Kemper Stage vs Fractal FM3 Thoughts

[Chris6542]

Having had the Kemper Stage for about 6 months, I was curious how the Fractal FM3 would compare, and recently found a nice deal on a clean FM3 used, made the purchase. First, two terrific products, and two very different visions & approaches. First the FM3, what an exquisite piece of engineering. Pics and videos don't do it justice, what a beautiful little unit, compact, big bright screen, rubberized face and knobs, feels super durable, great interface and menu structure, not complicated to use like I thought, all in all, just a wonderful piece of engineering. Hold an FM3 in your hands and you will get it, great engineering. The Kemper Stage, impressive in its own way, more foot switches, but not as intuitive lacking the big screen of the FM3. The Stage isn't nearly as intuitive as the FM3, but once you get used to it, it works well. Two great machines for sure, and two very different visions of design. On tones....I do a lot of recording to multitrack then listen back, analyzing tones. Clean tones a tie pretty much, perhaps Kemper by a hair. Effects, both quality and options, the Fractal. In overdrive tones, it's the Kemper. The FM3 sounds terrific in all aspects, an amazing little machine well worth the $800-$900 they command used, however, on purity of overdriven tones, nothing beats the Kemper. The Kemper overdrive tones are astonishing, so perfect, so organic, balanced, with depth, just so impressive you end up staring at your speaker cab. A Kemper on a good overdrive capture is unmatched by any other machine, its top dog when it comes to overdrives. Now, what's the difference in overdrive quality btw the two, perhaps 3-5% IMHO, not much really, but head and shoulders (surely with the Quad Cortex) above the B-Tier of modelers. I have a POD GO as a backup and while its a killer value at $350 new now, it's not in this tier on tones whatsoever, a big, big gap. You get what you pay for. Now, which machine would I keep, really tough question. Acknowledging just how perfect those Kemper overdrive tones are, I would probably choose the FM3, with it's unmatched form factor, small size, ease of use, top effects, and excellent overdrives (just not quite to the level of the Kemper). The design and entire package of the FM3 is so terrific. I happen to have a Headrush Prime as well, a very interesting unit that has it's own mojo. It does sound great, but in its own way, with its own personality, a very unique sounding unit. In a way, the Prime inspires me more on songwriting with it's unique, but still high quality tones. All gear has contributions to make. The Prime would be the A- tier to the A tier of Fractal, Kemper, and QC, then B tier value priced stuff well under it. So, those are my thoughts on these two models, both terrific, both super impressive, just very different visions of the final product. You can't go wrong with either. Cheers.

[Mincer]

Thank you for the review. As an FM3 user, I think I really need to sit down with a Kemper. On the Stage, can you do profiling?

[misterwhizzy]

Holy block of text, Batman.

[chadd]

Thank you for the review. As an FM3 user, I think I really need to sit down with a Kemper. On the Stage, can you do profiling?

Yes, you can.

I love my kemper, but didn't buy mine until the PC based rig manager was available. Now that you can do use a tablet with a stage, I'd consider one of them as well. The interface isn't terrible, but it's so much easier to do "big" things with a touch screen or computer on the Kemper.

[Mincer]

I know they just came out with the tiny floor Kemper which can only store profiles and only has 3 switches, I think.

[chadd]

I know they just came out with the tiny floor Kemper which can only store profiles and only has 3 switches, I think.

It has more features than I expected, but I think it will be hard to justify a Player versus a used Stage. I love my powered head, but I could definitely live with a stage.

[Mincer]

Rumor is that the FM3 has at least 1 big update left in it.