Came here because I'm toying with the idea of picking up the FX8. I swear, every couple of years I'll go pedals, then slim down and do something "simpler and more mobile", then go back to pedals again (because let's be honest, they're like little guitar candy, aren't they?).
This is all good info, thanks for putting this out there.
2-3 years ago I picked up an AxeFX 2 and enjoyed it for a while, right up until Fractal messed up with the software and that stopped working for a while. Made it way harder to use because I had to sit over the unit to tweak it - uncomfortable and lots of menu diving. Also, the constant change in tone when firmware upgrades happened irritated me - I'd get something I liked then I'd have to fix it after a firmware upgrade. And at the end of the day it didn't really feel to me like I was dealing with an amp and cab per se - the models didn't seem to kick ass right out of the box, or at least I didn't figure out how to really approach it. So I didn't have enough "tweaker" in me to really keep the AxeFX "fed" right and I didn't totally dig it.
So I sold that and ended up with a Kemper. Love the thing. Find the right profiles (or profile them yourself) and you can tweak a bit from there - kind of turns the modeling thing on its head. Less menu diving, more dedicated knobs and all of that up front. But I don't like the FX on there - I miss that from the AxeFX, honestly. They're okay, but no serious routing options, no crazy FX chaining, etc. I ended up using external comp, verbs, delays, OD, and even chorus so I'd have more immediate control over the parameters.
The FX8 looks cool as hell, and other than a couple of special pedals (overdrive is my guess), it could replace all my pedals and slim my pedal stuff back down quite a bit. And in pure idiotic style, plugging an FX8 into a Kemper would be supremely moronic, but what the hell.
And I'm like you - I have a big Mesa head that I can't play much in the house with a family and what-not. The Kemper is great, but still doesn't beat an actual tube amp and the feel that you get from that. The "just on the edge of lost control" feel of tons of power coming from that thing just can't be modeled.
So my wish list also includes a Torpedo Live so I can try to use the Kemper even less. Although I have some great JVM410 models that I really enjoy...
I have a couple of Strymon pedals that I like, but honestly I could live without them if I could simplify my setup and still get 80% of the functionality (and honestly of that I use about 10% of the overall capability).
So a couple of questions for you, after all that rambling:
How do you find the "tweakability" of the FX8? You want to go in and change the mix parameter of a delay, or the type of delay, or whatever - menu diving time? Or is it fairly accessible on the unit itself? Do you find yourself using the software more than fiddling with the unit directly?
Looks like you have an OD in your chain. My understanding with the 4-cable-method is that you put your guitar right into the FX8 before the amp's input, so your OD is probably before your FX8? How does it handle an OD driving its input to hell? One of the great thing about tube amps is overdriving the input and saturating the hell out of the preamp tube - Kemper actually handles it fine, which I make use of...
How do you find the management of patches and scenes? So if you have a set list, how much hassle is it to program your set list into the unit, especially if that list changes frequently? Kemper has some interesting concepts there with "performance mode" but even their profile management is lacking... lost of button presses and knob turning to get stuff set up...
