An Interesting Finding While A/B'ing the AFII and KPA

This is simply a Ford vs. Chevy debate. Both are great. Both have the same failure rates, but they acquire a good or bad reputation based on whichever opponents whine the loudest. To each their own.

I am tempted to get the Kemper, just for the sake of GAS. But I have come to the sobering realization that GAS is merely my way of expressing my disappointment in my own playing ability, and putting the blame or the hope on that next piece of gear that is going to enable me to break on through to the other side, as it were.

The forum members that post amazing tracks, would sound great...and beyond my abilities by using a DAW plug-in for a guitar rig. Their gear doesn't matter -- it's their coordination and most importantly their musicianship.

I can't obtain that through purchase of a box full of electronics and software...of any origin.

I'm sticking with Fractal. The frickin inventor answers questions at 1am. That is worth something to me. Matt doesn't take my calls if he's on a fishing pier on vacation, like he does for Alex Lifeson...but no one's perfect.
 
I wouldn't call that decision "unfortunate". The KPA, by all lights, is a great unit. It's not an Axe, but a Marshall is not a Vox, nor is a Gibson a Fender. You have to use what works for you. You can always change later if the spirit moves you or situations change.
 
hoth said:
Unfortunately yes. but for reasons largely outside of "this is the absolutely bestest tone that makes you cry unicorn tears when you hear it." More practical/life BS reasons.
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Being that the KPA now costs as much as the Axe II, what's the advantage?


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Number one, price isn't everything. Number two, you can buy KPAs at Guitar Center, where there are a couple/few different ways to get substantial discounts. If you wanna get into something professional RFN, sometimes a few hundred bucks is make or break.

But, I'm ascribing motivations where I have no idea where at the OP's concerns lie.
 
Cagey said:
Number one, price isn't everything. Number two, you can buy KPAs at Guitar Center, where there are a couple/few different ways to get substantial discounts. If you wanna get into something professional RFN, sometimes a few hundred bucks is make or break.

But, I'm ascribing motivations where I have no idea where at the OP's concerns lie.
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Guitar Center also offers credit.
 
lscottk said:
Guitar Center also offers credit.
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Good point. Although, their credit lines often come with usurious interest rates. It's a little more trouble, but if you can qualify for an LOC at Guitar Center, you can qualify for a personal loan from a bank or CU. Interest is a LOT lower, and then you can buy whatever you want without regard to merchant. Save money in the long run as well.
 
AZG said:
Try tone matching the KPA. The results are kind of fun and interesting.


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This is my experience too. I used to be frustrated with the Vox tones in the Axe, which imo were better in the Kemper. But tone matching my great Kemper AC15 profile really yielded great results. Also, just listen to what the tone match does to the Plexi model in Pete Thorn's profiles, subtle but amazing when it comes to cleaning up the bottom (among other things).

I use both the Axe and the Kemper and love both.
 
AZG said:
Being that the KPA now costs as much as the Axe II, what's the advantage?

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hoth, I'd love to hear your reasons as well. I love my Axe and don't think I'm likely to go back to playing my Marshalls live or recording with them. But I'm not as adept at tweaking as I think the "average" Axe user is (quotes because I think the majority of you are way above "average," verging on being engineers). Partly, that's due to having no interest in spending a lot of time tweaking. I've worked diligently with the Axe for a couple of years and have killer tones, but still, most sound a bit too distorted, I'm never quite satisfied. I'm reading Cliff's Corner and will set to work with the Input Trim vs. Drive and turning the Master Vol way further down than I'd run one on an amp, and turning the Level up. That may make me happy.

Still, I'm considering a KPA because I'd like to push a button and get a killer tone. Just MY preferences, but for a lot of money, I'd like to get, along with good sound, ease of use more than infinite flexibility. Any time I spend working on tone is time I'd (my personal preferences) rather spend practicing, writing, recording, playing. I respect all you master manipulators, but I'm just not the kind of person who wants to explore what the Character parameter is.

Still, I know there will be trade-offs, such as the unsurpassed effects in the Axe. And there's no way to know if I'd like the KPA profiles without hearing and (groan) tweaking them a while.

Probably nobody needed to hear that, but I needed to say it, and I'm curious if ease of use is a factor for you.
 
Overdrive said:
hoth, I'd love to hear your reasons as well. I love my Axe and don't think I'm likely to go back to playing my Marshalls live or recording with them. But I'm not as adept at tweaking as I think the "average" Axe user is (quotes because I think the majority of you are way above "average," verging on being engineers). Partly, that's due to having no interest in spending a lot of time tweaking. I've worked diligently with the Axe for a couple of years and have killer tones, but still, most sound a bit too distorted, I'm never quite satisfied. I'm reading Cliff's Corner and will set to work with the Input Trim vs. Drive and turning the Master Vol way further down than I'd run one on an amp, and turning the Level up. That may make me happy.

Still, I'm considering a KPA because I'd like to push a button and get a killer tone. Just MY preferences, but for a lot of money, I'd like to get, along with good sound, ease of use more than infinite flexibility. Any time I spend working on tone is time I'd (my personal preferences) rather spend practicing, writing, recording, playing. I respect all you master manipulators, but I'm just not the kind of person who wants to explore what the Character parameter is.

Still, I know there will be trade-offs, such as the unsurpassed effects in the Axe. And there's no way to know if I'd like the KPA profiles without hearing and (groan) tweaking them a while.

Probably nobody needed to hear that, but I needed to say it, and I'm curious if ease of use is a factor for you.
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I use both the KPA and the Axe 2, and I don't neccessarily think the KPA exels in being easier when it comes to dialling up a decent sound quickly. I think the KPA is really great when you have a couple of real amps to work with, making profiles. This was the turning point for me with my KPA -- being able to more or less represent my Marshall digitally. Before that, I'd spend hours and hours modifying existing presets that sounded great on the web but always lacking something when testing it at home -- changing cabinets, etc. With my own profiles, it's really great.

I actually find the Axe easier when it comes to finding an amp + cab combo and making it work, especially after the latest fw releases. I rarely do anything at all with the deep parameters, and the stock cabinets will in most cases give you what you need.
 
Overdrive said:
hoth, I'd love to hear your reasons as well. I love my Axe and don't think I'm likely to go back to playing my Marshalls live or recording with them. But I'm not as adept at tweaking as I think the "average" Axe user is (quotes because I think the majority of you are way above "average," verging on being engineers). Partly, that's due to having no interest in spending a lot of time tweaking. I've worked diligently with the Axe for a couple of years and have killer tones, but still, most sound a bit too distorted, I'm never quite satisfied. I'm reading Cliff's Corner and will set to work with the Input Trim vs. Drive and turning the Master Vol way further down than I'd run one on an amp, and turning the Level up. That may make me happy.

Still, I'm considering a KPA because I'd like to push a button and get a killer tone. Just MY preferences, but for a lot of money, I'd like to get, along with good sound, ease of use more than infinite flexibility. Any time I spend working on tone is time I'd (my personal preferences) rather spend practicing, writing, recording, playing. I respect all you master manipulators, but I'm just not the kind of person who wants to explore what the Character parameter is.

Still, I know there will be trade-offs, such as the unsurpassed effects in the Axe. And there's no way to know if I'd like the KPA profiles without hearing and (groan) tweaking them a while.

Probably nobody needed to hear that, but I needed to say it, and I'm curious if ease of use is a factor for you.
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I've now had a week playing a lot with the KPA (and I had one before for a long time). I agree that it's kind of an apples vs oranges debate. I know both try to replicate a guitar amp so the comparison should be more like oranges vs tangerines but I find that the I got so used to my Axe setup that the difference in workflow is affecting my feel and the sounds I hear from the KPA. I know that a Deluxe in one of the boxes should be similar to a Deluxe from the other box (allowing for certain differences in profiling or a model circuit versus an actual circuit, etc...) but there just feels like there is a bigger difference than I would have expected.

I hesitate to go into too much detail about the KPA as I need more time to re-learn it and get used to a new setup. What I can say is that the profiles I jive with are really great and require very little if any tweaking. Just like many of the amps with the latest firmware of the Axe. Other profiles are just plain bad. In the Axe you would have to tweak an amp that you had issues with but with the KPA you can generally just toss the profile and look for another of that same amp. There usually many profiles of most of the amps out there but that takes time. There are also other places where you would be spending time getting things to feel right for you. So each box requires a time commitment.
 
hoth said:
I've now had a week playing a lot with the KPA (and I had one before for a long time). I agree that it's kind of an apples vs oranges debate. I know both try to replicate a guitar amp so the comparison should be more like oranges vs tangerines but I find that the I got so used to my Axe setup that the difference in workflow is affecting my feel and the sounds I hear from the KPA. I know that a Deluxe in one of the boxes should be similar to a Deluxe from the other box (allowing for certain differences in profiling or a model circuit versus an actual circuit, etc...) but there just feels like there is a bigger difference than I would have expected.

I hesitate to go into too much detail about the KPA as I need more time to re-learn it and get used to a new setup. What I can say is that the profiles I jive with are really great and require very little if any tweaking. Just like many of the amps with the latest firmware of the Axe. Other profiles are just plain bad. In the Axe you would have to tweak an amp that you had issues with but with the KPA you can generally just toss the profile and look for another of that same amp. There usually many profiles of most of the amps out there but that takes time. There are also other places where you would be spending time getting things to feel right for you. So each box requires a time commitment.
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Thanks, good insights.

An amp in one should theoretically be similar to the same amp in the other, but they should mostly be similar to the real thing; one may or may not be closer, or each might resemble the original in different ways! Of course, with infinite variables such as your guitar and pickup types, tweaking each box in their own ways, so it's obviously way complicated. It might be hard for some of us to make that judgment though--I don't have a Fender Twin or an AC30 or JCM800 to compare each box's version to, so it's hard to evaluate them on that basis. The Axe reproduces my JVM410 pretty well, might actually sound better, so that adds the different-but-better factor.
 
Just because it seems to be missing here, let me add that there are profiles for the AxeFx to download, try, and disgard too ... from the forums and the Axe-Change site. You can try and throw those away just as easilly as you do on the Kemper. They are FREE too. Why this is seldom mentioned when comparing the Kemper and AxeFx, I don't know.
 
This is something that I have always been curious about with the Kemper. Does it model the gain structure like the Axe does? Everything that I have seen it looks like you select that you are profiling either a Clean or Distorted amp then profile it. if that is the case then how does it, or does it even "profile" how the distortion sounds/works in the amp?
 
stm113 said:
This is something that I have always been curious about with the Kemper. Does it model the gain structure like the Axe does? Everything that I have seen it looks like you select that you are profiling either a Clean or Distorted amp then profile it. if that is the case then how does it, or does it even "profile" how the distortion sounds/works in the amp?
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Yes, this is a big question of mine too. In any case, for those keeping score, I am back to the Axe. The back and forth cost me in time, effort and money. But we chase. We chase.
 
stm113 said:
This is something that I have always been curious about with the Kemper. Does it model the gain structure like the Axe does? Everything that I have seen it looks like you select that you are profiling either a Clean or Distorted amp then profile it. if that is the case then how does it, or does it even "profile" how the distortion sounds/works in the amp?
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In simple terms the Kemper is an extremely sophisticated Impulse Response factory, it clones a snapshot of what ever set up you have sending a signal wave that travels thru all the sound signal of your amp/cab/mic and that resulting IR can be further tonally manipulated.

Once the snapshot is taken you can then play with drive and tone knobs and that is the trick part, that is where the clone part ends and the modelling parts starts. Axe FX has amps that are digitally build in Fractals audio own special way, with Kemper you don't have amps that are built but cloned to any given specific dialled tone.

Turning the gain up or down on the Kemper acts completely different then what happens in the Axe FX because Fractal Audio took special care of every single gain stage and stuff like that thats what an amps structure is build of where in the Kemper that drive know is not realistic because it does not clone all those specific gain structures of the real amp.

And this does not mean anything if by turning those knobs you get real good tone, its just different approaches. Tone is King here, if you get great tones with either unit its all a win win situation for the end user.

You can practically build your own amp inside the Axe FX, this is not possible with Kemper, at least from what i can understand how the unit works.
 
nicolasrivera said:
In simple terms the Kemper is an extremely sophisticated Impulse Response factory, it clones a snapshot of what ever set up you have sending a signal wave that travels thru all the sound signal of your amp/cab/mic and that resulting IR can be further tonally manipulated.

Once the snapshot is taken you can then play with drive and tone knobs and that is the trick part, that is where the clone part ends and the modelling parts starts. Axe FX has amps that are digitally build in Fractals audio own special way, with Kemper you don't have amps that are built but cloned to any given specific dialled tone.

Turning the gain up or down on the Kemper acts completely different then what happens in the Axe FX because Fractal Audio took special care of every single gain stage and stuff like that thats what an amps structure is build of where in the Kemper that drive know is not realistic because it does not clone all those specific gain structures of the real amp.

And this does not mean anything if by turning those knobs you get real good tone, its just different approaches. Tone is King here, if you get great tones with either unit its all a win win situation for the end user.

You can practically build your own amp inside the Axe FX, this is not possible with Kemper, at least from what i can understand how the unit works.
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+1 on all this.

Some of us crazies may just have to have both. :)
 
GuitarDojo said:
I paid $1600 for mine and DO NOT get how its gone up to $1900+
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Sweetwatter have them on "sale" for $2133.00, that is completely insane! Maybe Mr. Kemper saw just how good the Axe FX is selling at the price it sales for that he thought why not sell my unit at almost the same price!
 
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