Chalk me up as one of those idiots that thinks Kemper is still the best.
I don’t know if it wins on the graphs but it sounds and feels amazing to me compared to the rest. Its biggest advantage aside from that is the sheer amount of top quality profiles available for it.
Tone X has mostly god awful captures of nam, pods and other modellers, QC is overwhelmingly DI captures that need an IR which defeats the point completely IMO.
Also after using most of them, parallel amps suck for the most part and I reckon 99% of use cases is a couple of pedals up front, amp in the middle and delay and reverb in the end, you don’t really need fancy routing.
Apart from the first bit, I genuinely agree with most of what you're saying.
ToneX quality is very poor. NAM is quite poor as well. Capture quality I mean; not the tech.
But when you're rolling your own, I don't think you really need to care about that. And anyone using these products definitely
should be rolling their own IMHO - otherwise I literally don't see the point in them using capture tech at all. Because it isn't any more accurate or flexible than using a proper algorithmically modelled version of an amp.
Unless you're capturing your own amp, there's simply no advantage in my opinion.
DI captures are more useful than full-rig captures I think. A lot more flexibility when you pair it with an IR, and if you capture your amp with it connected to a real cab, you get the correct impedance loading as part of your capture too.
100% agreed that for most people, parallel signal paths and W/D/W type rigs and stereo and all the rest of it... nobody wants it nor cares about it. Which is exactly why the big debate about workflow is so silly IMHO.
The base experience of plugging in your guitar, creating a chain of effects, then an amp and cab, then some post effects, and routing it out to a monitor wedge or front of house, as well as a on-stage amp for monitoring that way.... they're all basically the same. Very very little difference.
And to be frank... a lot of people invent problems and go looking for solutions, instead of just focusing on playing their guitar.
My live rig isn't and hasn't ever been a "modelled" rig. The closest I've come is using Helix for effects only. I use an amp, and I use some pedals. I have a fancy switcher, but use about 2% of its functionality. The reason is, playing guitar is just so much more enjoyable when you're not thinking about the gear.
At the same time, I'm a gear junkie. Always have been!!
