Advice on best modeling amps

[Johan Allard]

Surprisingly little Fractal Audio love in this thread. If you’re after the best sound and portability. Nothing will beat the Fractal Ax8 IMHO!

- Depending on who you are, some people prefer the amp sounds of the Kemper, some the Fractal. Almost everyone prefers the effects in the Fractal. But there’s no all-in-one floorboard Kemper so its less portable. (I’d love to get one of those if they make one to A/B with the Ax8)
- haven’t heard anyone that say the prefer the sound of Line 6 anything but I’m sure there would be a few out there (there always are).
- the Headrush interface looks awesome but it’s based on really old 11 rack software that hasn’t been developed in years. Would love an Headrush/Fractal lovechild as well.

The Ax8 can be very complicated if you want to. You can easily do stuff that nothing else can do (like attach an expression pedal that will increase delay mix and when you get above 50% on the rock you turn on the amp boost function). But it can also be very simple if you want it to.

There’s great many options depending on taste, budget, portability, complexity, ... needs. It’s a great time to be a guitar player!

 

[BWV548]

I’ve a katana 100 1x12 combo. I think it offers really good value. My biggest issue is the speaker. The thing sounds so much better in headphones and through good monitors. At some point I’ll swap the speaker.
The Roland Blues cube stage that I recent got, impresses the crap out of me. Perhaps it’s my aging ears, but it out performs similarly voices fender valve amps, as far as I’m concerned. “Feels” valve too
And for all of the S.S. haters, I’ll never give up my Roland JCxx(x)!

 

[Dancing Frog]

Surprisingly little Fractal Audio love in this thread. If you’re after the best sound and portability. Nothing will beat the Fractal Ax8 IMHO!

- Depending on who you are, some people prefer the amp sounds of the Kemper, some the Fractal. Almost everyone prefers the effects in the Fractal. But there’s no all-in-one floorboard Kemper so its less portable. (I’d love to get one of those if they make one to A/B with the Ax8)
- haven’t heard anyone that say the prefer the sound of Line 6 anything but I’m sure there would be a few out there (there always are).
- the Headrush interface looks awesome but it’s based on really old 11 rack software that hasn’t been developed in years. Would love an Headrush/Fractal lovechild as well.

The Ax8 can be very complicated if you want to. You can easily do stuff that nothing else can do (like attach an expression pedal that will increase delay mix and when you get above 50% on the rock you turn on the amp boost function). But it can also be very simple if you want it to.

There’s great many options depending on taste, budget, portability, complexity, ... needs. It’s a great time to be a guitar player!

I am a Fractal guy, but I prefer not to impose my view on anyone else. Personally, I prefer the logic of the virtual simulated circuit to the art of the reskinned object approach, but the truth of the matter is that the earlier high end modelers used combinations of both approaches to make up for deficiencies in the underlying computer architecture much like the quality of sound in a tube amp is the combination of the science of the circuitry with art in the selection of the components that make up those circuits. Before Fractal versus Kemper, there was zenTera versus Vetta II which were both based on the same SHARC processors with different approaches.

 

[Johan Allard]

I am a Fractal guy, but I prefer not to impose my view on anyone else. Personally, I prefer the logic of the virtual simulated circuit to the art of the reskinned object approach, but the truth of the matter is that the earlier high end modelers used combinations of both approaches to make up for deficiencies in the underlying computer architecture much like the quality of sound in a tube amp is the combination of the science of the circuitry with art in the selection of the components that make up those circuits. Before Fractal versus Kemper, there was zenTera versus Vetta II which were both based on the same SHARC processors with different approaches.

When someone asks for opinions on something, isn’t voicing opinions exactly the right thing to do?