Fm3 vs Quad Cortex vs Kemper

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ClintN667

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I was thinking of getting another modeler. I had a Kemper boutique 4 or 5 years ago and a quad cortex a little over a year ago. I was thinking if just getting a Kemper now they have liquid profiling, another quad cortex or a fm3. I've never tried any fractal stuff but with the FM3 mk1 reduced to 899 I'm considering just grabbing one of those. I don't really use multi amp routing or a ton of effects. I'm more of a boost amp -reverb-delay -cab kinda guy.

Any of you guys have all 3? If so which did you prefer an why? Another thought is just getting a synergy and keeping the h90. Then grabbing a 2cp and maybe a fryette module or possibly selling my 6505 and getting a 6505 module.

For those of you who have tried either variation of these, let me know your thoughts
 
I have owned all three (well my AxeFX is the rack unit) and to me the Fractal stuff is unquestionably the best. Sure, you can’t profile, but who cares? There’s hundreds of amps and you can get super nitty gritty like adjusting the bias, swapping tubes, negative feedback, etc. You can mess with speaker response curves, tons of incredible microphones that you can now move around, and tons of studio quality effects. The computer interface is simple and limitless and everything can be easily foot controlled. Plus the AxeFX Wiki is badass and will teach you how deep you can go with easy tips and tricks. There’s a reason more pros use the AxeFX over Kemper and QC.

The QC was fun but it just wasn’t there when I had it. No computer interface (now rectified) and the captures weren’t THAT much better than the Kemper. Sure the touchscreen is great but I’d rather just plug it in and use my computer and mouse. The Kemper is just super dated at this point and the interface and computer app feels like 2000’s technology. Taking frozen “snapshots in time” of an amp then overlaying the Kemper gain and EQ always seemed weird to me and all profiles sound artificial to me.

My two cents but a no brainer for Fractal.
 
For me, if you don’t care about capturing a specific amp you own, fractal is a no-brainer. Easily the widest feature-set , tons of amps fx and it’s built in, and most constantly supported even now. If you just want captures quad cortex is getting there although neural still is slow to add features people have wanted for years (which is why I sold mine- felt like they didn’t care about customers the way fractal does). I don’t use any now but if I played live more I’d get a fm9 for sure
 
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hellzington said:
I have owned all three (well my AxeFX is the rack unit) and to me the Fractal stuff is unquestionably the best. Sure, you can’t profile, but who cares? There’s hundreds of amps and you can get super nitty gritty like adjusting the bias, swapping tubes, negative feedback, etc. You can mess with speaker response curves, tons of incredible microphones that you can now move around, and tons of studio quality effects. The computer interface is simple and limitless and everything can be easily foot controlled. Plus the AxeFX Wiki is badass and will teach you how deep you can go with easy tips and tricks. There’s a reason more pros use the AxeFX over Kemper and QC.

The QC was fun but it just wasn’t there when I had it. No computer interface (now rectified) and the captures weren’t THAT much better than the Kemper. Sure the touchscreen is great but I’d rather just plug it in and use my computer and mouse. The Kemper is just super dated at this point and the interface and computer app feels like 2000’s technology. Taking frozen “snapshots in time” of an amp then overlaying the Kemper gain and EQ always seemed weird to me and all profiles sound artificial to me.

My two cents but a no brainer for Fractal.
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second all of this
 
Yeah I can dial in a model to get my sound so a profile isn't that important
 
I have had all 3! I prefer the axe because I think it sounds best
 
I've had a Kemper and the FM3, along with Helix, headrush and several others and the FM3 blows everything out of the water IMO. The headphone tones for silent practice are amazing and playing through an 8" monitor sounds like a 4x12.. get two for stereo. I also play through a power amp and 4x12 and can't tell the difference between my 2204 and Fractals.. I probably like Fractals a little better because I can use more effects with it and I have a stereo cab.
 
I have the FM9 and an FM3, and used to have the AXEIII as well as a Kemper rig but can't comment on the Quad. In any event, its hard to go wrong with the Fractal stuff unless you are prone to spend all your time moving super-deep edits by 1%-2% and therefore driving yourself insane. If you don't need a lot of out-of-the-box switching, the FM3 is super bang for your buck. Despite the hundreds of amp models they have, I could live with just a few and one or two of the drives and simple effects. Today, as a matter of fact, I discovered the JS410 (the Satriani JVM amp) model...there's so many Marshall amps in there that I've overlooked this one but saw a video on YouTube and can't believe how great is.
 
Rayneman said:
I have the FM9 and an FM3, and used to have the AXEIII as well as a Kemper rig but can't comment on the Quad. In any event, its hard to go wrong with the Fractal stuff unless you are prone to spend all your time moving super-deep edits by 1%-2% and therefore driving yourself insane. If you don't need a lot of out-of-the-box switching, the FM3 is super bang for your buck. Despite the hundreds of amp models they have, I could live with just a few and one or two of the drives and simple effects. Today, as a matter of fact, I discovered the JS410 (the Satriani JVM amp) model...there's so many Marshall amps in there that I've overlooked this one but saw a video on YouTube and can't believe how great is.
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What video?
 
I own all three of them and they each have their place.

I don't believe any of them sound better or feel as good as (or better) than a tube amp.

They can sound fine/good at low volumes like a tube amp but turning up the volume to band volume will make them sound more thin and digital.

The Fractal stuff is pretty good for having a lot of amp/effect options but it has never felt similar to playing through a tube amp (I have owned (and still own) every one of their products since the Ultra). The amp tones can be a hit/miss depending upon the amp model. The effects are pretty good. I have found it is always best to purchase IR's for the Fractal stuff since it seems to always make a huge difference.

The Kemper feels more like a tube amp and I like having the front amp dials on the Kemper (the AX8 has similar dialing options), and I found I prefer the raw captures where I add my own IR over the processed ones (the captures with amp/cab). The effects work well enough for me.

The Quad Cortex was mainly purchased for eventually hosting their plugins since they sound killer and will probably be my Go-To for recording once they have finalized the hosting of their plugins. The effects are fine for me. The screen is definitely cool for fast adjustments.
 
Love the Fractal modelers.

I have an Axe FX III and hardly ever turn on my Friedman BE 100 Deluxe. If the market wasn’t so bad for selling, I would sell it.
 
I'm completely sold on Fractal for the effects alone. It can do a bang-on 2290, SDE3000, Tri-chorus, tons of verbs - it's basically like having a rack full of high end studio-grade gear. I'm not a modeling guy, but I use one just as a FX processor in my main rig.

That said, the models are just as good as anything else on the market. Main drawback is there's a bit of a learning curve and you pretty much need to use the laptop editor to tweak anything.
 
OK so I am going to try to sell my H90 and either get an FM3 or maybe a used Kemper. The QC was cool when I had it but a friend of mine has said he had hear a lot about them breaking down lately. Don't know how true that is but I'm going to take his word for it

The H90 is really cool and sounds good but good God it's a headache to set something up. Maybe that's just me. Plus I really wish it had a mobile app.
 
ClintN667 said:
OK so I am going to try to sell my H90 and either get an FM3 or maybe a used Kemper. The QC was cool when I had it but a friend of mine has said he had hear a lot about them breaking down lately. Don't know how true that is but I'm going to take his word for it
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There’s a lot of truth to that. Like an absurd amount of truth and I’m really, really, really curious to see how long they can sustain it for. They’ve got a shitload of users on their 2nd and 3rd units. A recent poll on the FB group showed about 1/3rd of the users have had to return the unit and then that post disappeared. You can see some of the issues here- https://unity.neuraldsp.com/c/quad-cortex/qc-bug-reports/19

What’s shitty about it is that there are 3 known issues that require the unit getting returned to Finland and there’s been zero official word from NDSP about it. Crackling outputs that pops up at random, sending static-y distortion through all the outputs that requires a connector board replacement, the blue lights of death that I think is the SD card getting moved and the volume wheel issue where unless the volume wheel is set to 100, it’ll jump back and forth between two different volumes. The only way you know these are the solutions is by the customers telling other customers.

None of the other companies deal with shit like that. I know at some point I’ll snag a Kemper for shits and giggles. I tried the ToneX software and the capture thing isn’t for me, but I think with a mature platform like Kemper I could find some cool stuff without spending forever searching through bullshit profiles. I’m so used to Fractal at this point I’m all set with modeling and have no interest in anything else. They just updated the spring reverbs and while I normally do chugga chugga shit, I can get lost in these tones all day-



And now with the DynaCabs, I spent all of 60-90 seconds making that preset. Reverb-Vibroverb-Bassman Dynacab, I moved the mic around for a second, turned the gain down and I was done. Unless you’re making crazy presets with tricky routing/multiple channels, the tweak time these days is quite minimal.
 
FM3 for me, and I’ve owned a Kemper as well. Been gigging with the FM3 a ton and love it!
 
I’d go FM3 or FM9. Never cared for kemper. Sounds like QC has QC issues which is a huge problem when the whole purpose of going solidstate modeling is to get away from maintenance requirements of vacuum tube amps.
 
The interesting thing about the kemper is liquid profiling plus you can get them fairly cheap now. I've been using the Helix Native and neural plug-ins for a bit. I've never tried the Fractal stuff so I'm interested in one. I'm hoping to have my bonus check soon so I'm hoping to get a FM3 and maybe a rhoads or some other v.
 
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