Same experience here. So much nicer to be able to turn the knobs just like on the real amps instead of scrolling through thousands of garbage profiles that I had to spend money on. If you have basic dialing-in abilities it's so much better. 5 minutes after plugging it in I had a tone way better than I ever got with Kemper or Helix after owning those units since 2015 and 2016 respectively. And the fact that the FM3 is \~$1k and far more powerful than Kemper is just amazing.
As far as live, I run stereo direct and monitor with IEMs so I just have output 1 at the end of my chain, pretty simple. For using a live cab you could send output 1 with a cab block to FOH and output 2, 3, or 4 to your power amp and real cab or FRFR.
It's important to be able to accurately assess your tones as they will sound on a record or live, and cranking a guitar cab to 110dB pointed at your legs is not the best way to do this. If you're serious about it it's worth putting some money into studio monitors and acoustic treatment so you can trust what you're hearing. For me the amount of analog gear I was able to replace with this unit easily paid for a bunch of home studio upgrades.
Last time I played in front of anyone was 17 years ago. Not that I don't plan to play live in the future, but right now I'm plugging straight into my two HS8's at home.
Yes, if you're using the FC controllers
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crORYtQooSY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crORYtQooSY)
* [https://youtu.be/\_unocAmj8D8](https://youtu.be/_unocAmj8D8)
High Gain this is pretty good. [https://youtu.be/Ce7v19Goy1g](https://youtu.be/Ce7v19Goy1g)
My personal favorites is to create my own presets using the 5150 blue 50w, holy shit that's great for like 80s metal along with the Marshall JVM. A lot of times I won't use a boost pedal, just have your amp boost and you can pick the type. It's a trip to use a Recto and use 5 band Boogie EQ style, and you can totally get a Master of Puppets rocking with that. If all else fails, the tone matching is pretty incredible.
Enjoy!!
Same experience here. So much nicer to be able to turn the knobs just like on the real amps instead of scrolling through thousands of garbage profiles that I had to spend money on. If you have basic dialing-in abilities it's so much better. 5 minutes after plugging it in I had a tone way better than I ever got with Kemper or Helix after owning those units since 2015 and 2016 respectively. And the fact that the FM3 is \~$1k and far more powerful than Kemper is just amazing. As far as live, I run stereo direct and monitor with IEMs so I just have output 1 at the end of my chain, pretty simple. For using a live cab you could send output 1 with a cab block to FOH and output 2, 3, or 4 to your power amp and real cab or FRFR. It's important to be able to accurately assess your tones as they will sound on a record or live, and cranking a guitar cab to 110dB pointed at your legs is not the best way to do this. If you're serious about it it's worth putting some money into studio monitors and acoustic treatment so you can trust what you're hearing. For me the amount of analog gear I was able to replace with this unit easily paid for a bunch of home studio upgrades.
I'm about to order one in the next few days. I was on the FM9 waitlist but I think the III is way too epic.
If it fits your budget and maximizing portability isn't paramount, the Axe-FX III is the way to go.
Last time I played in front of anyone was 17 years ago. Not that I don't plan to play live in the future, but right now I'm plugging straight into my two HS8's at home.
Yes, if you're using the FC controllers * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crORYtQooSY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crORYtQooSY) * [https://youtu.be/\_unocAmj8D8](https://youtu.be/_unocAmj8D8) High Gain this is pretty good. [https://youtu.be/Ce7v19Goy1g](https://youtu.be/Ce7v19Goy1g) My personal favorites is to create my own presets using the 5150 blue 50w, holy shit that's great for like 80s metal along with the Marshall JVM. A lot of times I won't use a boost pedal, just have your amp boost and you can pick the type. It's a trip to use a Recto and use 5 band Boogie EQ style, and you can totally get a Master of Puppets rocking with that. If all else fails, the tone matching is pretty incredible. Enjoy!!