More thoughts on my experience with Kemper and Axefx II

jlynnb1 said:
i don't have a dog in the fight, I'm not getting paid by anyone to play their gear. I've been a loyal fractal user for years but if the KPA was as good or better I'd have no trouble saying so, I think it def makes more sense in some situations. I just honestly don't feel it sounds or responds anywhere near as good as the Axe....an opinion reinforced by my live experience with it today. I'm not writing it off, but I was 100% open to being swayed and it's just not there.
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Interesting... i ran my Ax8 into KPA yesterday into an Mbritt Sc30 and FOH guy said it was the best tone he's heard yet. Coming from years of playing AxFxII direct. Again - I don't have a dog in the fight either and I think both have their up and downsides. But it is interesting that someone could have such a different experience from mine using the same tools! To each their own - no wrong or right answer. The real issue i have now is not chasing tone and just play :)
 
I think that the FOH guy in your example above simply liked a particular preset on one device more so than on another. I've never met a sound I could not migrate to the Fractal Audio platform, for all of the reasons described above.
 
I've got both the KPA and Fractal (honestly about to sell the KPA and buy an AX8).

In my experience, the profiles in the KPA have more shelf life than Fractal presets in regards to Fractal firmware changes and porting presets to new firmware.

Also, with the KPA, you can purchase profiles from experts. Would be the equivalent of hiring a Fractal programming expert to help you with your presets.

In some sense for me, the amp sounds are a wash between the two. I just don't have enough time to master the KPA vs. I know the Fractal pretty well.

The efx quality, the routing and programming capability of the Fractal are better for what I do.
 
barhrecords said:
I just don't have enough time to master the KPA vs. I know the Fractal pretty well.
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In my opinion, the KPA seems pretty straight forward, whereas the Axe has a higher learning curve but the flexibility / versatility is unmatched. At this point I can't see myself giving up either one.
 
one of the big, and I mean BIG negatives for me is the sameness to a lot of the profiles, a lot of being because guys like Britt use the same cab for almost everything. No matter how good the cab is, I don't want that cab with every amp type. It's a 3rd power 212 with Celestion Lead 80's....pretty much the last speakers I'd pick for almost anything. So even while moving between profiles, since the cab is probably 80% of the tone, they all sound very similar, and not at all what I'd want some of them to sound like.
 
jlynnb1 said:
one of the big, and I mean BIG negatives for me is the sameness to a lot of the profiles, a lot of being because guys like Britt use the same cab for almost everything. No matter how good the cab is, I don't want that cab with every amp type. It's a 3rd power 212 with Celestion Lead 80's....pretty much the last speakers I'd pick for almost anything. So even while moving between profiles, since the cab is probably 80% of the tone, they all sound very similar, and not at all what I'd want some of them to sound like.
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You'll find most commercial and non-commercial profilers use all manner of cabs. In fact, out of the 9,000+ free profiles on the Rig Exchange, only one uses a 3rd Power cab. The sheer variety of cabs out there is ridiculous(browse the Rig Exchange), but you can use third party IRs in the KPA or disable the cab sims altogether and run the amps in conjunction with an IR loader. I've used the cabs in the Axe as well as Two Notes in conjunction with the Kemper, though I tend to prefer the cabs that are native to a given profile.

That said, the only Michael Britt pack I've ever purchased is the Heavy Pack, and I was fairly unimpressed. Guido Bungenstock's commercial profiles, on the other hand, are pretty amazing. But then I can think of quite a few profiles I really love.
 
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i think the disconnect here is probably styles of music. Britt's profiles are pretty much considered the standard for clean to break up tones. I went to the Guido profiles and his are almost exclusively slanted towards heavier amps. not really the type of tones i use most of the time.
 
jlynnb1 said:
i think the disconnect here is probably styles of music. Britt's profiles are pretty much considered the standard for clean to break up tones. I went to the Guido profiles and his are almost exclusively slanted towards heavier amps. not really the type of tones i use most of the time.
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The first half of his samples are high gain, but he almost always includes samples of his clean profiles from each pack in the last half of his demos. I, for one, don't really care for most of Britt's stuff, but there's tons of great stuff out there from numerous other profilers.
 
jlynnb1 said:
I have both in my music room right now...I don't feel like the KPA is in the same ballpark...period. and yes, I have the Britt profiles. Have been completely underwhelmed.
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I have both a Kemper and AX8. While the Mbritt profiles weren't bad, I thought they were a little dull sounding to my ears. I have found a few other profiles that I thought sounded much better. For instance the Friedman BE profiles by SNALICK sound great.
 
barhrecords said:
I've got both the KPA and Fractal (honestly about to sell the KPA and buy an AX8).

In my experience, the profiles in the KPA have more shelf life than Fractal presets in regards to Fractal firmware changes and porting presets to new firmware.

Also, with the KPA, you can purchase profiles from experts. Would be the equivalent of hiring a Fractal programming expert to help you with your presets.

In some sense for me, the amp sounds are a wash between the two. I just don't have enough time to master the KPA vs. I know the Fractal pretty well.

The efx quality, the routing and programming capability of the Fractal are better for what I do.
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I agree 100%. The amp sounds in both are great, but the effects (with the exception of the pitch block) and the routing are superior in the Fractal.
 
I have an Axe-Fx II mark 2, MFC-101 mark 2, I got 4 years ago.
not a single issue besides user error
my only complaint, updates causing complete re-creation is time consuming.
my next amp purchase will be the Kemper

I think it would be a mistake not to own both of these pieces of history :)
 
I have a Kemper as well. It's cool but I prefer my Fractal stuff. I never use the Kemper but I'm not getting rid of it either though.
 
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