Pretty uninteresting rant following and you know where it's going to end, but it's good for community building, right?
At a recent studio session, working with the engineer, we decided to bring a load of amps and cabinets and experiment with different combinations to set the sound. I brought my Friedman BE & a DR Z Antidote, both incredible sounding amps, paired with a couple of Scumback loaded cabinets. I also brought the KPA and a competing, high-end modeler (with which I have years of experience), and I had already recorded a couple of tracks with the other modeler.
We set up the amps in different rooms with several close & distant mics, worked to eliminate phasing issues, moving around and adjusting until each amp sounded great alone and in combination. We recorded a couple of takes with my strat, looking for a jangly, mildly overdriven strat sound. It sounded good, naturally, how bad can those amp sound?
After a couple of takes more, I asked the engineer/producer if he could hook up the KPA, which he was interested in, as the KPA keeps showing up in big studios everywhere. He wasn't too keen on the competing box, as it sounded a bit too correct on the tracks we had used it on. We hooked up the KPA and I went for one of the AC30 models that is floating about for free (either a free one from Amp Factory or one of the stock KPA ones). And to quote the late Steve Jobs: Boom! There it was, juicy and shimmering with the jangly speakers and all, and that el84 chime that breaks up when you push it. We spent 15 minutes discussing how awesome this was, comparing it with the other stuff we had used so far. We also browsed through a couple of different profiles I had made myself by carefully adjusting the amp and mic (just a single 57) at home, and these profiles sounded equally good and _right_.
So we decided to redo a couple of tracks and do the rest with the AC30 profile, my own profiles of my old Marshall plus my Friedman. And -- man! -- comparing the KPA with the rest of my gear (first time I use the KPA in a recording production outside of my own tracking studio) in a commercial studio setting, finding out how great this box captures the sound and feel of the amps, is both a blast and extremely educative for a tone freak. I've used it a lot live, but listening to it closely in context in comparison with amps and that competing box is different.
How fun is that? Now I want two!