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[Kevin Bayersdorfer]

Oh good lord yes.

Whenever a lead singer shows up with his own "effects box" I always require a split of the dry microphone before it hits his box. Then I always take the output from his FX box and feed only that to the monitors. I may mix some of it into the house, if it is suitable. They always seem really happy when they get all their FX in their monitor. Everyone else in the band always seems really happy when they get only dry vocal in the monitor. It turns into a Win-Win-Win. LoL!!!

Great idea, when I see one I usually say well ok I'll try, but I never have good experiences with them. 99% of the time before the 2nd set I remove it from the chain.

[Scott Bolt]

I saw Queensryche last December and both Michael Wilton and the young guy (forgot his name) were using Kemper amps. Their FOH guy told me Michael had "profiled" his Marshall's with the Kemper...it sounded good..sounded like Queensryche. I recently provided sound for Crowder at a local fair. Their guitarist was using Kemper, again, it sounded good. That all said, I have heard many, MANY players with AveFX, Line6, or whatever else and it sounded terrible. Grainy, brittle, etc, etc.

I was on a large stage recently at a festival with my band, an 80s tribute band, and I had a wall of Marshalls behind me, 3 full stacks. 2 of which were in use in a quasi stero rig, one for looks. All vintage JCM800s, modified with efects loops. I had this young dude come up to me after the show and tell me that my guitar tone was killer sick but I had to "get with the times" and quit lumping around all these Marshalls. He proceeded to tell me how he can get this awesome JCM800 tone from his Line 6 modeler, yada, yada, yada. I asked him who he played with and he told me he "records at home" and plays thru his headphones...I smiled and thanked him for checking out our show.

Ok, before I say this .... no offense to those with the equipment I am about to defame

The Kemper simply acts like a tube amp better than anything but a real tube amp.  The AxeIIFx does an only slightly less impressive job of "acting tube" than the Kemper and the efx are stronger on the Axe.  These are the only two digital amps I currently put in the same category as a real tube amp.

While the Line 6 stuff is "Ok" for practice at home with headphones, it misses the mark IMO for live work.  The new Helix is better, but still quite "thin" compared to the real thing.  The older pod stuff (to my ears) was simply bad in any live situation.  It was thin and didn't cut into the mix as a good tube amp does.

.... and I completely agree.... a singer with an "efx box" requires a split of the dry mic before it hits the box.  Anything else is sure to get you into a world of s***.

[Roch Lafleur]

Same here re singers with their own "pedal"... split that signal! IMO, there's almost no situation where their settings, which may sound good to them on stage, will translate well in a bigger p.a.

As for profilers/modellers for guitar (or bass), I'm buying into the idea. A few years ago I mixed a band where the guitarist had a Kemper. I was very skeptical as I had never even heard of it. I assumed it would be bad. Turns out I was wrong. It sounded very good. So I started doing a bit of research and was blown away. I also stumbled on the Fractal Audio gear since a facebook friend works at FAS and keeps posting videos of his demos. Again, blown away.

I also play bass in a rock trio (cover band) where I have to cover quite a white range of styles (Beatles, Blue Rodeo, Foo Fighters, Black Keys, Big Sugar, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Clash) . Think clean, punchy, bright, dirty, very dirty, fuzzy, octave up and down, emulating simple guitar parts, synthy, etc. I ended up with a 28x16 board mostly loaded with boutique pedals. Last month, I listed  all my pedals (also have a smaller board for my country bands, including a touring artist). I've sold about half so far totaling close to Cdn$2,000 and purchased the FAS AX8. I only spent about 6 hours programming it and came up with some pretty cool tones, most pretty close to what pedals could do.

Although I have several amps and cabs (Aguilar, Ampeg, Euphonic Audio, Bergantino), I have been on IEM since 2003 and rarely use a rig for live shows, unless there is one already on stage at a festival. I used the AX8 at a show for the first time a couple weekends ago and it turns out my settings were a little too bassy for the FOH guy. No problem! I just turned down the bass on the output of the board and also sent him a direct signal (post effects but pre amp and cab simulator) et voilà! The rest of the band loved the tone in their IEM. Apparently it was also pretty good out front. Carrying a pedal in a laptop bag is certainly more appealing to me than carrying a huge pedal board + 50-100lbs tube head and 100lbs cab. It is also more consistent, quieter on stage and sounds even better in my IEM.

For programming, I started with presets from other users and found them really bass heavy. This was done at a pretty high volume through one of my PRX615 which is a bit scooped. I rolled off the low end quite a bit, but not quite as much as I would have since I knew the 615 was bassy. I will be going to my buddy's studio in the next couple of weeks to do more programming through his reference monitors. I think that should get me pretty close to where I want to be. I'm currently using an Orange 200B and Aguilar 810 simulators, but may end up removing the Ag or both from my signal chain. The effects are awesome though. You can get lost easily in programming these things as there are endless parameters to adjust. From what I've heard so far, I'm confident it will be perfect to cover any band I play with.

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