Last night I...

Houston this is NASA.
 
We may have one returning home.
 
Great news!!!!!!!!
 
:-)

 
 
Why is that? Do they have a really strict return policy?
 
:-)

 
Are you are expecting to buy a used example of something you suggest no one will ever part with?
 
Or did you list your '62 Strat for sale on ebay?
 
:-)
 

 
The Teisco would probably tickle my fancy, but I'm still flirting with the last guitar I brought home.
 
Good luck with the sales!

Rain, 
 
I finally put an SM58 on my Vox amp running my 70's Strat in w/o any effect.  The sound was so smooth and responsive compared to GR5 that I use ALL the time.  So now I will be splitting the guitar through a direct box and picking up the direct in case I want to use GR5 and also getting the mic on amp as well.  I was really pleased with the sound.  
 
Rimshot

The reason I'm usually so disagreeable about the amp sims is that I never stopped playing real amps.
 
Not only that but I bought a house and an out building in the country 20 years ago so we can play real amps here at any time of the day at any volume we want.
 
It's FUN!
 
I have spent the past 35 years figuring which amps I think sound great and which sound good.
 
Then I bought or built a collection of amps that sound great. I then went crazy and starting buying and commissioning the construction of custom built speakers so I have collection of speakers that represent the history of the voices of rock and roll, blues, and jazz. (oh yeah metal... in my feeble mind that's just a sub category of rock)
 
I also have all those cool analog pedals folks talk about.
 
Folks reading this surely think I'm crazy... or happen to hate what ever amp I happen to like etc. etc. Millions of dollars have been spent to sway peoples pre conceived opinions about amps etc.
 
My opinions were formed from having worked with 100s of bands at live shows and thus hearing many 100s of amps. Some were great some were not. All of them got their best shot of impressing me and I slowly experienced and became aware of the field of choice. That's why my opinions sometimes seem strong on the subject... I'm fairly well informed with first hand experience.
 
Having said that... I DO NOT DISCOUNT anyone else's experience... and in fact always have to humbly remind folks that I am fully aware that almost every one plays guitar better than I do. I drive amps with a guitar. That's sort of what I do. I just happen to know loads of fantastic guitarists. Many are here at the forum.
 
What happens at my place these days is that my guests bring over their gear, start playing mine, and then I have to wipe the drool off their chins. They know it as soon as they hear it.
 
It's really really FUN!
 
Then there are little things like facts. A few, well more than a few, of my amps, are Class A design. You will never get the sound of a Class A amp out of an amp with a different design. NEVER. 
 
What that means is that most modeling amps will never sound like a Class A amp... they sound like recordings of a Class A amp. Bummer.
 
Here is an opinion; Class A amps are the most fun to play because they don't have ANY cross over distortion and you get a full sweet sound. It's always easy to make it dirty and that sounds great too.
 
I'm sure that Kemper, or the next Kemper will eventually offer a Class A design option... it's inevitable that someone with the money will demand that sound. Class A is the most expensive part per watt design so it's unlikely that any price point modelers will ever offer it. Maybe someone will suggest a Class A preamp for direct recording. If it's not Class A start to finish... it doesn't sound Class A. It'll be useful to stay aware of that detail when the modeling amps start advertising Class A as a deluxe feature.
 
 
So any ways... I can imagine why a session cat in Nashville trying to work 3, 4 hour shifts a day at 3 different studios may want to drag a Kemper around. It is business and I pretty much agree with the idea that most of the important stuff is in your fingers. I don't imagine it's a fun as cutting loose on an actual guitar amp.
 
 
I think the fun part will keep people hungry for the best of the guitar amps (and speakers) for years to come.
 
 
Rock on!
 
:-)
 
best regards,
mike

I have just experienced working with a guitar amp and getting really great results. I have just completed producing four songs for a pop singer and I used electric guitars pretty heavily all over this. I was lucky to be able to hire a very talented and nice player who had a custom made amp built along the lines of a Fender Twin but modified to do more. It still had a powerful valve amp and twin speaker system. It sounded amazing in real life in conjunction with his pedal setup.
 
I have got this Shure PE75L vocal mike with quite a nice sound and when I put it on a guitar amp it just sounds great. I mic the cone on the edge pointing down toward the centre. The mic has a gentle rise in freq response from 1K to 5K and then a dip from 6-8K. It seems to marry well with close miced guitar speakers. Once a great guitar is plugged in and some decent sounding pedals I find it incredibly easy to get a great guitar sound printed to the DAW. The sound in front of the amp was deep, glassy, clean, fat just everything. The compression is already there, the crunch. the power, the effects etc all of it. If you set up a freq curve to offset the response of the mic in your DAW, an even warmer sound results. I find those tracks very easy to blend into a mix.
 
For rhythm parts I like to record two rhythm guitar parts playing the same part but just doubled. ie not exactly the same. This rocks when the timing of the player is very tight. Those two parts will sound like one but very wide. On the second overdub we changed the guitar amp settings, pedals and guitar in some cases. He was using a telecaster a lot which I like because of the versatility of the sounds that can come out of it. He also had a big Jazz guitar with humbuckers on it and that rocked being cranked in that amp as well.
 
We did clean rhythm guitars in pairs like this and also more crunchy ones and just some downright rude ones too! The distortion sounds coming out were huge as well. It is great when the guitarist knows how to create a great distortion sound feeding into such a clean system afterwards. It is great to record the amp very loud too. Another sound.
 
I also got him to record a third identical part but recorded that direct from the guitar into a DI. I ran this track often into an amp/cab sim and the one I like the most is Head Case that Danny Danzi had some involvement with the development of it. That VST sounds amazing. I can pull a killer sound out of it in seconds. It has got twin guitar amp heads and speakers so you can create a giant stereo setup too! I love it Danny! This third guitar from the guitar sim can be mixed in now at lower level with the other two forming a three pronged rhythm guitar part. This third part can be very stereo and wide if you want it to be as well. The total rhythm thing sounds huge and fat and wide. This guy could nail his own playing so perfectly too it was uncanny.
 
In the final mix I would send all three of those guitars to a bus for some final processing over the whole sound. (Pultec EQ perhaps and some final compression to keep things under control)

  
 One thing I have recently discovered through trial and error is that there needed to be some small boost between my POD and my interface. Even though I was putting the signal into the instrument inputs on my interface it wasn't enough.  I used a small pre amp I had laying around. Nothing high dollar. I can't wait to try it in my new stuff. The impedences match up pretty close. I only drove the pre slightly but it was enough to make a huge difference in the tone. The pre is designed to take a  signal from a standard mic cable. I used the pad switch on my HD500 to reduce the output to an acceptable level, fed it to the the pre in mono and the pre splits it to stereo because it has on board stereo effects. I simply took that output into my interface...what a difference it made.
 
 I am forced to record guitar the way I do basically because of the noise and the lack of a correct room to track an amp in unless I pull cables into other rooms. In my case the process is much easier to go from a thought to a finished track using simms. I undoubtedly loose some of the effect you get from playing a real amp. If pushed in a corner I can track  my amp but it isn't easy to do here. I don't think I loose anything at the end though, if I do it right which I haven't been. I'm not sure exactly how but I seem to get harmonic feedback when I play without a real amp. I am guessing that even digitally translated sound can be re introduced into the chain via the monitors,or maybe it's some slick programming that makes it feel that way. After doing things the wrong way for awhile I think I'm beginning  to sort out what I need to do and hopefully it will make a difference in the future.
  
 That Kemper seems like the thing to have for unlimited capability. A modeler no matter who makes it is simply the capture of a real amp crunched into numbers and then stored in a computer. The quality of the capture and the way the capture is replayed  has a lot to do with the outcome. All simms are not created equal. To me the best simms are the ones that not only sound like but BEHAVE like a real amp in a linear way. It is one thing to capture the sound and another to make the sound respond to the player the same way as the amp. I think that eventually we will come to the point where the model improves on the amp. This has already happened with keyboards. You can go further than you ever could with the hardware version. 
 
 Arguably you can do things with a simm that are next to impossible with a real amp. Maybe they aren't the things that matter to some and maybe they are. Noone with a laptop running Sonar and  GR5 and a pair of headphones will get the experience that can be had with a real amp. Like most things... Pros and Cons. Just as there can be weak links in running a total analog guitar setup there can be weak links in the simm chain, all the way from user to everything in between. Just my .00002
 
 

The Kemper is a dynamic convolution processor that uses several IRs so as to represent a range of reactivity.
 
That is why it sounds less stale than convolution processors that only use a single IR.
 
Old fashioned analog circuits have an INFINITE number of IRs.
 
It is pretty darn simple.
 
best regards,
mike

Then how come they sound the same?  And, more to the point, who gives a rats behind about what goes on under the hood if the outcome is the same or better?  And lighter.  And has all the stomps and post fx built in.  And is smaller.  And has quite literally hundreds of those big ungainly PITA to haul around boxes already stored in it for you to choose from...take your pick.  And reacts just like a "real" amp...whatever a "real" amp even means.  I mean isn't it the TONE we're after and more amps and options means better, no?  And it sells for around half of what many boutique amps (i.e. Trainwrecks or, gawd forbid, Dumbles) do and has both...and the aforementioned hundreds of others readily available for your twanging pleasure.  And can profile any future amp you might run across and like...or your own existing setup, so you don't have to lug it around anymore.  Or just to have it, like you do your existing amps, in your studio for you and your pals to wang on.  I guarantee it also would be:
 
FUN!!!!!!!
 
:-)
 

i did play a kemper.
 
it did not feel like a real tube amp to me.
 
it sounded great on the track.
 
but did not feel great playing through it.
 
i can tell you that.
 
 
now, pushing that kemper thru a 600 watt power amp, at stage volume..
now THAT might be a completely different experience.
 
then the real magic (using actual speakers to create the sound, rather than 0's and 1's) starts to happen.
 
for me, as a performance-driven musician, i have to be inspired by the feel and sound of my rig...
not just have it sounding great thru the monitors and on play back.
 
 
the kemper is probably at the top of the heap.....
 
but you'll NEVER see me trade my boogie in for a kemper.
 
well, maybe that version with the power amp will change my mind.
 
 
 
 
 
gigging guitarists, yes.....
studio musicians, yes...
 
but someone seeking their own signature tone, eh, not so much.
 
if i want the sound of a marshall Jubilee, i'll get a juby

You know this all reminds me of another debate. When listening to people talk about their DAW these days, it's like everyone needs a machine that can handle 1200 tracks w/ 12 plug-ins on each channel and 143 busses, and a variety of virtual processors that would put any actual hardware collection to shame.
 
Similarly, many of us get caught up in the idea that you need hundreds of different type of tones - hundreds of pedals and dozens of heads and cabs and virtual mics. But who needs that? Has everyone become a session player who's willing and able to play in absolutely every genre, so much that they need every pedal, amp and cabinet known to man?
 
Strangely, for all the options we have, music nowadays is depressingly lacking in terms of originality and personality. People seem so focused on classifying tones by types and re-creating this or that sound that music has effectively become pre-fabricated. When you think of music in terms of formulas like that, it's no wonder that it doesn't move us anymore most of the time. It's no longer fun to play or even to listen to. 
 
I'm not bashing the Kemper or any other things. But when the entire focus is placed more and more on re-creating something instead of creating something, that's when the magic fails to happen. 
 
With a Kemper, I'd be trying to re-create a Marshall sound or a Vox sound. 
With an actual Marshall, I focus on the actual sound and not how close it sounds to a real amp.
 
 
 
 

 
I've never played an Atomic Reactor but I think I get the idea.
 
I wonder how close the topology is to a Dynaco MK II home stereo amp from the late 1960s?
 
Do they make it any more? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
I just listened to an album that is full of Kemper:
 
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Between+The+Devil+And+Two+Black+Hearts/8337803
 
The solo on the One and the outro on Glimmering left me with some very distinct impressions.
 
The YouTube producer interview that inspired me to go listen to the record said they did it all super fast and it was super easy to get the guitar tone they wanted.