This week I compared - AxeIII/Boss GT1000/Kemper/Helix Floor

[Orvillain]

At present I own all four of these modellers. I did have a Quad Cortex previously, but I sold that to fund the Axe III. I still have solid memories of that device though, so I will opine somewhat on that.

I'll start with the Boss because that is the easiest - I don't really know why the amp modelling gets so much love on this device. I tried it thoroughly, and I couldn't get a single sound I liked. I tried it set to line/phones and recording mode, I also tried it with the output select set to 'user' which from what I could tell, fully disabled any output compensation so you get a full frequency amp sound. It still sounded lifeless to me. A huge shame, because I actually think the control features (assigns, internal wave pedal, midi assigments, etc) are very good on the Boss and having seamless preset changes complete with spillover is incredibly useful.

I feel a bit nickel and dimed by it considering they tell you there are a bunch of effects from the 500 series in there, but they're missing parameters. And you don't get everything. And this isn't a cheap device. It retails for £840 roundabouts, which is nothing to sniff at. I also don't like that you get one master delay block and one reverb block - pretty limiting when you play in an atmospheric cinematic post-rock band.

It is smaller and lighter than the Helix (and the FC12 controller!!!) and I had visions of putting it on a board with a few of my choice stomps, and controlling everything with midi. All in front of my amp. But alas.... I don't think I'm gonna bother.

----

So ... Kemper. Let's get this out of the way - I have a real love hate relationship with the Kemper. On the one hand, being able to have my amps and my tones all in one portable and lightweight box that I can carry from studio to studio and gig to gig... what's not to like? The problem is.... I have literally NEVER been able to get close enough to the real amps. Save the speeches... I've heard it all before. Everything from "you're doing it wrong" to "they sound exactly the same to me!" ... and fundamentally, I hear what I hear - the real amp will have very punchy and defined palm mutes, and even after refining the Kemper will have fuzzy, flubby, smeary palm mutes, that have some kind of noise akin to crossover distortion, over the top of them, that isn't really related to the notes you play. I can't stop hearing it since I was able to recognise it. Being a high-gain player, it really ruins my enjoyment of the unit.

Add to that the fact that if you put delays and reverbs in front of the amp like I do, then you lose spillover, which is a pretty big deal for me. Then you can only control two midi devices, and to this day I still find the workflow confusing - especially the performance mode. It just does not make sense to my brain, and I've been going round the houses with Kempers for 10 years now!!

Right now they seem to be focusing their development efforts on a bunch of stuff I don't care about - bad sounding double-tracking algorithms and iPad apps.... no thanks mate. It's entirely possible they will come out with a follow up unit that fixes all of the bad things. I wait with baited breath, but as I said in a thread I started previously - I've lost faith in the concept of profiling.


----

That brings me on to the Helix. I'll be honest straight up front - I love the Helix. I think it's amazing. I think it sounds great, has tons of features and options, and very little cruft. It is very streamlined and very well thought out. When it launched it was missing a ton of stuff that I wanted, but I got one anyway, and it has just gone from strength to strength. But if I'm honest... there is something about the amp modelling that doesn't grab me. I can't quite place it, much more difficult to identify what I don't like about it than with the Kemper. Sometimes it feels overgained, sometimes it feels undergained. Sometimes it feels fuzzy, and sometimes it's too spikey and choppy on the transient. And this is with the same amp at different gain settings! I don't fully grok it, but I don't always enjoy playing through the Helix amps.

The delays and reverbs are pretty damn good. They get a bad rep, but I've had them side by side with all the major Strymon pedals and Boss pedals and TC Electronic, as well as the AxeIII, and it really puts up a fight. Especially the newer reverbs like the Dynamic Hall. I don't always enjoy the default settings, but since they added favourites, that annoys me way less than it used to.

I remember when it launched a lot of people said that the dual path approach Helix took wasn't as good as the grid that the Axe took. To be honest, I can't think of a situation where it ever held me back. I also really appreciate that you can take the volume knob out of the signal path, and truly have a unity gain signal path if you want (ie: empty path A straight to the output is unity gain, before you put any blocks in)

There's something like 230 effects in the thing. Really impressive. Their design philisophy isn't the same as Fractals. Line6 are more about putting in that EXACT pedal... and limiting you to those EXACT controls and what not; whereas Fractal offer super deep craft-yer-own-tone possibilities. I really like both approaches.

Honestly, I'm struggling to think of anything bad to say about the Helix.... the one thing I will say is that the delays across the board have a tendency to "milk out" - they go a bit squishy and diffuse. Try getting 28 echoes out of the Simple Delay... it's actually quite difficult. On a Boss pedal, it's like.... oh.... 50% on the feedback knob.... there we go.


(edit: fixed typos)

 

[Orvillain]

----

Quad Cortex. Right. This is all from memory.

Super ropey start, if you ask me. Something as basic as separating midi commands in scenes mode from stompbox mode... nope. If you assign a midi command to a switch, it gets fired off regardless of what mode you're in. I can't believe a QA engineer didn't point out how utterly whack that is, like.... 3 years before development. I would've gotten fired over how loud and obnoxious I would have been about that. I simply wouldn't have let it out the door.

Limited effects, although they do sound okay. The delays were along the lines of a Boss DD6 or something; the tape delay didn't do the typical tape delay oscillation thing, which was strange. The digital delay did it's thing. Modulations were a mixed bag, and no tempo sync for the tremolo? Wut. The reverbs initially were pants, but then they tweaked them and they were much better. Smoother and the mixer parameters worked better.

Captures were pretty good. Still not 100% accurate to the real amp, but somehow a bit closer than the Kemper. Nicer palm mutes by a LOT, in my opinion. Not as flexible in that you can't roll the gain back all the way to a clean channel, and you don't get any deep editing over the capture. So you still end up - as you do with Kemper - with tons and tons of captures of your amps, with slight tweaks to the settings, just so you've covered enough ground.

The touchscreen is overrated if you ask me. Aside from naming presets and captures, which is where it comes in handy, literally everything else I can take it or leave it.

Very hard to get a unity gain signal path. I tried using the unit in 4-cable-method with my real amps, and I could never get a satisfying tone. Signal to noise ratio was a bit of a problem, and the real amp would always lose some magic.

They have such a long way to go to catch up with the rest in terms of functionality. I wish them all the best with it. It is a great sounding unit, but it needs time to mature - hopefully more like wine than cheese.

----

AxeIII. So as I've said elsewhere, I had an AxeII. Twice. I had an FX8 too for a time. You may even remember some of my older posts where I would constantly whinge about it. I had previously drawn a line under Fractal. I decided they weren't for me and they didn't sound good anyway. I didn't like the delays because they were too clean and clinical sounding - yes, I messed with the drive parameter. It didn't give me what I wanted. I really liked the reverbs, and since I'm a huge Diezel fan, the fact that there were loads of Diezel amps always made me want one.

But it wasn't until the AxeIII (I arrived quite late to the party as well) where I started to have a bit more faith in the product. A few minor workflow niggles aside, it all suddenly clicked. I finally could put an amp and a cab in a patch and just get righteous tones. No more cocking around with PEQ blocks all over the shop to try and control weird resonances that weren't natural and that none of my real amps did. It finally felt "real".

Just this week I compared the AxeIII's silverface VH4 to my real silverface VH4 from 2001. They're spot on. The profile I made of my real amp on the Kemper, sounds nothing like the real amp!!! The Helix isn't really that close either to be fair.

With the AxeIII, the palm mute response is absolutely bloody bang on. It's exactly how my real amps feel under my fingers. No crazy flubb, plenty of plectrum on the transient, I can attack the notes and really feel the cutting bite come through the speakers.

The delays are totally different for me now. I think with the addition of the compander, and a few extra types being added in the intervening years (DM2, Carbon Copy) I am a lot happier with them. The reverbs are stellar, as pretty much everyone agrees. The modulations are all killer, although I mainly care about flanger, phaser, and tremolo. I'm yet to try it, but on one song of ours I do this pattern tremolo thing that I used the Strymon Mobius to record with - I need to emulate that on the AxeIII. What I've been doing on my other devices is just controlling the rate of a square shaped tremolo, starting off with a sync'd 8th note, up to a 16th note triplet. Then I just rock it back and forth throughout the part of the song. It sounds close enough to the record.

Oh yeah - pitch effects. They're absolutely stonkin' on the AxeIII. Single note riffs with a low octave behind it sound crap with the Kemper, decent with the Boss, pretty good with the Helix, and stellar with the AxeIII.

I have my experimental side, and I think feedback loops on the AxeIII..... really unique. Nothing else really does that, and its a way to do tons of things like create a wall of fuzz that just oscillates and oscillates, or build your own delay circuit. Tons of stuff you can do with that.

I really appreciate that there is a load of DSP on tap too. I never hit the limit.

There is a learning curve. But most of it I already learned on the AxeII, and the III isn't a huge jump from that. So I already knew how to program modifiers and setup scene controllers and things like that. I'm still learning how to setup the FC12 and still figuring out what I actually want from it, but it's a solid piece of gear. Can I be honest??? I hated the MFC controller. I bought one from G66 when I had my AxeII, and I just sent it back for a refund. I hated how menu-y and unintuitive it was.

Bad things?? Well.... I wish it were simpler to emulate a real amp with pedals situation.... rather than just relying on 8 scenes. And sometimes 8 scenes isn't enough. I counted. For one of my songs I'd need 14 scenes. Gonna take some creative thinking to figure out how I'm playing that in a live situation. Probably find a gap in the song where I can change preset, and split up the song into two presets.

You'll notice in all this I'm not really talking about drive effects - mainly because I don't use them a lot. I use a few nasty fuzz sounds, but that's about it. I think amps sound better when they're loud, gainy, and bright, with plenty of presence and cut. Occasionally I will use a tubescreamer to boost an amp, but I don't really like the loss of low-end. I'd much rather use an EQ in front. Which the AxeIII obviously does splendidly; as does the Helix. Kemper is a bit ropey in this area tbh. I don't think it sounds good when you boost it with an EQ.

 

[ben ifin]

At present I own all four of these modellers. I did have a Quad Cortex previously, but I sold that to fund the Axe III. I still have solid memories of that device though, so I will opine somewhat on that.

I'll start with the Boss because that is the easier - I don't really know why the amp modelling gets so much love on this device. I tried it thoroughly, and I couldn't get a single sound I liked. I tried it set to line/phones and recording mode, I also tried it with the output select set to 'user' which from what I could tell, fully disabled any output compensation so you get a full frequency amp sound. It still sounded lifeless to me. A huge shame, because I actually think the control features (assigns, internal wave pedal, midi assigments, etc) are very good on the Boss and having seamless preset changes completely with spillover is incredibly useful.

I feel a bit nickel and dimed by it considering they tell you there are a bunch of effects from the 500 series in there, but they're missing parameters. And you don't get everything. And this isn't a cheap device. It retails for £840 roundabouts, which is nothing to sniff at. I also don't like that you get one master delay block and one reverb block - pretty limiting when you play in an atmospheric cinematic post-rock band.

It is smaller and lighter than the Helix (and the FC12 controller!!!) and I had visions of putting it on a board with a few of my choice stomps, and controlling everything with midi. All in front of my amp. But alas.... I don't think I'm gonna bother.

----

So ... Kemper. Let's get this out of the way - I have a real love hate relationship with the Kemper. On the one hand, being able to have my amps and my tones all in one portable and lightweight box that I can carry from studio to studio and gig to gig... what's not to like? The problem is.... I have literally NEVER been able to get close enough to the real amps. Save the speeches... I've heard it all before. Everything from "you're doing it wrong" to "they sound exactly the same to me!" ... and fundamentally, I hear what I hear - the real amp will have very punchy and defined palm mutes, and even after refining the Kemper will have fuzzy, flubby, smeary palm mutes, that have some kind of noise akin to crossover distortion, over the top of them, that isn't really related to the notes you play. I can't stop hearing it since I was able to recognise it. Being a high-gain player, it really ruins my enjoyment of the unit.

Add to that the fact that if you put delays and reverbs in front of the amp like I do, then you lose spillover, which is a pretty big deal for me. Then you can only control two midi devices, and to this day I still find the workflow confusing - especially the performance mode. It just does not make sense to my brain, and I've been going round the houses with Kempers for 10 years now!!

Right now they seem to be focusing their development efforts on a bunch of stuff I don't care about - bad sounding double-tracking algorithms and iPad apps.... no thanks mate. It's entirely possible they will come out with a follow up unit that fixes all of the bad things. I wait with baited breath, but as I said in a thread I started previously - I've lost faith in the concept of profiling.


----

That brings me on to the Helix. I'll be honest straight up front - I love the Helix. I think it's amazing. I think it sounds great, has tons of features and options, and very little cruft. It is very streamlined and very well thought out. When it launched it was missing a ton of stuff that I wanted, but I got one anyway, and it has just gone from strength to strength. But if I'm honest... there is something about the amp modelling that doesn't grab me. I can't quite place it, much more difficult to identify what I don't like about it than with the Kemper. Sometimes it feels overgained, sometimes it feels undergained. Sometimes it feels fuzzy, and sometimes it's too spikey and choppy on the transient. And this is with the same amp at different gain settings! I don't fully grok it, but I don't always enjoy playing through the Helix amps.

The delays and reverbs are pretty damn good. They get a bad rep, but I've had them side by side with all the major Strymon pedals and Boss pedals and TC Electronic, as well as the AxeIII, and it really puts up a fight. Especially the newer reverbs like the Dynamic Hall. I don't always enjoy the default settings, but since they added favourites, that annoys me way less than it used to.

I remember when it launched a lot of people said that the dual path approach Helix took wasn't as good as the grid that the Axe took. To be honest, I can't think of a situation where it ever held me back. I also really appreciate that you can take the volume knob out of the signal path, and truly have a unity gain signal path if you want (ie: empty path A straight to the output is unity gain, before you put any blocks in)

There's something like 230 effects in the thing. Really impressive. Their design philisophy isn't the same as Fractals. Line6 are more about putting in that EXACT pedal... and limiting you to those EXACT controls and what not; whereas Fractal offer super deep craft-yer-own-tone possibilities. I really like both approaches.

Honestly, I'm struggling to think of anything bad to say about the Helix.... the one thing I will say is that the delays across the board have a tendency to "milk out" - they go a bit squishy and diffuse. Try getting 28 echoes out of the Simple Delay... it's actually quite difficult. On a Boss pedal, it's like.... oh.... 50% on the feedback knob.... there we go.

Hi AndyTNBD !

Great write-ups

I run an FM3 and Helix LT and think both are awesome - each have their own strengths and weaknesses - totally to be expected.

I also have a GT 1000 and an quite "flummoxed" about you not being able to get good sounds out of it ... not a criticism .... just my experience.

To my fingers and ears it easily has the best feel and dynamics and fidelity of the other 2 units and all the ground-up "original" GT 1000 amps are brilliant - easily on par with the other 2 platforms - albeit in much more limited numbers ... again .... this is all to me.

But as always, we each all feel and hear things differently so I found your assessments very valid and really well explained.

Thanks and all the best,
Ben

 

[unFILTERed]

----

Quad Cortex. Right. This is all from memory.

Super ropey start, if you ask me. Something as basic as separating midi commands in scenes mode from stompbox mode... nope. If you assign a midi command to a switch, it gets fired off regardless of what mode you're in. I can't believe a QA engineer didn't point out how utterly whack that is, like.... 3 years before development. I would've gotten fired over how loud and obnoxious I would have been about that. I simply wouldn't have let it out the door.

Limited effects, although they do sound okay. The delays were along the lines of a Boss DD6 or something; the tape delay didn't do the typical tape delay oscillation thing, which was strange. The digital delay did it's thing. Modulations were a mixed bag, and no tempo sync for the tremolo? Wut. The reverbs initially were pants, but then they tweaked them and they were much better. Smoother and the mixer parameters worked better.

Captures were pretty good. Still not 100% accurate to the real amp, but somehow a bit closer than the Kemper. Nicer palm mutes by a LOT, in my opinion. Not as flexible in that you can't roll the gain back all the way to a clean channel, and you don't get any deep editing over the capture. So you still end up - as you do with Kemper - with tons and tons of captures of your amps, with slight tweaks to the settings, just so you've covered enough ground.

The touchscreen is overrated if you ask me. Aside from naming presets and captures, which is where it comes in handy, literally everything else I can take it or leave it.

Very hard to get a unity gain signal path. I tried using the unit in 4-cable-method with my real amps, and I could never get a satisfying tone. Signal to noise ratio was a bit of a problem, and the real amp would always lose some magic.

They have such a long way to go to catch up with the rest in terms of functionality. I wish them all the best with it. It is a great sounding unit, but it needs time to mature - hopefully more like wine than cheese.

----

AxeIII. So as I've said elsewhere, I had an AxeII. Twice. I had an FX8 too for a time. You may even remember some of my older posts where I would constantly whinge about it. I had previously drawn a line under Fractal. I decided they weren't for me and they didn't sound good anyway. I didn't like the delays because they were too clean and clinical sounding - yes, I messed with the drive parameter. It didn't give me what I wanted. I really liked the reverbs, and since I'm a huge Diezel fan, the fact that there were loads of Diezel amps always made me want one.

But it wasn't until the AxeIII (I arrived quite late to the party as well) where I started to have a bit more faith in the product. A few minor workflow niggles aside, it all suddenly clicked. I finally could put an amp and a cab in a patch and just get righteous tones. No more cocking around with PEQ blocks all over the shop to try and control weird resonances that weren't natural and that none of my real amps did. It finally felt "real".

Just this week I compared the AxeIII's silverface VH4 to my real silverface VH4 from 2001. They're spot on. The profile I made of my real amp on the Kemper, sounds nothing like the real amp!!! The Helix isn't really that close either to be fair.

With the AxeIII, the palm mute response is absolutely bloody bang on. It's exactly how my real amps feel under my fingers. No crazy flubb, plenty of plectrum on the transient, I can attack the notes and really feel the cutting bite come through the speakers.

The delays are totally different for me now. I think with the addition of the compander, and a few extra types being added in the intervening years (DM2, Carbon Copy) I am a lot happier with them. The reverbs are stellar, as pretty much everyone agrees. The modulations are all killer, although I mainly care about flanger, phaser, and tremolo. I'm yet to try it, but on one song of ours I do this pattern tremolo thing that I used the Strymon Mobius to record with - I need to emulate that on the AxeIII. What I've been doing on my other devices is just controlling the rate of a square shaped tremolo, starting off with a sync'd 8th note, up to a 16th note triplet. Then I just rock it back and forth throughout the part of the song. It sounds close enough to the record.

Oh yeah - pitch effects. They're absolutely stonkin' on the AxeIII. Single note riffs with a low octave behind it sound crap with the Kemper, decent with the Boss, pretty good with the Helix, and stellar with the AxeIII.

I have my experimental side, and I think feedback loops on the AxeIII..... really unique. Nothing else really does that, and its a way to do tons of things like create a wall of fuzz that just oscillates and oscillates, or build your own delay circuit. Tons of stuff you can do with that.

I really appreciate that there is a load of DSP on tap too. I never hit the limit.

There is a learning curve. But most of it I already learned on the AxeII, and the III isn't a huge jump from that. So I already knew how to program modifiers and setup scene controllers and things like that. I'm still learning how to setup the FC12 and still figuring out what I actually want from it, but it's a solid piece of gear. Can I be honest??? I hated the MFC controller. I bought one from G66 when I had my AxeII, and I just sent it back for a refund. I hated how menu-y and unintuitive it was.

Bad things?? Well.... I wish it were simpler to emulate a real amp with pedals situation.... rather than just relying on 8 scenes. And sometimes 8 scenes isn't enough. I counted. For one of my songs I'd need 14 scenes. Gonna take some creative thinking to figure out how I'm playing that in a live situation. Probably find a gap in the song where I can change preset, and split up the song into two presets.

You'll notice in all this I'm not really talking about drive effects - mainly because I don't use them a lot. I use a few nasty fuzz sounds, but that's about it. I think amps sound better when they're loud, gainy, and bright, with plenty of presence and cut. Occasionally I will use a tubescreamer to boost an amp, but I don't really like the loss of high-end. I'd much rather use an EQ in front. Which the AxeIII obviously does splendidly; as does the Helix. Kemper is a bit ropey in this area tbh. I don't think it sounds good when you boost it with an EQ.

Had the helix also some years ago, along with the Axe FX 2 which got replaced with the 3.

Helix was not bad but the minute i plugged it infront of my handwired vox and tried some of the drive emulations...i realised they interact with the amp nothing like the real pedal would. And short after sold it and got an ax8...my 2cents on this. Still i have seen people getting great sounds out of Helix. It was not authentic enough for me, but it’s been also years i did not play, tweak one.

With quad cortex i had some little experience at namm before it was released.
What i understand from all i hear, read....they ruined it by releasing way too early, before it was ready.

 

[unix-guy]

Well.... I wish it were simpler to emulate a real amp with pedals situation.... rather than just relying on 8 scenes. And sometimes 8 scenes isn't enough. I counted. For one of my songs I'd need 14 scenes. Gonna take some creative thinking to figure out how I'm playing that in a live situation. Probably find a gap in the song where I can change preset, and split up the song into two presets.

Setup a layout on your FC-12 with all your effects assigned to switches.

Use 1 scene.

Amp + pedals solved

No need for scenes if that's what you really want.

 

[Orvillain]

Setup a layout on your FC-12 with all your effects assigned to switches.

Use 1 scene.

Amp + pedals solved

No need for scenes if that's what you really want.

I'm sure I'll get there. Closest I've got right now is assigning pedals to control switches so that their bypass state is primarily linked to the FC12 and not the scene, and then using the scene midi block to switch my amp channels.

 

[laxu]

Having owned the FM3, Helix Floor and QC at the same time and put them through their paces I agree with your thoughts.

I captured my real amps with the QC and got 98% close to the same sound when I would pipe both amps through a Fryette PS-100. The limitation is that the moment you use the QC EQ it no longer behaves like the real amp, but that doesn't mean it can't sound good! So a big thumbs up from me for the captures.

But the thing I loved most about the QC was its form factor and user interface. If it was just a touchscreen it would be horrible, but that touchscreen + 10 knobs/switches was awesome. The closest thing to operating a pedalboard I've had in a modeler. Tap an effect, twist a knob or two. Can't be much easier. To me the knobs also had the perfect feel to them in the way they adjusted params.

I ultimately sold the QC because it was lacking in the effects department so much. Now half a year later that still feels like the right decision as the improvements have been far less rapid than I hoped. It has potential to be a great device but it's probably a few years away from that.

---

I love the Helix. It's almost as easy to use as the QC and has a more full feature set. Especially the overdrive models are excellent and some of the newer fx like the Dynamic Hall are great. The "legacy" fx section is fine, but won't blow your socks off.

I also really liked operating the Helix from its front panel. I used that 99% of the time rather than the computer editor. Assigning footswitches is easy, selecting block to edit is easy with the capacitive switches, you never get lost in where you are. It's a well working design even if the two paths per DSP have their limitations.

The stock cab sims on the Helix are the worst part of the unit. Getting great sounds out of them is a bit too much work when you can just load a 3rd party IR. Navigation for selecting IRs is terrible though. Line6 should really improve this part.

My biggest beef with the Helix is that Line6 does not make a goldilocks unit for me: A roughly FM3/QC/HX Effects sized unit with full Helix DSP and UI. HX Stomp would do with some pedals to help but its UI is a severe compromise over the full thing. The Helix Floor is one large mofo but at least it has everything you need for I/O and control.

--

I eventually stuck with the FM3 as my sole modeler. For me it was the best compromise as it works much better as a travel/desktop unit than the Helix and is more feature complete than the QC, with world class effects.

FW 5 really brought some great new effects types that have taken e.g. the MultiDelay from "how the hell do I use this" complicated to "wow, that sounds great". I still have no clue how to work with it effectively but the new types shortcut a lot of that effort. I hope Fractal continues to do this sort of stuff.

I've been pretty vocal about how much I dislike the Fractal 3rd gen user interface on the front panel. The new shortcut keys in FW 5 help but it's still more complicated and inconsistent than it needs to be and I am disappointed in Fractal's lack of effort in improving this side of it. Axe-Edit is the best computer editor on any of the modelers so it's frustrating that the onboard experience is so much worse.

I find the FM3 is just a little bit underpowered. With the Helix/QC there's less need to "CPU wrangle" things to fit things in whereas I feel my FM3 is nearly always just at the edge of being muted due to running out of CPU. Augmenting it with a few pedals certainly helps so it's a bit like the HX Stomp in that sense.

I would gladly trade the FM3 for a smaller unit without the footswitches because I find them useless for how I use mine. I use my XSonic Airstep for switching instead. I don't want a FM9 because it's larger for footswitching I would not use. I have sometimes considered picking up a used Axe-Fx 3 but so far haven't because it's a pretty large box too and the FM3 can do the things I want for the most part. So Fractal does not make a goldilocks unit for me either.

--

Ultimately all of these things are now great in their own way with their own failings too. I've gotten tones I enjoy out of all of them and for me it's more about practicalities and workflow. It's nice to have multiple options to pick from.

 

[SinglecutGuy]

Is there a TL;DR

 

[yek]

With all respect, I just don't get why anyone - except reviewers and manufacturers - would want and keep that many different modelers.
I see people on TGP switching and debating all the time.
Just choose one and learn to get the most out of it. If it doesn't work out, buy another.
Eases the mind.

 

[laxu]

With all respect, I just don't get why anyone - except reviewers and manufacturers - would want and keep that many different modelers.
I see people on TGP switching and debating all the time.
Just choose one and learn to get the most out of it. If it doesn't work out, buy another.
Eases the mind.

I don't see a point keeping so many as they have a lot of overlap. But being able to try them side by side directly versus each other is very valuable for figuring out what you like and prefer.

If you can afford to do that then I definitely recommend it because the internet is full of a lot of hyperbole about which unit is superior to what and only trying each of them, at the same volume, through the same output devices is going to give you the real story for your own use.

 

[Orvillain]

With all respect, I just don't get why anyone - except reviewers and manufacturers - would want and keep that many different modelers.
I see people on TGP switching and debating all the time.
Just choose one and learn to get the most out of it. If it doesn't work out, buy another.
Eases the mind.

You don't have to get it.

 

[Orvillain]

Is there a TL;DR

Yeah. The Boss and Kemper units kinda suck.

 

[Orvillain]

I don't see a point keeping so many as they have a lot of overlap. But being able to try them side by side directly versus each other is very valuable for figuring out what you like and prefer.

If you can afford to do that then I definitely recommend it because the internet is full of a lot of hyperbole about which unit is superior to what and only trying each of them, at the same volume, through the same output devices is going to give you the real story for your own use.

I mean, I get it all the time. "Dude, why do you need 6 amps?" and "Dude, why do you use three delays? No one will notice! HURR DURRR!"

I like gear. I like trying different things out. I'm patient and talented enough to be able to switch up stuff and quickly climbatize to it. I have a core set of sounds I always use and can get with pretty much any gear, and the rest is just a free-for-all fun-zone! I don't begrudge anyone their gear. Use as much or as little as you want, and change it up as much as you need. There's no room for humility or tribalism in my eyes!

I have my own opinions - personally, I play one guitar. I see many guitarists owning 30 or so. Now I don't see the point in that, but I don't choose to browbeat my opinion into them. They just have a different preference to me.

Guitarists online are generally the worst.

 

[bread]

I also had a Kemper and a Helix and got rid of both, went back to valve amps and ran 2 Mesa Mark V's in stereo with a Fractal FX8. I still run the FX8 users group on Facebook with about 1000 members on it - the FX8 is still a very popular unit.

Then, one day I bought an Axe Fx IIXL+ from G66 and everything changed from there. I know how I like my gear to sound and the Helix didn't do that for me. It was like dialling in a great tone then as you turn it up the tone kind-of of "thins out" as if pulling on a piece of elastic (if you know what I mean). The Kemper was just endless flicking through profiles which for me as just a big admin burden and I never got anything sounding the way I really wanted it so sold it. Because I was used to amps and with the Axe Fx being developed the way it is, everything just fell into place relatively straight away for me. I have had a lot of help from members on here which has been terrific and after about 2-3 years with the Axe Fx II XL+ I then got the Axe FX 3 and never looked at any other amp based rig again. I've tried pedals with the Axe FX along the way, but all of them I sold on because with each firmware update the unit gets closer and closer to the real thing and in the end there is no point in having any outboard gear when the updates are free and superb quality.

I've spend longer with the Axe Fx than I have with any single valve amp, which speaks volumes I think. I spoke to a friend of mine a couple of years about it (he is a guitar tech) and he said that the Axe FX is really cheap when you think about just how many amps and how much they would all cost (including all the effects and cabs) to get a rig the way you want it in the real world. Its a benefit often overlooked with modellers because we tend to get too absorbed in the tone created by them and comparing them to past experiences with valve amps (understandably).

 

[Red Solo Cup]

Good discussion, thx

 

[Ugly Bunny]

I can't stop hearing it since I was able to recognise it.

This is how I feel about the high pitched thing going on with the Boss AC-3 acoustic sim pedal. Once you hear it, you can never unhear it. Also how I feel about latency

The touchscreen is overrated if you ask me.

Overrated and underwhelming. It's like an old Android phone's screen from the naughties (2000-2009). I was very unimpressed.

I'm still learning how to setup the FC12 and still figuring out what I actually want from it

That's why I just got the FC6. The switches are so powerful that I have no idea how I'd utilize them all, let alone all the functions on all of them. Hell, I use the FM3 thee days (with simpler presets and per-preset footswitch assignments) and sometimes I just end up making all three switches identical (to be fair, I use MIDI to do most of the stuff I would normally use the switches for).

For one of my songs I'd need 14 scenes

That's impressive; I don't think John Petrucci would need that many different sounds for an entire album. Got any music you can share? I'm curious what a song with 14 guitar sounds sounds like.

Is there a TL;DR

Axe III awesome.

 

[Orvillain]

@Ugly Bunny

I may have exagerrated on the 14 snapshots thing, but some are definitely higher than 8.

This is our latest album:


I use a lot of different sounds that if you listen to typical blues player on Facebook, I apparently don't need to worry about - use a spring reverb or a 100% wet 20 second Hall reverb with a reverse delay going into it... apparently no one can tell the difference anyway!! 🤣

If you can be bothered, I even have a tonelist:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2j2w7swymv8ofz/The World Inside - Tone List.pdf?dl=0

These aren't all different snapshots necessarily, but there's quite a lot of changes and snapshots are a great way to pair down the changes. I then need to be able to bring a few extra effects in and out of those snapshots I think.

Totally up for being edumacated on how best to setup a live workflow!

 

[Ugly Bunny]

Thanks! I'll check that out this evening

 

[LiamH]

<snip>

Bad things?? Well.... I wish it were simpler to emulate a real amp with pedals situation.... rather than just relying on 8 scenes. And sometimes 8 scenes isn't enough. I counted. For one of my songs I'd need 14 scenes. Gonna take some creative thinking to figure out how I'm playing that in a live situation. Probably find a gap in the song where I can change preset, and split up the song into two presets.

<snip>

Great posts, very interesting. I've only ever used Fractal modellers, but your thoughts on Helix make me wonder if I could use one in addition to my Axe FX III. Previous Line 6 amps I had tried (and not bought) had put me off.

Not sure if this is any help, but I had similar issues with scenes based switching being a bit limiting. So I set the FC-12 up to easily switch between 3 different layouts without me having to remember too much. I set up long presses on the right hand side of the top row so that the far right toggles between presets and scenes, the next one to the left toggles between scenes and effects, and the next one to the left of that toggles between scenes and channels. There's some kind of logic in the way I set the redundant long presses up so that in most layouts far right reverts to presets, next one along reverts to scenes, next one along reverts to effects. This has meant I only go to the master layout menu about once a month. Although it reveals a load of options, I don't need most of them.

Although the setup is essentially scenes based, I actually spend more time with the effects layout in action, and revert to scenes only when I have parts of a song where there is a lot that needs to change with a single switch press. I've managed to reduce my scenes use from 8 and wishing there were more, down to 5 maximum, and generally 3, per preset. If I do switch scenes, I then revert to effects (or occasionally channels) layout to be ready for the next change. I might end up setting up a user defined or even per preset layout instead of channels in my "long presses for the forgetful" setup. That way I can have some effects and channel switching all in one layout.

I'm a bit of a "real amp with pedals" person at heart, and actually find the MFC-101 pretty easy to use with my old Axe FX II. I set it up so it can be used similarly to my massively cumbersome and now long gone TheGigRig Pro-14 setup, but with a load of extra functionality. I sense your brain might be better at dealing with complex switching than mine, but hope this might help anyway.

Best

Liam

 

[Orvillain]

Great posts, very interesting. I've only ever used Fractal modellers, but your thoughts on Helix make me wonder if I could use one in addition to my Axe FX III. Previous Line 6 amps I had tried (and not bought) had put me off.

Not sure if this is any help, but I had similar issues with scenes based switching being a bit limiting. So I set the FC-12 up to easily switch between 3 different layouts without me having to remember too much. I set up long presses on the right hand side of the top row so that the far right toggles between presets and scenes, the next one to the left toggles between scenes and effects, and the next one to the left of that toggles between scenes and channels. There's some kind of logic in the way I set the redundant long presses up so that in most layouts far right reverts to presets, next one along reverts to scenes, next one along reverts to effects. This has meant I only go to the master layout menu about once a month. Although it reveals a load of options, I don't need most of them.

Although the setup is essentially scenes based, I actually spend more time with the effects layout in action, and revert to scenes only when I have parts of a song where there is a lot that needs to change with a single switch press. I've managed to reduce my scenes use from 8 and wishing there were more, down to 5 maximum, and generally 3, per preset. If I do switch scenes, I then revert to effects (or occasionally channels) layout to be ready for the next change. I might end up setting up a user defined or even per preset layout instead of channels in my "long presses for the forgetful" setup. That way I can have some effects and channel switching all in one layout.

I'm a bit of a "real amp with pedals" person at heart, and actually find the MFC-101 pretty easy to use with my old Axe FX II. I set it up so it can be used similarly to my massively cumbersome and now long gone TheGigRig Pro-14 setup, but with a load of extra functionality. I sense your brain might be better at dealing with complex switching than mine, but hope this might help anyway.

Best

Liam

Okay, I feel dumb. I didn't even consider setting up long presses to access different layouts. That could be a really cool workflow thing.... I need to puzzle this out.... but what if I toggled between layout 1, which is just scenes, and layout 2, which is just effects. Then turn off scene revert.....

Gain levels-wise.... I typically use 4 channels, whether it's modelled or real amps.... and I bring an EQ in and out depending on the channel, so that is ripe for some scenes action.

I do like that assigning effects to the control switches effectively takes their bypass state out of the scenes selection. That makes it much more like amp+pedals too.