On the fence between Axe FX II and Kemper Profiling Amp

zentman said:
Like it or not Scott, you are generally perceived as a Fractal shill on many forums. It may not be true but my analogy stands. You just read a personal insult in to what I typed. I am more than certain you are fair and balanced but it is what it is. Go to Rig Talk, GAB, TGP, or anywhere they discuss this topic. Mention Scott Peterson and see what follows. Same thing with me if it makes you feel less alone. I am perceived as the poster child for Fractal fanboyism. In my case it's probably because I am. :)

As to other forums, when I see BS I call it period. My statements on that forum have been nothing but glowing praise for the Kemper product. I will call someone out once or twice a year there if I see an obvious mis-statement regarding Fractal, whether intentional or not. "Buy an Axe and do nothing but tweak. Buy a Kemper and play guitar" is just one of those things I call folks on. Time for that meme to die.
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Don't put me into this sort of cross-forum drama. The truth will set you free, rise above the noise on forums Zent. No matter what someone says on a forum somewhere about you (or me).
 
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gchapel said:
One more thing,

I am a probably over sensitive to fan noise. Whatever device I buy is going to set 2 feet in front of me on my desk 24/7. Does the Axe FX II still have a noisy fan or has this been helped out with newer FW updates?

The Kemper has no fan and my Macs have no fan. I usually play in a quiet environment at bedroom levels. My pet peeves are fan noise and high frequency whine from CRT or plasma displays.

I realize this is a fairly minor thing and not a show stopper but I was just wondering if this was an issue at all anymore?
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There were reports of loud fans, you should request another fan from support if your fan is faulty and you are within the warranty period. The whole 'loud fan' thing has been a non-issue for a long time. It'd be a great idea for you to try an Axe-FX II in order to see (hear) for yourself. I have an Axe-FX II about 2 feet from me right now, no fan to be heard. I'd have to put my ear on the box to hear the fan.
 
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My fan is dead silent. My friend, who got his on the same day, had to replace his, which took just a few minutes and cost him nothing. Our units were new a year ago July.
 
Yea i don't understand the people who say you have to tweak a ton on the Axe FX. Some people treat tone crafting as some sort of ritual and it's really just turning knobs or adjusting parameters until you hear what's in your head. I honestly have been pretty much happy with the factory presets since about Firmware 9. The rest is up to the fingers imo. I remember seeing a video from Jamtrackcentral of Guthrie playing some stuff, and people were all 'we want the patches!' and it was just factory presets :p The Kemper would be cool, if you were in a session and you wanted to capture the guitar tone you were recording from an amp/cab setup, so you could either just use the kemper, or save it for down the road if you need that sound again. With the Axe you can get there with tweaking alone (in my experience) but with the tonematching you can have that as well. The only problem would be if down the line there was a firmware change, that sound would probably change even just a bit. Like I said earlier in the thread, I played the Kemper and wasn't impressed. I loaded a vox AC30 profile and as able to turn the drive up to near death metal levels of distortion, and when I asked them why that was even possible if it was supposed to be an 'exact' profile, they wouldn't give me an answer. I always explain it to people like the Kemper is a Snapshot, a picture of a specific setting. But the Fractal is like an interactive panorama, because you can move, and adjust, and get the exact 'view' YOU want to see.
 
In response to the original question, I own both units. Long time Fractal owner since the Std then moved on to the II. I was interested to see what the Kemper was like so I decided to buy one a little while ago.

My first response is that I'm surprised that the Axe-FX and Kemper so often get compared in a like-for-like way. Sure they both produce tones for us guitarists but they are so different in design and function any comparison is like comparing chalk and cheese imo. I will now compare the two.

The OP needs to decide what he wants from the unit in terms of functions, connections, etc but also if he wants a modeler or profiler which is a fundamental decision in my view. If you want versatility and a wide pallet of amp tones and effects with almost infinite adjustment and incredible lifelike feel then I would say the Axe-FX would be the best choice. If, however, you want snapshots of various amps with limited tweaking and effects then the Kemper would do the job. I think the limitation of the Kemper is that each profile is optimised as it is with a limited effective range of tweaking. I guess it is like having a modeler but having to settle for the factory presets. Having said that, the Kemper is an impressive unit and in fairness I've only scratched the surface.

In summary, I like the versatility of owning both units, but if I had to go for just one based purely on quality of tone and playing feel, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be the Axe-FX by a very, very long margin. YMMV.
 
To OP, let me break it down to you in plain english.

Kemper will toast your sliced bread:

Untitled-3_zpse57c0836.jpg


Fractal Audio will get you the girl of your dreams:

Axe-Fx-II-swimsuit_zpsf40703c6.jpg
 
Wildwind said:
My fan is dead silent. My friend, who got his on the same day, had to replace his, which took just a few minutes and cost him nothing. Our units were new a year ago July.
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Got mine about the same time, if I didn't know that it has a fan I'd say it doesn’t....besides that, the Axe was a game changer for me, wish I would have had one about 35 years ago, would have saved me a lot of tone searching and a shit load of money.
Now I have an extra room in my house which was full with amps, effects and guitars, of course the Guitars stayed but pretty much everthing else is history!
 
Scott Peterson said:
There were reports of loud fans, you should request another fan from support if your fan is faulty. The whole 'loud fan' thing has been a non-issue for a long time. It'd be a great idea for you to try an Axe-FX II in order to see (hear) for yourself. I have an Axe-FX II about 2 feet from me right now, no fan to be heard. I'd have to put my ear on the box to hear the fan.
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Thanks for the reply here, Scott. I plan on ordering the Axe FX II as soon as it is available in September. Sorry that you are getting attacked from some of the other members for voicing an opinion. I really appreciate the feedback from talented people such as yourself.

In fact, most of the guitar players that I most admire from youtube and other places around the net all seem to prefer the Axe FX II to the Kemper. Some have tried both, some don't see any reason to try something else.

I asked David Wallimann via email that if he could have one or the other devices, if he would choose the Axe FX II again and he replied with a definite "yes". Player's love their Axe.

However, the Kemper is a strong second. There are quite a few ex Axe FX II players who now prefer the Kemper. It is wonderful to live in a free society with lots of options.
 
Scott Peterson said:
There were reports of loud fans, you should request another fan from support if your fan is faulty. The whole 'loud fan' thing has been a non-issue for a long time. It'd be a great idea for you to try an Axe-FX II in order to see (hear) for yourself. I have an Axe-FX II about 2 feet from me right now, no fan to be heard. I'd have to put my ear on the box to hear the fan.
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Then I guess I need to request a new fan from support. I was something like number 113 on the original waiting list for the AxeII so I have an early unit and I can EASILY hear the fan across the room in my studio.


EDIT: Just to clarify, support will not send you a fan if you are out of the one year warrantee. You can buy a replacement directly from Fractal.
 
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I don't own a Kemper, but here's how I see it: If I were someone who didn't use a ton of effects & didn't need complex routing capabilities & just wanted to have some great amp sounds that covered more ground than a single amp could & just wanted to play through FRFR systems with one small device, the Kemper would be a great choice.

To me, the appeal of the Kemper IS The Amp Factory. Their clips sound great! They have a couple of Vox AC30 clips that simply blow me away. The value add from groups like TAF is really significant, IMO. If you can get profiles from people who can really coax great tones out of an amp, I don't think it's all that important how deep you can (or cannot) dig into the innards of the amp model. If you can get a profile of the sound you want, you're there.

I've had the Axe-II since v5.04. I did spend a lot of time early on tweaking & trying to understand all of the parameters inside the Axe. So much so, my wife started referring to it as "that stupid box". :lol As most people have documented here, I have spent less & less time with each of the last few firmwares fiddling with advanced parameters. The last couple of firmware updates have only required slight tweaking of basic parameters for me. The producer mix IRs were HUGE for me.

I love the flexibility of the Axe. I love the constant updating & improving by FAS. I love Cliff's never ending pursuit to perfect his machine. I have no real desire (some imagined desires from time to time :) ) to go back to "real" amps or to try some other modeler/profiler. I would be interested in some FRFR patches from TAF, if they were available, though. ;)
 
shasha said:
One is a snapshot of a specific rig and while you can tweak it in I have reservations as to how realistic that portion can be. I would imagine that with slight tweaks here and there its not a problem, but in the back of my head and just using logic I would think that the further you go with the tweaking the less accurate the experience is to dialing in the real amp.
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This is easy to hear in clips where users adjust values far from the originally profiled amp settings. It can get rather nasty sounding in some of the clips I have heard. A few different KPA owners have also confirmed this for me.

shasha said:
With that said I would think that if you have an amp, cabinet and mic that you love and have it dialed in that you are going to be extremely happy. If not then you start the journey of user profiles which is not really something I could get excited about. Nothing against anyone else, but even with the AxeFXII I rarely find a preset from someone else that sounds like what I want.
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As much as I want to try a Kemper (and I really do want to try one), this is what has prevented me from buying one. It is very rare that I download a preset and have it sound the same with my playing style and my guitars as it did in the clips posted by the person who provided the preset. I'd rather make my own patches, and I am not really interested in using someone else's profiles, buying profiles, and sorting through profile libraries. Having said that, I still want to try one because I believe that clips tell nothing but lies - or at least can be very misleading. Hands-on experience is the only way to evaluate any given piece of gear.
 
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I got to play a Kemper at a friend's house yesterday. I was pretty impressed with what I heard. He had "Fluff's Uberschall" profile loaded and was rocking my bollocks off with tonnes of high gain, bassy meatiness. Personally, I don't subscribe to lots of high gain, I like a hot/whiny tone from less gain and boosted upper mids. I tried to dial that in with an EQ block and less gain and it sounded NOTHING like my actual Uberschall that sits next to my Axe Fx 2, where as my Axe Fx sounds better than the real deal. That was just one instance. The Fender pop/clean profiles sounded larvley through his Suhr Classic, but I couldn't help but feel like it sounded like every other Fender out there, which brings me to my point.

I prefer my Axe over any other profiler/modeller etc out there purely because it enables me to create MY tone that I hear in my head. I always felt limited by a real head and the Kemper gave me the same feeling of limitation. Whilst I have no doubt that it would excellent in preserving your tone in a studio set up, like Sean explained, dialling in a tone that would could become instantly recognisable and synonymous with you, it just won't happen unless you have your signature sound to begin with and never want to tweak it. But again, it's like chalk and cheese. I like them both, but for much different applications. If I had to pick one, I'd pick Amp Designer in Logic Pro 9.

Of course, I'm joking.
 
It can plug in to a tube power amp and conventional speakers, it can plug in as a 4 cable device, it can plug in as just fx, it can plug in as FR/FRFR ..... oh and it sounds great too.

I'd have both if I could ... but for me the Axe is just more versatile .... and the dosh needed to buy a Kemper as well would be better spent on a new guitar ... because 7 ain't enough!!
 
ethomas1013 said:
Then I guess I need to request a new fan from support. I was something like number 113 on the original waiting list for the AxeII so I have an early unit and I can EASILY hear the fan across the room in my studio.


EDIT: Just to clarify, support will not send you a fan if you are out of the one year warrantee. You can buy a replacement directly from Fractal.
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Yes, you must be within warranty to do that. I updated my OP on it. (*I had assumed that was implied).
 
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