Jason Scott
Fractal Fanatic
such a personal choice, plus why should you listen to me over your ears?
Because he's never used an Axe-Fx. He's soliciting opinions from people who've tried both in order to make a more informed decision.
such a personal choice, plus why should you listen to me over your ears?
This plan has worked well for me....though even beyond the above metaphor, the KPA and III play nice together, you can digitally or analogly pump your fave KPA profiles through the III’s mostly superior FX and Cab sims....Best of both worlds , as Professor Hulk and Van Hagar would say...........Keep the Kemper and buy the Axe. If funds are lacking, sell some of your tube amps. An Axe 3 plus a Kemper is like having a Playstation 4 and an Xbox One.
I have both and they complement each other. I'd probably keep the III over the Kemper just for the fact of it's IO and USB interface ability, if it came down to it. I have a lot of Kemper profiles I'm in love with and feel wise I'd say I don't care for the clean-clean Kemper tones.
It has a weird peaky dynamic response, like a logarithmic scale on picking dynamics. There's an easy workaround though, which is to pick a slightly distorted profile that uses the other internal (dirty) algorithm and turn the gain down.
Kemper doesn't do updates quite as frequently as Fractal, though the last year's worth of updates have been solid and the new delays and reverbs are as good as the III. No editor but one was announced.
Thanks for all the replies! So - I’m so freaking impatient - there are several II’s available locally...if I were to buy one of these will it just be a boat anchor soon? Would it sound different than the three? Sorry for the newbie questions.
I am that personThe Axe 2 is an awesome piece of gear and you'd probably be happy with it if you never went online to read gear forums. Major bands still tour arenas with those in their racks. But if you can spring the extra money the Axe 3 is a lot more powerful and future proof. There's a lot of innovation, new amp/effect models, etc. If you're the type of person who sees everyone else getting shiny new toys and get anxious, I'd save up for the 3 instead. If you buy it and move on, then the 2 is great.
I am that person
If you want the latest and greatest modeling get a III. The III is noticeably better sounding.Thanks for all the replies! So - I’m so freaking impatient - there are several II’s available locally...if I were to buy one of these will it just be a boat anchor soon? Would it sound different than the three? Sorry for the newbie questions.
I own both and, in my opinion, one of the big advantages the Axe-Fx has over the Kemper is having complete and authentic control over the tone stack(and other parameters). The Axe-Fx is infinitely more flexible, no question. Personally, I don't hear the "sameness" some people mention regarding the KPA's amps, but that's me. I own both for a reason, though. There are amps available for the KPA that haven't been modeled in the Axe... yet anyway.
For me though, I love that the amp controls react realistically. Having said that, while the KPA's tone controls don't react like the knobs on the actual amp for a given profile, I do find them to be extremely powerful and musical, and lend quite a lot of sonic versatility, though not remotely in the same league as the Axe-Fx.
As far as realism, they both sound exceptional. It's just, in addition to parameters that react just like the controls of the amps they're based on, there are a lot of outstanding features that the Kemper simply doesn't have, and at the end of the day, the sheer versatility and flexibility of the Axe gives the end-user the ability to create (and recreate) virtually any tone they can imagine or have heard.
The gas is hiiiigh right now with me...I listen to the AxeFX examples and to my ears, there’s a realism and distinct difference between amps that I seem to be missing with the Kemper.
I’ve bought and sold and bought enough Kempers to know that the grass isn’t always greener...but for those of you that use both, am I making the “same-ness” thing up?
Thanks for all the replies! So - I’m so freaking impatient - there are several II’s available locally...if I were to buy one of these will it just be a boat anchor soon? Would it sound different than the three? Sorry for the newbie questions.
The "III" is life changing.