Kemper on the Way

Admin M@ said:
How can people in Chicago call that stuff "pizza"?
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Love the apt metaphor ...Different strokes(or slices) for dif'rnt folks..

Stratman68 said:
The only real pizza is in New York.............Thank You Very Much.
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Come to Chicago, home of the(hopefully) soon-to-be-crowned World Series Champions, and the most diverse and delicious collection of pizzas of all manner of thick/thinness and I could change your jaded tastebuds,you're welcome:D

Barry Johns said:
I am a low to mid gain player, from my experience so far, that's not something fractal does well. I gain I do very well, but mid to Logan, I've just not been impressed so far.
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There are many instantly wonderful cleans and mids in the Fractal toolkit, and more that can be unlocked with informed use of Input gain, Input and MV trim, etc. but this comes with patient tweaking and familiarity with the parameters..but with the proper profiles (and you are absolutely on track if you get the right MBritt ones..)
the Kemper can produce very beautiful tones indeed.
,

Regarding the effects of the Kemper, the thing I've been reading lately, is the firmware has made a significant difference, with the profiles as well as the effects. Depending on how long ago a person tried the Kemper, it could be day and night different today from what I understand.[/QUOTE]
The rate of Kemper updates is glacial as compared to FAS, as is the level of support , both company and community, but yes, it sounds better than it did a year ago, but the effects have been minimally changed and
pale next to what Fractal offers. that said, it is very possible that, given your various stated frustrations with AX8 here, the Kemper may be right down your alley if you are willing to shell out FOR THE PROPER PROFILES.
But. as someone who has owned both products for some years , the infinite in-box and ever evolving potential
of FAS product makes a win for me, but both are cool, to be sure. Good Luck.
 
Barry Johns said:
I am a low to mid gain player, from my experience so far, that's not something fractal does well. I gain I do very well, but mid to Logan, I've just not been impressed so far.

Regarding the effects of the Kemper, the thing I've been reading lately, is the firmware has made a significant difference, with the profiles as well as the effects. Depending on how long ago a person tried the Kemper, it could be day and night different today from what I understand.
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i live in those tones....having played Country stuffing Nashville and PW stuff in very large churches and the Axe absolutely nails those tones in spades. you just haven't spent enough time with the box.
 
Rex said:
...but I know people (including me) who use an expression pedal to morph between a low-gain tone and a high-gain tone, and that takes you through 100 different settings on several different parameters.
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In my experience with the Kemper, the need to have a plethora of profiles for each amp setting is greatly exaggerated. While it's true that the farther you get away from the profiled settings the greater the profile will deviate from the amp that was profiled, it's absolutely not true that the profile will automatically sound bad under those conditions. It differs from the original amp simply because the amp settings (tone stack, deep editing) are identical for every profile -- they don't replicate the switches, pot taper, etc. of the original amp that was profiled.

The Kemper's ability to take a profile BEYOND what is available in the original amp (e.g. gaining up/down a mid-gain amp) is really stellar. One of my favorites Kemper profiles is a freebie BE100. It was profiled mid-gain but if you gain it up a little bit, it sounds really amazing.

With the newer firmware versions, you can morph between two completely different sets of settings, exactly as you describe.

jzucker said:
The effects suck on the kemper. Not even as good as mediocre boss pedals.
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I would say the routing and effects options are significantly better on the FAS units, but I would not say the quality of the effects are better. The Kemper effects do not suck.
 
Barry Johns said:
Ok, those are fighting words! Eat at Gino'a East in Chicago, and you will never make that comment again!!!!!
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I live on Long Island [home of the cold cheese slice!] and have been to Gino's East (as well as Lou Malnatis') and consider Chicago pizza more like an open face pot pie than a pizza pie. Don't get it twisted, it's tasty and awesome and love the full slab of sausage approach (instead of the NY sausage nuggets or appropriately placed slices) - but it's not pizza.

Man, I can't wait til lunch... Who's buying?!

Regarding the actual topic... I also agree, while nice to have a room full of amps and cabs, that's not financially nor physically possible for me. For those who can buy, store and maintain a few Dumbles in your climate controlled room, I applaud you.
I just have to "...suffer with emulations".
 
I certainly concede that my satisfaction this far with the AX8 is tied to my lack of tweaking knowledge. Why can't they nail the presets?

To me it would be good to have a section of presets that demo the various ways of auditioning

Same amp but set up for direct to FOH, Setup for typical CLR/Studio Monitord, and setup to go direct to poweramp and traditional speaker cabinet.

I'm probably wanting too much. Considering how many people love the Fractal stuff, it has to be operator error on my part.
 
Barry Johns said:
I certainly concede that my satisfaction this far with the AX8 is tied to my lack of tweaking knowledge. Why can't they nail the presets?

To me it would be good to have a section of presets that demo the various ways of auditioning

Same amp but set up for direct to FOH, Setup for typical CLR/Studio Monitord, and setup to go direct to poweramp and traditional speaker cabinet.

I'm probably wanting too much. Considering how many people love the Fractal stuff, it has to be operator error on my part.
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Isn't there anybody near you who can help and guide you? I would but I'm in The Netherlands. :)
 
Barry Johns said:
Why can't they nail the presets?

To me it would be good to have a section of presets that demo the various ways of auditioning

Same amp but set up for direct to FOH, Setup for typical CLR/Studio Monitord, and setup to go direct to poweramp and traditional speaker cabinet.
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I find the latest batch of factory presets to be very well done. you gotta keep in mind it isnt really feasible to make a patch that perfectly translates to every guitar/output/etc just because of the sheer number of options between those and each person. I look at them as ballpark setups and tweak to my guitar/tonal preferences and it works pretty well (when I use someone elses patch that is, usually Im way more content starting with an amp and cab block and getting what I want out of that)
 
My guitar hoarder friend has the KPA. I own the Axe FX II Mk2.

To use an art simile, it is like the difference between using pencils versus oil paints.

If you want a snapshot of an amp that isn't in current Fractal firmware and you own it, you can get such an amp in the Kemper and in a blind test, if the profile is done well, you cannot tell the difference in a blind test. Where the Kemper is weak is modding a profile in the box post- profile shooting. Because it is not a component level model but more of a signal chain snapshot, it does not truly replicate the quirks of the given amp's circuit at other more extreme settings. That being said, I saw 38 Special live a couple weeks ago, they sounded like they were lugging amps around, but they were using Kempers with snapshots of their amps.

The Fractal is great if your desired amp is already in the box or you want to make new sounds by modding an amp, but don't want the real world danger of personal injury or blowing stuff up that would happen with a real amp. The sounds of the presets are great in Q5 FW, but if you want to refine them more to your personal experience with a particular amp, everything is there in the Fractal for you to do it. Since the modelling is component based, all the little quirks of circuit's behavior are there for good or for ill (and there are ways to modify those ills if you feel like it). Metallica sounded great live using the amp modelling from FOH and live feed recording.

KPA and Fractal are really two radically different tools and can't really be compared, as they have two very different philosophical approaches to amp modelling. It all depends what your needs are.

Trying to use oil painting techniques with pencils will be frustrating, a mess, and never get you where you want to be making art, it's the same difference with these two units and their approaches to making art.
 
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Barry Johns said:
Ok, those are fighting words! Eat at Gino'a East in Chicago, and you will never make that comment again!!!!!
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I gotta tell you, I lived in Chicago for most of my life, and moved to Ny/NJ about 11 years ago. Chicago Pizza aint got nothing on NY pizza.
The only thing IMO that Chicago wins on is the Italian beef sandwich. NY'ers don't even know what it is. Man are they missing out on the deliciousness that is a portillo's italian beef sandwich!!!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Kemper Vs Fractal conversation.
 
Pwrmac7600 said:
I gotta tell you, I lived in Chicago for most of my life, and moved to Ny/NJ about 11 years ago. Chicago Pizza aint got nothing on NY pizza.
The only thing IMO that Chicago wins on is the Italian beef sandwich. NY'ers don't even know what it is. Man are they missing out on the deliciousness that is a portillo's italian beef sandwich!!!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Kemper Vs Fractal conversation.
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I'll take a NY deli sandwich over that any day
 
With the 5.0 Kemper firmware update yesterday the delays just made a huge jump forward. Good luck with your comparisons.
 
IMHO, the Kentucky hot brown sandwich has both of those sandwiches beat. Toast with carved, juicy roasted turkey breast smothered with the most addictive brown gravy. It's like thanksgiving between two pieces of bread. It's probably the only reason I would go back to visit Kentucky besides the awesome people I met there.
 
yek said:
Huh?

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That's open for discussion.

But your conclusions are flawed. The fact that some players are using it for fx only, doesn't indicate they don't like its amp modeling. Maybe they just prefer the amp+cab backline sound. It would only be food for thought if those players would use the Fractal for fx, and another device for amp tones, but you don't see that much happening.

The "effects-only" is just another segment of the market.

BTW, I have nothing against Kenter.
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+1 I use an AxeFxIIXL for killer effects in the loop of my tube amp, and want to follow suit for other tube amps its actually cheaper than a collection of individual pedals or rack units, however, I would not sacrafice the AxeFxs amp modeling. The available amps sound impressive and with fine tuning even better. And they blend so well with the tones from my Torpedo Studios. The only solution is to buy more AxeFxIIXL+s.
 
dr bonkers said:
IMHO, the Kentucky hot brown sandwich has both of those sandwiches beat. Toast with carved, juicy roasted turkey breast smothered with the most addictive brown gravy. It's like thanksgiving between two pieces of bread. It's probably the only reason I would go back to visit Kentucky besides the awesome people I met there.
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If you want to piss someone off, just tell 'em to eat a hot brown sandwich. :)
 
For me, during the short period I've had the AX8, it just does not sound like a real amp to me. It sounds better than the Line 6 stuff, but still clearly feels and sounds like a modeler. I'm not sure how much my Freidman ASM-12 is playing into my perception.

The reason I'm looking at the Kemper as I want to have something that really sounds like a Real Amp.

By the way, I'm originally from Kentucky.......We are good ole folk......
 
Sounds to me like you want the amp in the room experience. Have you tried Ax8 with a power amp and a guitar cab?
 
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