I'm really on the fence about this.
I sold an amp today, and because of the sharp fall in used Axe FX prices, I have an opportunity to get an Axe FXII Mark II for a bit less than I made on the amp sale.
A bit torn about it really. On one hand, I see a lot of folks here who have both and say they are equally good.
At the same time, I see a lot of guys on here who slam the Axe FX tones (and Helix, etc).
Then there's a third school of thought: get another Kemper instead. something I ruled out myself
I was thinking it would be cool to have an Axe FX in a rack with the Kemper. That would give me enough processing power to cover all the string instruments in my band.
Honestly, I listen to the Axe FX videos and some of them make me laugh at the tone. Then there are others that are mind-blowing good, such as:
And this is a metal one:
To me, at least, they don't sound 1:1 to the amps that are compared in the videos.
I'm 90% leaning towards an Engl Savage in the neighbourhood, or maybe an Invader if I can swing it.
But I keep thinking of the synergies between a Kemper and an Axe FX. For example, one of the Kemper outs (maybe direct) into fx return of Fractal. Then insert that into two separate chains on the Axe FX. Send a tube screamer into one of those, have an ADT block somewhere, place a quad delay in each of the signal paths (interesting thread about an octa delay on the forums a la Alan Holdsworth). Other madness. Meanwhile, the Kemper is also running its own signal chain and sending that to the master outputs and a cab on stage.
Of course, I'm not a big FX guy, so I have to keep that in mind too.
So, as mentioned in the title, is there any point in getting an Axe FX when you already have a Kemper? Just seems like an incredibly complex rig for... the sake of being complex?
The thing that kills me is... What if I never know?