Anyone tried a Fractal FM9 or Axe FX?

Haven't yet tried a Fractal, but I'm planning to get an FM3 at some point soon - I far prefer the workflow and methodology of modelers, being able to dial in your own tone from scratch, however any I've tried in the past (mostly software based) have fallen short in terms realistic tone and feel. Hence why I got a Kemper. Which certainly captures realistic tones, and feels right, but it can be hard to find specific tones you're after, depending on what works with your pickups etc. And I really don't like the "buy-to-try" business model of profile sellers - everyone seems to agree you have to try (e.g. buy!) a lot of profiles to find probably just a few that work for you, so it follows that all these companies make far more money from unsatisfied customers than satisfied ones. I'm at a point where I've bought more profiles than I care to think about, and though only a very small percentage of these have worked for me, I do now have a good selection of some really excellent sounds (mostly DI plus IR's) - BUT every now and then I need a certain sound for a certain mix, or just want to try a different amp, and there's no getting round the long/frustrating/potentially expensive search for something that works.

Hence why planning to add a modeler to my home studio. Fractal seems to be widely acknowledged as the best modeler when it comes to realism and feel, so if I'm going to compare anything to the Kemper, this seems the way to go.

The plan is to keep the Kemper tho - I think I'd miss the sounds I've found for this over the years. But unless Liquid profiling really improves the tweakability of profiles, I've pretty much had it with disappointing profile-pack purchases - so for me, a modeler is the way forward to expand my "tone library". Will probably work out cheaper in the long run as well!!

Quote from alligatorlizard

Hence why planning to add a modeler to my home studio. Fractal seems to be widely acknowledged as the best modeler when it comes to realism and feel,

i own the Kemper Stage Fractal Axe 3 and the QC,in my opinion and experience using Fractal since 2014,Fractal is not the best modeler in the market on these days,Helix,Headrush,QC are awesome modelers

Fractal is a great sounding unit but i enjoy more playing with my Kemper,Fractal FX are pretty good,but im really happy with Kemper FX

NAM,Tonex,Helix Native,Plugin Allience,Neural DSP,Softube Amp Room,Guitar ML Proteus,are awesome amp plugins

I have rarely used a stock paid or free profile stock in 11 years.

Dive in deeper and tune the profile to your taste, guitar and ears, there is heaps to explore.

It will be no different to the Axe.

Cab Lo and hi shift, character.

Definition (a forum favourite)

Amp compression

Clarity

EQ (obvious)

Tube bias, pick, tube shape.

If you haven’t explored these and more you are likely to be disappointed.

Know your tools.

I know you are asking about comparisons with an FM-9 but this is my experience with the FM-3. The main thing I can suggest is you just have to try it. Having owned the Stage before I got my FM-3 I may not have known any different. I can get great sounds from the FM-3 and had I not already had the Stage I probably would be happy with the FM-3. It just came down to matter of preference for me. A combination of form factor and ease of use. Both are really great at what they do.

Quote from Delinquent

I have rarely used a stock paid or free profile stock in 11 years.

Dive in deeper and tune the profile to your taste, guitar and ears, there is heaps to explore.

It will be no different to the Axe.

Cab Lo and hi shift, character.

Definition (a forum favourite)

Amp compression

Clarity

EQ (obvious)

Tube bias, pick, tube shape.

If you haven’t explored these and more you are likely to be disappointed.

Know your tools.

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I was never happy an bought some paid profiles, was still not happy. I do not use one single paid profile only my own. There has not been one profile live that feels right an real to me they all have this 2d cardboard thing goin on. I really dont know how they get away with it. Esp moneyjunkie. i think people have forgoten what a real amp in a room sounds like. Yes, everyone should buy a kemper DI an make there own. Definition, an cab pre tab are my favs at mo.

Not used fractal at all - so why am I commenting?

Just a general point here.....Fractal, Helix, Kemper, QC....all brilliant units, none of them perfect, with slight bias's. None of them is objectively better. The key is always in the set up and can you get your sound as quickly as possible. Some people never find their sound on the KPA, other's find it instantly. Its just who we are...

Fractal is know to have the edge on effects and flexibility with routing and deep editing, but to my mind offers too many options - I'm not a tweaker, plus I love the KPA eco system (power rack and Kabinet)....so will you like it? My view is its 50% sound and 50% psychological. If you want to like and it and get on with with then you will like it. Also, a change is as a good as a rest etc....

For me its like a guitar, I buy my guitars 95% due to looks because they are all generally good quality. None of them will make me a better player, I will still sound like me (mediocre), its about how I feel when I play. It took me months ( and people telling me what a great sound I had ) to convince myself my sound is great. I've never trusted my own ears...

I had a friend that I used to do some car track days with....he spent more and more money on his car and finally came to realization that the limitation wasn't the car, it was his driving and he wasn't even close to using the cars full potential, but he was trying to "buy" better performance. I took the opposite route - I just enjoyed the car I had, comfy in my mind with its limitations.

For some reason the KPA has cured my GAS though. I have no interest in replacing my KPA as it does what I need so I was able to stop "hunting" for perfection.

Its so subjective that I guess you are looking for some confirmation as its a big purchase. I say go for it because you won't know until you try it. The sounds are in the KPA but if you are not feeling it, then you have to try an alternative.

Not sure if that helps

I sold my fm9 turbo because it was not realistically better than my Helix. The fm9 is much too expensive. I bought a great Tele with the money and dunt regret it. Kemper's amps sounds are easier to get and still better. This being said, is the fm9 good? Yes, it is. Is it worth the money? You decide. I say no.

I have a FM3 and like it very much. Getting great tones out of it. I am thinking about getting a ToneX to combine with the FM3.

Other than the FM3 I have my Kemper stage. Both are getting roughly the same play time.

Both are great units. If I had to get rid of one, I wouldn't know which would have to go...

Quote from goldensheaf

I was never happy an bought some paid profiles, was still not happy. I do not use one single paid profile only my own. There has not been one profile live that feels right an real to me they all have this 2d cardboard thing goin on. I really dont know how they get away with it. Esp moneyjunkie. i think people have forgoten what a real amp in a room sounds like. Yes, everyone should buy a kemper DI an make there own. Definition, an cab pre tab are my favs at mo.

I don’t want to be argumentative, but I’m a little tired of people putting shit on ToneJunkie.

Yes the guy runs a business that feeds his family, he has a somewhat polarising effect that puts some off, but -

You tell me who is more experienced diving in to a large assortment of amps and profiling them.

His commitment to the Kemper community is second to none, loads of free stuff and loads of how to videos yet keyboard warriors spit in his face.

Just a day or two ago he announced he was stepping from other devices to concentrate on Kemper because he still feels it’s the best.

If his profiles don’t suit that’s fine but I doubt his profiles are the problem.

Quote from Delinquent

I don’t want to be argumentative, but I’m a little tired of people putting shit on ToneJunkie.

Yes the guy runs a business that feeds his family, he has a somewhat polarising effect that puts some off, but -

You tell me who is more experienced diving in to a large assortment of amps and profiling them.

His commitment to the Kemper community is second to none, loads of free stuff and loads of how to videos yet keyboard warriors spit in his face.

Just a day or two ago he announced he was stepping from other devices to concentrate on Kemper because he still feels it’s the best.

If his profiles don’t suit that’s fine but I doubt his profiles are the problem

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Do you want his full pack? You can have mine

Quote from BavidDrent

Awesome ,cheers! yeah me too with the fed up of dissapointing profile pack purchases.

Just out of interest, what profiles would you recommend?

Well first of all, I pretty much gave up on studio profiles a while back - too many variables all have to be right - however when I started trying DI (or merged) profiles with IR's (mainly celestion) I finally started getting the sounds I was after. Essentially, it's easier to find a DI profile where the amp settings are at least in the ballpark of what you want, than a studio one where the cab/speaker/mic/mic-placement choice all has to be right too. So the DI (and/or merged) profiles I've got the best tones from would be Choptones and Guidorist, TMS not bad either. All very hit and miss though - Choptones has a wide selection of DI only packs, but they're all a bit pricey, and I kind of resent the amount I've had to spend just to get a few good tones - nonetheless, their Rockerverb, Fender Princeton, and Brit Plexy (1959) are some of my favs. Guidorist, also hit and miss, but his HiWatt pack contains some of my all-time favourite tones, and a few other of his packs have worked well too - at least these profiles are so cheap, I can't complain too much about the misses!

It does all depend on gtr/pickups tho, hence different ones might work for you - and I would say that many of the ones that haven't worked for me are still good profiles - they sound like real amps, just amps where the tone controls are set vastly differently than what suits my pickups! Again, maybe Liquid profiling will improve things here.

Quote from Delinquent

I have rarely used a stock paid or free profile stock in 11 years.

Dive in deeper and tune the profile to your taste, guitar and ears, there is heaps to explore.

It will be no different to the Axe.

Cab Lo and hi shift, character.

Definition (a forum favourite)

Amp compression

Clarity

EQ (obvious)

Tube bias, pick, tube shape.

If you haven’t explored these and more you are likely to be disappointed.

Know your tools.

Display More

In case any of this is aimed at my reply above, you wouldn't believe how deeply I've dived into all the parameters on the Kemper... And what I've concluded (as have many others btw) is that essentially there's only so much you can do if the profile is not already pretty much in the ballpark tonally - yes, you can EQ, pre and post amp, till it sounds balanced, but if it was way off in the first place, it's not going to sound much like a real amp anymore once you've applied more than a certain amount of EQ. What the Kemper's various parameters are good for is refining an already good-sounding profile into a really perfect one. On the profiles I use a lot, I'll adjust (if necessary) every single parameter available (starting with Definition) until I find the sweet spots, I use studio EQ before the amp stack to optimise the signal going in (including level), broad stokes with the amp stack EQ, then much more detailed final EQ (and filters) in the DAW.

And all this is very different to a modeler - fundamentally, in a modeller, you can set the amps tone controls in a way that simulates how a real amp would react (depending on how good the modeler is of course), so a basic amp tone is very easy to dial up as long as you've got half-decent ears. With Kemper profiles, you're always working with a tone someone else has dialed in to suit their gtr/pickups/tastes. If you're lucky, you'll find some where their settings are very close to what you'd ideally dial in on the same amp. Then, the Kemper can sound glorious, and all the parameters you mention and more can help refine it further to you needs, and subtle EQ works very well for idealising the tone. But finding these golden profiles is the tricky bit, and they'll be different ones for different people, so recommendations and audio demos only go so far.

Liquid profiling might improve things. An online (or part of rig manager) marketplace where you can actually try the profiles before buying would at least cut down the cost if not the time spent searching. Also, if profiling companies included more tonal variations (e.g. per gain range captured), that would make profile-buying a lot less risky.

Of course all this pertains to using the Kemper with 3rd party profiles (which I believe the majority of users do) - I imagine if you make your own profiles you would have none of these issues!

Quote from alligatorlizard

In case any of this is aimed at my reply above, you wouldn't believe how deeply I've dived into all the parameters on the Kemper... And what I've concluded (as have many others btw) is that essentially there's only so much you can do if the profile is not already pretty much in the ballpark tonally - yes, you can EQ, pre and post amp, till it sounds balanced, but if it was way off in the first place, it's not going to sound much like a real amp anymore once you've applied more than a certain amount of EQ. What the Kemper's various parameters are good for is refining an already good-sounding profile into a really perfect one. On the profiles I use a lot, I'll adjust (if necessary) every single parameter available (starting with Definition) until I find the sweet spots, I use studio EQ before the amp stack to optimise the signal going in (including level), broad stokes with the amp stack EQ, then much more detailed final EQ (and filters) in the DAW.

And all this is very different to a modeler - fundamentally, in a modeller, you can set the amps tone controls in a way that simulates how a real amp would react (depending on how good the modeler is of course), so a basic amp tone is very easy to dial up as long as you've got half-decent ears. With Kemper profiles, you're always working with a tone someone else has dialed in to suit their gtr/pickups/tastes. If you're lucky, you'll find some where their settings are very close to what you'd ideally dial in on the same amp. Then, the Kemper can sound glorious, and all the parameters you mention and more can help refine it further to you needs, and subtle EQ works very well for idealising the tone. But finding these golden profiles is the tricky bit, and they'll be different ones for different people, so recommendations and audio demos only go so far.

Liquid profiling might improve things. An online (or part of rig manager) marketplace where you can actually try the profiles before buying would at least cut down the cost if not the time spent searching. Also, if profiling companies included more tonal variations (e.g. per gain range captured), that would make profile-buying a lot less risky.

Of course all this pertains to using the Kemper with 3rd party profiles (which I believe the majority of users do) - I imagine if you make your own profiles you would have none of these issues!

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Quote from alligatorlizard

In case any of this is aimed at my reply above, you wouldn't believe how deeply I've dived into all the parameters on the Kemper... And what I've concluded (as have many others btw) is that essentially there's only so much you can do if the profile is not already pretty much in the ballpark tonally - yes, you can EQ, pre and post amp, till it sounds balanced, but if it was way off in the first place, it's not going to sound much like a real amp anymore once you've applied more than a certain amount of EQ. What the Kemper's various parameters are good for is refining an already good-sounding profile into a really perfect one. On the profiles I use a lot, I'll adjust (if necessary) every single parameter available (starting with Definition) until I find the sweet spots, I use studio EQ before the amp stack to optimise the signal going in (including level), broad stokes with the amp stack EQ, then much more detailed final EQ (and filters) in the DAW.

And all this is very different to a modeler - fundamentally, in a modeller, you can set the amps tone controls in a way that simulates how a real amp would react (depending on how good the modeler is of course), so a basic amp tone is very easy to dial up as long as you've got half-decent ears. With Kemper profiles, you're always working with a tone someone else has dialed in to suit their gtr/pickups/tastes. If you're lucky, you'll find some where their settings are very close to what you'd ideally dial in on the same amp. Then, the Kemper can sound glorious, and all the parameters you mention and more can help refine it further to you needs, and subtle EQ works very well for idealising the tone. But finding these golden profiles is the tricky bit, and they'll be different ones for different people, so recommendations and audio demos only go so far.

Liquid profiling might improve things. An online (or part of rig manager) marketplace where you can actually try the profiles before buying would at least cut down the cost if not the time spent searching. Also, if profiling companies included more tonal variations (e.g. per gain range captured), that would make profile-buying a lot less risky.

Of course all this pertains to using the Kemper with 3rd party profiles (which I believe the majority of users do) - I imagine if you make your own profiles you would have none of these issues!

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Agreed, marketplace and liquid profiles could improve matters but as an experienced player I assume your aware of the basic tonalities of amps and how the cabinet/IR/mic and it’s placement are 90% of the equation.

This is exactly why the better commercial profiles will offer so many variations on a single amp for a starting point.

This of course can be done on the Axe which is a great device just a different and I honestly don’t see it as better, just different.

Quote from goldensheaf

Do you want his full pack? You can have mine

No thanks, haven’t invested heavily in profiles and yet the ones I have should last out my life as I see it, sorry the experience has not been the same for you.

I was on my way to save some money for a fractal but then kemper came and it was cheaper and I could order one or wait 6 months for a fractal unit. The choice was easy and if I didn't like it I could return it back to thomann. But I would like to try a fractal some day. Buy one? No. I'm satisfied with my kemper. I've also purchased profiles pack and been dissapointed 'casue like only one or two of them was good for me. My best purchase was Colin Richardson's rig pack. The man is a legend producer and now his stuff. I purchased it cheaper though during a sale.

Even if I don't like a pack I bought, I don't regret it. It just means that I supported a person that might deliver my next pack that I do like. I have saved SO much money just using the Kemper in the first place.

Quote from musicmad

Even if I don't like a pack I bought, I don't regret it. It just mean that I supported a person that might deliver my next pack that I do like. I have saved SO much money just using the Kemper in the first place.

Yep, this!

(says the person who owns literally everything from TJ, MB, BM and many more but only uses very few profiles, regularly. What madness).

Also: In my experience, if you are not able to "find" good profiles you will also fall into an endless tweaking rabbit hole with a modeller. It really isn't that difficult to find good profiles, imho. Go with the amps you like and start from there. There are so unbelievably many good profiles, even the factory profiles are better than any modeller, imo. Guitarists should better be able to play guitar, though, there are no profiles for bad playing.