AXEII or Kemper - Need hear these TM's to decide which to get

JohnRaptor

Inspired
I am in a dilemma people, I sold my Ultra last year just so I could get a new AXII. Well I waited almost a year it seems before I finally got my coupon, by that time I got it, sadly I didn't have enough money to buy the AxeII. :( Fast forward to now, I am coming up to where I can finally buy one but the Kemper has been added to the picture now. In all seriousness I am pretty impressed with it and was thinking of going for that but now this new Tone matching comes out and it looks like it will allow me to grab some very near close tones of some of my favorite musicians and songs. Now I am reconsidering getting the Kemper and going for the AxeII. To help me throw it over the edge and go ahead and get the axe I want to hear some TM's of songs I like.

Specifically, I'd like to hear Randy Rhoades tone from Diary of a Madman album, Yngwie Malmsteen from any of his first few albums, Sepultura from the albums Beneath the remains and Arise, Testament from any albums. Jeff Loomis from the Nevermore album This godless endeavor, Megadeth from any albums up to Countdown to Extinction, Metallica any album, Jason Becker, from his incredible perpetual burn album. Those are just some that I am most interested in.

If anyone plans on tone matching anything from any of those albums that would be fantastic and I would be most grateful. I just cant make up my mind now and I need that extra push. Thanks!
 
I don't think you'll have any luck finding isolated Loomis tracks. THe remix of "Enemies of Reality" is one of the tonew I'd love to try and match
I don't think TGE has any spots with isolated guitar?
you're going after a lot of the same tones I like :)
 
Buy the AxeFx II. If you don't love it, sell it for profit. :) The Kemper won't tone-match a recording anyway, will it? Plus it's ugly. >.>
 
Buy the AxeFx II. If you don't love it, sell it for profit. :) The Kemper won't tone-match a recording anyway, will it? Plus it's ugly. >.>

I think kemper sounds damn good for what it does "but only heard it on youtube"
I would like to try one!
 
You are asking this question in the Fractal Audio forum. Guess, what most users will answer?

The OP asked to be thrown over the edge toward his purchase of an Axe Fx II. I think its the least we can do. Besides if we can't do it, who can?
 
I'll upload some Godless Endeavor + The Obsidian Conspiracy matches during the week, I have some isolated tracks that I've matched Loomis's tone from before.
 
Obviously biased with an Axe II in my rack, but I will say I did a moderate comparison between the two. I settled on staying with the Axe Fx because it sounds awesome, I like the customer support FAS provides, it physically fits into my setup better (the Kemper kind of reminds me of a big Peterson Strobotuner), and has a lot more Fx options. I think it is just a better developed platform all around. If you are looking at capability, tone match wise, I would say that (quoting a post I read on the Kemper forum today) the Kemper uses a 400 Mhz processor, compared to the Axe Fx using two 600 Mhz processors. I feel that clearly gives the Axe Fx more room to work without running out of horsepower.

I think the Kemper is a very good unit, and certainly worth a look. It is a couple of hundred bucks cheaper ($1850 on Sweetwater), if that is a factor.

One thing that did concern me, and I saw it again today, is how many of the Kemper users were reporting equipment failures. I don't know enough about the unit to diagnose user error from hardware failure there, but it wasn't just one or two. When the solution seemed to be "unplug it for 30 minutes and see if it comes back on" I got kind of turned off to using it as my performing amp. Shutting it off for 30 minutes at a gig is problematic.

Anyway, it is very often that what one player hates is nirvana to the next guy or girl. You'll ultimately have to cast your vote with your own money so research all you can and drop the cash where most appropriate for you. I have nothing at all against Kemper (I'd love to play around with one to test) but if you handed me your money to spend, I would send it to Fractal Audio without a second thought and know that I left you with great gear and support.

Axe Fx II, you won't regret it.
 
check out the kpa forum too. Both units do sound great, but (as above) it does sound like there are some issues concerning kpa reliability. Reading quite a few state that "they wouldn't rely on it for live shows" or words to that effect. That situation will improve for sure as time goes by.
Of course axefx gets some failures too, but it seems pretty reliable overall.
 
Thanks everyone. Believe me I have been reading alot about both units and I am not here to bash one or the other, as I said I am a former Ultra owner and loved it and only sold it so I could get the AxeII, problem was I was on the list for a coupon since they were announced and it was many,many months before I got mine and unfortunately my money was spent by that time.

Since Fractal is not the only kid on the block now my curiosity got the better of me. I know that I am going to get a pro AXE bias here, but I am not asking what is better. I want to hear TONES, I am very excited about the new tone matching and I have heard some great tones, just not much in the style of music I play which is metal. I have heard that the Kemper is great for metal and that is what peaked my interest but I have been planning on getting the axe and still am leaning heavily toward it. I would just really love to hear some tones from some of the bands I like. I play mostly covers and getting those near exact tones would really send my covers over the top! With that said I just heard a Pantera WALK TM that sounded extremely good! I was very impressed with that.
 
So far what I have heard from the tone matching has been pretty impressive. Very accurate, even side by side, so I don't think anyone could pick it out used alone! I would translate what you've heard as "it translates that tone extremely well" and make the assumption it will with other tones as well. I've already heard convincing tones from Pink Floyd, to Andy Summers, Joe Bonnamassa, Dime, and others. I'd say that should assure that if an accurate sample is available, an accurate match will likely result.

I think the Kemper can probably do this as well. This is why I said it will probably come down to decisions other than matching; such as reliability, internal hardware, company support, user support community, other options in the box, etc. I had an Ultra as well, and have never regretted the upgrade to the II. I don't think you'd regret buying the Kemper, it's a cool box. But I do think you'd get more for your dollar with FAS, IMO.

Check out the Tone Match threads. Lots there already.
 
Randy Rhoads recently got posted and it sounds really good, check that one out. Kemper is cool for what it is but the effects in the axe are so superior that alone would sway me. Add the new 6.0 improvements and top it off with tone matching and the choice should probably be a lot easier to make. Looking forward to having you in the ranks man!
 
Yes, I heard that RR clip, very impressive! Pretty much every clip that is being posted is sounding so good. Its making my decision alot easier. The effects on the Axe is a big factor that I forgot about and at this point I am now probably going with the AxeII.

Am I right to assume that you need a raw stand alone guitar track to accurately make a TM? There cant be any other instruments such as drums or bass?

What about a violin, trumpet, cello, piano? Can those be matched as well?
 
Yes, I heard that RR clip, very impressive! Pretty much every clip that is being posted is sounding so good. Its making my decision alot easier. The effects on the Axe is a big factor that I forgot about and at this point I am now probably going with the AxeII.

Am I right to assume that you need a raw stand alone guitar track to accurately make a TM? There cant be any other instruments such as drums or bass?

What about a violin, trumpet, cello, piano? Can those be matched as well?
We've got cello, sitar, acoustic guitar and synth patches. So yeah they can. Do you run a studio or are you in a cover band or something? Just asking as why needing all these specific tones is a must. Tone Matching on the Axe Fx II is crazy easy if you have a isolated guitar part to get it. Almost scary easy:lol
Axe Fx II is three times powerful than the kemper.
I think ya' already know what you want.... you just gotta get it!!

Goodluck
 
Personally, I would take the Tone Matching part out of the equation for the purposes of deciding which to buy. Tone Matching is a great feature no doubt, but it should be more about the tones you hear without the Tone Matching. Which is more versatile? Which is better for gigging, etc.?

Like someone mentioned a few weeks ago, this whole Tone Match thing is great for everyone regardless of which amp you own.
 
So you had an Ultra? So did I.

Let's just put it this way, do you remember when v11 of the Ultra dropped and there was that "holy crap" moment. The AxeFXII was like that with v4 when I got it and the last two major firmware upgrades were the same kind of "oh my God" moments times about 3-10X depending on your excitability level.

Now to bring it back down to reality a bit there are some kinks here and there that I think that Cliff is working out, but I don't think that any of them are show stoppers; not even close. And really the biggest issues are AxeEdit right now and thats being worked on. I just think that its important to note them if we're going to dog the KPA out for reliability or performance. You have to be fair or its not a very honest evaluation.

Here's the way that I would evaluate this, the AxeFXII has a list of features that the KPA doesn't offer. Don't get into subjective crap with identifying cold hard facts like USB, PC editor, built in sound card, etc. Identify the features that you have to have and see which one covers everything you need. If the KPA can do everything you need to then move onto the sales pitch/subjective portion of this thread. :)

I like the KPA even though I haven't touched one in person. I don't feel threatened by stuff that I don't own and I don't feel compelled to buy every new product that is released for the sake of buying it. There are definitely some things that the KPA brought to the table in terms of approach that are very worthy of respect. With that said I think that with any new product that the hype machine gets rolling and there is a tendency to emphasize the positive, ignore the negative and that just doesn't help anyone who's trying to make an informed decision. I think that the last month or so has gotten enough of these things out there to get a bit more of an honest assessment. Its a great product, does what its supposed to do very well, but there are some trade-offs and like any new technology some growing pains involved with it.

For me the amp modeling improvements between the Ultra and II were enough to make me choose it over the KPA and keep going. I get the hands down best amp modeling system on the planet and I can create my own patches from scratch. When I want to tweak or create the knobs will respond and react closer to a real amp because the code is based on the actual circuits where as with a profiling system I can adjust a few things about a sound, but the pots don't respond like a real amp do. Secondly if I want to change a cabinet or mic type I can where as the KPA has it baked into the profile. The effects have been beaten to death; it's not really a fair point of comparison.

Even with all of that based on just traditional amp modeling vs profiling I can see arguments for one over the other. The TMA block just tipped the scales completely IMHO. Personally I never loved the idea of profiling for some of the reasons listed above, but mainly it was because I just don't have any of the amps I want to hear and the idea of mic'ing up actual analog versions of something to make a copy of it just seems kind of redundant. I know that if I had a KPA that I could probably dig through all the profiles out there and find some stuff I liked, but as the end of the day I'm stuck with using other people's sounds. If I want to tweak one of those profiles there is a limit to how far I can go as well. But even if I did go out and buy an amp now I can make a match of it now. More importantly though I can find a clip of a guitar I like and match it. That's something that I can actually do. Even cooler than that though is that when I go into tweak the tone pots and gain and stuff it reacts like that amp would if it was in front of me. Perhaps not exactly, but closer than anything out there.

If price is the sole determining factor then it is what it is. The KPA is an amazing piece of gear and I don't think that anyone can argue that. But if you are looking for what meets your needs the best and the price difference isn't a factor I honestly think that its really hard to pick the KPA over the II. Neither are absolutely perfect at every single thing they do, but both are really damn good at it. Workflow and feature set are really biggest separating factors.
 
Am I right to assume that you need a raw stand alone guitar track to accurately make a TM? There cant be any other instruments such as drums or bass?

What about a violin, trumpet, cello, piano? Can those be matched as well?

You need to understand what Tone Matching really is. It is basically an EQ match, comparing eq content of two sources (e.g. a file and your guitar sound). If there's a bass guitar in the mix, your resulting TM will have more bottom...if there are cymbals you will probably end up with a lot of high freq content etc etc.

Tone Matching does not capture any dynamic content, distortion characteristics etc, so you need to find a sound in the AFX that is pretty close and then apply tone/eq matching for some final shaping. Most of an instruments character is in its dynamic shape...especially attack. Remove the attack and you'll have a hard time recognizing the instrument.

But TM'ing drums, babies or whatever is probably more fun than TM'ing other guitar sounds, if you ask me! 8)
 
In a cover band and just like to get those tones close as I can. :) I'd love to find some authentic DEATH tones! I'm playing alot of Death right now, most from Human, ITP, Symbolic and TSOP. Hopefully some tones from Death will pop up eventually. :) If I had an AxeII I'd be all over them!

Hey I posted a thread with some kickass Megadeth master tracks for RIP and Peace sells album. If anyone is feeling up to it maybe you can grab some of the tones and see what you can do, I'd love to hear the results! Yup I think Axe is it. This TM feature is just too cool!
 
shasha - You make some great points, some I also pondered as well. I decided I will indeed go for the AxeII. I weighed all the pluses and minus of the Kemper and AxeII and for me the Axe comes out on top. It really does offer everything I want and more. I'm sure the Kemper is a great unit as well but I believe the Axe would be a better fit for me personally. Since selling my Ultra I've been using an old Line 6 spider3 and its depressing to play after having something as powerful as the Ultra.

I cant wait to get my new AXEII and get back into the Fractal family. Also I have a new Carvin DC700 7 string shipping to me in 15 days!!!!!! Oh I am in Gas heaven!
 
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