Folks assume that I hate digital modelers - that’s not true, I don’t hate them. I have lots of software models for my computer system, and I use them as scratch pads in my work.
It only bugs me when people assert that you can’t tell the difference between Kemper (or other modelers) and the real thing. Of course you can (or at least I can)!
They sound different, especially under the microscope of a recording, where they mix differently due to the differences from a real amp in their ADSR envelopes and dynamic range. I can describe it as sounding ‘flattened out’. Without a lot of processing, they get lost in a mix, especially where other instruments are real, dynamic instruments like drums, bass, keys or other guitars. Getting lost in a mix is the result of less dynamic range and response.
Whether that matters to the individual player is, of course, up to the player.
On the ‘pros’ side, the Kemper is still a top-notch device for modeling amplifiers. IMHO they do best with very clean or higher gain sounds. Clean, because the differences are more subtle, and higher gain stuff because real amps in high gain mode are very compressed due to natural tube compression, so models don’t need as much dynamic range, and because an amp that’s heavily distorting is also compressed in the attack portion of its ADSR envelope, again, easier to model.
The ‘cons’ are that they do less well with low-to-medium gain sounds, because they can’t respond as well as a real amp in those ‘transition sounds’ between clean and light crunch that a good player controls with pick attack, guitar controls, etc. Since that’s where I live as a player, I have to rule them out.
There are a handful of basic amp tones I like to record with: Blackface, Tweed, Plexi, Mesa, and occasionally Vox. I have amps that do that. I keep my amps miked up for recording in my studio all the time, and it takes less time for me to set up a recording than it does to scroll through choices on a modeler.
But YMMV, and I encourage you to follow your own experience with modelers.
EDIT: note that I use sampled sounds in my own work fairly often; They’re less rich-sounding than the real thing, and that’s simply due to budgets. It’s a compromise I’m not happy about. However, It costs a lot more to hire a real orchestra than it does to buy ten amplifiers, so on some things, I’m just stuck. You may feel the same way about spending dough on real amps. I get it!
