My Kemper vs. Axe- Fx II experience

    Me too.
    Owned standard and ultra for almost 3 years.
    Owned axefx2 (twice) for a total of about 4 weeks.
    To me the KPA sounds much clearer yet at the same time has a lot more 'juice' going on in drive/high gain patches. The cleans are to me in a totally different league to any other modeller.
    The top end on the KPA is wide open and this makes it stand right out as all the other modellers Ive tried get compressed and weird there.
    The axefx2 I sold yesterday was distracting me so much. I would look at it and think 'I must be doing something wrong with this' then proceed to spend the next couple of hours trying to get a good sound using just the amp block out to power amp and cab. Then I would give up, switch it off and find Id screwed up my hearing/perception so much that even my beloved amps sounded bad to me until I walked away for a while before going back to them.
    I won't sell my amps, in fact the KPA encourages me now to think about owning all those beautiful single channel amps that were previously of little use to me as a guitarist in a covers band. I can now buy one, play it at home and profile it for gigs.
    I would definitely like to see a profiling algorithm (and perhaps a bolt on di box) specifically for doing direct profiles as they can be a bit hit and miss, which is not surprising as the di box/load box or whatever will be imparting something on the profile.

    Gotta be honest, the jury is still out for me. i have the axe 2 and kemper sitting right next to each other (next to the 11r, next to the POD etc). i expected to be blown away by the kemper when i got it. i wasn't. i went thru all the profiles it shipped with and many were about the same league as the axe, some were a little better, some not.


    played it with my PRS 513 and les paul


    i was dissapointed BUT....


    maybe this is another case of you have dig in and tweak. which is what i was hoping to not have to do alot of. my biggest gripe with the axe or any other amp modeler is how much time it takes to tweak to get a good sound.


    we will see how it goes i guess, but i was def not blown away as i thought i would be, like i was when i heard a real 65amps amp


    speaking of which does anyone know which profile the 65amps london is? i cant find it

    As with all modelers / digital guitar equipment, you can't really base an opinion on factory presets / profiles. You really should look into user profiles. The ones I'd start with would be some of the really nice Fender profiles for cleans, Marshall Golub Crunch for that real Marshall vibe, stock Black Cemetery preset for metal stuff (it REALLY whips ass... or well, there are loads of Mesa user profiles by now, etc.) and the amazing Carvin Legacy or Bogner XTC profiles for high gain leads. I think you can find all of them @ the rig exchange, what you can access from the main site's Community page.

    Use your ears, not your mathematical sense.

    I agree - I pretty much only use my own profiles, and a handful of user created ones. The unit really shines when you take the time to get your own amp miked up just the way you like it, and then.....immortalize it!

    Patience...never write a review on day one. :)


    You dont have to tweak to get great tones, there are about a thousand great tones available with little to no tweaking.


    First, load up the Cabinets.
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/551117…Cabs%20Feb%207%202012.zip


    Then try out some user Profiles.
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/551117…iles%20Feb%207%202012.zip


    Take any Marshall, Mesa, Bogner, Engl, Peavey, any high gain Profiles, change the cab to a Tills cab.
    Try Ola Englunds Triple Rec Profiles, you'll hear and feel something you've never felt from a modeller.


    Then play a Tele or Strat and try these.
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/551117…der%20Tele%20Profiles.zip
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/551117…at%20Rigs%2011Feb2012.zip


    That should get you believing. :D

    Quote from trock

    played it with my PRS 513 and les paul


    i was dissapointed BUT....

    I assume that you are mainly playing with high gain sounds? That's a territory where other modellers are doing good job as well, so you may not see a big difference e.g. between Axe and Kemper. I'm playing with single coil guitars also with clean and crunch sounds, that's where Kemper excels.


    In matter of fact, Axe can take high gain sounds a step further than real amps. You can overload amp with values that are not possible in real life. Also the sound that is modelled is cleaned out from artifacts that you normally hear with real amps and cabs. And with Kemper, to some extend. Some may say that Axe sounds "plastic" or "artificial". Some like it, some don't.


    As some suggested, check out user profiles. You may find your gem there.

    I wasn't impressed at first, it took me a while to warm up to the KPA. Here's the things that swung me around. First off make sure you're playing dry amps, allow yourself a very slight touch of verb at most when comparing your various units, you want to hear how the stock models sound. Next I tried recording by various amp sims next to each other tweaking them all to try and be in the same ballpark, in this the KPA won hands down, which wasn't surprising, it was more just by how large of a gap there was between the KPA and what I was used to till then. Next try recording some fuller tracks, after a while you might notice your'e using a few less guitar tracks than you needed before. After that it's been a matter of finding the tones that I like, and slowly letting it grow on me, playing with mid gain tones and that single coil neck pickup is glorious on the Kemper.


    It may take a long while, but there's a point when you realize that you're no longer in "the race", and there's nothing left to prove about the Kemper, sure you might still argue over other kit, other amp sims you have or encounter, but on the Kemper you just don't even bother to mention it. Not because it's bad, but because it's so good that there's nothing else to say, it sounds like an amp, you play it like an amp, I can't think of a real amp tone you can't get with it, and that's all there is to it. It's almost anticlimactic after all these years of amp sims that didn't really work and the build up to get to this point. That's not to say it can't be improved, but just that from here on the improvements to the actual amp sound itself are clearly going to be in much more subtle increments. It's put the onus back on my fingers and it doesn't get in the way.

    thanks all


    i am not trying to be negative, but i wanted to write my first impressions since i have read so many others first ones.


    i am looking for that chimey, breakup not high gain or clean really. i find most modellers do clean or high gain well but none do the chimey, breakup sound well. like a classic ac 30, one from the 60's or 70's. or a Dr Z or a 65 amps. especially the 65 amps


    i thought it shipped with a 65 amps london profile but i cant find it on mine


    i also bought it because i will use it for direct recording and i am listening to this in a well treated home studio thru events opals monitors etc.


    i will say i played more last night and liked a couple of the stock profiles better this time


    today i will dig in more and start trying out the amps and cabs etc


    i will say i love how it is laid out, real knobs and hands on is always something i enjoy more than an editor GUI and mouse


    so if anyone could point me towards the london i heard that would be very close to what i am looking for to get started for some songs i am doing


    thanks

    Thanks jimmy


    i must be doing this wrong, when i turn it on and go to browser and scroll thru the rigs with the RIGS buttons i don't see those in there


    are they somehow located elsewhere?


    gotta dig out the manual


    thanks!

    am i doing something wrong by going to


    BROWSER and using the RIGS button to scroll thru them? are there different banks or something or are they all there ?


    sorry, ack, i was saying i was in profiling


    sorry


    i am in BROWSER and using the RIGS buttons to scroll

    Quote from trock

    i am looking for that chimey, breakup not high gain or clean really. i find most modellers do clean or high gain well but none do the chimey, breakup sound well.

    Chimey breakup...


    You need to checkout the Nashville Bad Cat Profiles, they're called "Bad Kitty".
    Here's what they sound like.
    http://soundcloud.com/temper59/bad-cat-1


    Also check out "The Chief" and the "Matchbox" Profiles.
    Here's what they sound like.
    http://soundcloud.com/temper59/the-chief-dirty-3


    use the browse button to scroll - you can use the sort by name or date or author button to sort them - the London ones are there. Sort button is second from right of the 4 buttons above display


    hth

    I have the atomic FRFR (cab style).
    Works well enough but lacks headroom IMHO when using the internal speaker, and lacks useable overall volume because of this.
    When using just the amp with a guitar cab (speaker sims off) it works great.