New Kemper Profiles vs Axe II Presets Video

  • Thread starter Thread starter BYTOR
  • Start date Start date
BYTOR

BYTOR

Well-known member
Obviously when he plugs the cable out of the KPA he is then playing the Axe II

 
These comparison/shootout videos never come out good whether it's tube amps or modelling stuff. Someone is going to cry that their favored product wasn't dialed in as well as it could be. It might be interesting on a 'hmmm, interesting' level, but I wouldn't use something like this as a reason to buy or avoid EITHER product.
 
First impression goes to the Kemper, but not by a wide margin. The user friendliness and power amp makes the Kemper more interesting for me.
 
Kemper sounds "beefier" on almost all presets. Axe seems somewhat scooped.
 
stratotone":bvvr0wqh said:
These comparison/shootout videos never come out good whether it's tube amps or modelling stuff. Someone is going to cry that their favored product wasn't dialed in as well as it could be. It might be interesting on a 'hmmm, interesting' level, but I wouldn't use something like this as a reason to buy or avoid EITHER product.
Click to expand...
Spot on Pete.... That said, I liked the Kemper sounds better but in all fairness, the Axe sounds were cool too
 
I liked the Friedman and Bogner profile on both units, but how do the sound in a live setting? Are these units easy to dial in? I would really like an all in one grab and go solution. The only axe fx demos that really impress me are the ones that Mark Day has done.
 
I gigged with an Axe Ultra for over 3 years and eventually switched to the Axe II. These days I'm playing in a Stones tribute band I just couldn't bring myself to use a digital rig - not that the Axe II couldn't do it.

I ran the Axe with a 2:90 into a Port City cab for a while, then switched to using a FRFR rig and ran direct and that's how I ran it the most. I'd get guitar players complimenting on my guitar tones pretty regularly and they'd ask me about my rig - when they realized it was a modeler there were only two responses: "where do I get one?" or "I thought it sounded digital" - some people hear with their ears and others listen with their eyes.

The Axe (and presumably the Kemper) work very well in a live setting. You have absolute control of the mix without compromising your tones.

You have to be sensible about designing patches with modelers. The biggest mistake I see guys make with a modeler is to take some preset and try and tweak it into submission. This is almost always an approach destined for failure because most presets have a ton of stuff - overdrive, compressor, delay, reverb, EQ, chorus, etc. You really should approach it like you would a traditional rig - you would never turn on all of your pedals at once and start trying to dial in a tone would you? You start by getting a good fundamental tone and add that other stuff for color as appropriate.

When I first got the Axe I created four basic patches and I would literally go 6-8 months without tweaking patches. It always sounded good and I never had to worry about it. Now that I'm using a tube amp rig and stomp boxes I find myself tweaking much more regularly - go figure.

I got a Kemper when they first came out but ended up returning it. It sounded pretty good but I really hated how the amp controls worked. They didn't respond at all like a real amp. For example, if you're working with a classic Fender Twin amp. If you crank it up it will get some hair but not balls out distortion. With the Axe the controls worked like I expected - you can crank it and get some hair and it will basically still sound like a Twin. With the Kemper if you crank it up it sounded nothing like a Twin - more like a cheap high gain tube amp or something. The EQ settings were similarly counter intuitive - the Kemper controls seemed to work more like a hi-fi EQ than as part of an amp tone circuit. The consensus at the time was that you had to have profiles of stuff pretty near where you'd like to have it and only vary settings slightly. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely good sounds to be had with the Kemper. At the time the firmware was incomplete. Managing presets and profiles was very cumbersome - doing something as seemingly straightforward as adding a profile required rebooting the unit. Hopefully they've addressed those sorts of issues by now. Some other shortcomings the Kemper had were the quality of the effects, routing, and controllers. It'd be interesting to check out a Kemper again one of these days.
 
hippietim":qxdy719k said:
I gigged with an Axe Ultra for over 3 years and eventually switched to the Axe II. These days I'm playing in a Stones tribute band I just couldn't bring myself to use a digital rig - not that the Axe II couldn't do it.

I ran the Axe with a 2:90 into a Port City cab for a while, then switched to using a FRFR rig and ran direct and that's how I ran it the most. I'd get guitar players complimenting on my guitar tones pretty regularly and they'd ask me about my rig - when they realized it was a modeler there were only two responses: "where do I get one?" or "I thought it sounded digital" - some people hear with their ears and others listen with their eyes.

The Axe (and presumably the Kemper) work very well in a live setting. You have absolute control of the mix without compromising your tones.

You have to be sensible about designing patches with modelers. The biggest mistake I see guys make with a modeler is to take some preset and try and tweak it into submission. This is almost always an approach destined for failure because most presets have a ton of stuff - overdrive, compressor, delay, reverb, EQ, chorus, etc. You really should approach it like you would a traditional rig - you would never turn on all of your pedals at once and start trying to dial in a tone would you? You start by getting a good fundamental tone and add that other stuff for color as appropriate.

When I first got the Axe I created four basic patches and I would literally go 6-8 months without tweaking patches. It always sounded good and I never had to worry about it. Now that I'm using a tube amp rig and stomp boxes I find myself tweaking much more regularly - go figure.

I got a Kemper when they first came out but ended up returning it. It sounded pretty good but I really hated how the amp controls worked. They didn't respond at all like a real amp. For example, if you're working with a classic Fender Twin amp. If you crank it up it will get some hair but not balls out distortion. With the Axe the controls worked like I expected - you can crank it and get some hair and it will basically still sound like a Twin. With the Kemper if you crank it up it sounded nothing like a Twin - more like a cheap high gain tube amp or something. The EQ settings were similarly counter intuitive - the Kemper controls seemed to work more like a hi-fi EQ than as part of an amp tone circuit. The consensus at the time was that you had to have profiles of stuff pretty near where you'd like to have it and only vary settings slightly. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely good sounds to be had with the Kemper. At the time the firmware was incomplete. Managing presets and profiles was very cumbersome - doing something as seemingly straightforward as adding a profile required rebooting the unit. Hopefully they've addressed those sorts of issues by now. Some other shortcomings the Kemper had were the quality of the effects, routing, and controllers. It'd be interesting to check out a Kemper again one of these days.
Click to expand...

Hey Tim! Few things they have changed since you piloted a Kemper:

1) No reboot to load new profiles
2) Startup time is much improved. Mine boots in 41 seconds with just over 900 profiles. When I first had mine a year ago, bootup was twice that with less profiles. It's still not great, but I'd never use a tube amp without letting it warm up for a few minutes anyways.
3) Effects wise they have added several but I'm still waiting on an intelligent harmonizer. Quality of what's there is good IMHO, but the axe does better for fx and routing. That's a given.
4) The amp EQ thing, I don't get. Lots of guys want the same tone stack, but you do have the option to use an 8 band graphic, a studio EQ that has low gain and frequency, high gain and frequency, mid gain, frequency and Q, and mid 2 gain, frequency and Q, a Metal EQ that has low, mid/mid freq, eq, and the ability to put these before or after the amp. If I'm stuck with the amp eq being just like the amp, I'm also stuck with it's limitations. I've never seen anyone in the studio or at a mixing board live complain that the EQ they were applying to a miked amp wasn't the same as the tone controls on the amp.
5) The gain thing - you can go radically past what the amp can do, that's for sure. Most real black/silverface fender medium to high gain breakup sounds as promising as a Civil War Leg Wound to me, but this is where I would just profile the amp at the different gain settings I wanted. They did improve the tube screamer emulation, it's pretty nice.
6) controllers - everyone is still waiting for the controller from Kemper. depending on the price and features, I may bite. I'm happy now with a ground control pro though.
7) preset management is improved, but still not optimal since you can have over a thousand profiles loaded. They added a feature where you can sort by name, author, date, amp or gain, and you can add amps to favorites via the quick button.

BTW, great tips on dialing in any digital profiling/modelling amp. Get your core tone first, then sprinkle fx on it.
 
I don't know. I've never tried either but they both sound pretty good.
 
stratotone":3e3e62m3 said:
6) controllers - everyone is still waiting for the controller from Kemper. depending on the price and features, I may bite. I'm happy now with a ground control pro though.
Click to expand...

BTW, when I was talking about controllers I actually meant controllers in terms of real-time control of parameters. The Axe actually calls them modifiers. I call them controllers because I've written too much MIDI software and they act like continuous controllers and can in fact be controlled via CC messages.

Why is this important? The modifiers in the Axe let you do some amazing things that very few devices come even close to doing. Some of what you can do is really kick ass. For instance, with an LFO you can of course create something like an auto-wah effect. But what if you want to have that sort of frequency apply to something else like depth for a chorus or feedback for a delay. When subtle, something like this can add an interesting additional dimension to your sound. Or use the pitch modifier to increase the delay mix when you play way up high on the skinny strings. Or use the envelope modifier to adjust the gain level of an overdrive so it can fatten up a decaying note. Etc. This is powerful stuff!

As for foot controllers, I never sweated that. There have been some great controllers out there for years. Before Fractal released theirs I used the Axess FX-1 (great controller!). I think Kemper probably needs to come out with one eventually but I doubt it's hurting them much right now.
 
I let the video play in the background.....not even on the same web page. Was playing solitare.
Every time a Clip caught my ear....Flicked over to see what was played thru.....it was the AXE. Just sounded a tad more clear....less muffled.
Like the presence was up on it. I have no interest in either system.....but from the video sounded like the user wanted the Axe to come across better.
Just my opinion. Both sounded great. But the Axe was a bit more prenounced. At least in my ears.
 
I agree...and surprised. Axe ftw.
And Tim talking about the modifier controller aspect...Shit, I'm gonna have to open the manual sometime soon. :lol: :LOL:
 
lester":pk8ln7x6 said:
I agree...and surprised. Axe ftw.
And Tim talking about the modifier controller aspect...Shit, I'm gonna have to open the manual sometime soon. :lol: :LOL:
Click to expand...

The modifier stuff is simply badass. I like to use envelope the most - you can make anything a "ducking" effect: delay, phaser, chorus, flanger, etc. - IOW, you can have the effect back off when you're playing hard and smoothly mix in as you let things ring out. Or vice versa.
 
hippietim":1v3po1u5 said:
lester":1v3po1u5 said:
I agree...and surprised. Axe ftw.
And Tim talking about the modifier controller aspect...Shit, I'm gonna have to open the manual sometime soon. :lol: :LOL:
Click to expand...

The modifier stuff is simply badass. I like to use envelope the most - you can make anything a "ducking" effect: delay, phaser, chorus, flanger, etc. - IOW, you can have the effect back off when you're playing hard and smoothly mix in as you let things ring out. Or vice versa.
Click to expand...

Kemper added ducking to most effects. The modifier controller thing I played with on the axe, was pretty neat but I hardly ever used it. Would be a nice addition to the kemper for sure.
 
They both sound great. I wish there was any form of Deizel.

It seems either could do the job well. Kemper is a bit more amp like for dialing in and I will be rolling with that. But no hate for the Axe II. When it gets down to it, just shaddup and play yer guitar.
 
I might be wrong here, but it seemed like that video was kemper profiles of axe presets - which means it was kemper profiles (copies) of axe II settings. Personally I've had better luck duplicating a real amp than a modelling device or pedal (went crazy trying to do a Johnson J-Station, laugh if you want, I like some sounds on those). So you were hearing a copy of basically a copy. I'd rather hear even though it would be harder to do, a real amp vs a Kemper capture of it vs a Axe II model of one. Again, you'd want to hear em in person IMHO.

For a list of amps you can download with the Kemper, go here:

http://kemper-amps.com/page/render/lang ... nload.html

Look for Diezels. I saw on the first of five pages VH4, Einstein and Herberts. ;)

Pete
 
I like the Axe sounds better. Both were very good - the Axe edged it out for me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top