Appreciate you guys work. I think a better comparison is not trying to keep the settings the same, but seeing how good hey would sound tweaked as much as possible (tweaking modelers, drives, delays, & reverbs). Each technology works different for sure. I believe the amp would still sound better, but the Kemper and Quad would be a lot closer. Thanks again and keep up the great work.

Love the video, guys! Can't wait for Neural to open up the QC Marketplace so we can buy your captures

There was something in the mids of the Kemper I could never get over. I used it for years, though. Nothing else could beat the convenience and consistency at the time. Now I’m on the QC and tone wise, it fixes most of the stuff I disliked about the Kemper. With the QC, I modeled my Bad Cat preamp and feed the preamp back to my Bad Cat with all of the pre and post effects on the QC. 4CM quality with one cable to the effects return.

this is literally the perfect video

I love all the disclaimers. You can't make everyone happy, but at least you tried! Lol. Good video, guys! *QC is the way.

The Kemper sounds a bit darker and the QC sounds a bit brighter than the amp to my ears.

I’m gonna say, to my ears, the Quad sounded best in every category. I’m a sucker for openness and high end frequency clarity. I’m literally not bias towards any three of these. I’m a Helix guy and can’t wait to see the Tone Match comparison coming soon. I might be bias on that one lol

In the Quad Cortex you can get the sound even closer if you mess with the input gain and the impedance, to get even closer to the amp. Also, the captures of the Quad Cortex are based on a specific algorithm (that's why after you do a capture it gives you a generic menu of bass, mids, treble, gain, and volume) , so it's better to do comparisons with the amps that were actually modeled by Neural DSP that are more accurate.

the QC with my InEars sounds sucks lol but the kemper sound like heaven in my ears! that’s why I sold the QC and I have my kemper back that I love! the kemper is more organic tone!

When we used the QC to capture my AC15 and my Kilt and Little Green Wonder the captures tended to be a little Bright, especially the Kilt one. But that was very easily mitigated with the controls on the QC. And we were getting truly amazing Sounds. Here the amp capture seemed always cleaner. In my Experience the QC gain knob on the capture works super well. IIRC the Kemper doesnt like the gains of the profiles adjusted much. Also teh Kemper had some pretty different midrange going on on a couple spots here.

Thanks WT for the video! Ive been wanting to see this kind of side by side comparison video between these products. I understand why some like QC better than Kemper. It sounds really really good! But as WT guys mention many times in their videos, it depends on what works for you. i know i wont be able to tell the difference when my e.gtr tracks are mixed with all other instruments in a song, which is the most important thing to me personally. So id rather keep my kemper than selling it to buy a QC and spend few more hundred dollars in the process.. Great video! Thanks!

Great video fellas! Hell of a comparison job! Love how detailed oriented these were captured, also love the honest practical use cases for each being talked about. One thing i would like to mention and see what you guys think, is the whole voltage regulation/lack of volume when stacking or boosting pedals. I feel like it gets commonly overlooked when people think about these units. As someone who owns a Kemper, thats really my only issue with it. Nothing is worse than when you kick on a solo and its the same volume as an OD setting (maybe just more fuzzy haha). Not sure how the Quad Cortex does in this area, but if I had to guess it seems like this might just be a problem of all digital amps. Would love to know if you guys had any thoughts on them in this area?

At least with the KZfaq compression and whatnot, the profiles/captures sounded . . . dryer? Lacking some of the harmonics, particularly with the gained up sounds. The Tyler sounds richer and more saturated. In fact, particularly with the QC, it almost sounded like the capture didn't know where the "edge" of breakup ought to be.

once gain is added, especially w/ the delay, the QC starts sounding thin and the Kemper lacks depth. But in a mix, without the meticulous mic placement and eq of the live amp, the Kemper would fit just fine.

Please make one including axe fx!

Awesome comparison! I got the QC in May '21 and have gone back and forth with what to use as my "amp tone". Since the Capture functionality is the "flagship of the unit" - and it allows you access to amps NDSP hasn't provided yet - it's the shiny light that draws you in. I've got some nice gain pedals that I've Captured - and I've found that you do have to gain the pedals up a decent bit when using an amp Capture to get the same levels of drive/gain that I've had on other units (at lower settings). I've also heard the high end clarity you mentioned. Both of those things have been good and bad for me. I agree with your comments around "I'd just set the KoT pedal differently and would be quite happy" or "... in the mix..." - but I've also found that I am love/hate with the QC and my iLoud Micro monitors - which are small and have a good bit of high end... so the QC articulation stacked on top of the iLouds can get excessive. ... enough virtual rambling - thank you for the video and your comments. It helped ease my mind some as I've heard similar things.

Y'all should do this again with the UAFX amp sims.

I love how you guys keep saying it's just opinions and not necessarily better or worse. For the Fuzz comparison, I couldn't disagree more. The amp sounds like there's a blanket over it, and the QC sounds like it's taken off. One is going to be completely buried in a mix, and the other isn't. But that's just my opinion :)

I had the kemper and moved onto the Quad Cortex. I’m trying out the fractal. Not too sure yet if it’s better than the QC

Great video. I've been a long time Kemper user and moved over to quad cortex a few months ago, never looked back. Kemper's are still killer units and but the QC just edges it on sound for me. Kemper's FX are better at the minute but that'll change with time/updates. You can definitely hear a thing goin on with the Kemper where it does a weird thing with the mids, still sounds good but its just not as accurate as the QC at capturing an amps sound.

Thanks for the video !!! that's a great way to showcase the A to B to C :) if you used the drives and delays on the Kemper vs QC that might be cool (you guys got time LOL :) Like you guys said, i like to get in, setup quick and get out of there fast so, i dont even bring a pedal board. So, it would be an onboard kinda comparison. Any rate, thanks for this video :)

Nerding out here a bit, but I would definitely be down for a Tone Match comparison (AxeFX vs Helix stuff your doing). Also, because of this video, I am now curious how the AxeFX takes pedals versus a matching amp. Since you have said in the past that AxeFX has the best FX "overall", I am not sure that many would use real pedals in front, but now you have me wondering about this. Also, if you made that video you could compare how it takes a real KOT (for example) versus one that is in AxeFX and see if there is a difference. Anyway, Brian has me leaning towards AxeFX these days at least to try. My Sunday morning rig is stereo amps (HX stomp on one side w/your AC30 Fawn preset, and real AC15 on the other). The AC15 stays at the church so I don't have to tote it. 😁 Anyway, super great video! I have been wondering about Kemper vs QC.

I know it’s a bummer for you guys that there’s no Neural Marketplace in place at the moment, but have you considered selling presets and captures the way Alter Amp Works does? I know it’s a more labor intensive method, but I really think if you guys committed to it, you could OWN the “paid captures” market long before the marketplace comes along, and when it does you’ll have the market good and primed. It could be a huge advantage.

The QC seems to struggle at clean to low gain. The Kemper sounds much more realistic up until mid to high gain and then things start evening out. Incredible how the good the Kemper still is.

Excellent vid - but the Fractal Audio FM9 OUGHT to be in here, too!

I'm only 11 mins in but the amp sounds more saturated, though the Kemper is full sounding as well. The differences are there to be picked apart by us guitar tone junkies, but the average congregant will never notice any difference. That's a good thing though so they can just focus on worship! My church is kicking the tires on purchasing modelers for the two electrics, we're currently running amps off stage. Not sure I'm ready to make the leap.

I think that here the amps sounds a bit better but it's miced with a ribbon mic on a studio environment. On a live situation probably the sound of both modelers would be better than the real amp sound,mixed with an SM57...

24:52 Alot of people just say they work out. But I didn’t need Bradford to tell me in order for me to know.

Could you make a video showing how you’d adjust in the units to sound more like the amp? I think that’d be cool.

7:01 Amp 7:08 Kemper 7:15 QC 7:22 Amp 9:17 Amp 9:23 Kemper 9:31 QC 9:38 Amp 9:43 Kemper 9:50 QC 9:56 Amp 10:07 Amp 10:17 Kemper 10:26 QC 10:36 Amp 10:45 Kemper 10:55 QC FUZZ: 14:18 Amp 14:30 Kemper 14:43 QC 14:55 Amp Clean WET: 16:23 Amp 16:37 Kemper 16:51 QC Dirty WET: 17:18 Amp 17:28 Kemper 17:37 QC 17:46 Amp 17:55 Kemper 18:04 QC 1:14 Amp 1:40 QC 1:27 Kemper 2:03 Amp 2:15 Kemper 2:28 QC 2:42 Amp

Out of interest, are you sure Pure Cabinet is completely OFF on the Kemper?

FIRST!

In your screenshot of the QC setup, I was trying to get why it came in on line 2, then split in line 1 to Return 1 and then eventually to the 1/2 out. What is the Return 1?

The real question is: which one did you use for monitoring when playing? That’s going to dictate how you set up the pedals.

Awesome video! Really enjoyed this. Would be so curious to see/hear how a Simplifier would go vs a real amp - the Simplifier amp models aren’t based on any one specific amp model, but more in terms of how it responds with pedals. Does it respond ‘more like a real amp’ than a QC or Kemper?? Hmm…

Ignoring accuracy, Kemper sounded better than the QC for most cases..

Prob QC for me. But I run full pedal board into a modded blues Jr. into two notes cam m into two notes captor 8.

Where Tyler buys caps please!!!!!!!

To my ears, Kemper and real amp both break up more than QC. QC is cleaner and brighter than BOTH the real amp and the Kemper. I bet if you mixed the QC and the Kemper together, you’d have something VERY close to the real amp in these recordings! One thing to keep in mind if you switched from Kemper to QC…you won’t have NEARLY as many great commercially available profiles (e.g., MBritt etc.) nor will you have nearly as many free profiles uploaded by Kemper’s vast user base. Food for thought…🤔 🤷🏻‍♂️

Clean tones hard to tell. Drive tones: Amp wins both Kemper and QC sound less driven. QC sounds nearer Eq wise.

The fact that the QC is being compared to a >10 year old product and it sounds practically the same says something. Like @Tone Junkies said recently, amp modeling has “peaked”.

Any presets for the quad yet?

Question, what kind of bear is best?

Some places here on the more gainy stuff the Kemper does not sound good at all.

I guess I’m second 🤷🏻‍♂️

I am going to pick the Fractal Audio product every time.

This comparison makes no sense to me. That's not the way profilers are designed. You can't take an XX profile then put analog pedals in front of it and hope they respond like the real amp! Profiling is a static photograph of the amp. Putting pedals in front of it causes the real amp to behave differently according to the rules of physics. Kemper & QC cannot "predict" the behavior of the amp if the type of input stress changes. The algorithm can let's say "try to guess" but it doesn't have certain and measurable elements to work with, they should probably equip the profilers with artificial intelligence for this purpose (QC is probably later on this). In other words, if pedals are used, the profile of the Kemper must surely be redone to take into account the dynamic behavior triggered by the real amp as a result of a variation in the input signal. From this point of view, the modeler is the solution which, unlike a profiler, is made with mathematical models that represent the response of the modeled amp to any type of solicitation. This also makes us understand how much more complex it is to create a truly realistic modeler than a profiler who only takes static photos. Also for this reason, with today's technology, it seems that the modeler always behaves differently from the real amp. The technology is not yet evolved enough.

I used Quard Cortex and now its sound. It sounds boring.

Third!

I'll make this simple: Tube Amp > Profiler > 0's and 1's

Love the cork sniffing nerdery 🎧🤓. Everyone knows the angels in heaven only play real botique amps. Digital is a 2nd rate quality trap from the enemy to degrade our worship to God 😳. Joking aside I use/have digital gear (iridium, Kemper) I use but only when I have to. It’s good enough that probably not noticeable in a mix but I can tell a big difference in playing. Enough of one to personally pay 💰 for it…

No AxeFx? The disrespect...