portable.

I thought that Kemper and Fractal products were on the same league, but not anymore! I should had bought a Fractal modeller years ago!
 
the best part is - it's always getting better. They are constantly updating and improving and it is obvious that it is driven by a pure lust/passion for great tone. While other companies ignore known bugs... fractal is not only listening to the community and fixing them, but constantly adding new features??? My heros.
 
I still go back and forth between the modelling on the Axe III/FM3 vs Kemper. For some reason, the Kemper sits ever-so-slightly better in mixes I've done (which are admittedly crap, I'm a novice). A really good profile sounds and feels as good as the Axe III/FM3 IMO, but the ability to tweak faithfully makes me lean toward the Axe if I want to play a certain amp type and tweak. The Axe sounds amazing all the time, whereas there are a LOT of crap profiles out there.

Having said all this, I'm very much looking forward to hearing/playing Cygnus.
 
Kemper sits ever-so-slightly better in mixes
There's some pretty good distorted sounds but the clean and breakup sounds are total trash. They might have the frequency response but there is zero dynamics and if you pick too hard where the signal crosses the "knee" there's a huge peak in output, which someone could potentially mistake for dynamics.
Before fw14 I thought Kemper was pretty neato and to be fair I do enjoy the heavier tones, but there's just no contest. I'm not selling my Kemper but seriously, just play with the input dynamics knob on the Axe and tell me they're on the same level.
 
Kemper was cool at first to me too - but it did get tiresome trying to find a good profile. I did really like their effects minus the drives - they just sit nicely and aren't harsh or anything.
 
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