Axe-Fx III clean amp sounds compared to Kemper cleans

A little over 6 years ago I tried out an AXE FX . I liked everything about it except the clean amp sounds. The Cleans just sounded way too sterile and digital. So i returned it for a refund.
My need for really decent clean sounds is why I have also avoided Channel switching amps. So for the last 20 years I have pretty much used Fender and Matchless amps with a variety of OD/Dist pedals.
About three years ago I got a Kemper and some MBritt profiles . If not for the MBritt profiles I would have returned it as I did not like any of the stock profiles it came loaded with . The Clean amp profiles and sounds I am getting with the Kemper are really good ! Very close to the real deal.
So, I am on here researching the AXE FX III. So . . . how much has the AXE FX III improved over the earlier models on the clean amp sounds ? Are they as good as what one could get out of the Kemper ? or Better ? or just almost as good ? By clean , I am talking really good cleans that breath. To play real Country lead guitar , Rock-a-billy , Pushed cleans etc.
Your comments will be helpful and appreciated.

Update: I believe I have enough information now about the AXE III . . . greatly improved amp models since the 1st one I tried 7 years ago, and not just on the clean sounds . Just getting the funds up to make the purchase in the next month of two. All that is left to do now is study how to navigate and operate the AXE III with as much understanding as I can so that when it gets here I can have a good head start . I wish to be done with looking and shopping for amps & FX and just spend the rest of my time playing and creating music with better than "Close , but no cigar" sounds . At this point I am sold and getting my funds together to make the purchase. Two two two devices are better than one ! :)
 
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cleans on III are outstanding.......but I would not unload my Kemper if you can afford to have both, as you have discovered , some of MBritt's clean profiles(my only rationale for keeping the lunchbox), are as good as it gets as far as aural pleasure goes(but not tweakability)..but if I had to choose between the two the III wins easily on all counts.
 
cleans on III are outstanding.......but I would not unload my Kemper if you can afford to have both, as you have discovered , some of MBritt's clean profiles(my only rationale for keeping the lunchbox), are as good as it gets as far as aural pleasure goes(but not tweakability)..but if I had to choose between the two the III wins easily on all counts.
I have the Non powered Kemper Rack . So far, it is the best Channel switching amp thing I have had since I unloaded my Hudge rack set up back in 1994. I saw some clips of Brett Kingman doing gear & Guitar demos on his Axe FX III . I definitely noticed the clean tones seemed better than most previous AXE FX clips I had seen in a while. I was not even considering looking at anymore amps or devices , I was just researching what the best FRFR cab I could purchase for my Kemper.Then I started noticing these AXE FX II & III clips . The ones Brett Kingman have up on his AXE III really got my attention ! These last three years of just being able to use the Kemper Direct and into one channel of my QSC floor monitor sure has made my GIG life much easier. espeasually doing my Solo act. XR18 Mixer, Kemper , Vocal harmonizer and synth Modules all loaded into a 12 space gator rack case all plugged in. Pop off the front cover . run lines and power to my Monitor and Mains . . . Bam ! 35 minute set up ! I'm ready to rock the Casbah and getting really good guitar sounds as good , and in some cases, better than my regular guitar set up. I know, with out a doubt , the FX on they Fractal are as good as it gets . It has always been on my mind since the 1st time I tried the 1st AXE FX "If they could get the clean sounds to be as good as the Overdrive amp sounds that would be an awesome guitar rig.
 
I have the Non powered Kemper Rack . So far, it is the best Channel switching amp thing I have had since I unloaded my Hudge rack set up back in 1994. I saw some clips of Brett Kingman doing gear & Guitar demos on his Axe FX III . I definitely noticed the clean tones seemed better than most previous AXE FX clips I had seen in a while. I was not even considering looking at anymore amps or devices , I was just researching what the best FRFR cab I could purchase for my Kemper.Then I started noticing these AXE FX II & III clips . The ones Brett Kingman have up on his AXE III really got my attention ! These last three years of just being able to use the Kemper Direct and into one channel of my QSC floor monitor sure has made my GIG life much easier. espeasually doing my Solo act. XR18 Mixer, Kemper , Vocal harmonizer and synth Modules all loaded into a 12 space gator rack case all plugged in. Pop off the front cover . run lines and power to my Monitor and Mains . . . Bam ! 35 minute set up ! I'm ready to rock the Casbah and getting really good guitar sounds as good , and in some cases, better than my regular guitar set up. I know, with out a doubt , the FX on they Fractal are as good as it gets . It has always been on my mind since the 1st time I tried the 1st AXE FX "If they could get the clean sounds to be as good as the Overdrive amp sounds that would be an awesome guitar rig.
Yeah @Burgs is a treasure, and creates some wonderful tones for us all...the cleans have indeed undergone marked improvement on a consistent basis due to Mr. Chase’s unprecedented rate of updates and genius eCliffanies™. I have found the combination of the two units immensely satisfying when I want frankensteinian overkill.
 
Never encountered the earlier Axe gear, but absolutely love the cleans in my AxeFX III.

Great feel, punchy, and warm. Current fave: the 'Jumped Hipower' HIWATT model.
 
In my earlier life, with the previous AFXs, I was not able to bond with the clean tones, either. But I wasn't totally locked to clean tones, so it was no biggie.

Now, I LOVE the clean tones, in the AFX III. I often steer to them before the OD tones. I'm not playing out, currently - only home studio hobby jamming for the time being, so weigh that for what it's worth. Got tired of the band drama.

I have not played a Kemper, so can't relate that for you.

Just saying I love the cleans, in the III. Very juicy, and touch sensitive; nice round sound with just right compression. Not as brittle and harsh as some of the earlier versions were, to my ears. Of course, some of that could have been my dialing it in, and not the gear, so there you go....
 
Just saying I love the cleans, in the III. Very juicy, and touch sensitive; nice round sound with just right compression.

Concur. I can't compare to Kemper, but I go to the cleans (a wide range of amps... Fender, Vox, HW, Shiver, jazz models, the new JP Green etc) a lot for noodling fun and that "Ahhhhh" feeling. Dialing in with the right IR(s) also can make a big difference (so far I only use factory ones and a few free ones).
 
Never encountered the earlier Axe gear, but absolutely love the cleans in my AxeFX III.

Great feel, punchy, and warm. Current fave: the 'Jumped Hipower' HIWATT model.
yea, I saw Brett Kingman (Burgs) doing a Hiwatt and Fuzz DavidGilmore -ish thing on Youtube going from a Hiwatt amp Clean to heavy Fuzzed out sound. That very clip is why I came on here and posted my inquiry !
 
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about Kemper

But, isnt Kemper tones based on the actual amp you have and making profile of? So Kemper basically doesn't have any Amp tones at all by it self?
Or... shall I read the manual? :D :D
 
I think the Axe Fx 3 has more potential than the Kemper for better cleans but it depends on how good you are at tweaking it.. My buddy showed me how his kemper works and it's much easier to get a good tone but you can achieve much more with the Axe Fx 3 if you spend the time and have more patience.. I've only had mine for a little less than a month but I imagine in a year or two I'll be able to get any tone I want much faster than now..
But having used digital amp modelers all my life I can tell you that the axe 3 cleans do not have the digital feel at all, they sound very real to my ears.
 
It comes with some profiles and you get a lot for free or to buy that you can import.
But the workflow is way different from the Axe-fx. You try hunderts of profiles and sort them, because it has to be close to what you want because editing further off the original makes it sound artificial. Think of it like getting, installing and searching through a cab library.
 
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about Kemper

But, isnt Kemper tones based on the actual amp you have and making profile of? So Kemper basically doesn't have any Amp tones at all by it self?
Or... shall I read the manual? :D :D
More or less..many amp profile presets are included with the box and many many more available on their rig manager online exchange, (many of them are unusable to me, but I’m not a metal guy.) And many users , like me , have never profiled an amp, but as OP and me both do, depends on the good ears and access to amazing amps that Michael Britt seems to have access to. ..but yes, to answer your initial query, the lunchbox has no amp tones of its own.
 
For the most part, at 1st. I will probably only use 5 or 6 amps sounds for most of my gigging. Nice to have a 100. But I will never really need that many. I just want the few i use to sound and feel as real as possible through an FRFR cab and in-ears.
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about Kemper

But, isnt Kemper tones based on the actual amp you have and making profile of? So Kemper basically doesn't have any Amp tones at all by it self?
Or... shall I read the manual? :D :D
Kemper comes loaded with a bunch of amp profiles/sounds . However , I found most of the stock ones to be useless . So i tried the Kemper another time, this time I got a MBritt samples pack to try with it., Huge difference ! The Kemper is as good or as bad as the amp profiles you load in it or create with it with the use of ever what amp your are profiling and with ever what gear/mic/mic pre you are using. I would not have kept or still be playing on the Kemper if not for the MBritt Profiles to get me up and running a gigging ! Since then , I have profiled my 1996 Matchless into it and recently my Todd Sharp JOAT20RT both with just the use of an old SM57 mic. Both at various gain setting and loudness, I must say this was just by accident , but , one of my best clean sounds I have loaded in my Kemper is the Todd Sharp . I'll put it right up there with all the MBritt clean amp profiles I really like. No Brag, just fact ! The only negative thing about the Kemper is the profiles are of amps played with certain guitars at a certain setting. You can add more or less gain and make some EQ changes and tweak the sounds to where they are very close to your liking or taste. But I can see where some of the sounds , can not be totally changed to the an extreme degree . So far , I get all the sounds extremely close to my preference.
 
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I find the right balance of small amounts of compression, reverb, delay and light chorusing to be 5X more important for cleans than for dirt sounds. Its why some clean sounds are so elusive, FX used in ways that aren't in your face ala The Edge delay tricks, but still enrich the sound in ways you feel and notice the absence of. Dirt hides a lot in comparison. FX matter less there IME.

The idea that any one thing could do this as well, as easily and as flexibly as the AFIII is hard for me to see in 2019, especially an old platform lacking things we've taken for granted since the AF I. I've certainly heard nothing from other platforms that inspires envy or close. I certainly envy a lot of other people's writing abilities, for sure, but tones, nope.

Explanations of how people profile are about as exciting as an afternoon nap to me. We have the amps, the cabs, and the FX necessary all in one box, out of the box with a good editor and an ever improving front panel. It's not really a fair comparison except that people love "vs". There's literally nothing I'd rather have than an AFIII. The "and... I'm done" feeling is priceless. Back to playing!
 
I have both. M Britt profiles on my KPA are beautiful. Cleans on my Axe FX III are beautiful. The Axe FX III has phenomenal effects. I have many Fender amplifiers, with almost the entire product-line of 1960's black-panel models, a small, a mid, and large Tweed, a few Browns, and small, mid, and large silver-panels. These are my reference, for the second and third sentence in this post. It's done with my ears, but I hope this helps. One more thing: the Axe FX III is out and used. The KPA has been in its case ever since the Fractal Audio FC12 was delivered.
 
I find the right balance of small amounts of compression, reverb, delay and light chorusing to be 5X more important for cleans than for dirt sounds. Its why some clean sounds are so elusive, FX used in ways that aren't in your face ala The Edge delay tricks, but still enrich the sound in ways you feel and notice the absence of. Dirt hides a lot in comparison. FX matter less there IME.

The idea that any one thing could do this as well, as easily and as flexibly as the AFIII is hard for me to see in 2019, especially an old platform lacking things we've taken for granted since the AF I. I've certainly heard nothing from other platforms that inspires envy or close. I certainly envy a lot of other people's writing abilities, for sure, but tones, nope.

Explanations of how people profile are about as exciting as an afternoon nap to me. We have the amps, the cabs, and the FX necessary all in one box, out of the box with a good editor and an ever improving front panel. It's not really a fair comparison except that people love "vs". There's literally nothing I'd rather have than an AFIII. The "and... I'm done" feeling is priceless. Back to playing!
Yea, I could care less about all the geek stuff of how it was achieved , I just want the sound right. A real Clean amp sound that breaths like a real amp. I just want some great raw tones, that is the canvas to start painting on. I would rather not have to go on a holy grail search just to get a real Fender Princeton amp sound or Marshall or Vox . Would rather it not be so damn complicated ! That is why I will never sell my last two real good tube amps and pedals. Though I really love the convenience of having all those sounds , FX and such under one easy to carry unit, I still love my amps and pedals .
 
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Yea, I could care less about all the geek stuff of how it was achieved , I just want the sound right. A real Clean amp sound that breaths like a real amp. I just want some great raw tones, that is the canvas to start painting on. I would rather not have to go on a holy grail search just to get a real Fender Princeton amp sound or Marshall or Vox . Would rather it not be so damn complicated ! That is why I will never sell my last two real good tube amps and pedals. Though I really love the convenience of having all those sounds , FX and such under one easy to carry unit, I still love my amps and pedals .

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