Like someone else said I'm actually impressed at how well articulated and thoughtful that response was if it was in fact on youtube. Most of the time a response consists of "the AxeFXII is a piece of shit and you suck" or something as compelling.
There is actually some thought and some points made.
...but they are a obviously biased because he is only presenting from his perspective and experience which completely disregards the workflow and process of patch creation in the AxeFXII. I have no doubt that the KPA sounds great with the right profile. But the entire premise of the KPA is based on the notion that someone on the planet owns a KPA, owns the exact amp I want to play, owns the exact cabinet, owns the exact mic, places the mic in the exact spot, adjusts the amp exactly how I want, profiles the whole set up and then makes it available to me either freely or for some fee.
That doesn't even factor in the time spent in tracking that magical profile down from amongst what I would imagine is close to 5000 profiles in existence to choose from (and that's being very conservative IMHO). So I sit there and spin the knob and play through profiles until something sounds great. Otherwise I have to own all of that stuff and "roll my own" which to me kind of makes the point of owning a modeler redundant or even pointless. If I did own all of that stuff and needed to put them all into one unit the KPA makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Some people consider "easier" as having less capability. To me that's fine if you aren't trying to create your own sound or are happy with just being handed something and being told to make it work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There's actually something to be said for limiting user input because it does reduce the potential for mistakes and complaints. But to me it restricts my abilities and forces me down a strict path of tonal exploration and expression. I mean if everyone knows that
Joey Profiler makes the best Plexi patch then everyone is going to get that profile and use it. It becomes generic and overused and becomes unspectacular at some point.
So since we had such a nice well thought out response I would probably take the time to reply in the same polite manner.
The AxeFXII is not a profiler nor does it pretend to be. It is a modeler. Now most modelers take a very simplistic approach to simulating an amp. They tend to be waveshapers and lack the dynamics that plugging into the real version has. In many of them you can roll the volume back to where it cleans up and then as you start to increase the volume it sort of just gets louder and then abruptly distorts and then gives you a louder distorted sound. To my ears it's as if there are two distinct things going on that are supposed to simulate the dynamic range, but in practice they seem separate to me.
This is not the case in the AxeFXII which provides virtualized representations of the actual amplifier's circuit. A traditional modeler may have one bit of code that comprises the entire preamp stage; the AxeFXII accounts for each individual component. The physical world's electrical properties of every component (capacitors, resistors, tubes, etc.) are written in discrete code. So when the real circuit has capacitors and transistors and tubes and transformers the same things that happen to the signal in real life in each component are happening in the virtual environment. The reason that this isn't done by every manufacturer is that it is extremely processor intensive which equates to cost. The DSP on the more popular off the shelf modelers is about $15-20 for the consumer; I am sure that the manufacturer enjoys significant price breaks. Just one of the two DSP's in the AxeFXII cost close to $200 for any of us who want to buy one and make a necklace out of it. It is not the fastest in terms of clock cycles, but dedicated processors have more to do with subroutines and architecture and the TigerSHARC DSP is the only DSP can that run the code of the AxeFXII in realtime. It also requires someone to write the code which is probably not trivial.
This subatomic attention to detail spent on the component level modeling combined with the raw power of two dedicated DSP's enable the AxeFXII to perform modeling to a degree of accuracy and realism that is without peer. And this is important because while a profiler can take a snapshot of an amp and create a very effective simulation of that moment it simply takes the input signal and changes it to match the signal that was present at the output of the mic during the profiling. Simply put it can not decompose the components nor the circuit of the amp or for that matter any amp that it profiles. It does not have the ability to reverse engineer the tone stack or even the separate gain stages within a circuit by comparing the original signal to the output of the mic. That realism starts and ends with the profile having to remain the same as the moment that it was created. Once you start dialing in a profile you are using static EQ's and gain approximations. That is simply not a realistic representation at that point and from people that own and love the KPA they have conceded that once you start digging deep into a profile you can only go so far before it starts to fall apart. That's not a slight against the KPA; that's just the inherent nature of profiling.
Basically if you want something specific it has to be profiled specifically.
A typical AxeFXII patch creation session consists of
- Picking an amp that I want to use from the 200+ on-board models
- Selecting a cabinet from either the 100+ on the unit or from a number of libraries both free and paid
- Adjust the gain and tone stack of the amp to taste....just like a real amp.....I don't have to go into the advanced parameters to sound like the real amp
If I don't get where I want I can:
- Loading a variety of mic types and placements into CabLab and mix them in realtime with CabLab
After that I can
- Pick and place any effects that I want in either series or parallel and mix to my heart's content....I can also save up to 8 instantly recallable scenes in a single patch
- Adjust gain staging at any point in the patch, EQ at any point, add filters if I want....but none of this is necessary; it is simply available
All of which can be done from the front panel or from the computer via AxeEdit
I can also
- Record directly into a DAW from the AxeFXII as an audio interface and remain in the digital domain the entire time
- I can record both wet and dry simultaneously and then reamp my recording to fit the mix better
- In my case I have a device that utilizes AES and word clock sync capabilities which interfaces with my system and is rock solid
Does that make one better than the other? For my workflow and process only one does what I want how I want to the level that I want. I am not anyone but myself and my needs, tastes, experience, knowledge, sexual preferences, astrological sign nor DNA is the same as everyone else. Look objectively at what it is that you need to do and make a list. Then compare the two in terms of actual capability and workflow and buy one and be happy. If you find one that fits your needs you chose the best one for you.
