Hey there everyone!
My name is Russ. I'm a 30 year old musician/audio engineer/budding entrepreneur near Phoenix, Arizona. I've been playing guitar for more than 20 years now with a lot of focus on 7-string guitars. These days, I've got a nice arsenal of gear but the quest for tone never ends. I have a killer half stack whose tone I love, but it's almost never practical to fire it up.
In 2013 I took the dive and bought an Axe-FX II (Mk II). I won't pretend that I don't think it's an incredible piece of gear- it sounds and feels good to me. But it doesn't have MY amp or cab programmed in there, and that's what I'm really trying to recreate in a more practical way. As an audio engineer, I thought I'd really geek out over the scope of the effects and routing possibilities. In practice, I found the process of making tones to be tedious and uninspiring. And while I really appreciate all the work Fractal puts into adding new features and models with firmware updates, I hate that I have to go back through a labyrinth of settings to tweak my presets after some updates.
A good buddy of mine, whose ears I really trust, had tried to steer me toward the Kemper before I bought the Fractal. He had a lot of experience with both and was dead-set that the Kemper did a better job reproducing the sound and feel of an incredible tube rig. The more I learn about the Profiling Amp, the more it looks like it's a MUCH better fit for my needs. So I decided to come here to learn more before I road trip down to a dealer and try it out in person. If I decide to pick one up, I hope to be a valuable contributor to this community.
Cheers!