Thank you everyone for the awesome feedback on this video! I hope this continues to be a valuable resource to anyone that is considering buying a new tube amplifier or one of the digital solutions featured here. The POD Go, FM3, and Kemper have all sold!
This man is insane, and I love it. Kidding aside, I've been watching your videos for a long time and I have to commend you for sticking around through all the shit you've been through and still remain ethical and truthful. You are an example of professionalism that is so lacking in this industry nowadays.
Man! Thanks for this brother! I can't even imagine how much work this was. Super cool! I love all your content. This one was extra wicked! Keep up the wicked thorough hard work. I think I speak for all of us when I say how much we appreciate it👊👍
This is insane and I love it. I really like the Fractal stuff here. They all sound pretty fantastic except the Kemper. The tubby lows and kinda plastic distortion is iffy enough, but the top end is also kinda... fake sounding or something. It isn't awful but it's certainly showing its age by now lol. Another epic PSS masterpiece!
amazing video, i have not gone digital yet and now I'm even more sure of my decision since i`m collecting all kinds of (tube) gear since decades, its just like an addiction and can not be satisfied with any kind of digital stuff, real gear is also a great investment especially the older tube rack and iconic amps while you will just lose money when you sell digital gear again. the portability is a big advantage of digital vs real gear for sure. i think that we will end up with hybrid devices like the new soldano stro 20 combining anaolg and digital technology iin a smaller lower wattage portable form factor chassis. cheers 🎸🎸
I sold my mark iv, KSR Orion, Headfirst Alta 100, and Adam jones spec plexi from ceriatone over the past couple months. Not cause I really wanted to but had shit come up. Not to mention I'm just playing at home so it's kinda dumb having all this. I'm using an FM3 now and I gotta say I'm digging it. I had a Kemper, a couple HX stomps, and a Quad Cortex over the past few years. I didn't really want to deal with Fractal cause it seems like they come out with something new every other year but I finally grabbed the standard fm3 and I'm really content with it.
I appreciate this video so much! Thank you so much for taking the time to create this and sharing!! I hope to see your character grow in the next year!
Thank you so much for making this research. I've sold my Kemper several weeks ago after have been using for 5+ years. It's not awful, but I've tried everything and it just doesn't sound and feel like the amps it supposed to have the exact copy of. Its signature cocked-wah high mids, muddy low mids, sticking out attack, a lack of thump and presence are applied like a watermark on every profile. And I guess it wasn't just me, if Pod Go sounds much closer and more authentic than Kemper here :) I'm now choosing between QC and FM9.
The madlad finally did it. I can't imagine how much effort and money went into this, but i'm glad this bonkers project is finally done. Pardon my comically long comment to accompany the comically long video, the TLDR is more or less in line with the video's conclusion. I love watching these types of videos with them either minimized or whilst i'm otherwise not looking at the video during the initial loop of the comparison so that i'm not listening with my eyes the whole time. Something that struck me as funny with this is that every time i notice the sound had changed in a way that was important enough to make me check on the video during comparisons to your real amps, it was ALWAYS because it had switched to (or away from) the Kemper. Whether or not i preferred the sound is irrelevant to my point, but the Kemper never sounded like the other modelers *or the amp*. The preamble and caveats leading up to the comparison with no control group is a brilliant example of why i don't like the capture method from a usability standpoint. If i'm trying to dial in a sound with a specific amp, i want the controls to behave the way they do on that amp, even if that amp's controls don't work like they do on other amps (Mark series, Valvestate, etc). Kemper, PG Bias, ToneX, etc not doing that drives me insane, even if the tones are good. All in all, these 3 platforms are perfectly good, but between the workflow quirks and sound differences, I personally wouldn't like to use the Kemper. It's fine, but even the POD is a tier above in my opinion. I'm shocked at how good the Line 6 sounds a few years after launch. For me, the Fractal did the best on average of sounding like the real gear, and in the situations where it was digital vs digital vs digital I felt it and the Line 6 traded blows. Given the cost of the more capable Helix units compared to that of the FM9, and given the debatably overkill specificity on the Fractal model selection, i think i'd go Fractal out of the modelers you can buy new, but the POD Go specifically is something that shouldn't be overlooked.
The PodGo is missing some detail in the high end, no matter how much I crank the treble I can't get sparkling cleans. Bumping the treble and presence on my PowerStage poweramp helps but I've been thinking about swapping it for a FM3 just for tone reasons.
I've had similar experiences on many of the Helix platform's cleaner amps, yet the opposite problem on high gain amps. I'm not sure where exactly the deficiency lies, but it seems integral to the amp model in a way that post-EQ changes simply does not make up for it.
I watched the whole video, I was a little surprised at how much better the real rig and pedals sound. I expected the real rig to sound better but there was a bigger difference than I expected. One of the high gain leads sounded a little weak on the real Mark IV but to me it sounds like the reamp box is not outputting enough gain on that particular clip. I really like the FM3 except for the cleans with wet fx, I thought it sounded thin and distant.
I'm not even half way through this video, but already thanks for the enormous efford man, your content is always really freaking interesting to watch. I have to say, I love my Helix, I've been using it for 6 years now, but I absolutely noticed a MASSIVE improvement in my tone when I started pairing it with the Tonex pedal 2 months ago. And in this video as well, the tones are absolutely not bad, but a bit... lacking as it were.
A few key points I'm pulling out of my butt while watching this: It's interesting to me how often the Fractal and Line6 have a similar type of sound / raw kind of texture to them, that is unlike the Kemper, which is also unlike the amp. I'm surprised in general how different the Kemper sounds to the amps. Especially that low-medium gain example at the start was... interesting. And not in a good way, in my opinion - I expected better from it. All in all, awesome awesome video. Super nerdy, but that's exactly what I love to see (and hear).
this 3 hour video is just cheating, since he introductory talking takes more time than the actual content😂..just kidding you are one of a very few gear related channels left that is worth watching and not just stupid infomercials with just boring commercial content. by the way i have traded my kemper for an very old jcm jmp original condition with some quality pedals and have never regretet it haha 💯
Man I was ignorant of the fact that Cab / Mic IRs don’t capture non-linearities. I thought they were accurate as long as they had enough resolution. Thanks for the note about IRs and non-linearity there. Maybe for amplitude non-linearity a compressor block can be added after the cab block in modelers to get somewhat better results.
That is essentially the reason FAS has added so many features to the Cab block over the years to accompany the IR - microphone preamp emulation, dynamic range controls, etc. That fills in all the gaps of a real (and typical) cab > mic > preamp signal in my experience.
Ui Yeah , thanks for that Buddy ! Pure Entertainment and so much Work, you catched me with the traped under ice Riff at the beginning. Now I'm going to get myself a coffee and keep watching! The algorithm is not good for the video !!! This is a shame I just had to get this off my chest Sub 🤜🤛
@@PlagueScytheStudios Great. I think its turned on by default which is quite odd in my opinion. I find it eats the sound even when turned to 0. It must be on the "off" option to get it completely out of the sound.
Cool video. Slightly related but how is the fm3 to change settings from the front panel? Recently sold my ax8 and am sticking to my hx stomp, purely from ease of adjusting on the fly.
FM3 is in a whole other universe when it comes to dialing in tones from the hardware controls. I still prefer FM3 Edit ahen making a preset from scratch, but tweaking on the screen is no problem. I would basically never even go that far on the AX8 because of how low resolution and clunky the interface was.
I have been away from the FRFR scene, so I can't give much insight into those platforms. I guess FAS has put their stamp of approval on Redsound since they are selling those products in the shop. I really hope that partnership results in a Kemper Kab / L6 Powercab type device that does both FRFR and Celestion speaker emulation. For the money, Headrush still seems to be at the top of the "typical" FRFR systems.
Interesting video, I skipped a lot because well I don’t have that kind of time or attention span lol, but I do agree with you conclusion to a point. I think an argument could be made for a helix Lt over an fm3 depending on what the user needs. Line 6s warranty is second to none and are also readily available in store and can be found usually at fairly good prices. But when you get to the $1500 full helix, you get no cpu/performance upgrade. At this point yes absolutely it makes more sense to go fm9. But as always to each their own.
Hi. Great video far. I'm only 40 mins in but just wanted to ask a question before I forget. If you make an impulse response of your cabs would a null test against the real cab show any differences as I think i can hear a very subtle difference in the higher end of the frequencies. I could be totally wrong but thought I would ask.
If one were to record the amp signal split into the cab and IR simultaneously, then a null test should work and give real results, in theory. However, I did not do that because I recorded each amp channel twice since I had to shoot the IR between recordings. There are definitely some subtle high frequency differences with the KAM microphone samples, but it's small enough that I would still clarify it as functionally the same between the cab and IR. A simple low pass filter would erase a lot of those minor differences.
@@PlagueScytheStudios thanks for the reply. I get it. It's took you some patience to do all those recordings and I for one appreciate the effort. I'm currently on a tone searching journey/ rabbit hole and all the info is a great help. They are to a point pretty identical and close enough to be indistinguishable. I've been using fab filter match eq after my tests to get the sounds even closer and it's getting to the point where you can't hear the differences.
Okay so I haven't watched all the way through yet but: any experience with Ik Multimedia/Amplitube 5's ToneX? I have it and don't use it but I've heard its pretty decent
I have a huge video on it as well. The short story is that it's better than Kemper, but still struggles to capture many of the same "atypical" amps or pedals that Kemper does (high noise floor, fuzzy distortion texture, etc.).
ryan do you feel a big difference in playing them? of course a cab and mic can sound very very close to a plug-in and ir or modeler etc. but what about actually playing it?
The older I've gotten, the more I've enjoyed playing through my studio monitors regardless of the gear type (tube amps through a load box, amp modelers, plugins, etc.). Without a subwoofer, you lose the "thump" of a 4x12, but it's all there with a sub, plus more controllable and hi-fi (at least with my setup). So the feel through cab IRs through the right setup is fantastic to me. For the amp side - if tube amps are the benchmarks for feel, 3rd gen FAS modeling is basically indistinguishable. The POD GO isn't bad, certainly not in terms of latency, but just not as satisfying when it comes to the percussive effects you're supposed to get from palm mutes or aggressive picking. Kemper is a weird one. There is essentially no feeling of sag / sponginess to me, and as a result feels like more like a transistor amp in many ways than amp modelers of old. It's unique and I still like that about the toaster.
@@PlagueScytheStudios awesome feedback brother. I have never really played a high gain amp or through a cab. I used to have a deluxe reverb years ago but thats not really a comparison i think. I have really only been playing with plugins and through some older yamaha hsm5s. I often have fomo in regard to tube amps but im starting to fight back against that mentally and just enjoy playing.
@@PlagueScytheStudios for high gain tone Did you uses EMG active? I own Pod Go, does the pod go really good if Im use EMG/fishman active pickups? I plan to replace my guitar with those active pickups soon.
i have noticed that a lot of famous musicians are switching back to real gear again even on stage, a lot of marshall jvm`s and synergy rigs showing up on the bigger stages and less kemper and other lifeless digital gear is used live or in studio, most likely just as fx units or backup.. thank you for that great video 🙏🙏
Dec. 7. Watched it again. Just so needed. I just like the "feel" of real amps. I usually run 2 4x12s, thru my effects unit, from my amp head. What I have found in the last several years of playing 4 to 5 hours a day, I can set the volume at 2, and achieve with the use of the eq, and tweeking the delay and reverb. I don't do covers but I do do tone. I can get the tones that I want, or pretty damn close. I don't know how this applies to using computers and monitors, but I want that punch from a real amp. There is no substitut for me.
@@PlagueScytheStudios Line6 was also more closer in the high gain tones too, fractal is a big win for me here, even in the amps that you have to do approximations like the gargoyle, fractal sounded almost exactly like the real amp, and it's not even simulated there Kemper always seems to be a bit more "middy" and Pod Go seems to adds some highs, but fractal was practically a mirror image of the amps
Danm dude, this is great. As a bassist I'm still annoyed at fractal for having less than 10 amps. Hell, if they juat modelled and Aguilar head I'd jump ship straight away. EDIT: I should add as a daily HX stomp user the bass amps saturate way to fast compared to their real counterparts
I can't even describe how badly I would love to have one for a few weeks to work with just for the schadenfreude factor. From everything I've seen and heard about the TMP, I'm convinced there's a Line 6 or NDSP spy working for Fender that purposefully sabotaged it.
@@PlagueScytheStudios wow...interesting, I think they over priced it and under deivered it. I mean fractal and line6 both have more fender models then this. why? Its pretty much a gtx100 amp in a floor unit with better effects.The whole amp lineup reads like the gtx100. Why not release at 750-1000 and just have a boatload of beautiful unique fender amps? Its just silly
I heard the best tone I heard in my church over the weekend we have Helix guys Kemper guys, this tone was coming from a Valveton gp200! No need for premium priced products anymore
Sorry but the Fractal is just so much better. I've tried them all. I've got the real amps and pedal and an FM3 and FM9. Fractal is the leader in this tech. Sorry Quad guys! LOL
@@PlagueScytheStudiosBut it's not like you said in the video. You said: "it's going to sound the exact same way of the full-fledged Helix". No, it won't.
You are correct, though you have to keep in mind that a vast majority of people can't even tell the difference between 2x and 16x oversampling in amp plugins. By the time this audio compressed on UA-cam, the variation between how I would dial in an amp and how you would dial in an amp is going to be an order of magnitude more in difference than what high frequency aliasing is contributing. Similarly, the AX8 technically didn't have the same level of antialliasing that the AXE FX II was able to achieve. Still, I think most people would agree the overall modeling and sound quality is basically the same. That is what I was getting at with the POD Go (and this video is long enough without me going into all those tangents, or the FM3 Mk II Turbo, etc.).
The Whammy effect is dogshit on both my PodGo and our other guitar player's Helix. It's so bad I have a real Whammy in the FX loop. It is slow to follow the expression pedal and if you play more than one note at a time, forget it.
I have a Rockerverb, a JVM, a Dual Rec, a GT1000, a pod hd500, and a crate gt1200h. And lately its just been the hd500 for delay and reverb and the crate head. Simple simple
POD GO is great for the money, great GUI imo. Limited but gives you plenty good sounds and enough to play live. However the Fractal modeling sounds better to my ears. Also, not included here, but Neural DSP I think got it with making a GUI that’s user friendly, having sounds “pre-processed” and presets which are really usable out of the box and user friendly. If we ignore all the delays, promises, etc and relatively high pricing (on QC and especially on Nano Cortex) which IMO can only be justified by their investment in marketing, their products are great and at the same level of Kemper/L6/Fractal.
Kemper all day. Having owned Line 6, Fractal, Headrush, various amps and finally Kemper. Hands down Kemper for me. The scrutiny of studio recordings reveal a lot. Of course excellent profiles are a must, so whenever people make judgments, the quality of the profile is crucial.
Sorry. This video was just far too long for me to sit through. I can't keep my hands off my FM9 Turbo that long. I went straight to the conclusion to get your thoughts.
Thank you everyone for the awesome feedback on this video! I hope this continues to be a valuable resource to anyone that is considering buying a new tube amplifier or one of the digital solutions featured here.
The POD Go, FM3, and Kemper have all sold!
Cortex Control. is finally here
This man is insane, and I love it. Kidding aside, I've been watching your videos for a long time and I have to commend you for sticking around through all the shit you've been through and still remain ethical and truthful. You are an example of professionalism that is so lacking in this industry nowadays.
Can't wait for the director's cut blu-ray of this.
Just wait 20 years so I can go full George Lucas and change my entire set with CGI... that will age like milk.
@@PlagueScytheStudios Isn’t aged milk just cheese though? 😁
Cheese is delicious
heaven yes!
@@OtherTheDavethat makes sense.
Explains why "cheesy" is a word that exists in the world of media.
Holy shit! let me get my popcorn
01:53:27 good ol' FEARED:)
Loved the BLS and Cannibal Corpse bits before too
worth waiting, already watched a few minutes and I am blown away...thank you for saving us all the trouble..and in detail!!!
Yesss, this is like a cinema movie with one of the best channels on UA-cam. Thank you so much for that!
Man! Thanks for this brother! I can't even imagine how much work this was. Super cool! I love all your content. This one was extra wicked! Keep up the wicked thorough hard work. I think I speak for all of us when I say how much we appreciate it👊👍
This is insane and I love it. I really like the Fractal stuff here. They all sound pretty fantastic except the Kemper. The tubby lows and kinda plastic distortion is iffy enough, but the top end is also kinda... fake sounding or something. It isn't awful but it's certainly showing its age by now lol.
Another epic PSS masterpiece!
Cool video! Especially the real cab vs IR section! Cheers!
long time but always here :D, thank for see you again
oh my god. commenting and liking before even watching the video. thank you Ryan!
Metal Jesus delivereth once again
🤘🧔🏻♀️🤘. Great vid bro!
amazing video, i have not gone digital yet and now I'm even more sure of my decision since i`m collecting all kinds of (tube) gear since decades, its just like an addiction and can not be satisfied with any kind of digital stuff, real gear is also a great investment especially the older tube rack and iconic amps while you will just lose money when you sell digital gear again. the portability is a big advantage of digital vs real gear for sure. i think that we will end up with hybrid devices like the new soldano stro 20 combining anaolg and digital technology iin a smaller lower wattage portable form factor chassis. cheers 🎸🎸
I sold my mark iv, KSR Orion, Headfirst Alta 100, and Adam jones spec plexi from ceriatone over the past couple months. Not cause I really wanted to but had shit come up. Not to mention I'm just playing at home so it's kinda dumb having all this. I'm using an FM3 now and I gotta say I'm digging it. I had a Kemper, a couple HX stomps, and a Quad Cortex over the past few years. I didn't really want to deal with Fractal cause it seems like they come out with something new every other year but I finally grabbed the standard fm3 and I'm really content with it.
I appreciate this video so much! Thank you so much for taking the time to create this and sharing!! I hope to see your character grow in the next year!
Awesome comparison video 🤘
Take care and happy holidays!!!
Forget hero of the lunch hour. Ryan just saved the second half of the workday. Muchas gracias, amigo!
🤣
Thank you so much for making this research. I've sold my Kemper several weeks ago after have been using for 5+ years. It's not awful, but I've tried everything and it just doesn't sound and feel like the amps it supposed to have the exact copy of. Its signature cocked-wah high mids, muddy low mids, sticking out attack, a lack of thump and presence are applied like a watermark on every profile. And I guess it wasn't just me, if Pod Go sounds much closer and more authentic than Kemper here :) I'm now choosing between QC and FM9.
This is what the internet was made for.
Also 2:21:15 - BOSS be like "oh we don't put the Dimension in our modeler either"
TIL... that is absolutely criminal.
Great vid ... kind of the best comparison I've came across so far ... kudos :)
The madlad finally did it. I can't imagine how much effort and money went into this, but i'm glad this bonkers project is finally done. Pardon my comically long comment to accompany the comically long video, the TLDR is more or less in line with the video's conclusion.
I love watching these types of videos with them either minimized or whilst i'm otherwise not looking at the video during the initial loop of the comparison so that i'm not listening with my eyes the whole time. Something that struck me as funny with this is that every time i notice the sound had changed in a way that was important enough to make me check on the video during comparisons to your real amps, it was ALWAYS because it had switched to (or away from) the Kemper. Whether or not i preferred the sound is irrelevant to my point, but the Kemper never sounded like the other modelers *or the amp*.
The preamble and caveats leading up to the comparison with no control group is a brilliant example of why i don't like the capture method from a usability standpoint. If i'm trying to dial in a sound with a specific amp, i want the controls to behave the way they do on that amp, even if that amp's controls don't work like they do on other amps (Mark series, Valvestate, etc). Kemper, PG Bias, ToneX, etc not doing that drives me insane, even if the tones are good.
All in all, these 3 platforms are perfectly good, but between the workflow quirks and sound differences, I personally wouldn't like to use the Kemper. It's fine, but even the POD is a tier above in my opinion. I'm shocked at how good the Line 6 sounds a few years after launch. For me, the Fractal did the best on average of sounding like the real gear, and in the situations where it was digital vs digital vs digital I felt it and the Line 6 traded blows. Given the cost of the more capable Helix units compared to that of the FM9, and given the debatably overkill specificity on the Fractal model selection, i think i'd go Fractal out of the modelers you can buy new, but the POD Go specifically is something that shouldn't be overlooked.
The PodGo is missing some detail in the high end, no matter how much I crank the treble I can't get sparkling cleans. Bumping the treble and presence on my PowerStage poweramp helps but I've been thinking about swapping it for a FM3 just for tone reasons.
I've had similar experiences on many of the Helix platform's cleaner amps, yet the opposite problem on high gain amps. I'm not sure where exactly the deficiency lies, but it seems integral to the amp model in a way that post-EQ changes simply does not make up for it.
I would have liked to see the Stomp as I think it's a closer rep for Helix to the FM3 but the PodGo is sounding better each update. Great Vid.
i came for the amazing riff collection ... now its time for the leon todd podcast to the comentary version of this video hahahah
Feature length PSS video?! Sign me the Hell up!
@ 1:30:00ish, is that some of your Siderum stuff?
I recognise it... Children of the Stars?
Being the nerd you are, I'm surprised you didn't call it Children of the Stats. Lmao I'll see myself out.
Yep, song 3 - Custos Hominum.
@PlagueScytheStudios really enjoyed alot of stuff on that ep, Ryan.
Looks like fractal audio is still the king!
I watched the whole video, I was a little surprised at how much better the real rig and pedals sound. I expected the real rig to sound better but there was a bigger difference than I expected. One of the high gain leads sounded a little weak on the real Mark IV but to me it sounds like the reamp box is not outputting enough gain on that particular clip. I really like the FM3 except for the cleans with wet fx, I thought it sounded thin and distant.
why pod go little bit similar to fm3 ? Do you feel it?
Great work! Thanks a ton for this.
I'm not even half way through this video, but already thanks for the enormous efford man, your content is always really freaking interesting to watch. I have to say, I love my Helix, I've been using it for 6 years now, but I absolutely noticed a MASSIVE improvement in my tone when I started pairing it with the Tonex pedal 2 months ago. And in this video as well, the tones are absolutely not bad, but a bit... lacking as it were.
A few key points I'm pulling out of my butt while watching this: It's interesting to me how often the Fractal and Line6 have a similar type of sound / raw kind of texture to them, that is unlike the Kemper, which is also unlike the amp. I'm surprised in general how different the Kemper sounds to the amps. Especially that low-medium gain example at the start was... interesting. And not in a good way, in my opinion - I expected better from it.
All in all, awesome awesome video. Super nerdy, but that's exactly what I love to see (and hear).
@55:00 ish that Exodus riff comparison \m/
Thanks for your efforts. Just subscribed
Thank you for putting chapter markers.
01:17:34 badass NILE riffing
this 3 hour video is just cheating, since he introductory talking takes more time than the actual content😂..just kidding you are one of a very few gear related channels left that is worth watching and not just stupid infomercials with just boring commercial content. by the way i have traded my kemper for an very old jcm jmp original condition with some quality pedals and have never regretet it haha 💯
Man I was ignorant of the fact that Cab / Mic IRs don’t capture non-linearities. I thought they were accurate as long as they had enough resolution. Thanks for the note about IRs and non-linearity there. Maybe for amplitude non-linearity a compressor block can be added after the cab block in modelers to get somewhat better results.
That is essentially the reason FAS has added so many features to the Cab block over the years to accompany the IR - microphone preamp emulation, dynamic range controls, etc. That fills in all the gaps of a real (and typical) cab > mic > preamp signal in my experience.
Ui Yeah , thanks for that Buddy ! Pure Entertainment and so much Work, you catched me with the traped under ice Riff at the beginning.
Now I'm going to get myself a coffee and keep watching!
The algorithm is not good for the video !!! This is a shame
I just had to get this off my chest
Sub 🤜🤛
I want to get an FM3, but having an HX Stomp already and still getting significant updates from Line6 kills my GAS
Great content. I’m running a boss G1 until I build my own pedal board. I am only going to go thru real amps. That’s what my hero’s used, so will I,
Cortex seems out of the picture here
Did you have Kemper's "pure cabinet" on or off in this test? I find it makes everything sound a bit stale and cuts the hight end if its on.
No, I didn't have any "enhancement" turned on for any of these devices.
@@PlagueScytheStudios Great. I think its turned on by default which is quite odd in my opinion. I find it eats the sound even when turned to 0. It must be on the "off" option to get it completely out of the sound.
Cool video. Slightly related but how is the fm3 to change settings from the front panel? Recently sold my ax8 and am sticking to my hx stomp, purely from ease of adjusting on the fly.
FM3 is in a whole other universe when it comes to dialing in tones from the hardware controls. I still prefer FM3 Edit ahen making a preset from scratch, but tweaking on the screen is no problem. I would basically never even go that far on the AX8 because of how low resolution and clunky the interface was.
What would be the best speaker/amp system that you would recommend most for the fm3? Thanks🍻
I have been away from the FRFR scene, so I can't give much insight into those platforms. I guess FAS has put their stamp of approval on Redsound since they are selling those products in the shop. I really hope that partnership results in a Kemper Kab / L6 Powercab type device that does both FRFR and Celestion speaker emulation.
For the money, Headrush still seems to be at the top of the "typical" FRFR systems.
Interesting video, I skipped a lot because well I don’t have that kind of time or attention span lol, but I do agree with you conclusion to a point. I think an argument could be made for a helix Lt over an fm3 depending on what the user needs. Line 6s warranty is second to none and are also readily available in store and can be found usually at fairly good prices. But when you get to the $1500 full helix, you get no cpu/performance upgrade. At this point yes absolutely it makes more sense to go fm9. But as always to each their own.
Hi. Great video far. I'm only 40 mins in but just wanted to ask a question before I forget. If you make an impulse response of your cabs would a null test against the real cab show any differences as I think i can hear a very subtle difference in the higher end of the frequencies. I could be totally wrong but thought I would ask.
If one were to record the amp signal split into the cab and IR simultaneously, then a null test should work and give real results, in theory. However, I did not do that because I recorded each amp channel twice since I had to shoot the IR between recordings.
There are definitely some subtle high frequency differences with the KAM microphone samples, but it's small enough that I would still clarify it as functionally the same between the cab and IR. A simple low pass filter would erase a lot of those minor differences.
@@PlagueScytheStudios thanks for the reply. I get it. It's took you some patience to do all those recordings and I for one appreciate the effort. I'm currently on a tone searching journey/ rabbit hole and all the info is a great help. They are to a point pretty identical and close enough to be indistinguishable. I've been using fab filter match eq after my tests to get the sounds even closer and it's getting to the point where you can't hear the differences.
Well, looks like I just developed a cough bad enough to miss work today.
IR’s tend to make tubes amps sound (more similar) good idea to use the real speaker load
Okay so I haven't watched all the way through yet but: any experience with Ik Multimedia/Amplitube 5's ToneX? I have it and don't use it but I've heard its pretty decent
I have a huge video on it as well. The short story is that it's better than Kemper, but still struggles to capture many of the same "atypical" amps or pedals that Kemper does (high noise floor, fuzzy distortion texture, etc.).
@PlagueScytheStudios Cool! I must have missed it I'll double check I have all channel notifications on
No Headrush? Start over and make it longer
ryan do you feel a big difference in playing them? of course a cab and mic can sound very very close to a plug-in and ir or modeler etc. but what about actually playing it?
The older I've gotten, the more I've enjoyed playing through my studio monitors regardless of the gear type (tube amps through a load box, amp modelers, plugins, etc.). Without a subwoofer, you lose the "thump" of a 4x12, but it's all there with a sub, plus more controllable and hi-fi (at least with my setup). So the feel through cab IRs through the right setup is fantastic to me.
For the amp side - if tube amps are the benchmarks for feel, 3rd gen FAS modeling is basically indistinguishable. The POD GO isn't bad, certainly not in terms of latency, but just not as satisfying when it comes to the percussive effects you're supposed to get from palm mutes or aggressive picking.
Kemper is a weird one. There is essentially no feeling of sag / sponginess to me, and as a result feels like more like a transistor amp in many ways than amp modelers of old. It's unique and I still like that about the toaster.
@@PlagueScytheStudios awesome feedback brother. I have never really played a high gain amp or through a cab. I used to have a deluxe reverb years ago but thats not really a comparison i think. I have really only been playing with plugins and through some older yamaha hsm5s. I often have fomo in regard to tube amps but im starting to fight back against that mentally and just enjoy playing.
what pickups are you using on this test?
Basically everything I own.
@@PlagueScytheStudios for high gain tone Did you uses EMG active?
I own Pod Go, does the pod go really good if Im use EMG/fishman active pickups?
I plan to replace my guitar with those active pickups soon.
Well, I know what I'm watching tonight 😁😁
i have noticed that a lot of famous musicians are switching back to real gear again even on stage, a lot of marshall jvm`s and synergy rigs showing up on the bigger stages and less kemper and other lifeless digital gear is used live or in studio, most likely just as fx units or backup.. thank you for that great video 🙏🙏
Dec. 7. Watched it again. Just so needed. I just like the "feel" of real amps. I usually run 2 4x12s, thru my effects unit, from my amp head. What I have found in the last several years of playing 4 to 5 hours a day, I can set the volume at 2, and achieve with the use of the eq, and tweeking the delay and reverb. I don't do covers but I do do tone. I can get the tones that I want, or pretty damn close. I don't know how this applies to using computers and monitors, but I want that punch from a real amp. There is no substitut for me.
It blew me away that the fractal sounded more similar to the real amp than the Kemper in the high gain tones
Kind of defeats the purpose of profiling right?
@@PlagueScytheStudios Line6 was also more closer in the high gain tones too, fractal is a big win for me here, even in the amps that you have to do approximations like the gargoyle, fractal sounded almost exactly like the real amp, and it's not even simulated there
Kemper always seems to be a bit more "middy" and Pod Go seems to adds some highs, but fractal was practically a mirror image of the amps
I could barely tell any difference between the IR from real mic cabs on the high gain but for lower gain/clean the real cab wins convincingly.
1. Boogie 2. Fractal . 3=4 ...probably adding highs to the Kemper would help
😎😎nice vid dude😎😎
Another PSS to dive into today!
Oh I'm interested in that one. I don't own any pedals anymore. But I'd love to justify buing some.
So much riffing!!! \m/
Danm dude, this is great.
As a bassist I'm still annoyed at fractal for having less than 10 amps. Hell, if they juat modelled and Aguilar head I'd jump ship straight away.
EDIT: I should add as a daily HX stomp user the bass amps saturate way to fast compared to their real counterparts
you better not try the fender tonemaster pro...at 1700 its a joke
I can't even describe how badly I would love to have one for a few weeks to work with just for the schadenfreude factor. From everything I've seen and heard about the TMP, I'm convinced there's a Line 6 or NDSP spy working for Fender that purposefully sabotaged it.
@@PlagueScytheStudios wow...interesting, I think they over priced it and under deivered it. I mean fractal and line6 both have more fender models then this. why? Its pretty much a gtx100 amp in a floor unit with better effects.The whole amp lineup reads like the gtx100. Why not release at 750-1000 and just have a boatload of beautiful unique fender amps? Its just silly
@@PlagueScytheStudios you can always buy one and return it.
🖤
I heard the best tone I heard in my church over the weekend we have Helix guys Kemper guys, this tone was coming from a Valveton gp200! No need for premium priced products anymore
Sorry but the Fractal is just so much better. I've tried them all. I've got the real amps and pedal and an FM3 and FM9. Fractal is the leader in this tech. Sorry Quad guys! LOL
Pod Go don't have the same oversampling of Helix, not the best representative of Line 6.
Neither is the FM3 the best representative of FAS, but that is the point per my explanation in the beginning.
@@PlagueScytheStudios You have a point, Sr.
@@PlagueScytheStudiosBut it's not like you said in the video. You said: "it's going to sound the exact same way of the full-fledged Helix". No, it won't.
You are correct, though you have to keep in mind that a vast majority of people can't even tell the difference between 2x and 16x oversampling in amp plugins. By the time this audio compressed on UA-cam, the variation between how I would dial in an amp and how you would dial in an amp is going to be an order of magnitude more in difference than what high frequency aliasing is contributing.
Similarly, the AX8 technically didn't have the same level of antialliasing that the AXE FX II was able to achieve. Still, I think most people would agree the overall modeling and sound quality is basically the same. That is what I was getting at with the POD Go (and this video is long enough without me going into all those tangents, or the FM3 Mk II Turbo, etc.).
Holy shit
The Whammy effect is dogshit on both my PodGo and our other guitar player's Helix. It's so bad I have a real Whammy in the FX loop. It is slow to follow the expression pedal and if you play more than one note at a time, forget it.
I have a Rockerverb, a JVM, a Dual Rec, a GT1000, a pod hd500, and a crate gt1200h.
And lately its just been the hd500 for delay and reverb and the crate head. Simple simple
What about BOSS GX100 ?!
POD GO is great for the money, great GUI imo. Limited but gives you plenty good sounds and enough to play live.
However the Fractal modeling sounds better to my ears.
Also, not included here, but Neural DSP I think got it with making a GUI that’s user friendly, having sounds “pre-processed” and presets which are really usable out of the box and user friendly.
If we ignore all the delays, promises, etc and relatively high pricing (on QC and especially on Nano Cortex) which IMO can only be justified by their investment in marketing, their products are great and at the same level of Kemper/L6/Fractal.
Kemper all day. Having owned Line 6, Fractal, Headrush, various amps and finally Kemper. Hands down Kemper for me. The scrutiny of studio recordings reveal a lot. Of course excellent profiles are a must, so whenever people make judgments, the quality of the profile is crucial.
Fractal sounded way better to me
Noice
Just get a Quad Cortex and be done with it!
Neural DSP got it together,,.cortex blah..Too little too late un fortunately, at least for me.
let all the early first gen adopters work out the bugs, I might jump in on QC 2.0
One things for certain based on this video.
I really dislike how the Forton 33/Grind/Blade pedals sound.
almost 3 hour video, jesus christ
Shame the criminally underrated Boss GT-1000 is again left behind. ( i don't own one)
I've heard that the gt1000 amp modelling is absolutely stellar. Would love to try one. Hate the interface though
Sorry. This video was just far too long for me to sit through. I can't keep my hands off my FM9 Turbo that long. I went straight to the conclusion to get your thoughts.
Incredible spergery on display here - I salute you, sir. 🫡. God speed.
Pro tip: you can't get diagnosed with obsessive compulsive or development disorders if you never get tested for them!