I am surprised you can't use any of the jazz offerings as many of them sound warm and quite organic to me. Even Scott Henderson (yeah, I know, he's no Benson, but a competent player nevertheless) used at least one of the jazz models on a recent album, and he had choices. I do wonder whether or not you updated to the HD-model firmware. This was version 2.0 onwards. All the models were updated - tweaked and what have you, but also in higher resolution / fidelity.
Hi - thanks for the long comment.
Before I had chosen Kemper I tried also the Helix. (At same time)
The decision was very close (in another threat i explained that) but at the end Kemper stayed with me.
Normally I do not use so much effects and the Kemper impressed me more.
The jazz sounds of the variax are quite usable but not so meaningful for me in the rock band.
In the big band I played some Gigs and it was OK but not so good as it was with a really jazz guitar.
This time (happened also last time) we will not play a jazzy repertoire (except one or two tunes) so I can use my Strat (love this sound).
But one thing I would want to emphasize.
Sure, I could use the Variax and any other guitar.
We are not at a such high professional level, that it would be disruptive.
But as the only one, who normally is not to contradict, sometimes mentioned. I am a little fool in this matter.
stay tuned - Harry