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I listened to "Zebra Crossing" and
Originally Posted by henryrobinett
"Giant Steps Less Distortion"
and the Tones are beautiful and great playing !
What I like about some people's Axe Fx Tones like yours is it can have a little bit of "sing" but stay crystal clear ...no harshness added to the Overtones..like your Tones.
Are they Alto Sax inspired? Your Tones are Modern but still 'Classic '
cause they are Alto Sax-like as is the Playing ...Last edited by Robertkoa; 02-01-2016 at 08:17 PM.
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02-01-2016 08:11 PM
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
I understand your preferences. I'm glad that you found a tool you found a tool that works for you.
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Well Fractal is very deep. Is far deeper than I've yet delved into. But luckily you don't have to use all the choices and parameters. There's multiple ways to get to the same place, or carve great detail you might or might not even hear!
And Rob, I'm glad you find what works best for you. I'm not ever trying to convert anybody. But as you know, when you love something you tend to over enthuse. But I believe there is NO BETTER THAN, only differences. And those differences may work or may not work for you.
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I didn't mean to imply only version 2.0 allowed you to select cabinets by the way. Just bad editing on my part. I was just pointing out that I had version 2 because henry mentioned that a lot of folks don't mention which version of firmware they have.
By the way, I also agree with Henry that for me personally, i don't need someone else's sound or amp but the profiles are useful for learning how to get other sounds.
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Yes, and truthfully it's been very helpful seeing other people layout in the editor. I have used two presets before altering them profoundly to get me started. But some sound really good as they are! Originally Posted by jzucker
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Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the tones and playing on your soundcloud Henry. You make that axefx sound great.
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Thank you so much! As I said that was awhile ago. Much better now. Giant Steps makes me cringe now, but you know, it's my playing. Originally Posted by callouscallus
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With regard to the Kemper, I found the factory presets lacking but for my use. I treat the profile as starting point for the sound/tone I want to achieve. Despite all the profiles I have or have listened two I'm down to just using three and one I have tailored/modified for everything from my classical guitar to fender clean with a bit of grit
I bought into the modeling thing in 97 when Line 6 came out with the Flextone and the playing field since then has improved dramatically to where the discussion isn't about whether they sound or react like tube amps, the flextone did not but more focused on effects and work flow. I still own a couple of great tube a BF ProReverb and Fargen Miniplex Mark II but I was tired of the weight, tube cost, availability of good tubes, attenuators,carrying around a bunch of pedals etc.
Jack: Look forward to a in depth review and some clips.
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Interesting. Cool. I couldn't deal with modeling until I heard the axefx. That was before Kemper hit the scene. I hated Line 6, Guitar Rig etc. But Fractal and Kemper changed the game.
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Axefx and Kemper thoughts
So here are some more thoughts on the axefx II vs the kemper...
The axefx has some beautiful clean tones. The fender cleans are gorgeous. The spring reverbs - while not the best I've ever heard - are definitely a plus. I really like the Kemper fender cleans - particularly from ampfactory.com - but they seem to be missing something in the upper mid frequencies. This is particularly noticable when playing any Benson or Wes Montgomery type material with a hollowbody guitar and humbuckers and playing with your thumb. The velvety top end sheen that I get out of a deluxe or vibrolux reverb is missing somewhat on the kemper.
The weakness of the kemper though is that the amps are profiled through a given speaker cab. What I have found is that the vast majority of profiles on the kemper were created with distorted amps or with amps turned up to the point of clipping and/or with tone controls set way higher than what a jazz guitarist would want. This causes boomyness and/or gritty sounds that are undesireable to a jazz guitarist. You are also limited by what speaker the amp happened to have. Many twin reverbs or fender amps in general have weak speakers that break up easily when you use a hollowbody with heavy strings through them. With the axefx, the speaker is totally decoupled from the amp so you can pick whatever cabinet you want to use with your amp, plus you can purchase other cabinets with other speakers. For example, I'm going to purchase some JBL speaker impulses to add to my axefx.
Additionally, the tone controls on the kemper are fixed whereas the axefx tone controls are actually the correct frequencies, taper, etc, and feel more like the real thing.
The axe-edit software makes programming a patch such a breeze. The programming on the kemper is very clumsy. But even if you didn't use the axe-edit software, the axefx front panel shows you the routing in a much more intuitive and visual way.
Despite my criticisms of the Kemper, I want to emphasize that the kemper vibroverb from ampfactory sounds amazing. It's a gorgeously fat and vevety tone that always makes me feel good when I play through it. So don't think i'm just dissing the kemper...
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yeah, me too. I also bought a digidesign 11 but that was horrible too, plus I dislike their eco-system. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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The concept of sampling or profiling an amp just seemed limited to me. I thought you'd be kind of stuck to a certain degree to the tone used when the amp was profiled. I think you told me a year or two ago that that wasn't true. But you are limited by the cabs and the tone to a certain degree?
To my ears the amps in the AxeFx sound great raw. Like the real ones before pedals or effects. The tone controls pretty much work just like the tone controls on the amps modeled.
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Though I haven't tried it, you can decouple the amp from the cab on the Kemper. Firmware 3.0 allowed you to do this.
from their original press release--
"Profiler Firmware Version 3.0 allows for separate profiling of Amps and Cabs and much more
Kemper GmbH/ Ruhr Area, January 22nd, 2015 (ictw) – Kemper GmbH today announced the next level of their acclaimed Profiling technology. The Profiler Firmware Version 3.0 now allows for profiling the guitar amps’ output independently from the connected guitar cabinet.
This opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Guitar players can profile their favorite amp sound and afterwards play thru a neutral power amp or the Profiler’s built in Class D amp into a guitar cabinet with the exact tone and behavior of their original tube amp. It also allows for freely combining “Direct Amp Profiles” with individually profiled cabs or imported impulse responses. The result is a complete Profile that can run a physical guitar cabinet onstage for monitoring and simultaneously feed the virtual guitar-speaker sound to the main PA."
Then the question becomes: are these amp only profiles available ? Most of the ring exchange contains stuff I would never use, ;( .
regarding the axe FX, really good to know that it's not that hard to program to get good sounds. I have found with the Kemper, I don't use 98% of the profiles. And yes, many of the sounds are distorted and suck . Yes, you can turn to gain down after the fact. But still. ,
I presume that anyone playing jazz will find that there's probably a lot in both the Kemper and the Axe Fx they won't use or need . In other words, there's so much stuff there, we'd only be scratching the surface .
Thanks again for the review. It sounds like that I probably should start saving up for an ax-FX as well. That would be the ultimate dual amp set up .
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Thanks for the reminder on this. I never upgraded to 3.0 because I have had a fair amount of issues with the kemper hanging and the late 2.x version of the software I have on mine is very stable. When 3.x first came out, it was pulled due to buggyness and I never upgraded to it.
I wonder how they are able to decouple the cab from the profile, after-the-fact since 99% of the profiles that are out there were profiled and mic'd off the speaker cab?
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I'm actually starting to think I might not be smart enough for one of these amps
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I don't remember the specific comment but If I said that I was mistaken because as I mentioned earlier in this thread, with the kemper you are limited to the tone and volume settings as well as the speaker and cab that were in the amp when it was profiled. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
With the popular profile makers such as ampfactory, mbritt and topjimi, they borrow or rent amps to profile. So , when you rent or borrow the amp, if the tubes are old or if the speaker's a bit worn or even if the speaker baffle vibrates or if you turn the amp and tone controls up to 7 - as topjimi did on their fender twin profiles - you end up with a mirror of *THAT* one , particular setup.
Now, if you are trying to get SRV's tone and someone profiles a super reverb turned up to 5 and uses SRV's tone control settings and if it has JBL speakers, you will likely get a more accurate rendition of that tone than what you have on the axefx. The axefx is going to give you a more generic rendition and arguably a slightly less authentic rendition of the amp but you have the ability to utilize *ANY* and *ALL* of the amp's settings and not just the one that the amp was set to when you recorded the profile...
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Yeah, I wondered that too. Maybe they can separately profile the speakers after the fact and reverse engineer? Originally Posted by jzucker
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No I don't think it can be done retroactively. But going forward after firmware 3.0 you would have to profile (or re- profile ) the amps using a DI box. Originally Posted by dingusmingus
This is all a bit above my head and level of confidence as well as competence, but I'm going to research this and see what are the benefits of separating the amp from the cab .
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Jack check out the suhr badger 30w with a few different cabs, I LOVE the clean sound and basically now use the axefx for that amp only which is bloody ridiculous really I should just go out and get the badger. Originally Posted by jzucker
Also it's worth going through cab after cab after cab in my experience rather than change the amp.
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By the way, I checked and the axeFX2 can only be purchased directly from the manufacturer; it's currently sold out and you have to get on a several month waiting list.
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Yep. There are, it used to be, one or two dealers who have a limited supply. I bought my first from some shop in Santa Monica or some place. But subsequent Fractal purchase had a waiting list. I started with buying the Ultra. Then when the II came I bought that.
That's what happens when you buy from a small boutique kick ass company. They ship them themselves.
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There are plenty available used. Originally Posted by NSJ
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Everyone's ears are different but your comment about the Axe sounding organic baffles me.
To my ears, the Axe sounds like a very good modeler while the Kemper sounds like an amp.
The Kemper is the only one in which I can detect warmth from the tone even from an FRFR cabinet which is why I have stuck with it.
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Which version did you hear and what presets? You can get the amps to sound absolutely raw. Most people throw so many effects in because they can. But the amps sound like the amps, to me.
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As I mentioned, I have both and have A/B'd them using the same amp model and each going through the same model powered cab set to the same volume levels and I stand by my comment. Not sure what to say if you can't hear the organic goodness I hear in the axefx. When going for a benson tone, the axefx BF fender reverb amp models sound much closer to the benson sounds that he gets out of a fender reverb amp than the similar kemper models but again, it's not an apples/apples comparison because almost every fender amp profile that I have purchased from kemper was recorded with the amp and tone controls turned up too high. This is because to most people, SRV is a clean sound. The beauty of the axefx is that I can get that sound if I want to turn the amp up but I can turn the amp down to get a clean sound and then get that sound at *EVERY* volume level. I have recorded quite a bit with the kemper vibroverb amp model and I love the way it sounds but the vibrolux reverb and deluxe reverb on the axefx have that little extra magic that to me blow away the kemper. Not to mention they have spring reverb too. Originally Posted by HCarlH
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