Every few months, the same fight explodes online.
Kemper vs Axe-Fx.
Quad Cortex vs everyone.
Helix users quietly watching from the sidelines with popcorn.
The posts are always framed as technical debates.
They are not.
They are emotional arguments dressed up as signal processing.
And once you see that, you cannot unsee it.
Why These Arguments Never Die
On paper, this should be a solved problem.
Modern amp modellers can:
Capture real amplifiers at multiple gain stages
Reproduce frequency response within fractions of a decibel
Recreate non-linear distortion behaviour convincingly
Run through the same IRs, cabs, power amps, and monitoring
Yet the threads go on for hundreds of replies.
Why?
Because the debate is not really about sound.
It is about commitment.
Most of these boxes cost between £1,500 and £3,000.
That is not gear anymore.
That is identity.
Once someone spends that much, they are no longer evaluating tone.
They are defending a decision.
The Three Modelling Religions
All modern digital rigs aim for the same outcome:
“Convince the human ear this is a tube amp.”
But they get there using very different philosophies.
1. Kemper: Snapshot Truth
The Kemper does not try to understand how an amp works. It asks:
“What goes in, and what comes out?”
Then it captures that relationship.
The result is often instantly convincing because it is literally a frozen imprint of a real amp at a specific setting.
The trade-off:
You cannot meaningfully extrapolate far beyond the captured state
Extreme parameter changes can feel less predictable
It rewards finding great profiles more than deep tweaking
For many players, that is a feature, not a bug.
2. Fractal: Circuit Absolutism
Fractal takes the opposite approach.
Instead of capturing outcomes, it models components:
Tubes
Transformers
Power supply sag
Tone stack interactions
Non-linear behaviour across gain stages
This allows huge flexibility and deep control.
The trade-off:
More parameters than most players need
Easier to get lost
Requires more effort to reach “plug and play”
Fractal users do not just play tones.
They build them.
3. Neural DSP: Behavioural Learning
Neural markets the idea of machine learning.
Rather than modelling components or freezing snapshots, it trains models on how an amp behaves across inputs.
The promise:
More “feel”
More responsiveness
Less manual tweaking
The reality:
Still constrained by training data
Still dependent on capture quality
Still subject to the same monitoring and gain-staging issues
The tech is interesting.
The claims are sometimes… enthusiastic.
And Helix?
Helix quietly focuses on usability.
Its strength is not philosophical purity.
It is workflow.
Repeatable, fast, predictable rigs that survive real gigs.
Which is why it is constantly dismissed online and constantly used on stages.
Why Blind Tests Break People’s Brains
Whenever someone posts a proper blind test, the mood changes.
Because once you remove:
Visual bias
Brand loyalty
Expectation
Forum reputation
The differences shrink fast. In controlled reamp tests where:
The same DI is used
Levels are matched within ±0.2 dB
The same IRs are loaded
Monitoring is identical
Two things consistently dominate perception:
Level differences
Pick attack variance
Not modelling algorithms.
A 0.5 dB difference will make one clip sound “clearer” or “bigger”.
A slightly harder pick stroke will feel more “alive”.
Human hearing is brutally easy to trick.
Which is why ABX tests often land near chance, even among experienced players.
Nobody likes that result.
So it rarely gets shared.
⚙️ A quick aside
We are currently looking for players who enjoy this exact kind of testing.
If you like blind comparisons, controlled setups, and proving yourself wrong with data, we are opening a small group of early testers for a project focused on learning guitar tone by ear, not by brand names.
There is a short form linked below if you want to be involved.
“Feel” Is Real, But Not What You Think
This is where things get uncomfortable.
“Feel” is real.
Players are not imagining it.
But it is not coming from mystical DSP fairy dust.
It comes from:
Latency (round-trip and internal)
Dynamic compression behaviour
Gain staging
Monitoring system response
Player expectation
If you expect something to feel stiff, your hands adjust unconsciously.
If you expect something to bloom, you play into it.
This is not an insult to musicians.
It is neuroscience.
The Biggest Irony of All
Top artists use all of these platforms.
Often interchangeably.
Often without caring.
The tones still work.
The records still sell.
The crowds still cheer.
Because tone is a system:
Player
Guitar
Monitoring
Context
Mix
The modeller is one component, not the soul.
Forums turn it into tribal warfare.
Music does not.
📩 If this kind of thinking resonates
I write regularly about guitar tone from the uncomfortable angle: where physics, perception, culture, and ego collide.
If you want more of that, consider subscribing here.
No spam, no gear hype, just deep dives you can actually use.
Final Thought
Digital tone wars are fun.
They are nerdy. They are part of guitar culture.
Just do not confuse them with truth. Because once the spreadsheets come out, the vibes do all the talking.
Learn the Tone.
Save the Sound.
