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

LiamH said:
And real drums swung it for me to listen in my fab sounding little control room in nearfield monitors. Seldom has YouTube sounded so good. ;) No, but seriously, I've listened to the whole album, and I am just deciding which uncompressed format I want to buy it in.

Liam
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Yup. Even via Youtube I could tell it was an album that was not super-squashed and mastered to
the point that all the dynamics were rendered moot. Can't wait to listen to it here at home
when it arrives.
 
AndyTNBD said:
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. ;)
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Same here. Lot's of gear. Just for me, and i really don't care if others can hear the difference.
I play for me and my own well-being. I have 10-12 guitars for different days of the week, but no band anymore.

I have fun though. :smiley:
 
I wanna add something about reverbs:

Axe: Very good reverbs, but sometimes I feel like I'd like the option of something akin to a Boss RV5 modulate mode; dirty, not very smooth, but hits the front of an amp in a very pleasing way. I'm not struggling to get that from the Axe, but sometimes it takes a bit more tweaking. I guess I should start working on some presets for that stuff.

Helix: I actually have been pretty vocal about how much I thought the reverbs sucked on the Helix. But I was very unfair. What sucks are the default settings. Take the Dynamic Hall.... the dampening control is way too low for my tastes. Consequently the initial impression is of a reverb without any air or sparkle; but if you open that parameter up you get a lot more activity in the highs. Not across the board, but generally speaking the Helix reverbs compare quite well with the Axe; but they need tweaking a lot more. Sometimes you even need to put them in a parallel path to get some extra control with additional EQ's and things.

Boss GT-1000: They're okay. Not the best, not the worst. They don't really sound smooth, even when you turn up the density parameter. Very filthy and stompboxy, and occasionally a bit too metallic. There also isn't a lot of variation in there. I could certainly get by with them, but if you compare to the Axe, Helix, or even something like the Source Audio Ventris, the GT-1000 is lacking.

Kemper: Okay. This might ruffle some feathers, but I don't think the Kemper reverbs are all that good. At more basic settings, they tend to sit in the background too much, and then you turn up the mix, and all of a sudden you're drowing in reverb. I think the weighting of their mix parameter isn't very natural sounding. The more special effect-y reverbs like Ionosphere sound like complete charicatures to me, with very little control over the actual nature of how the reverb blooms and swells. You get some filtering, but really not enough control for me.

I have a lot of cool reverbs kicking around - I've got the Hardwire RV-7 with the Lexicon algorithms, the Boss RV-500, MXR Reverb, Source Audio Ventris, and I've had the Meris Mercury7.... when taken as one big pool of reverbs..... I'd say the Ventris and the AxeIII are my favourites. I would definitely buy a dedicated Fractal reverb pedal.
 
I did a very quick comparison today between the AxeIII's blueface VH4, and the Quad Cortex's VH4 model.

Wasn't even close. The QC has the exact same nasty low-mid fuzz resonance that the Kemper has!!

All of my "I-kinda-regret-selling-it" went away for the QC. So glad I got the AxeIII!
 
AndyTNBD said:
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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.

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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.
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You can make an fc layout that is literally just stompbox on/off. How much closer to the old days do you want?
 
So I sold the Boss GT-1000. It really wasn't on the level of the others at all. I'm trying to sell my Kemper + remote too, but no bites yet. I'm offering it out at a good price too!!

I think I'll be happy keeping the AxeIII and Helix for now. Although recently I've gone back to real amps and loadbox, which edges out everything for me at the moment. Mainly in how quickly I can just get some recordings down, rather than getting lost in the weeds.

I do think getting lost in possibilities is both one of the strengths and one of the weaknesses of these devices. But I suppose it is also a discipline thing.
 
AndyTNBD said:
100% agreed. I'm very unhappy with my Kemper and very unhappy with profiling in general. It has never sounded close to any of my amps, and I'm sick and tired of being gaslit by Kemper fanbois who want to insist that either I'm wrong and they are right, or that I don't know what I'm talking about, or that it isn't a big deal.

If a product professes to capture the sound of your amp, then it better bloody do it.
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I completely understand being tired of the Kemper gaslighting. I was one of the most "controversial" members of their forum, you could say. And it doesn't take much to get there.

Believe me, I've heard and seen a lot through the years, on that end. I think some have actual romantic relationships with their Kemper units. And not healthy ones.

(NOT that I think it's meaningfully different in fractal land, but the forum seems a bit more open, at least in some ways. Better in some ways, probably worse in others -- but that's not the topic of discussion anyway).

That said, what do you mean when you say results were "never really close"? Here's my Laney vs Laney profile.



Don't get me wrong -- playing through both I could absolutely tell the difference. And it did matter. Kemper = ts focused mutes. People describe this in different ways, but I believe what you perceive may be similar to my issues with Kemper.

That said, at times, the impression can be given that differences are way bigger than they actually are (unless profiling doesn't work right). And I do understand how "close" or "not close" or "96 percent the same" can be intrepeted in many ways. We are people from different geographic locations, different cultures, of different personalities, and often use words differently.

But I'd ask: is what you hear here something that wasn't achievable with Kemper and your own amps? Because in my experience, it typically is, if refining is done well enough and the signal chain doesn't confuse profiling process (which is likely to happen in some cases).
 
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AndyTNBD said:
@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!
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Sounds great! I used to love Tool, and this is very reminiscent.
 
Dimi84 said:
I completely understand being tired of the Kemper gaslighting. I was one of the most "controversial" members of their forum, you could say. And it doesn't take much to get there.

Believe me, I've heard and seen a lot through the years, on that end. I think some have actual romantic relationships with their Kemper units. And not healthy ones.

(NOT that I think it's meaningfully different in fractal land, but the forum seems a bit more open, at least in some ways. Better in some ways, probably worse in others -- but that's not the topic of discussion anyway).

That said, what do you mean when you say results were "never really close"? Here's my Laney vs Laney profile.



Don't get me wrong -- playing through both I could absolutely tell the difference. And it did matter. Kemper = ts focused mutes. People describe this in different ways, but I believe what you perceive may be similar to my issues with Kemper.

That said, at times, the impression can be given that differences are way bigger than they actually are (unless profiling doesn't work right). And I do understand how "close" or "not close" or "96 percent the same" can be intrepeted in many ways. We are people from different geographic locations, different cultures, of different personalities, and often use words differently.

But I'd ask: is what you hear here something that wasn't achievable with Kemper and your own amps? Because in my experience, it typically is, if refining is done well enough and the signal chain doesn't confuse profiling process (which is likely to happen in some cases).
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I did a whole video on it before:


The TLDW: Kemper doesn't quite nail the frequency response of high-gain palm mutes. They're quite different to the amp, usually fuzzier, usually muddier, and usually the fundamental pitch of the note is masked by some additional noise and enharmonic content.

And once I spotted it, it just really affected my enjoyment of the unit.

In theory, it shouldn't be possible for the signal chain to confuse the profiling process. It is a black box process, and the Kemper has no idea about your DI box, your cables, your impedances, etc. All it knows is about input and output, and it is aiming for a 1:1 match. I'd be happy to be told the specifics of why this isn't the case.

BTW - all I ever really got in response to my video was "the profile sounds better than the amp!" which was never my point - my point is merely about accuracy, not subjective analysis of the tone.

For what it is worth, I had a QC too. And initially I thought the QC was a lot closer to the amp. But after spending a few months with it, I realised that the QC is just as far from the real amp as the Kemper is, just in a different direction. Where the Kemper is often overgained, and doesn't have great palm mute response.... the QC is often undergained, has decent palm mute response, but the high frequencies are often rolled off more severely than the Kemper.

In the end - I lost my faith in profiling for the purposes of accuracy; but I still think you can get good tones on both.
 
Dimi84 said:
I completely understand being tired of the Kemper gaslighting. I was one of the most "controversial" members of their forum, you could say. And it doesn't take much to get there.

Believe me, I've heard and seen a lot through the years, on that end. I think some have actual romantic relationships with their Kemper units. And not healthy ones.

(NOT that I think it's meaningfully different in fractal land, but the forum seems a bit more open, at least in some ways. Better in some ways, probably worse in others -- but that's not the topic of discussion anyway).
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I think all modelers have "rabid fanboy/girl" level users who refuse to see the bad parts of their chosen digital modeler or to acknowledge the things that the competition does better. You could replace the digital modeler here with smartphones, gaming consoles, cars, sports teams etc and there's always the type of person who builds their identity around a product and takes everything bad said about it as a personal offence.

We are in the great position that a lot of units on the market are really good, despite having their own pitfalls too. I feel like we are about one generation away from every major modeler on the market being excellent and very easy to use.

As for QC captures, I was very impressed by them. I captured my Bogner Goldfinger 45 SL and Victory VC35 tube amps using my Bluetone Loadbox (reactive load) and Fryette PS-100 as the loadboxes. When the capture of the QC was played back through the Fryette as a poweramp into a real cab, it sounded very close to the real amp at those particular settings. I would be very happy to use it as a portable version of my expensive amps.

But at the same time I have been able to dial my FM3 to sound extremely close to those amps through the same Fryette and cab setup. The Bogner clean can be replicated with the Fender Super Reverb model, its overdrive channel with a combination of Marshall Superlead, JCM800 and Bogner Shiva models. The Victory can be matched with the Vox AC30 and Matchless DC30 models. It's pretty cool that all those sounds exist in the real amps but I don't need captures to match them plus the FM3 models are going to be more versatile for tailoring the tone. Captures just shortcut the process if you have your real amp dialed in exactly how you like and don't need to accurately tweak them further.
 
laxu said:
I think all modelers have "rabid fanboy/girl" level users who refuse to see the bad parts of their chosen digital modeler or to acknowledge the things that the competition does better. You could replace the digital modeler here with smartphones, gaming consoles, cars, sports teams etc and there's always the type of person who builds their identity around a product and takes everything bad said about it as a personal offence.
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For sure; it's not something Kemper specific. I think there are some differences in different communities, how these elements tend to form, but the gist of the phenomenon you're describing is often similar enough (not that everybody is like this of course!).
laxu said:
As for QC captures, I was very impressed by them. I captured my Bogner Goldfinger 45 SL and Victory VC35 tube amps using my Bluetone Loadbox (reactive load) and Fryette PS-100 as the loadboxes. When the capture of the QC was played back through the Fryette as a poweramp into a real cab, it sounded very close to the real amp at those particular settings. I would be very happy to use it as a portable version of my expensive amps.
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I also felt Cortex, when I shot captures, was pretty good compared to what else is out there that has such a function. I was happier with the results of Cortex capture vs Kemper profiling, especially for some kinds of playing. But I must say that neither were "dead on" in terms of feel for me.

Also usually cortex was less "TS" sounding than Kemper. But I only had cortex over for a limited time to test. I was curious to see if the problems I had with Kemper for years were resolved.
laxu said:
But at the same time I have been able to dial my FM3 to sound extremely close to those amps through the same Fryette and cab setup. The Bogner clean can be replicated with the Fender Super Reverb model, its overdrive channel with a combination of Marshall Superlead, JCM800 and Bogner Shiva models. The Victory can be matched with the Vox AC30 and Matchless DC30 models. It's pretty cool that all those sounds exist in the real amps but I don't need captures to match them plus the FM3 models are going to be more versatile for tailoring the tone. Captures just shortcut the process if you have your real amp dialed in exactly how you like and don't need to accurately tweak them further.
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My experience has been quite similar. Usually (even though there can be exceptions to this) I've been able to dial in FM3 very close to amps I've had or even Kemper profiles. And what I enjoy additionally is the level of control offered by the FM3 due to all the modelling.

All in all, FM3 has worked the best for me. Initially I thought I may miss EQ matching as part of profiling or as a function of axe fx 3, but this has mostly not been the case. As long as IR part has been the same, the tweaking and wealth of amp sims offered by FM3 usually enables me to match a given amp tone very well.
 
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AndyTNBD said:
Kemper doesn't quite nail the frequency response of high-gain palm mutes. They're quite different to the amp, usually fuzzier, usually muddier, and usually the fundamental pitch of the note is masked by some additional noise and enharmonic content.
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Yep. I have done 600 profiles with nearly 10 heads and got the same feel. It’s not bad, but there is an ingredient that make them sound all the same in the way. The root seems to be always the same one . Difference in gain but … the difference between amps is not as well reproduced as the axe 3 .
The profiling method himself is entertaining . I ve spent a year doing that, buying many mics etc . This is really fun to do. But there is always something synthetic in the sound. Then the kemper is 10 years old now …The day they release a kemper 2 with something more natural maybe it will be better
 
AndyTNBD said:
I did a whole video on it before:


The TLDW: Kemper doesn't quite nail the frequency response of high-gain palm mutes. They're quite different to the amp, usually fuzzier, usually muddier, and usually the fundamental pitch of the note is masked by some additional noise and enharmonic content.

And once I spotted it, it just really affected my enjoyment of the unit.

In theory, it shouldn't be possible for the signal chain to confuse the profiling process. It is a black box process, and the Kemper has no idea about your DI box, your cables, your impedances, etc. All it knows is about input and output, and it is aiming for a 1:1 match. I'd be happy to be told the specifics of why this isn't the case.

BTW - all I ever really got in response to my video was "the profile sounds better than the amp!" which was never my point - my point is merely about accuracy, not subjective analysis of the tone.

For what it is worth, I had a QC too. And initially I thought the QC was a lot closer to the amp. But after spending a few months with it, I realised that the QC is just as far from the real amp as the Kemper is, just in a different direction. Where the Kemper is often overgained, and doesn't have great palm mute response.... the QC is often undergained, has decent palm mute response, but the high frequencies are often rolled off more severely than the Kemper.

In the end - I lost my faith in profiling for the purposes of accuracy; but I still think you can get good tones on both.
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Aaaah you're that guy! I commented on that video before on YouTube. Yeah, what you're describing in that video is very much my experience.

In fact, VH4 was one the amps I wished I could get closer to with Kemper, especially in terms of feel. Even tried refining with bass guitars, with different kinds of audio signals. But I'd always eventually get to a point where it just doesn't improve further, much like with other amps.

I felt that fractal did better, especially for feel... Even though I must say that in tests I've made with blind transitions it's been hard for people to consistently spot the real VH4 vs my profiles... Which doesn't mean they are "spot on" in every way. What you're describing in the video happened to me too, with just about every amp.

It's just that such differences are often hard to hear depending on the kind of test. And yes, I'm quite a bit happier with fractal sims of diezel amps.

I agree about the cortex. At least in my short time with the unit, I felt that there were shortcomings there as well, even if the mutes were better than Kemper. And I'm sure fractal modelling isn't perfect either. Seems to work the best for me though.
 
AndyTNBD said:
In theory, it shouldn't be possible for the signal chain to confuse the profiling process. It is a black box process, and the Kemper has no idea about your DI box, your cables, your impedances, etc. All it knows is about input and output, and it is aiming for a 1:1 match. I'd be happy to be told the specifics of why this isn't the case.
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Multiple distorting stages, especially when they distort significantly, in my experience, often "confuse" profiling. I don't know exactly why this happens. But I've made tests showing it and it's a fairly common experience with users who want to profile such tones, I would say.

This can involve using a pedal in front of Kemper (not that it always happens)... or distorting preamp and power amp at the same time.. But I'm pretty sure that "confusion" didn't happen in your VH4 video. Considering how often I've seen it (because I like such tones from some of my amps and tried to profile them many times), I believe I'd recognize it easily. Kemper manual refferences the phenomenon as well.

You just got the usual Kemper tone I myself tend to describe as "TS-like". It's just that if profiling gets "confused", you often get a crybaby mangled with your tone, not just this TS flavor, in my experience. But the "TS" thing -- or what you're describing -- has always been par for the course for me with Kemper.

Much less severe. But I feel fractal modelling does better on that end, especially for mutes feeling like the corresponding amps, which matters to me.
 
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