Hey All, New guy here from Alberta, Canada. I recently pulled the trigger and ordered a KPA, remote, and profiler bag. I am a professional musician and have heard so many good things about the Kemper from my peers, so I thought I would try one out for myself. I used a Helix for about 6 months, and while it was a neat device, I had a couple of major dislikes about it. Firstly, I had MAJOR footswitch issues, which ultimately led me to returning the unit and getting my money back. I was fortunate in that the place I bought it from had a "lemon law," otherwise I would have been stuck with an unreliable $2,000 Line6 product (people on the local buy-and-sell can't get rid of these things for $1500....yikes). My second gripe was I could never get "convincing" tones out of it. While I realize I am basically hearing a miked-up sound, I still could never get tones I was floored by (something that originally attracted me to the helix in the first place). Now, the helix did teach me about EQs, IRs, and other cool things like that, but what really has put the Kemper on the radar for me is the realism of the unit. Having played through a Kemper a while ago, I was pretty damn impressed with how "amp-like" it sounds. I play mostly contemporary country at shows, but still really require GOOD clean tones as well, so I'm hoping the Kemper is the answer! I am currently messing around with Bias FX for the iPad, having used it for a couple of shows and all my rehearsing. It seems like a good setup (when you use IRs), but is far from a professional unit like the Kemper. Thanks for having me on the forum. ^^
