Anyone switched from Kemper to Axe-Fx III?

A guy made videos with A/B comparisons between Kemper and Axe-FX III.
I saw those videos one week before buying the Axe-FX III.
I was already convinced to buy an Axe-FX because I owned an Ultra and I saw many videos (Leon Todd, Cooper Carter…).
So I was a little bit nervous. What if the Kemper sounds better.
I listened to the videos and wrote on a piece of paper which sound was my favourite for each comparison. A or B.
Sometimes it was A, sometimes B. But in the end, when the guy revealed who was A and B on each sound, the ones I chose were ALWAYS Axe-FX III.
End of the game for me :) !
 
SML59 said:
A guy made videos with A/B comparisons between Kemper and Axe-FX III.
I saw those videos one week before buying the Axe-FX III.
I was already convinced to buy an Axe-FX because I owned an Ultra and I saw many videos (Leon Todd, Cooper Carter…).
So I was a little bit nervous. What if the Kemper sounds better.
I listened to the videos and wrote on a piece of paper which sound was my favourite for each comparison. A or B.
Sometimes it was A, sometimes B. But in the end, when the guy revealed who was A and B on each sound, the ones I chose were ALWAYS Axe-FX III.
End of the game for me :) !
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Great to hear, welcome aboard!
I also had to make this decision earlier this year. Spent months and months watching every comparison video I could get my hands (ears?) on. At the end of the day, what ended up being the deciding factor for me is workflow. The way I see it, both products are capable of producing the tones you want. Hell, same goes for the Helix, Neural DSP's stuff and many others.

For me, this is about more than tone.

I love tinkering with stuff. What would happen if I mix this amp with this IR? Can I make my guitar sound like a violin? How many delays and reverbs can I stand before I start hating life?
Learning about what certain audio things are was one of my goals. I've never owned many amps (they're expensive and loud!), so I had no idea what I liked. What's the difference in feel between a Mesa Boogie and a 5150? I literally had no idea. Now, with the Fractal unit, I get to explore all these questions. I'm learning about how tube amps work from the forums and write-ups. I've made some pretty nice presets using some stuff I'd never heard of (hello, Friedman amplifications!).

Point is, for me, there's much more than just 'toanz' in the Fractal ecosystem. You're buying an entire studio in a box that you get to play with. If you're a guy who just wants to plug in his guitar, jam away, and never be confronted with a button, try the Kemper (although honestly, the Fractal presets are insane - please please please try the FAS Hot Rod!!). If you want the option to learn about how amps work, be able to experiment with different amps and settings, and have a gorgeous magic black box in your room / studio... you've come to the right place!

tl;dr tone is great on both, you're buying more than just tone with the AxeFx, go for it. Obviously biased.
 
I think I have had 3 Kemper units since they were introduced about 7 or is it 8 years ago. They are a great unit and are well regarded by many pro’s. I don’t own any of the units anymore. I did try one again back in Nov. of last year for a month and was once again disappointed with a bug in the software that I sent in my file into their support as requested and heard nothing back from them. I simply returned it.

Funny thing is that I have only ever purchased one Fractal product...my Axe III. I still have it and still love it more than 2 years later. It just sounds right to me. You really don’t need to buy any profiles for it. It’s literally all there in the box.
 
Had an Axe FX Ultra. Sold it for a Kemper. Had the Kemper for around 7 years or so. Sold it for Axe III. Love it and have not regretted it for a second. I also live in an apartment.
 
Had a Kemper Powerhead since 2014, bought an FX8 in 2018 and loved it with my real amps.

This made me seriously want an AXE FX III. Purchased the III in January and it's the most fun piece of musical equipment I've ever bought.

The Kemper is now only used for fly dates where I have no idea what the backline will be due to having the powerhead with the 600 watt power amp built in.

I honestly find nothing in the Kemper better than the Axe FX III other than the fact it can fit in a single bass drum pedal gig bag and in the overhead locker on a plane and the built in power amp. If the Axe FX3 had a built in power amp the Kemper would be gone. My 8U rack for the Axe fx just too big for my fly dates.
 
I actually was a huge fanboy of Kemper products! I really dug the sound of it and the flexibility.
I think what most convinced me to buy the Kemper that an actual tube amp was involved in this process - so it's "more realistic" than other products out there in the market. I had any 3rd party Profile from any vendor out there in order to get as much amps and sounds and get "more" out of it. Was extremely endless and of course all of the effects out there were built in and I believed they were extremely high end.

I spent around 4 years in total with it. UNTIL

Some dude in facebook is actually brought to my attention things that always bothered my in the Kemper - Why sometimes all the amps were awkwardly similar and always inserted Midrange that isn't exist there at all! Or else about the glorified reverb and effects of Fractal Audio, and me?
I was all shocked when the new reverb update of Kemper has arrived with the ambient shimmer and stuff. So my curiosity has lead to invite this dude with his AX3 and make a comparison with my Kemper. MAN.
AT LAST!! A Marshall that actually sounds like marshall! An actual simulation of a Fender amp "exploding" without actually exploding your ears! And the Fuzz!!! Finally a Fuzz that doesn't like a man throwing a pile in the woods.

I will say @FractalAudio that are some things in the Kemper that are better - for example the Preset System and their Performance mode. It's much more intuative and more faster to create a live rig set than the Axe by itself (without Axe Edit 3)
But when it's about sound! It much more flexible, powerful and more friendly for the sound madmen to actually chase things you couldn't do in any other unit! The effects, and the Superior pitch and Virtual Capo algorhythms are awesome\!
 
I own an Axe II, Axe III + FC12 and a Kemper rack + floor controller.
I find the Fractal ecosystem way easier to setup, tweak and play with. I'm not even considering Axe Edit which is an order of magnitude better than its Kemper counterpart.
 
I had a Kemper for a few months. They're good if you want something a bit more "turnkey". It's not as flexible in creating profiles/presets from the ground up. It is good for just turning it on and playing through it but with minimum tweakability in comparison to the AX3. Long term, you'll want more flexibility and will appreciate the level of control on the Axe FX much much more. The Axe FX offers you the ability to really get into the nuts and bolts of what you want to hear and will be much more satisfying in the end. I really feel like it's a no-brainer when it comes to the selection. Kemper is also very old technology, comparatively. They've been using the same hardware for quite some time.
 
I still own Kemper and AxeFx 1,2, and 3. In my opinion, the sound quality and dynamics of the amps in the Kemper is similar to the Axe2, maybe to the 3. The effects are not as good as the Fractals. The editor and the fact that it does not record via USB ...well, to me that is a joke. But the kemper did a good job, profiling my sounds from the Axe3 :-D
 
Why did it take Kemper YEARS to come up with an editor when people had been complaining about it for YEARS and had to depend on a 3 party editor that only worked 50% of the time for YEARS? Do Kemper listen to their customers like Fractal listen to theirs? I THINK NOT.
 
To be transparent I own a Kemper toaster/stage and an AX8/2 ultras/AFXII and AFX III.
I love them all for different reasons. I find the Kemper the most simple to use but for my crazy rig (synths/dual input etc) the AFXIII is a must.
For more stripped amp sounds I normally use the Kemper


rickster71 said:
Not including the effects in the axe fx are way way better than kemper on top of that it took Kemper forever to make an editor for the kemper.
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IMO the majority of the effects are better on the AFX but the Kemper does have some better/exclusive ones.....as for the editor, this is irrelevant to someone buying one now.

rickster71 said:
Look at the artist who uses axe fx. should be a no brainer.
https://www.fractalaudio.com/artists/
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Yeah but how many use the AFX for FX only and not the amp modelling on the list?

rickster71 said:
But the best ones are on Axe FX
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Never knew music was such a competition:rolleyes:



strabes said:
I prefer the Ax3/FM3 over the Kemper for all the reasons the other posters mentioned. I really prefer the modeling paradigm over the profiling paradigm, because the knobs on the amps respond the way they do on the real amps.
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Comparing some of the amps I've owned they didn't match but this was some time ago and a different unit (II)
Also I've noticed some significant tonal changes with certain models from back in the MIMIC days so I'll leave it at that.

strabes said:
Kemper is an endless profile hunt, because if you want a little more gain from the amp, you have to find another profile, you can't just turn the drive knob because it instantly sounds fake because the Kemper has no way to know how the amp sounds on settings other than how they were set when the profile was made. There's also always this hope that the next Marshall profile pack will be 2% better than the thousands you've already purchased and sorted through the 90% that are just garbage. Whereas on Ax3, you just pull up the amp you want, and a couple of IRs from a matching cab (I usually go with the studio standard 57+121), and you can be confident that the amp sounds like if you had the real thing in a nice studio, perfectly mic'd it up, and listened to that signal through whatever speakers you're using. It's honestly mind blowing every time I pull up a different amp.
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I've seen people on endless IR pack/IR mixes as well not to mention there are commercial presets and courses on how to use the AFXIII.

I'm sorry but the EQ changes while not exact as the amp still were very musical and gain adjustments didn't mess with the sound too much....maybe I was just lucky with my profiles. The Kemper is loaded with profiles from some pretty reputable names.....I'd say if you can't find some you like there might be a problem.


strabes said:
Kemper is also really dated in other ways: DSP power (you can't run very many blocks at the same time), signal routing (no parallel processing or different ins/outs, a single fx loop, etc), the UI is pretty rough by 2020 standards (tiny black+white screen), effects are very weak compared to Axe's, no USB audio interface, not much I/O, etc.

I'd still go back to Kemper before going back to buying and lugging real amps, but having owned most of the other popular modelers, once you have the Ax3, it's tough to go back to any other unit.
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Never had an issue with a full set of effects on the kemper....I can't say for certain others haven't experienced it but I will have to follow up. It definitely doesn't have the routing that the AFXIII does but it does have parallel processing and has for sometime now. Its a little hidden how to get it but its there.
 
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