Kemper users who also own an AxeFx II

    Quote


    Lets face the facts...Fanboyism is present on just about every forum. Whether its guitars or sports. We have our fair share here as well...believe it or not ;)


    Yes, that is absolutely true. You expect fan-boyism on a site specific to that item, whether it's the Kemper site or the Fractal site. But I am talking about a moderator on a site that is NOT product specific. I expect fan boy-ism on sites like TGP, but I expect more from a moderator -- esp one who has more powers than others -- i.e. can ban users, close threads, and not be ignored. :D He's a constant advertisement to the product in almost every posting.


    Ignoring his posts would solve this for me. Unfortunately, his misinformation on other products continues and clouds the picture for many others searching for important information regarding modelers. It's too bad. Also -- I am also sure that if this discussion were brought to that forum, I would be banned. :)

    Quote from lasvideo

    Lets face the facts...Fanboyism is present on just about every forum. Whether its guitars or sports. We have our fair share here as well...believe it or not ;)



    I disagree. Fans yes, but fanboysism on the Kemper forums? The kinds of posts we have here would have been deleted and the users blacklisted. I don't see the comparison at all.


    The existence of this thread is all the evidence you need to that effect.

    Well, I remember users with a short story saying unpleasant things about the unit and being flamed, sometimes "over the lines", as we say.
    Mods here try to keep a very low profile, and I can't say I'm unhappy with this :)

    Quote from lasvideo

    Lets face the facts...Fanboyism is present on just about every forum. Whether its guitars or sports. We have our fair share here as well...believe it or not ;)



    Yeah that example is a complete different kettle of fish
    The thing is it only takes one listen to his clips to throw away whatever opinion he has


    And anyone with above aspergers level of social skills can see the hidden agenda in promoting a product while bashing any others

    (I probably need to say that last one was a joke - whatever works, use it!)[/quote]



    Yeah hidden agenda is probably the wrong wording more like a bull in a china shop lol
    Only talking about the one specific guy mentioned in a few posts back

    Just remembered that another TGP moderator is also a Fractal owner/ass kisser. And I just discovered that the TGP moderator I talked about in my previous post is a CO-OWNER of TGP! No way is he going to be disciplined for anything since he owns the joint. No wonder he sits back and posts whatever he wants. He's probably making way more $$ from AdSense/Google running that forum than from anything using a guitar. :)

    Since here are obviously a couple of AxeFX users, I wonder if anyone got his hands on the latest Misha Mansoor AxeFX patches and profiled them? :D


    Heard they're pretty crushing...

    I am no longer an Axe-FX owner since I had to sell my AFXII to fund my Kemper but I have been a Fractal user for around 8 years.


    I started with the AFX Ultra and moved on to the II as soon as I could afford one. In terms of amp tone, that switch was a quantum leap forward and massively reduced the amount of tweaking and frustration I'd gotten used to. However, despite all the firmware revisions (I made it up to v.18) I was never satisfied with my sound. What may have sounded great one day sounded s**t the next, and I could spend days creating what I thought were distinct artist-based tones using different amp models only to discover (after the ear fatigue had passed) that my tones sounded more or less the same. This became more apparent after I spent a couple of hours with a Kemper Rack and discovered I was actually having fun playing again instead of fussing over my sound, and getting very different and distinct tones from one profile to the next.


    For a couple of weeks I had both my recently purchased Power Rack and my AFXII side by side while I decided which was staying. I started to notice that in contrast to the Kemper, when I played a favourite amp model on the Fractal the notes would seem to smear into each other in a non amp-like way, making it hard to play certain familiar riffs with sufficient tightness and clarity. Maybe this was simply user error; I'm not technically minded enough to know whether this was down to poor preset programming... all I know is that after 8 years experience of using the Fractal gear I was still frustrated. That was the final nail in the coffin for me.


    So then I set about seeing whether I could run the Kemper as a tone generator in the Axe's FX loop, hoping to switch rigs via MIDI with the MFC101. Spent about a day trying to make this work to my satisfaction before conceding that I needed to sell the lot and invest in a Kemper Remote. I anticipated that I would at least want to keep the Fractal on account of its "superior" FX engine. Ironically, my ears seem to prefer many of the FX on the Kemper (specifically Chorus, Rotary, Wah, and Harmoniser). I also find it easier to dial in what I want on the Kemper than I did with the AFX... Again, possibly because I'm a simpleton or just not a "tweaker" but... in the end it's all about playing guitar for me, not pushing buttons.


    To echo what some others here have said, I could never recreate the same quality of amp tones with the Fractal that I would hear other people posting on Youtube and Soundcloud. However, my focus has always been 90% on live performance, not recording. I audition all my tones (now the Kemper) through my CLR with a view to playing with them in a live context. Therefore, to make comparisons between the value of the two devices in a recording context would be a mistake. As I play in a number of covers band, I spend a large portion of my time creating rigs that mimic certain artists' tones. I may not be able to capture these 100% authentically, but I feel the Kemper gets me closer. I never used the Fractal's "tone-matching" - the result always sounded strange to me. (Tried shedloads of Metallica tone matches with the Axe but they never worked well with my rig.)

    Well, you're definitely not a simpleton, my dear fellow!


    So articulate. Your punctuation and grammar are impeccable; I especially like your use of the semicolon and correct placement of the apostrophe indicating plural possession. Bravo!


    More seriously 'though, I think the reason you're finding more diversity in the Kemper's tones right out of the box is that, as opposed to the AFX's limited, albeit comprehensive set of modelled components or interactive building blocks, the Kemper's profiles are "captures" of real-world rigs, the components of which, along with their natural ageing, oxidisation, dirtiness and so on, are literally, especially if worn-in, one-offs. By this I mean that to model a single real-world rig to the extent that all these and many other variables are taken into account, and their inter-dependencies and interactions accurately reproduced, would be quite a feat; the result would have to sound like the real thing or a Kemper. Now, imagine doing this modelling for, let's be conservative and say, 50 different setups (as opposed to "amps", 'cause every setup or rig is unique in its sound). Even if you could achieve 100% real-world accuracy after the many thousands of hours' work you'd have put into it, you'd still have, what, 8 000+ rigs to go in order to match the sheer variety of what our beloved Kempers offer us... for free. Then there're the many thousands of commercial profiles out there.


    Just figured, although I know I'm preachin' to the choir, it'd be fun to put this into some sort of context, especially one that all those wannabe modellers out there could relate to. Happy modelling, folks. I'm figuring thousands of coffees and a few years off your lives will get you part-way there. Might be worth a try, no? Don't forget to rehydrate following all that caffeine or you'll end up looking like prunes.


    Thank you for the fun read, Stringtheorist; I enjoyed it so much I felt I had to provide something in return.


    Take care man,
    Nicky