Switching to AX8 from Kemper ...

JerEvil

Inspired
So after 2 years of very happy Kemper use, I sold my Kemper rig. In part I felt everything just started sounding the same.

Maybe building sounds from the ground up will be inspiring for me.

Anyway, my questions are, how well will it do ambient sounds given CPU limitations? I recently joined my churches P&W team and I'm the lead/noise guy. Need big verb and delay. I assume on standard resolution I should be fine?

Also, am I right that the XLR's go to FOH and I have set up the FXloop to go to my Fryette Power Station and 1x12 to have cab sim off for the latter?

How convincing are the OD's and fuzz? I was never a fan of the Kemper OD's. Are 3rd party IR's preferred?

Anyone here that is aso a Kemper user should recognize my screen name. I really like the Kemper and will likely grab another but I'm about burn out on it.

Any newb advice on the AX8 I should know about? Besides reading the manual?
 
Well, the Kemper is more of a "rig simulator" than a modeler, they try to capture the final output of a rig. The Fractal devices are more of a circuit emulator, allowing you to build rigs from blocks of simulated electronic components, and alter them to suit your tastes. You can run the XLR to FOH with cab sims or IRs, and pull the FX loop block off before the cab block and run output 2 into the power station.

I don't use a bunch of CPU intensive presets, but there are some crazy ambient ones in the factory defaults. I would say as long as you don't try running everything from a single scene, and limit the resolutioins, you can pretty much do anything on the AX8.
 
Well, the Kemper is more of a "rig simulator" than a modeler, they try to capture the final output of a rig. The Fractal devices are more of a circuit emulator, allowing you to build rigs from blocks of simulated electronic components, and alter them to suit your tastes. You can run the XLR to FOH with cab sims or IRs, and pull the FX loop block off before the cab block and run output 2 into the power station.

I don't use a bunch of CPU intensive presets, but there are some crazy ambient ones in the factory defaults. I would say as long as you don't try running everything from a single scene, and limit the resolutioins, you can pretty much do anything on the AX8.
Awesome! I saw Mark Days vid on his 80's factory preset and honestly, that sounds like it'll get a lot of use from me.

I'll definitely go through the factory stuff. Will the AX8 do a true dry signal for later reamping or do I need a DI box for that?

Thanks again.
 
To me, it's better to start building your own presets right away rather than auditioning a ton of presets.

Just load an amp and a cab block of an amp and cab that you know. Stay on the basic page and find your sound.

The ambient sounds depends on how much else, you put in. Amp, cab, multidelay, and reverb is not a problem. But if you also throw in the studio compressor, two drives, and a chorus, you get in trouble.

You are right about the use of your power station and FOH.

I like the drives just fine, but I was never into drives when I played real amps, and I don't use them much in my AX8 either.
 
I'll definitely go through the factory stuff. Will the AX8 do a true dry signal for later reamping or do I need a DI box for that?
Yeah, you can use the FX loop out to get a dry signal. You can either patch it manually, or you can set it up through the IO menu.
 
First off - welcome JerEvil

You will be a very happy camper when you learn your way around the AX8, the amp sims are spot on the their real life counterparts and the drives are really great if you need them.

The stock IR's are great, but there are so many great 3rd party ones to season your sounds with if you'd like - I'm a big proponent of the Ownhammer stuff.

CPU can be a problem if you try to make kitchen sink presets, but I did a preset the other day with comp, wah, drive, trem, amp, cab, filter (clean vol boost), delay and verb (hi res) the other day - no problem - and as t´you asked the normal resolution on verb in the AX8 is better than any verb I've heard in any other modeler and on par with the best in class verb pedals.

Have fun
RB
 
Welcome! I use the AX8 every weekend for P&W. There will be a learning curve so just brace for that. The tones are there though.

I don't use any third party presets or even factory presets. However, I think there are a lot of things you can learn from other peoples presets like various routing ideas, etc. There might also be block ideas from other presets that you can easily save for re-use in your own presets, etc.

Good Luck!
 
I'm a Kemper owner too for the last 2+ year and bought my AX8 a month ago. I'm very happy with it! I also found myself getting a bit bored with the Kemper. It does sound good (my main profile was the TAF Trainwreck). Most of my live playing is also P&W and I was still using my Suhr Badger amp, 2 speaker cabs and 2 pedalboard setup which was a lot to haul and setup / tear down was a hassle. I thought about getting the Kemper remote foot controller so I could simplify my live rig and not have to haul around so much but then I heard about the AX8. I was intrigued at the thought of using it as my live rig. I had never owned any Fractal products but certainly heard much about them (constant debates regarding Kemper vs Fractal in many of the forums) and after a lot of research I decided to pull the trigger. I truly am amazed at the quality of the sounds I am getting from it. I did have to spend some serious time to dial in what I was looking for but I feel that's to be expected. The sounds are there, you just need to explore and tweak to your personal preferences. I also use a lot of ambient sounds and I've found the reverbs to be stellar. I use a medium hall combined with the multi-delay for some very sweet sounding swells. My main amp so far that I have built my settings around is the Brownface (Fender Vibro Lux). I set it just on the edge of break up for my clean and then add more gain, transparent drive (Esoteric RCB or now the Timmy) and a filter block for additional gain stages. Sounds awesome and this rig setup was my perfect solution for simplifying my live rig without any compromise in sound quality. In fact, the first week I used it at church our sound tech said it sounded excellent and that he actually preferred it over my previous setup.

So, all that to say I love this thing and find my Kemper gathering dust for the last month. I had mainly used it in my home studio for recording (for which it has done a fine job) but I find myself always turning to my AX8 now for everything. I will probably sell the Kemper. I will keep my Suhr Badger because there will probably always be times when I may want to have a full tube amp rig (but who knows, maybe not!). This forum is a great community with mostly helpful people who are happy to share their insight. Cheers.
 
P&W player here, also the lead/noise guy.

I do the one-preset-per-song thing, mainly because it allows me to turn off my brain and just play (rather than tap dance effects in and out). The AX8 is capable of some amazing ambient sounds. For the best sounds, you'll probably want some dedicated ambient presets. If you are using on-board drives, UltraRes IRs, MultiDelay block, and the "high" quality reverb setting, you'll start hit up against CPU as you add other things to the preset. So preset shuffling is the best option, and it works really well.

Reverb
The verbs you'll want to explore are the Deep Space, Cave, North Church and South Church. Any verb algo can have an extremely long tail (modifiable by pedal) and can have added modulation.

Delay
The most important thing to realize about the delay block is that it isn't emulating any specific pedal. It provides you with all the parameters necessary to create any delay sound you want.

The delay "types" are really just presets of specific settings. The important distinction is actually the delay "config" which can be mono, stereo, dual, ping-pong, sweep, tape (which is actually emulating tape), and reverse. I prefer the Dual Delay, which is the most flexible. You can create the sound of two Memory Mans run in series or parallel, all with one block instance.

MultiDelay
The MultiDelay block, specifically the Plex Detune and Plex Shift types, will be your friend. With creative routing you can build Strymon-esque sounds.

Drives
Yes, the drives sound very realistic. The Timmy was just added, and you also have Xotic AC and RC Boost, Hermida Zen, classics like the TS9 and Rat, and a ton more. You may find yourself needing drives less, because you can easily control amp gain per scene or with a pedal. That's especially useful with chimey amps that breakup well like the DC30, AC20 and MAZ 38.
 
Ambient stuff uses CPU so you will need to be careful when building presets to not exceed CPU limit. An Axe-Fx II is a better choice in this regard except for the price and form-factor. But if it's just amp, cab, delay, reverb you should be okay. If you start adding drives and other effects you might have to drop the reverb quality.
 
It really depends on how ambient you want to get.

It may be hard to cover it all in one preset , but you can easily build a dedicated preset that can get very washy and fill out underneath a band.

The AFX could easily do it all in one preset.
 
I find it pretty easy to get what I need for ambience in one preset. I just use several scenes for switching between a few different settings. I'm at between 80 to 85% on CPU.
 
Ambient stuff uses CPU so you will need to be careful when building presets to not exceed CPU limit. An Axe-Fx II is a better choice in this regard except for the price and form-factor. But if it's just amp, cab, delay, reverb you should be okay. If you start adding drives and other effects you might have to drop the reverb quality.
Yeah I am ok with keeping the reverb quality "standard res" or however that works. I am guessing, should I jive well enough with the AX8 for gigging I'll look into the "big brother" unit.
 
It really depends on how ambient you want to get.

It may be hard to cover it all in one preset , but you can easily build a dedicated preset that can get very washy and fill out underneath a band.

The AFX could easily do it all in one preset.
Yeah just some good verb/delay for swells and that kind of thing. We do the standard Shane and Shane, Casting Crowns, Vertical Church type stuff.
 
Yeah just some good verb/delay for swells and that kind of thing. We do the standard Shane and Shane, Casting Crowns, Vertical Church type stuff.

The AX8 can easily cover that in a single preset.

I use scenes to ramp up the delay mix, delay feedback, reverb level and reverb time and it works very well for swells and ambient washy tones.

Don't worry about running the reverb on Normal quality - it still sounds amazing in the live mix.
 
I have had a Kemper since 2012 and used it in Church and out. I tried the Helix and noticed some umph was not present on my Kemper. I then tried the AX8 since I already started trying the other devices out (tried a Atomic during the summer - sold it). I settled on the AX8 and have been using it most of the year. I ear balled my Fuchs Full House 50 with the Fuchs ODS and use it for all the songs we do. I have reverb studio C on with about an 8% mix all the time. I use an X/Y delay using a 1/4 and Dotted 8th mix and then a dotted 8th alone. I also have a multihead delay for ambient noise. I have a cleanish X/Y amp (Fuchs Clean & ODS Channel), but I also use the Hook amp with Channel 1 & 3. I found the AX8 sounded like I wanted it when recorded live whereas the Kemper was missing something. Just bought a PRS P22 and used the acoustic piezo through the AX8 with eq and delay for Christmas eve. I'm sold on the setup now. I tend to do my own thing so I stay away from the attempt to sound like U2....but if that's your thing you can do it with this device no problem.
 
Just a different opinion on where to start...Once again I really feel you are missing something if you do NOT check out the factory presets. So you spend a couple of hours, big deal. You can use axe edit and have them set up in the browser on auto audition where you just have to use up and down arrows and zip thru them. Or just using the bank veiw in Axe edit Click-play, click another play, I still will never understand why people suggest a new user avoid the factory presets - makes absolutely no sense to me at all-- I mean a couple of hours. We are individuals, so what one guitar player likes another may not and visa versa. And you being "YOU" and not someone else may find some you like or some you want to tweak or maybe just see how they are constructed and why they sound the way they do.
 
Another vote for the factory presets auditioning.

Also, along the way where there are major firmware revisions, go back and visit the factory presets again. This has never failed to produce some new gems for me.
 
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