I've had my Kemper now for a couple of weeks. This is my second stint with it. I had one back in 2012 too. So far, I'm very impressed:
What I love
- Much less tweaking than I did with my AxeFX. I would always have to redo my patches for my guitars after the releases and I'd have to play with the speaker pages constantly to match the speaker settings to best fit the IRs I was using. Maybe I didn't have to, but it was the way to get the right response and I'm probably too anyl. The huge key though is having the right profiles. I bought MBritt profiles and I immediately bonded with them. But my favorite sound is the classic Marshall-based Plexi set up...low on the bass, high on the mids, and ample highs on the treble, adjusted to the guitar and space. Basically, I think he has the same ear for what he wants to hear so I really don't need to do any tweaking at all. They just work.
- The sounds are great. I don't have any amps right now to compare, but it certainly at the same level of sound and quality as my Axe FX was (I have the AX8 now and had the Axe FX II XL+). I do find the clean and light break up sounds to have more distinction and feel. I think the high gainers that I've tried are good but I might have liked the Axe models better.
- The Remote is set up nicely for a small footprint controller. Using it as I use it, I'll probably do an amp as a Performance and use the various cuts of the amp rig underneath it...kind of like scenes on the AxeFX. Still trying to decide my approach though...more in my questions...
- Cosmetically, I'm glad not to have a rack this time. I'm mostly playing direct to a board where we're running our own sound. The stages aren't big. I can set the lunch box in more places than I could my 19" Axe rack in it's Gator case. I think it looks cool, but that's me.
What I Don't Like
- The boot times. I fear this on stage if the power flickers and it reboots. It will be a painful wait.
- Editing in the Performance mode, particularly through Rig Manager. This was a pain in the but to try and load rigs into the slots. I would copy and paste and it would sometimes load rigs into the wrong slots. Plus, you have to save, it seems, after each rig goes into one slot vs. copying and pasting to fill the slots you want and then saving the performance. I ended up going with the Kemper interface and just dialing in the slot names. That worked fine.
- Lack of a db meter or something to level rigs/patches in the device. The Axe FX had this and it helped with one of my least favorite things ever...patch leveling across guitars and amps.
Questions
- Just curious how many of you are using performance to manage your sounds? On the AxeFX, I used to have one patch per guitar and then use 5 scenes to get different sounds. The sounds would be 4 different amps with different cabs. A cleanish Vox amp, and moderate crunch Plexi, a higher gain Plexi (Friedman, CarolAnn, etc.), and a lead amp like a Trainwreck. Each had their typical cabs. I'm changing my thinking here with the Kemper. Given the MBritt profiles give you a span of gain types on one amp, I'm going to line up my performance as an amp with a clean to mean approach and the last one being mean + volume boost for lead. My hope is that I will get a better stage sound as I did find changing the amp model and cab on songs was a constant EQ and volume dance to tweak something that cut the right way. I will miss out on easy way of being able to play a Plexi on one song and a Diezel on another, but I think no one cares anymore and I'd rather come through the same way all night
- Best practices on patch/volume leveling? Since there's nothing in the box, are you guys just using external sound meters? I have one and used to use it on the AxeFX until they put the db meter in the box.
I'm now seriously considering returning my AX8. I was thinking of keeping it for amp/cab applications, because I think it shines better there, but I guess there are profiles now that are designed for this application in the Kemper world? Instead, I'd probably pick up an Atomic Amplifire as something to back up the Kemper in a pinch. I'm very surprised on this as I used the AxeFX for so long but was never a schill or fanboy...just a happy and devoted user. I think the Kemper fits my workflow and sound targets a bit better in the sound space that interests me the most. I really need a Kemper live test though and that won't come until a week or so.