Using and axe fx with a kemper??

  • Hi

    Well I love my kemper and it does more than enough for me as I normally use just clean tones but I have a longing for the gr300 synth sound. Ive tried midi pickups but I havent got on to well with them and the synth units often give me too much stuff that will never get used and cost me around 400 on a good day.

    I used to have an axe fx ii and really liked a couple of their presets, the mod delay verb, and one dirty channel that was great and it also had a synth block and did a couple of very good synth sounds.

    So im thinking of getting a used axe fx ultra as it has the synth block but wondered how I would set it up? Would it be best to go through the effects loop on the kemper and would that work if I was using say a fender twin on the axe fx or would things get a little complicated? I use two powered cabs ad wondered about splitting the guitar signal and going through the kemer and axe fx seperatly but Ive never ran a cabe splitter before and like the stereo sounds I get from the kemper.

    Ive tried nearly all of the synth pedals and I think the best one for me is the source audio c4 at £230 so I could just get that but then a used axe fx ultra is only around £100-£150 more so wondered if that might be worthwhile.

    Id appreciate any info and advice and many thanks for all your time, cheers :)

  • I would think that putting it in the effects loop would work just fine. I probably wouldn't run the dirt channel that way though. That may not sound good in all situations. You could probably create some rigs that don't have an amp or cabinet to make it work. You will probably have to do some experimenting with it.

  • Hi,

    many thanks for the advice its much appreciated. Could i take a signal from the direct out into the axe fx which would be plugged in as normal to a second amp? would that work? cheers

    Yes, or just run kemper Left and axe Right. There are NO rules.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • Hi many thanks :) I just realised though if I want to use the axe fx synth or distorted sounds it only going to come out of one amp. Sorry for my lack of knowledge on these things. I might just get a source audio synth pedal as they have some great sounds but wondered if paying a couple of hundred more for the axe fx ultra with one synth sound and some good slightly overdriven sounds as the overdriven sounds on the kemper sound to synthetic for me. I am sure thats just me though :)

  • Consider:

    guitar -> AxeFX in

    Axe fx loop send -> Kemper in

    Kemper loop send -> AxeFX return

    AxeFX outs -> Kemper return

    Kemper outs -> speakers


    You would have to have FX loops active in all profiles, but you could do it with the option of coordinating patches that bypass one or the other and you could compose an Axe setting that runs the Kemper to one side in parallel with an Axe amp model on the other side.

  • A dedicated synth unit is overkill, but an Axe FX Ultra for just the synth block is as it should be? I get that it's probably mostly about not having to spend more money, just pointing it out :P


    For what it's worth, I am running my Kemper in the FX loop of a Helix. The thought was that the Helix has a really great work flow, and I liked the modularity of it, so the idea was to use the Kemper as a dedicated "amp block" with built in stereo effects. It's working really great, however, I will be downsizing to just one modeller, and then hook that up to a desktop mixer and some dedicated rack FX. The problem I see with running a modeller in the loop of another is the stacking of latency, conversions and noise. Each modeller has an internal latency of around 1-5ms, depending on how much stuff you have in your preset. On the Kemper I think the max is 3.7ms? Or whatever value the "fixed latency" setting is set to. So, it's not like I'm noticing it or feeling it, it's not 30ms, it's not like I can sense any delay. It doesn't really bother me. But the signal my guitar outputs is now being converted to digital going into the Helix, then converted to analog going out of the Helix, then to digital going into the Kemper, then back to analog going out of the Kemper, and finally digital when going back into the Helix. I have Line 6 Powercabs so those are hooked up with AES, so no conversion there, but the Powercabs are digital and have their own internal latency too. If I also connected to them with analog, that would be yet another round of conversions.


    So anyway, for all intents and purposes, it works flawlessly. I'm not noticing anything play feel wise. Some times I use a L6 G10 Relay going into the Helix, and monitor on wireless Siberia 840 headphones. So I'm 100% wireless, going through two modellers, and I still can't really say I'm noticing anything that's messing me up. It feels fine to me. But on the conceptual level, the idea of all those conversions didn't use to bother me, and now they do. One thing is the added latency, another thing is the fact that A/D conversion adds hiss to a signal, so the more times you do it, the more times the near-inaudible hiss gets layered on top of itself. At a certain point it becomes actual audible noise. All of this makes me worry about the "signal integrity", so my new line of thinking is I want to output a mostly "pure" guitar signal into a mostly transparent mixer. That way, the "dry" part of my tone will be my guitar -> kemper input -> kemper output -> analog mixer. One A/D conversion and one D/A conversion + the internal Kemper latency Vs . three A/D, two D/A + internal Kemper latency + internal Helix latency.


    You either will start worrying about stuff like that down the road or you won't, so maybe that can inform your choice a little :P


    Yes, or just run kemper Left and axe Right. There are NO rules.

    With two Kempers, you can do that thanks to the "Fixed latency" setting. With two analogue amps you could do the same. But with two modellers, their internal latency will vary, and you could have phase issues. I have done this with the Helix and Kemper and it sounded fine, but the problems introduced by phase misalignment are above my expertise to address, so I generally try to avoid having them in the first place.

  • I think the eventual punchline will be using a Kemper VST along with whatever other VST's (Helix, Strymon, AxeFX, Eventide, Lexicon...) so you go A/D then all in software with D/A to the speakers.