Are There Any RECENT Axe FX vs Kemper Discussions?

There was some discussion from earlier today, in a post with an unlikely title for that discussion:

http://www.kemper-amps.com/for…a-Kemper-Profiling-Amp-D/

One amp at at time? True.

No USB recording? This is also true.
It has SPDIF recording.

Can you use two amp profiles at the same time? No
Can you record with USB? No

Where the Kemper shines is how it captures the profiles and how accurately it does it. You capture (profile) the sound of a real amp. This in a nut shell is the beauty of the Kemper. After that, you treat the Kemper and profile as you would with any real tube amp.

Where other companies set out so you can make any amp you want, even ones that have never existed. Kemper takes a different approach and captures the essecnce of a real life amp. So I can play hundreds of real life amps, like they were meant to be.

No need for comparisons, the Kemper plays like an amp and thats all any of us could ask for. Anything else is just deviating away from the sole purpose.

Cheers

I recently had an Axefx II and currently own a KPA, my evaluation is as follows:

• The Axe has amazing effects that can be routed pretty much any way you can imagine, while the Kemper has effects that I would best describe as as adequate with which you follow a more prescribed routing. I'm not a massive user of effects/use them in an orthodox way so this doesn't really affect me, but I do wish there was a spring reverb and a proper shimmer on the Kemper (although the axe doesn't have true shimmer IMO either).
• The Axe is seems heavily geared toward the br00tz crowd in terms of amp tones, even the Blackface Twin model is hard to keep clean, and you're at the mercy of what Cliff wants to give you (and he seems far more interested in making IMO minute improvements to heavily driven sounds than giving the unit a more broad sonic palette). With the Kemper you have what seems like an infinite number of sounds from clean to devastating and if you find a good sound it won't be broken by some tinkering in the grid resistor network or whatever that Fractal decide to do in a future firmware. To my ears the amps in the Kemper simply sound better (and that's the bottom line isn't it?). This is funny because the Axe uses a far more complicated modelling system, from what I've gathered, but doesn't sound as good (there's a good lesson there).
• The community here on the Kemper forums is very welcoming and answer any questions about what the unit can and can't do pretty honestly. This is a MASSIVE contrast to my experience to the Fractal community, where you get torn a new one by the 'elite' if you offer anything but praise for the company or ask a question that sounds like it critical. The whole attitude of the user being the problem and not being owed anything by a company they have dished out thousands to gets old very fast with me, it's simply rude and unhelpful. While every community has its good and bad eggs, I much prefer this one and having a nice experience on the product forums outweighs any kind of superiority the Axe might have in the effects department for me.

Speaking of COSM, the two modelers I used right before getting the Kemper were the VG-99 and the GR-55. I could never get them to feel or sound like my Marshall, but they were lighter and could be used effectively at a much more reasonable stage volume.

I bought the Kemper based on the audio and video clips, like you did. I could have returned it, or sold it without losing any money.

It was delivered, and knew I would be keeping it after just a few minutes, I had two GR-55s - one for home, and one for gigs. I put one of them on eBay the day after my Kemper was delivered, and the other one as soon as the Kemper ready to gig with.

I'm always amazed by the comment that the Kemper and Axe-FX "both serve different purposes".

No they don't, they serve the identical purpose, they both create guitar tone.

Mesa Boogie & Vox might use completely different engineering to create guitar tones, and Dumble uses some kind of fairy dust engineering to create his guitar tone, but in the end they all serve the same purpose.

We can discuss it a thousand times, start a thousand comparison threads, but let's face it, fanboy or not, don't be scared to say it, the Kemper is 'smarter' than any other digital guitar tone device in existence, and that makes it better than ALL the others.

Can it record via USB...... No
Can it have 2 amps at once....... No

Does it sound amazing........ Oh YES!!! It does. It acts and sounds like a real amp this is what makes it elite. It blows everything digital I've played out the water, and I'm sure the effects will grow and along with FW upgrades the Kemper will just get better and better.

Oh and it's cheaper than the AXE FX

The main problem with fractalian community is that most of them don't know how to play guitar .
More, they are not actually interested in guitar and music .
They are just busy tweaking .

In my time, such a guys will never manage to play in Rock'n Roll band ,or having nice chicks .

From my post earlier today.
I've got good and long experience with both kemper and axe 2 and I prefer and use the kemper for amps, cabs and effects, except for a few additional effects from the Axe. Including friends and forum users I think I've seen over a hundred ax fx users sell it and move over to kemper. It's not the other way around. Both are very different in what they are designed to do. Profiling is the first and only way for users to capture their own amp rigs, amp dynamics, gain, compression, eq, speaker cab, mic... Traditional modeling like the Axe fx use is a programmed company version of what they think an amp should be like.
The biggest kemper pros for me are sound and feel, profiling technology and very easy to use. And the sound doesn't change
after firmware updates like the Axe fx. Longer warranty and support. Longevity and promised back compatability for profiles for around 15
years. (Fractal releases new products every 2-3 years dropping support for older gear).

Also I prefer supporting companies with good business ethics like kemper. In that area Fractal Audios CEO has really embarrased himself several times over the years posting misinformation and lies about kemper because he's hoping to gain market leverage. Fractal also frequently censors users posts when they mention specific gear and have deleted a huge number of threads about certain companies like amplifire and kemper in the off topic section.

I very much agree with producer Lasse Lammert here.
https://www.facebook.com/photo…76.100000845799643&type=1
"pros and cons vs a fractal?"
-"Lasse Lammert: easy answer:
Fractal sounds like a really good amp modeller that mimics the tone of someone else's idea of how a miked amp should sound.
Kemper: sounds like your rig/an actual amp (not like a modeller).Both have great FX."

I haven't owned an Axe so am not going to be able to compare but wanted to chime in on a couple of points anyway - hope that's OK as I'm outside your specified 'sample group' for opinion

USB interfaces on guitar products for recording. I had several Pods. I think the USB interface on those will always be a big step down from either an analogue input OR SPDIF on a decent recording interface which is a separate entity. I think, on a high level guitar unit such as either the Kemper or the Axe, you are going to have a market comprised of people who are willing and able to pay good money for good products. They are likely to already have a recording interface. TBH, if you've got a $200 interface or better with SPDIF on it then you'll do better in terms of drivers, latency and overall quality using that than you ever would using a built in thing from a guitar fx manufacturer for whom USB latency is one of a hundred things they're worried about. When I had the USB on the Pod, I used it once and came to the 'what's the point' conclusion pretty quickly.

One thing that is (IMO) very exciting about the Kemper is when people out there with a good set of ears and a studio profile amps that I'm interested in. With previous products I've used, the community will share a patch which is essentially a modelled amp already in the unit that is tweaked to sound a certain way. With the Kemper, you can indeed tweak existing amps in the unit in terms of sag, definition etc and this will improve further with the 3.0 software where, if I've understood it correctly, you get the ability to truly separate the cabinet from the amp so far more accurate tweaking is possible if that's your thing. But the difference is the 'starting point'. The starting point in other units is a mathematical model based on a person listening to a real amp (or remembering a real amp ). In the Kemper, the starting point is that the unit itself actually listened to the real amp. Yes, the user is still important in terms of mic positioning but ultimately the lack of a person in the middle interpreting means that the Kemper's starting point is far, far closer to reality than other technology. Once it has captured reality as closely as technology allows, you can then shape reality as you see fit by tweaking simple parameters such as gain, treble etc or the definition etc as mentioned before.

A further point in favour of this viewpoint is gained if you look at the way to truly profile an amp. If you just set the amp to a crunch and then profile it then you can, using the 'modelling' side of the Kemper, crank or reduce the gain to clean up or dirt up the amp. However, all the guys out there profiling on a regular basis do several profiles of an amp at separate sweet spots. The reason for this? Modelling will only get you 'so far' with the actual behaviour of the amp. Other units just have the modelling. The Kemper has '99.9% reality' at the point of the profile which you can then deviate from to your taste with modelling. If modelling 'sounded better' then no-one would bother doing multiple profiles of the same amp. Yet, if you look at the new custom shop stuff from Amp factory or the stuff that Armin does (Soundside) they do a lot of profiles of the same amp so you really do get as close to the real deal as possible.

My only niggles with the Kemper since purchase have been :

1. The lack of an editor / librarian - this was addressed. I'd still like an actual editor but TBH the librarian filled the gap because with the Kemper, selecting a profile is more important than tweaking for me as it does the job!
2. Lack of a dedicated footswitch - and now it's coming
3. Lack of spring reverb / ability to put any FX anywhere in the chain. For this, I still live in hope. As a company, Kemper seems to do things 'properly' so I'm guessing the only reason for the lack of a spring reverb is that it's a lot harder than it seems. I've had this theory confirmed in the plugins world by a guy who designs VST plugins. He's done a wonderful room / plate / hall reverb which was apparently pretty simple but he recons that making a spring algorithm that actually sounds like a spring is pretty murderous. So I recon Kemper will do it when they are happy with it rather than releasing something that is close but no cigar

Other than that, I couldn't be happier with the device I have. Perhaps I would have been happy with the Axe - I don't know. Now I have this, I have no particular motivation to find out because (besides the spring) this does a brilliant, brilliant job.

Regarding requests for more and more and more, and then a little bit more of KPA improvements and zillion of requests :
1. please find a friend who own/play Virus through all of these years .
2. ask him about Virus improvements and updates along all of these years .
3. make your own conclusion about improvements and updates still to come for KPA

I am one of the early KPA owner here , and looking in the past I can see that one by one request has been addressed and sorted out .
Agree, there are still lot to be addressed .
Me personally , I was asked only for better and better tone (more close to the valve) .
Surprisingly , that better and better tone did come indeed .
But not via some new Kemper OS or imrovement , it comes with better profiling .
CK done nothing on that , since he done everything on the very beginning , in regards of Holly Grail Tone .
That is funny, since my request may be fulfilled far over my expectations with every new commercial or free profile ...Amazing ...

Obviously , CK have a simply plan hanging in his Office , with the exact Project Schedule of improvements and updates .
I bet that at least for 10-15 % of those updates no body even asked, because they don't know that such an improvements might even exists

Have confidence and play music !
All else will come, sun or later.

As far as the 'recent' request of K vs A:
The differences between the two units have remained the same from the beginning of the profiler's existence.
So any conclusion ever made is still valid today.
1. Kemper is better in delivering amp tone. This is my first hand experience from comparing Axe II and KPA in the same room. IMO no firmware update will help the Axe to catch up.
2. The Kemper won't run 2 amps at once. It doesn't need to. If you absolutely need 2 amps, buy 2 Kempers.
3. Axe-FX has had more routing options and more FX from the beginning, BUT NOT superior effects.

So in summary: Nothing has changed.

Quote from Ingolf

2. The Kemper won't run 2 amps at once. It doesn't need to. If you absolutely need 2 amps, buy 2 Kempers.

quote of the day I think Mr Ingolf

I don't know about any 'recent' discussions. I don't really care. The arguing between the two 'camps' is silly and really all just a matter of opinion anyway.

I love my Kemper, but I would love to own an AFX as well. That's all I'll say.

Quote from Calaban

I don't know about any 'recent' discussions. I don't really care. The arguing between the two 'camps' is silly and really all just a matter of opinion anyway.

I love my Kemper, but I would love to own an AFX as well. That's all I'll say.

I love my 2 kempers, but my bank manager loves the fact I don't want an Axe FX 2

I REALLY wanted an Axe-FX 2 a year ago and was very frustrated with the company continually being "out of stock" (and all the one's on eBay were more than the direct purchase price) so I found a used KPA rackmount on eBay and took a shot. I can honestly say that I could never see myself as happy with the Axe-FX as I have become with the KPA. It is an amazing unit and I blow people away at every gig with the tone. Every guitar player I know that hears it either goes out and buys one or says they are going to save up for one.

I must say I find 'This vs That' threads goes against what I understand 'correct' gear acquisition philosophy to be. Namely: 'This AND that'
I'd love an AFX2 but... I don't need one now I have the Kemper. It's taken a while to get my head around this new way of thinking...I felt unclean for quite a while.

Cross Reference to a slightly newer thread:

http://www.kemper-amps.com/for…-another-one-please-read/