On the fence between Kemper Profiling Amp and Axe FX II

Quote from zentman

Not much objectivity in the two posts above. So it goes in fanboy land. To the OP, see who in the pros is using what and find out why. Listen to albums made by either unit. Again I will state, with much objectivity, you can't go wrong with either. Despite what fanboys from either camp might type, it isn't as black and white as they might have you believe.

"After each firmwareupdate are most - in many hours tweaked - sounds not useable and the patches have to be tweaked again."

The above is laughable at best. Of course if you go to the Fractal forum and follow the same OP's thread, you'll see some laughable stuff about the Kemper from Fractal fanboys as well. People want to be right even at the cost of credibility.

EDIT: I just read the whole thread at Fractal. Of course it leans toward the Axe (duh) but there seems to be more balance as to Kemper opinions. Not much trash talk or internet meme stuff. Actually, many very positive posts on the Kemper product. Surprising but gives me hope in humanity. I'll show myself the door now.

Display More

Quote from zentman

Not much objectivity in the two posts above. So it goes in fanboy land. To the OP, see who in the pros is using what and find out why. Listen to albums made by either unit. Again I will state, with much objectivity, you can't go wrong with either. Despite what fanboys from either camp might type, it isn't as black and white as they might have you believe.

"After each firmwareupdate are most - in many hours tweaked - sounds not useable and the patches have to be tweaked again."

The above is laughable at best. Of course if you go to the Fractal forum and follow the same OP's thread, you'll see some laughable stuff about the Kemper from Fractal fanboys as well. People want to be right even at the cost of credibility.

EDIT: I just read the whole thread at Fractal. Of course it leans toward the Axe (duh) but there seems to be more balance as to Kemper opinions. Not much trash talk or internet meme stuff. Actually, many very positive posts on the Kemper product. Surprising but gives me hope in humanity. I'll show myself the door now.

Display More

Seems pretty obvious you are a Fractal shill.

Quote from Animus

Seems pretty obvious you are a Fractal shill.

Quotes from this thread written by me, the shill:

"I have often typed, if you can't get a great sound out of either , then you are doing something wrong. I could easily gig either. If I owned a studio and had to copy amps, I'd get a Kemper. If I was strictly live player (and I am) the Axe works as I get a whole bunch of effects to do my Floyd/U2 type stuff. That doesn't mean it's better, it just means it suits my purposes"

"To the OP, see who in the pros is using what and find out why. Listen to albums made by either unit. Again I will state, with much objectivity, you can't go wrong with either. Despite what fanboys from either camp might type, it isn't as black and white as they might have you believe."

"Here it is again in plain English: Either unit is capable of great sound. Either unit can be used in a professional setting and both currently are by some huge names. You just can't go wrong with either choice. "

and

"I think the Kemper is the most revolutionary product I have ever seen. The way it gets it's sounds blows my mind. It does so perfectly. What's not to love about that? I use an Axe because I am one of those spacey tone guys and therefore it suits my needs. "

Yep, sounds like a shill to me. The only negativity I brought to the thread was to rebuke those spreading what you kids call "FUD" .

Quote from zentman

[quote='Animus','index.php?page=Thread&postID=101682#post101682']Seems pretty obvious you are a Fractal shill.

Quotes from this thread written by me, the shill:

"I have often typed, if you can't get a great sound out of either , then you are doing something wrong. I could easily gig either. If I owned a studio and had to copy amps, I'd get a Kemper. If I was strictly live player (and I am) the Axe works as I get a whole bunch of effects to do my Floyd/U2 type stuff. That doesn't mean it's better, it just means it suits my purposes"

"To the OP, see who in the pros is using what and find out why. Listen to albums made by either unit. Again I will state, with much objectivity, you can't go wrong with either. Despite what fanboys from either camp might type, it isn't as black and white as they might have you believe."

"Here it is again in plain English: Either unit is capable of great sound. Either unit can be used in a professional setting and both currently are by some huge names. You just can't go wrong with either choice. "

and

"I think the Kemper is the most revolutionary product I have ever seen. The way it gets it's sounds blows my mind. It does so perfectly. What's not to love about that? I use an Axe because I am one of those spacey tone guys and therefore it suits my needs. "

Yeah, you said that later on in the thread before I had read it. Do you actually own a Kemper? I know you have a Axe.

Zent,

This forum is about the Kemper. This forum is not about you, your ideas or your sent.

Please start your own forum on the net where you can endlesly shout your opinions or whatever.

It is so f&@ing boring!

ZENTMAN= plock plock !!!!!

Quote from DADA

Zent,

This forum is about the Kemper. This forum is not about you, your ideas or your sent.

Please start your own forum on the net where you can endlesly shout your opinions or whatever.

It is so f&@ing boring!

Display More

I'm sorry Dada, this is a public section of the forum. My opinions in this thread are as valid as any. I have played both units and I am a very seasoned player. If you would like to censor anyone you do not like you should write to the site admin. I believe I spoke very positively about the product this forum represents. As a matter of fact Dada, I have never posted anything but praise for the Kemper product on 4 different forums.

I have even suggested it to personal friends who I thought it would be good for, including the worship leader at my church who likes my Axe but doesn't need all the effects I do. I told him to get the Kemper. I brought it up at HCAF before it was even released and touted it as the next big thing two years ago.

I suggest that all owners of kemper give 1 euro each to buy a kemper for ZENTMAN
so he became our friend
and can no longer speak ill of our device

sorry for my english

Quote from loulou222

I suggest that all owners of kemper give 1 euro each to buy a kemper for ZENTMAN
so he became our friend
and can no longer speak ill of our device

sorry for my english

I have NEVER spoken ill of the Kemper product on any forum. I have done nothing but praise it. Read my quotes above for example. I think there's a language barrier going on here.

Quote from zentman

I have NEVER spoken ill of the Kemper product on any forum. I have done nothing but praise it. Read my quotes above for example. I think there's a language barrier going on here.

Speaking of FUD, I just don't usually see any exclusive Kemper owners posting over at the Fractal forums telling them how they should act and giving them their opinions.

Quote from Animus

Speaking of FUD, I just don't usually see any exclusive Kemper owners posting over at the Fractal forums telling them how they should act and giving them their opinions.

Sure they do. You just don't hang out there enough. This is a comparison thread. I brought my experience to the table. I was equally kind to both products as I truly believe what I typed. I corrected what I believed was intentional misrepresentation by a few posters. I may have been wrong but that's how I see it.

Quote from zentman

Sure they do. You just don't hang out there enough. This is a comparison thread. I brought my experience to the table. I was equally kind to both products as I truly believe what I typed. I corrected what I believed was intentional misrepresentation by a few posters. I may have been wrong but that's how I see it.

I know I don't hang out there enough, because I am not a Fractal user, which was my point. What misrepresentation are you speaking of? The people Axe presets change when they update firmware? I don't know if that's FUD as I have see Fractal users complain about that themselves.

ZENTMAN

I understand you're in love with kemper
but you can not say in front of your friends fractaliens

Guys, calm down a bit.

I have a question: on a modeling amp how can I create an amp sound 'from scratch' as many state?
This is tweaking a dozen given parameters, based on a dedicated amp modeling algorithm that the user has not created. This is more like 'amp tuning' to me. You have no further access to the model and especially the cab IR, that is pretty much fixed.

The most powerfull tools to tune the amp is using filters or EQs before and after the amp, as many know.

How does that differ from 'tuning' a profile (sometimes called a snapshot, but can be considered as an amp model) with our deep parameters and EQs?

Quote from ckemper

Guys, calm down a bit.

I have a question: on a modeling amp how can I create an amp sound 'from scratch' as many state?
This is tweaking a dozen given parameters, based on a dedicated amp modeling algorithm that the user has not created. This is more like 'amp tuning' to me. You have no further access to the model and especially the cab IR, that is pretty much fixed.

The most powerfull tools to tune the amp is using filters or EQs before and after the amp, as many know.

How does that differ from 'tuning' a profile (sometimes called a snapshot, but can be considered as an amp model) with our deep parameters and EQs?

Display More

Mr Kemper, I will try to provide an answer. No, you can't make an amp from scratch as many state. You are correct, you can alter the existing amp algorithm with many parameters but in the end you still started with a Fender Twin or whatever simulation you chose. You can change tonestacks, change the bias of the tubes, combine amps, and basically morph it in to something entirely different with esoteric parameters that go beyond my comprehension but you did not actually create an amp, the basic "amp" was already there.

I think what most of those posters mean is that they can dial an amp in as they choose from scratch. Basically they are mis-typing when they say they can create an amp.

Personal note, thank you for what you brought to the table, you not only hit a home run here but forced others to re-examine their products in order to compete. A definite win for all who are involved and who use digital amp simulation technology

Quote from Trazan

I had the Axe II for a year. It's a good box, but I honestly could never use it direct for "large" productions, only pre productions. I always preferred mic'ing a real amp (I don't do metal. Mostly pop, rock, country, bluesy, soulish etc) I noticed the Kemper, but thought it looked funny. Some 3 months ago I got to borrow a Kemper for a few days to check out...it literally took me 5 minutes to put my Axe up for sale. Honestly. At last I had the clear, raunchy yet very pleasant saturation I longed for. The same attack, dynamic reaction and bloom I'm familiar with from my tube amps.

Obviously, your ears only can decide what you need! And if you need all the routing and amount of efx the Axe provides, you won't be able to do all that in the Kemper. It's sufficient for me though, and the most important part to me is the amp modeling anyway.

There are way more parameters available to tweak on the amps in the Axe, but I still wouldn't say that amp sounds could be tweaked less in the Kemper. It has some VERY effective parameters that lets you tweak a profile into most anything. The parameters are made to alter the character in very musical and sensible ways. To me, much more so than using real amp component values. The Kemper is also much easier to tweak due to parameters being directly accessible, or just a click away. You can even adjust several at the same time with all the dials available.

Obviously, this forum will prefer the Kemper over the Axe Still, I'm not a fanboy of any equipment, and my choice is based on my ears and professional use only! If I find something that sounds or suits me even better, I'd switch in a heartbeat

Display More

I agree it's very easy to get my sound adjusting a profile on the kemper to my ears or change it to something completely different.
The form factor also makes it much easier to adjust than when I use the Axe 2 that now has gotten even more deep parameters to adjust.
Keeping it great sounding and simple at the same time is something I prefer over adding more and more deep parameters.
Not even the "experts" know what to do with all the parameters or what they do in the Axe and there are several threads with intricate adjustments suggestions to get sonic nirvana. The learning curves on these boxes are very different indeed and I will always prefer something that sounds and feels better, and as a bonus requires much less adjustments.

This is a representative quote from an Axe user, that I just found: (I shortened this post a bit)

"The Kemper would be cool, if you were in a session and you wanted to capture the guitar tone you were recording from an amp/cab setup, so you could either just use the kemper, or save it for down the road if you need that sound again. With the Axe you can get there with tweaking alone (in my experience). I always explain it to people like the Kemper is a Snapshot, a picture of a specific setting. But the Fractal is like an interactive panorama, because you can move, and adjust, and get the exact 'view' YOU want to see."

We we have indeed marketed the term 'snapshot', so people that have not intensively used the Profiler might not know about the deeper features.

But what about 'getting the exact view'? True?

Christoph,

I would be more interested what your view and respons is towards the plonk plonk thing and the one dimensional statement of this other company's CEO.

You can always pm me your answer

I have no horses in this race. I do not own the Kemper nor do I own the AFX II. So the this thread is of high interest to me.

Quote from ckemper

This is a representative quote from an Axe user, that I just found: (I shortened this post a bit)

"The Kemper would be cool, if you were in a session and you wanted to capture the guitar tone you were recording from an amp/cab setup, so you could either just use the kemper, or save it for down the road if you need that sound again. With the Axe you can get there with tweaking alone (in my experience). I always explain it to people like the Kemper is a Snapshot, a picture of a specific setting. But the Fractal is like an interactive panorama, because you can move, and adjust, and get the exact 'view' YOU want to see."

We we have indeed marketed the term 'snapshot', so people that have not intensively used the Profiler might not know about the deeper features.

But what about 'getting the exact view'? True?

Display More

I can't speak for other users. Approaches vary. I am very simple in my personal approach. I am not trying to get "The Brown Sound" or nail Panteras album tone. I just bring up an amp and cab and adjust basic setting until it sounds good to me. Some guys are way more in to this stuff than me.

this zentman guy goes around calling everybody fanboys but then jumps onto a forum like this ranting and raving
yet I didn't see any kemper owners that don't own the axe-fx jumping on the fractal forum doing the same ....

He is quite well known on many forums for breaking down anytime the kemper vs axe-fx is mentioned...google is your friend
kind of a disturbed charecter....best avoided
the drunk guy that ruins a party and then tries to apologise afterwards only to do it again and again

The whole MIMIC thing is a load of bollox any how ...MIMIC and TM were just trying to steal the market share
To anybody that has played enough amps IRL would realise its not even close (if it was the case then how come you can't compare it to another piece of gear unless its on FW11 etc etc and its supposed to be more real again....)

For the CEO to constantly be making comments just shows how awesome the Kemper really is

Keep up the classiness and the good work

Quote from ckemper

I have a question: on a modeling amp how can I create an amp sound 'from scratch' as many state?

I think I have to answer here because I used the term "from scratch" in one of my posts.
To my understanding there is no "Van Weelden Twinkleland" model available on the Axe FX. So if I want to get close to this amp's sound, I need to take another amp's model and then try to tweak the hell out of it to (maybe) get close to the sound I'm looking for. Pretty much like rebuilding the Pisa tower with a selection of different Lego parts. In the end it might look similar and somehow amazing for what it's been built with but my camera's snapshot of the real thing will always look more realistic. And using Photoshop with a little knowledge, I still can tweak my snapshot quite a bit ... but I don't have to if I'm just looking for the realistic reproduction from the moment I took the snapshot.

Hope that explains my use of the term "from scratch".

Cheers,
Martin