Chris Hurley
Power User
I think this is about the end of the Kemper road for me. I expected that I would sell the Axe-FX II, keep the KPA and pocket the difference in price but after at least 10 hours working with it off and on, I’ve decided that the kemper will be returned.
Here’s the epilogue for those that are following along.
If you have a KPA and love it, that’s great. Its a great product and I’m glad that its working for you. I’m not trying to convince you of anything. This is just my opinion based on my needs and my experiences.
Quick background blob: I’ve been playing rock guitar for about 25 years. I’ve been performing for money in front of crowds for about 15 years. I get out of the “bedroom” but I make my living outside of music. I wasn’t a master craftsman, but I built a couple dozen tube amps during the 2000’s- mostly for other people. In the course of playing shows, I’ve sometimes had to play through other people’s tube amps but I’ve never played through a $4000 tube amp and haven’t generally felt any need to buy an amp since I started building amps. I was happy with what I was building. I tinkered with digital rigs before and during the time when I built amps but the axe-fx ultra was the first digital rig that I liked well enough to use regularly. It wasn’t perfect but it was close enough. Once my sons were born, the amount of time available to build amps shrank and so the axe-fx was great. I have yet to get comfortable running direct but I enjoyed the axe-fx in its role as “any tube amp sound that I want today.” I’ve spent a lot of time and money with various computer based sims but was never happy with the feel and overall sound unlike the axe-fx. When the axe-II was available, I was lucky enough to get one of the first ones. I had to sell it to raise money and spent several months working with various other rigs. I went back to my tube amp and initially appreciated its simplicity but started to miss some of the “extras”. When my number came up on the axe-II waiting list, I bought it again immediately and have enjoyed it immensely. When I heard about the KPA, I assumed that it wouldn’t work as advertised but I heard more and more about people loving it, some of them being former axe-fx users. “Cool. I’ll sell the axe-II, get a KPA and pocket the difference”. So here we are.
The Kemper profiling feature works as advertised. I profiled the only amp that I still own and the profile sounded and felt like the amp. I won’t go into this much further because there is plenty of information talking about how good the profiling works. Yes, it works and there is nothing else out there that can do this automatically.
Profiles of the axe-fx II were somewhat less successful than the real amp but they could be usable if you just wanted to copy a basic sound (without all the effects or any special routing.)
To my great disappointment however, the KPA can’t unbake a cabinet from the profile. It can change the sound but the result was not generally good or useful with a power amp and guitar cabinets, even when substituting an “empty” cabinet. The vast majority of profiles that are being released have a cabinet baked into them, making them mostly useless to me as a guitar cabinet user. While there are 100+ rigs on the brand new rig exchange, there aren’t many that are DI’d.
For FRFR users, the baked-in cabinet won’t often be a problem unless your choice of cabinets changes down the road, rendering your profiles less useful.
In addition to the profiles I made, I found a few DI’d profiles that worked for me. In particular, I thought sheguitarplayer’s 5153c profile sounded great. I set up to switch between the KPA and axe-II with a footswitch and within a few minutes, I had a sound that was nearly indistinguishable- to the point that I would play them and forget which I was playing. no hours or days of tweaking. At this point, I became comfortable that I wasn’t missing anything in terms of tone if I just kept my axe-fx II and would still be able to craft new sounds for which I didn’t have a profile
I listened and searched for some compelling difference in feel, attack or tone and its just not there for me. They both can sound and feel like a real amp.
I like that I have a universe of control over my sound with the axe-fx and am not limited by finding a real amp that I like. You certainly can tweak a profile once you have it but I don’t think it is unfair to say that what you can do with it is significantly limited compared to the axe-fx. It was hard for me to reconcile with giving up the flexibility when I was faced with the scarcity of profiles that sounded good to me.
Speaking of tweaking- I make adjustments to my tone based on my mood and ears that day. Some days I might want something a little different- a little more or less of this or that. Maybe I have an idea for a sound that is just off the map, so I spend extra time playing with it. If I spend any meaningful amount of time tweaking a preset, its because that’s what I want to do. Its really easy to dial up a basic amp sound with a couple of stomps and be done with it. The only reason I can see that I’d spend less time tweaking the KPA than the axe-fx II is because there isn’t as much to tweak on the KPA and I’d just have to move on. People like to say “less time tweaking more time playing” but I don’t tweak in lieu of playing. I think that is a meme that has been picked up and exaggerated.
I didn’t experience any crashing on the KPA but the fact that more than a couple of people have reported that worries me- especially if its going to take a minute to reboot it. I can’t imagine dealing with that at a show. I would expect that Kemper will get that worked out but it made me uncomfortable.
If I owned or had regular access to a bunch of amps that represented everything I would ever want in guitar tone, I think the KPA would be great for me because I could take those sounds with me without all the heavy gear. Unfortunately, I don’t, but I still want to have convenient access to any guitar sound I need, want, or am able to imagine.
So those are the big points. The rest is just details of what I personally prefer or find useful. Here’s my pros of each:
Axe-FX II Pros: Flexibility in routing and amp modelling- parallel effect and amp rigs are easily built. No need to be reliant on others for sounds I need. Looper. USB audio. Axe-Edit. Fits in my rack with my poweramp and surge protector. Starts up quickly so I can play quickly when the mood strikes.
KPA Pros: Profiling is quick and easy. Less expensive than axe-fx. Better availability. Better button/knob arrangement. Brand name or boutique profiles or “amp store” are almost certainly forthcoming. No fan- dead quiet.
Both: Capable of amazingly realistic sounds without heavy tweaking. Both are amazing values in terms of what they can do.
So that’s me. KPA is obviously working well for others. As always, your mileage may vary. I appreciate the gestures of friendship from the KPA users that reached out to me to try to help me turn the corner on this. If anyone has questions, I’ll be happy to address them.
Here’s the epilogue for those that are following along.
If you have a KPA and love it, that’s great. Its a great product and I’m glad that its working for you. I’m not trying to convince you of anything. This is just my opinion based on my needs and my experiences.
Quick background blob: I’ve been playing rock guitar for about 25 years. I’ve been performing for money in front of crowds for about 15 years. I get out of the “bedroom” but I make my living outside of music. I wasn’t a master craftsman, but I built a couple dozen tube amps during the 2000’s- mostly for other people. In the course of playing shows, I’ve sometimes had to play through other people’s tube amps but I’ve never played through a $4000 tube amp and haven’t generally felt any need to buy an amp since I started building amps. I was happy with what I was building. I tinkered with digital rigs before and during the time when I built amps but the axe-fx ultra was the first digital rig that I liked well enough to use regularly. It wasn’t perfect but it was close enough. Once my sons were born, the amount of time available to build amps shrank and so the axe-fx was great. I have yet to get comfortable running direct but I enjoyed the axe-fx in its role as “any tube amp sound that I want today.” I’ve spent a lot of time and money with various computer based sims but was never happy with the feel and overall sound unlike the axe-fx. When the axe-II was available, I was lucky enough to get one of the first ones. I had to sell it to raise money and spent several months working with various other rigs. I went back to my tube amp and initially appreciated its simplicity but started to miss some of the “extras”. When my number came up on the axe-II waiting list, I bought it again immediately and have enjoyed it immensely. When I heard about the KPA, I assumed that it wouldn’t work as advertised but I heard more and more about people loving it, some of them being former axe-fx users. “Cool. I’ll sell the axe-II, get a KPA and pocket the difference”. So here we are.
The Kemper profiling feature works as advertised. I profiled the only amp that I still own and the profile sounded and felt like the amp. I won’t go into this much further because there is plenty of information talking about how good the profiling works. Yes, it works and there is nothing else out there that can do this automatically.
Profiles of the axe-fx II were somewhat less successful than the real amp but they could be usable if you just wanted to copy a basic sound (without all the effects or any special routing.)
To my great disappointment however, the KPA can’t unbake a cabinet from the profile. It can change the sound but the result was not generally good or useful with a power amp and guitar cabinets, even when substituting an “empty” cabinet. The vast majority of profiles that are being released have a cabinet baked into them, making them mostly useless to me as a guitar cabinet user. While there are 100+ rigs on the brand new rig exchange, there aren’t many that are DI’d.
For FRFR users, the baked-in cabinet won’t often be a problem unless your choice of cabinets changes down the road, rendering your profiles less useful.
In addition to the profiles I made, I found a few DI’d profiles that worked for me. In particular, I thought sheguitarplayer’s 5153c profile sounded great. I set up to switch between the KPA and axe-II with a footswitch and within a few minutes, I had a sound that was nearly indistinguishable- to the point that I would play them and forget which I was playing. no hours or days of tweaking. At this point, I became comfortable that I wasn’t missing anything in terms of tone if I just kept my axe-fx II and would still be able to craft new sounds for which I didn’t have a profile
I listened and searched for some compelling difference in feel, attack or tone and its just not there for me. They both can sound and feel like a real amp.
I like that I have a universe of control over my sound with the axe-fx and am not limited by finding a real amp that I like. You certainly can tweak a profile once you have it but I don’t think it is unfair to say that what you can do with it is significantly limited compared to the axe-fx. It was hard for me to reconcile with giving up the flexibility when I was faced with the scarcity of profiles that sounded good to me.
Speaking of tweaking- I make adjustments to my tone based on my mood and ears that day. Some days I might want something a little different- a little more or less of this or that. Maybe I have an idea for a sound that is just off the map, so I spend extra time playing with it. If I spend any meaningful amount of time tweaking a preset, its because that’s what I want to do. Its really easy to dial up a basic amp sound with a couple of stomps and be done with it. The only reason I can see that I’d spend less time tweaking the KPA than the axe-fx II is because there isn’t as much to tweak on the KPA and I’d just have to move on. People like to say “less time tweaking more time playing” but I don’t tweak in lieu of playing. I think that is a meme that has been picked up and exaggerated.
I didn’t experience any crashing on the KPA but the fact that more than a couple of people have reported that worries me- especially if its going to take a minute to reboot it. I can’t imagine dealing with that at a show. I would expect that Kemper will get that worked out but it made me uncomfortable.
If I owned or had regular access to a bunch of amps that represented everything I would ever want in guitar tone, I think the KPA would be great for me because I could take those sounds with me without all the heavy gear. Unfortunately, I don’t, but I still want to have convenient access to any guitar sound I need, want, or am able to imagine.
So those are the big points. The rest is just details of what I personally prefer or find useful. Here’s my pros of each:
Axe-FX II Pros: Flexibility in routing and amp modelling- parallel effect and amp rigs are easily built. No need to be reliant on others for sounds I need. Looper. USB audio. Axe-Edit. Fits in my rack with my poweramp and surge protector. Starts up quickly so I can play quickly when the mood strikes.
KPA Pros: Profiling is quick and easy. Less expensive than axe-fx. Better availability. Better button/knob arrangement. Brand name or boutique profiles or “amp store” are almost certainly forthcoming. No fan- dead quiet.
Both: Capable of amazingly realistic sounds without heavy tweaking. Both are amazing values in terms of what they can do.
So that’s me. KPA is obviously working well for others. As always, your mileage may vary. I appreciate the gestures of friendship from the KPA users that reached out to me to try to help me turn the corner on this. If anyone has questions, I’ll be happy to address them.
A feel (& sound) I could never get so close to before. This alone would give the Axe the upperhand for me.