More thoughts on my experience with Kemper and Axefx II

jzucker

jzucker

Experienced
Axefx and Kemper thoughts

So here are some more thoughts on the axefx II vs the kemper...

The axefx has some beautiful clean tones. The fender cleans are gorgeous. The spring reverbs - while not the best I've ever heard - are definitely a plus. I really like the Kemper fender cleans - particularly from ampfactory.com - but they seem to be missing something in the upper mid frequencies. This is particularly noticable when playing any Benson or Wes Montgomery type material with a hollowbody guitar and humbuckers and playing with your thumb. The velvety top end sheen that I get out of a deluxe or vibrolux reverb is missing somewhat on the kemper.

The weakness of the kemper though is that the amps are profiled through a given speaker cab. What I have found is that the vast majority of profiles on the kemper were created with distorted amps or with amps turned up to the point of clipping and/or with tone controls set way higher than what a jazz guitarist would want. This causes boomyness and/or gritty sounds that are undesireable to a jazz guitarist. You are also limited by what speaker the amp happened to have. Many twin reverbs or fender amps in general have weak speakers that break up easily when you use a hollowbody with heavy strings through them. With the axefx, the speaker is totally decoupled from the amp so you can pick whatever cabinet you want to use with your amp, plus you can purchase other cabinets with other speakers. For example, I'm going to purchase some JBL speaker impulses to add to my axefx.

Additionally, the tone controls on the kemper are fixed whereas the axefx tone controls are actually the correct frequencies, taper, etc, and feel more like the real thing.

The axe-edit software makes programming a patch such a breeze. The programming on the kemper is very clumsy. But even if you didn't use the axe-edit software, the axefx front panel shows you the routing in a much more intuitive and visual way.

Despite my criticisms of the Kemper, I want to emphasize that the kemper vibroverb from ampfactory sounds amazing. It's a gorgeously fat and vevety tone that always makes me feel good when I play through it. So don't think i'm just dissing the kemper...
 
Thank you. I like to hear honest opinions on the strengths and weaknesses on gear like this from a pro level player and someone who deals with both units. I have had the axe fx for a few years. Enjoyed it immensely. Good job Jack!
 
FractalAudio said:
Try the "Rich Hall" reverb. That's my personal favorite.
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Thanks. Has there ever been a discussion on improving the spring reverb? When I had the axefx 1, there wasn't anything better in pedal format but now the beltron and FV-1 chipsets sound pretty good. Pedals like the Boing (beltron) and the Topanga (FV-1) sound really good. It'd be cool if the spring reverbs would get an upgrade to surprass those pedals. Or maybe it's just a matter of the parameters not being correctly configured. I think i'm going to post this in the general axefx II discussion page.
 
King Tone said:
Thank you. I like to hear honest opinions on the strengths and weaknesses on gear like this from a pro level player and someone who deals with both units. I have had the axe fx for a few years. Enjoyed it immensely. Good job Jack!
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I just sold and shipped off my kemper this morning. At this point, I have an Axefx II MK II and the ax8. I was originally intending on just keeping one processor but I may just keep the mk ii in the studio.

One thing I will say about the kemper is that if you capture a very specific amp with a very specific cab and at very specific volume and tone settings, it sounds wonderful. I had a wonderful dumble amp preset created by mbritt. I'm not sure what it started with but it was gorgeous. On sunday, a buddy of mine and I spent a couple hours going back and forth between the Quantum 2.0 ODS Ford 1 and the mbritt Dumble profile on the kemper. We dialed in the ODS Ford 1 to sound pretty close. We both thought the kemper had some magical nuances of the real tube amp when you turned down the guitar's volume control that I wasn't quite able to dial in on the axefx but I think it's because I really don't know what I'm doing in terms of adjusting power supply dynamics - lol. For everything else, the axefx just blows away the kemper.

The effects on the kemper are toy-like and sound like digitech effects from the mid '90s. The TS9 and Fuzz pedals have so much gain that you can't turn the guitar down to clean up the tone and the delays, reverbs and choruses sound like bad '90s pedals on the kemper. Of course, the kemper is missing spring reverb so the fender sounds are not authentic, either. Kemper doesn't even have a decent tremelo IMO. The problem for the kemper is that the single CPU on it is about 75% of the power of one of the axefx' dual processors and IMO, the reason you don't see gorgeous time based effects on it is that there's not enough CPU bandwidth available. They've really painted themselves into a corner.

Conclusion is that if you happen to have a great capture of a great amp, the kemper sounds amazing but you will need to use external effects pedals to get variety out of what you can get on the axefx with the built-in algorithms. Without having to buy a bunch of commercial profiles, the axefx already has a huge amount of boutique amps built in that can be configured for any level of cleanness and/or dynamic sensitivity.
 
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Clear review, thanks!

When I wanted to buy the Axe-Fx 2 years ago, somebody told me "Don't you want a Kemper then?"

....A what?

Looking at the Kemper (don't want a toaster on stage :p) and reading some reviews didn't change that thought. My hang was already towards Fractal.
When I read the above, I'm glad I did, specially because I wanted to get rid of external pedals totally. Pedals would still be needed I had bought the Kemper...

Getting my AX8 next week. How nice is the life of a guitarplayer after he discovered Fractal :)
 
I own an Axe-FX, a KPA and an 11R. The Kemper is my least favorite of the three for reasons already noted: sub-par effects, limited amp authenticity (the whole bit about needing a different profile to accurately capture different control settings) and lots of "sketchy" profiles.

To that list, I'll add:

1) A really horrible UI. Personally, the lack of an editor doesn't bother me in the least. I don't miss an editor for the KPA and don't use the editor for the AFX. I do, however, expect the front-panel UI to be easy to navigate with a minimum of practice.

2) How many years with *still* no reverb in front of the amp...?

3) The system boot delay is ridiculously long. The last time I checked it was up to something like 80 seconds. No, I don't have thousands of profiles: just the stock profiles and a very small number of commercial profiles.

4) The entire unit is insufficiently documented. Yes, there are big, thick, nicely-formatted manuals. They don't say much. For example: try to find a definitive answer, either in the manuals or on the forum, regarding the effect of various settings on the profiling process. Or try to get a straight answer about how the tone-shaping controls relate to each other or to anything else. Good luck...
 
jzucker said:
.....We both thought the kemper had some magical nuances of the real tube amp when you turned down the guitar's volume control that I wasn't quite able to dial in on the axefx but I think it's because I really don't know what I'm doing in terms of adjusting power supply dynamics - lol.....
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Cliff may have just nailed this very item w/ FW2.1
 
jzucker said:
We both thought the kemper had some magical nuances of the real tube amp when you turned down the guitar's volume control that I wasn't quite able to dial in on the axefx
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This is the only thing that always stood out to me about the Kemper - the fact that it profiles an amp means you capture the whole amp, along with all nuances and intricacies.

I still think the Axe Fx is better as I prefer a modelled amp as you get full control over it and it looks like Cliff is getting closer and closer to nailing the minute details of a valve amp.
 
Hey Jack, welcome to your latest with the Axe/Q2 side of things. It will amaze and charm you! Its funny, I've owned both for years now and still own them. I understand, but have never subscribed to, the religious fervor they seem to conjure up among the brethren. Heck I think the world of both! I will say from my experience, the Axe starting with the Ultra, thru the II to the XL+ I now own and all purchased new from Fractal, have been without a doubt the best digital investments I've made. Deeper than I will ever go, but I often use external pedals and effects with both the Axe and KPA, so its never a limitation either way. Why? Because they sound different, why else? Where the KPA excels IME is in the organic rich amp tones, where the Axe excels is in everything else. That said, I love me some KPA. I think the front panel is genius. Getting production ready amp tones has always been simple. My profiling is zero and everything I use is free or aftermarket. But its overkill to have both as either will bring joy. I just like having both. ;)

Enjoy the Axe as it has been since its arrival at the front of the pack for the very reasons noted; >CPU headroom available to do things the KPA will never be able to do, and Cliff's genius! Premium on Cliff. Yet I still own and play through real amps. Why? Because they sound different. Why else? ;)
 
I'll probably invest in a Kemper soon, if nothing else for some of the great commercial amp profiles I've heard. If you have the money, why limit yourself to one unit? Use whatever works. I'm definitely not opposed to adding organic and rich sounding commercial Kemper profiles to my menagerie of tones, and I don't feel threatened by anybody who says that some Kemper profiles sound more rich and organic. That's fine. It doesn't call my Axe purchase into question at all. So what if some tones sound better on one unit than the other and vice a versa? I've heard plenty of comparisons where both units produce tones that are virtually indistinguishable.

There are so many ways to achieve awesome tone with the Axe, no question, and I can accept that the Kemper is less versatile. But if I can find 100 or 200 awesome amp tones with the Kemper to compliment everything the Axe can do, why the hell not?
 
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