Tonex or Kemper Player?

guitarcookie1

Long time Line 6 user (Stomp) & I like small boards (LT was too big). 

Is the Kemper worth twice the price (almost) of the Tonex?

Plan to keep the Stomp for fx only. 

digitalscream

If I'm honest, I'd be sticking with the Stomp for a while, to see if Two Notes can bring their GENOME plugin to the hardware world. With the ability to use NAM, Proteus and AIDA-X captures, it's got a hell of a lot of flexibility.

For what it's worth, I found that adding a couple of delay pedals to the Stomp's loops made it a totally giggable setup - I had everything I needed in a single preset.

relic245

Is the kemper worth twice the price?

Does it have features that you must have that the tonex doesn't?

If not then I'd say no.

I have a tonex and it's changed my musical life.

Had to buy some decent captures but once I did it came to life.

It does the sound in my head perfectly. I can't imagine something that sounds better to my ears.

Best £280 (used) I've spent in a very long time.

handsomerik

@relic245 ;
which captures did you buy? I’m struggling with my Tonex to get a great clean sound. I already have the input trim set to -3.0. Playing mostly with normal vintage style humbuckers so nothing that’s hugely driving the input. 

kennedydream1980

handsomerik said:

@relic245 ;
which captures did you buy? I’m struggling with my Tonex to get a great clean sound. I already have the input trim set to -3.0. Playing mostly with normal vintage style humbuckers so nothing that’s hugely driving the input. 

Try Amalgam Audio or Keemosawbe captures. They both work for me with the input trim set at the default +8.5. Both of their packs are similar in that they split them up into gain ranges. Like clean, edge, crunch, drive and lead. They then have bright, balanced and dark versions of each gain range.

kennedydream1980

guitarcookie1 said:

Long time Line 6 user (Stomp) & I like small boards (LT was too big). 

Is the Kemper worth twice the price (almost) of the Tonex?

Plan to keep the Stomp for fx only. 

For what it’s worth the Tonex pedal has been proven to be more accurate in a null test. Check out Leo Gibson on YouTube for that.

On the kemper you get 2 slots for fx before the amp and 2 after. So you do have access to drives, mods reverbs and delays. From what I understand not all the full fat kemper effects are available on the player. So you get the basic reverbs and delays etc. On the Tonex you have a compressor a noise gate and a reverb.

John_P

When I was looking for a small pedal I nearly bought the hx stomp but fancied a change as I'd tried them before,   if the kemper player had been around I'd have bought it.   But I'm glad the tonex was out first as I prefer the smaller size with the tonex fitting on a pt nano.  
The effects built in to the kemper look very handy though.

I suspect I'd struggle to hear the difference between amp captures from the same supplier between kemper and tonex so it will come down to effects built in being useful or not,  size and editing ease.  

relic245

handsomerik said:

@relic245 ;
which captures did you buy? I’m struggling with my Tonex to get a great clean sound. I already have the input trim set to -3.0. Playing mostly with normal vintage style humbuckers so nothing that’s hugely driving the input. 

Amalgam.

I don't really use a sparkling clean sound.

I'm loving the marshall superbass set which gives me the cleans I like.

I also bought their matchless dc30 set and fender delux.

I was playing with the deluxe last night which was really nice but I still didn't find it as glassy clean as my old Twin but was still a lovely sound.

guitarcookie1

So I went with the Tonex (£340 on Amazon).

Took it to practice last night and I'm very impressed. Only used a couple of the factory presets, "Dark Clean" was my favourite, and have bought a couple of Amalgam & Tone Junkie packs to play with this weekend.

Had no problem being heard against keyboard, bass & acoustic guitars (me Vintera Tele Deluxe).

One thing that's always irked me about Line 6 modelling is a tinny/fizzy top end that is really hard to dial out, but none of that present with the Tonex captures.

relic245

guitarcookie1 said:

So I went with the Tonex (£340 on Amazon).

Took it to practice last night and I'm very impressed. Only used a couple of the factory presets, "Dark Clean" was my favourite, and have bought a couple of Amalgam & Tone Junkie packs to play with this weekend.

Had no problem being heard against keyboard, bass & acoustic guitars (me Vintera Tele Deluxe).

One thing that's always irked me about Line 6 modelling is a tinny/fizzy top end that is really hard to dial out, but none of that present with the Tonex captures.

Welcome to the family  

The only captures I've bought are from Alamgam and I'm very impressed. Would be interested in your thoughts on those and also the Tone Junkie ones.

Fortheloveofguitar

A great choice

Love my ToneX. The only other brand I had was a Quad Cortex but the ToneX captures were far superior to the QC for me personally. 

spev11

As a constant amp changer I've been looking at the Tonex, i've no interest in profiling really but , as I enjoy a number of different musical styles and would like a range of amps (which I cant afford) would a Tonex into a power amp or FRFR speaker be a decent solution ? I don't want to use my computer (as I' be tied to it). 
 As an example I'd like a Princeton style clean amp, some kind of silly hi-gain (SLO, Rectifier etc) for the chug and a mid heavy Marshal for classic tones. a smattering or Orange and Laneys to round it off. I have a Plethora X3 and a couple of drive pedals so i'm ok for effects mostly. (sorry for the mini hijack)

relic245

spev11 said:

As a constant amp changer I've been looking at the Tonex, i've no interest in profiling really but , as I enjoy a number of different musical styles and would like a range of amps (which I cant afford) would a Tonex into a power amp or FRFR speaker be a decent solution ? I don't want to use my computer (as I' be tied to it). 
 As an example I'd like a Princeton style clean amp, some kind of silly hi-gain (SLO, Rectifier etc) for the chug and a mid heavy Marshal for classic tones. a smattering or Orange and Laneys to round it off. I have a Plethora X3 and a couple of drive pedals so i'm ok for effects mostly. (sorry for the mini hijack)

Never tried it into a power amp but a FRFR speaker will work well.

also a powered Pa speaker is a FRFR speaker and often less money,

I have one of these that I bought as a stage monitor.

https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/hh-hpx108-active-moulded-speaker-300w

I just use it at home as a cab for the tonex too. It blows me away how good it sounds for the money.

In the past I’ve owned some very respectable valve amps. This is all I need these days.

maybe if I a/b tested it against my old jcm800 or vibkoking id want my old back but played on its own it’s 100% good enough for me.

It’s a godsend at gig too. So little gear to take,

spev11

relic245 said:

spev11 said:

As a constant amp changer I've been looking at the Tonex, i've no interest in profiling really but , as I enjoy a number of different musical styles and would like a range of amps (which I cant afford) would a Tonex into a power amp or FRFR speaker be a decent solution ? I don't want to use my computer (as I' be tied to it). 
 As an example I'd like a Princeton style clean amp, some kind of silly hi-gain (SLO, Rectifier etc) for the chug and a mid heavy Marshal for classic tones. a smattering or Orange and Laneys to round it off. I have a Plethora X3 and a couple of drive pedals so i'm ok for effects mostly. (sorry for the mini hijack)

Never tried it into a power amp but a FRFR speaker will work well.

also a powered Pa speaker is a FRFR speaker and often less money,

I have one of these that I bought as a stage monitor.

https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/hh-hpx108-active-moulded-speaker-300w

I just use it at home as a cab for the tonex too. It blows me away how good it sounds for the money.

In the past I’ve owned some very respectable valve amps. This is all I need these days.

maybe if I a/b tested it against my old jcm800 or vibkoking id want my old back but played on its own it’s 100% good enough for me.

It’s a godsend at gig too. So little gear to take,

ah thats good info, I think it might well be the answer for someone like me (I have option paralysis) , can set it up for 3 or 4 amp tones/types, stick my pedal board into it and just get on with playing. I'll check out the FRFR speaker but I'll probably just run it into the power amp of the CR60C for now

relic245

spev11 said:

relic245 said:

spev11 said:

As a constant amp changer I've been looking at the Tonex, i've no interest in profiling really but , as I enjoy a number of different musical styles and would like a range of amps (which I cant afford) would a Tonex into a power amp or FRFR speaker be a decent solution ? I don't want to use my computer (as I' be tied to it). 
 As an example I'd like a Princeton style clean amp, some kind of silly hi-gain (SLO, Rectifier etc) for the chug and a mid heavy Marshal for classic tones. a smattering or Orange and Laneys to round it off. I have a Plethora X3 and a couple of drive pedals so i'm ok for effects mostly. (sorry for the mini hijack)

Never tried it into a power amp but a FRFR speaker will work well.

also a powered Pa speaker is a FRFR speaker and often less money,

I have one of these that I bought as a stage monitor.

https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/hh-hpx108-active-moulded-speaker-300w

I just use it at home as a cab for the tonex too. It blows me away how good it sounds for the money.

In the past I’ve owned some very respectable valve amps. This is all I need these days.

maybe if I a/b tested it against my old jcm800 or vibkoking id want my old back but played on its own it’s 100% good enough for me.

It’s a godsend at gig too. So little gear to take,

ah thats good info, I think it might well be the answer for someone like me (I have option paralysis) , can set it up for 3 or 4 amp tones/types, stick my pedal board into it and just get on with playing. I'll check out the FRFR speaker but I'll probably just run it into the power amp of the CR60C for now

It's got rid of option paralysis for me. 

I had an axe-fx (first gen) and had to sell it because I did more playing with the unit than I did playing guitar. 

Then tried many incarnations of the helix and got the same. Too many different ways to go after a similar sound. 

Since having the tonex I'm not tweaking at all. I got lucky and loved the first captures that I bought. 

I have  3 sounds set up which is all I use live. All the same capture but with different gain levels. 

Then I have a few other sounds set up that don't do what I need for live but are fun to play around with at home. 

It's still early days but I've had it a month  now and zero desire to tweak anything. Just enjoying playing. 

Shame you're not closer or you'd be very welcome to come and try it. 

spev11

ah ta , thank you for the kind offer, the info helps, I'll order one up monday and run it through the Orange CR60 and see how it sounds, might then either get a small power amp or a FRFR

guitarcookie1

So at this weeks practice I used Amalgam’s Tone King Imperial captures - one clean & one edge, both balanced cab versions. 

Very impressed, no problems being heard, no fizzy top end that I can hear on L6 & Boss models. Sounds more like a real amp in the room to me, not that I have ever played a TK Imperial, but I have an AC15 & know how that sounds/behaves in the room. 

Problems:

Option paralysis - how far do you go testing different variations on a theme (as with ir’s). Fat, thin, balanced, clean, edge, crunch, dimed, the list is almost endless which is why I just went with the balanced versions. 

Power supply - this is probably specific to me but powering the Tonex & HX Stomp from powerbanks does produce a bit of hum, so I need to look at this (two separate powerbanks needed as running both off one lasts about an hour). 

spev11

guitarcookie1 said:

So at this weeks practice I used Amalgam’s Tone King Imperial captures - one clean & one edge, both balanced cab versions. 

Very impressed, no problems being heard, no fizzy top end that I can hear on L6 & Boss models. Sounds more like a real amp in the room to me, not that I have ever played a TK Imperial, but I have an AC15 & know how that sounds/behaves in the room. 

Problems:

Option paralysis - how far do you go testing different variations on a theme (as with ir’s). Fat, thin, balanced, clean, edge, crunch, dimed, the list is almost endless which is why I just went with the balanced versions. 

Power supply - this is probably specific to me but powering the Tonex & HX Stomp from powerbanks does produce a bit of hum, so I need to look at this (two separate powerbanks needed as running both off one lasts about an hour). 

Ive held off buying as I can't be sure how it will sound running into the return of the CR60c, what did you use as a power amp/FRFR ?

guitarcookie1

spev11 said:

guitarcookie1 said:

So at this weeks practice I used Amalgam’s Tone King Imperial captures - one clean & one edge, both balanced cab versions. 

Very impressed, no problems being heard, no fizzy top end that I can hear on L6 & Boss models. Sounds more like a real amp in the room to me, not that I have ever played a TK Imperial, but I have an AC15 & know how that sounds/behaves in the room. 

Problems:

Option paralysis - how far do you go testing different variations on a theme (as with ir’s). Fat, thin, balanced, clean, edge, crunch, dimed, the list is almost endless which is why I just went with the balanced versions. 

Power supply - this is probably specific to me but powering the Tonex & HX Stomp from powerbanks does produce a bit of hum, so I need to look at this (two separate powerbanks needed as running both off one lasts about an hour). 

Ive held off buying as I can't be sure how it will sound running into the return of the CR60c, what did you use as a power amp/FRFR ?

Headrush 108 

kennedydream1980

guitarcookie1 said:

So at this weeks practice I used Amalgam’s Tone King Imperial captures - one clean & one edge, both balanced cab versions. 

Very impressed, no problems being heard, no fizzy top end that I can hear on L6 & Boss models. Sounds more like a real amp in the room to me, not that I have ever played a TK Imperial, but I have an AC15 & know how that sounds/behaves in the room. 

Problems:

Option paralysis - how far do you go testing different variations on a theme (as with ir’s). Fat, thin, balanced, clean, edge, crunch, dimed, the list is almost endless which is why I just went with the balanced versions. 

Power supply - this is probably specific to me but powering the Tonex & HX Stomp from powerbanks does produce a bit of hum, so I need to look at this (two separate powerbanks needed as running both off one lasts about an hour). 

If you prefer less variation then Jason Sadites does basic Tonex capture packs. These have 6 different variations of whatever amp has been captured. The 6 variations are just different gain levels. Be sure to adjust your input trim in the global settings to -3. This is where Jason recommends you set it for his captures to sound authentic to the amp being captured.

digitalscream

guitarcookie1 said:

Power supply - this is probably specific to me but powering the Tonex & HX Stomp from powerbanks does produce a bit of hum, so I need to look at this (two separate powerbanks needed as running both off one lasts about an hour). 

Probably worth testing them separately to see which one's the culprit; I ran my Stomp directly from a USB power bank (with a ZY12PDN trigger board), and it produced no additional noise at all; however, when I added pedals, I had to use a Joyo ZGP inline first.