I've been collecting guitars since 1994, when I bought my Alvarez acoustic. My parents were so pissed at me for spending $600. A couple of these guitars are ones I wanted for years, but couldn't afford. (The Wolfgang and the Jackson PC-1) Most of the rest are custom made Carvin/Kiesel guitars. I built the green Strat myself from Warmoth parts. The cabinets started as Ikea bookcases.

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Ha! Well played.

Beautiful! The frog of my cello bow is snakewood.

I was really into building custom pedals for a few years. I wanted to build a board reflective of my caliber of work, and I came up with this. I built all of the drives and the compressor, and soldered every cable. The switcher allowed you to bypass any loop that had a malfunction, though I never needed it. For a while, BOSS was linking people to my youtube page, as I had figured out a MIDI clock workaround that was a limitation of the ES8.

Since all of the venues I play use silent stage and go through the PA, I decided to try a Kemper a few years ago. I still have my amps and pedalboard, but they are just for fun when I want the "amp in the room" sound. The Kemper produces the same thing most would hear in a recording studio: the amp is raging loud in another room. You only hear it through mics, preamps, and then monitors. The profiles I use are of amps I can't afford, using pre-amps and mics that cost more than a new pin. I'm beyond happy with the results.

I can now carry my amp, pedalboard, and guitar in one trip.

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Live, all of the sound is FOH through the mains. I hear through IEM'S. My Kemper does have a power amp though, so I can use it with a cab, if necessary. At home, I use JBL308's for practice and tweaking tones.
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Using stereo guitar patches, panning the outputs helps a lot. I also pan the other instruments and vocals hard left or right. This not only gives "space" to what you hear, it puts less through those tiny drivers.

That is the beauty of the Fractal, Kemper, or Helix: no mics needed.

That is awesome. I got my start in pedal building with a BYOC Big Muff kit. I ended up winning the "Pedal of the Month" contest. I didn't realize how hard my graphics were going to be when I started. I ended up making several of them for friends. This was waterslide as well, with several coats of clear.

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Beautiful guitar. If you have Kemper questions, send me a PM. This was 4 years ago, and what threw me over the edge back then. Lots of updates since then, especially effects wise. One thing very different about Kemper vs Line 6 or Fractal is that they keep moving the OS forward while keeping the hardware the same. The others come out with a new unit every few years.

Most of my profiles come from these guys. Here is an example of clean, edge of breakup, and OD tone without tons of effects. It's true that most of the factory profiles are metal oriented, but there are plenty of cleaner ones out there of incredible amps.

I'd lean towards hit or miss at that price. You might stumble upon one that is just magical, and thus makes it worth 2k to you. But the reality is that the Strat was designed to be affordable to mass produce, with easily interchangeable parts if there was a production issue or warranty claim. Heck, even SRV's #1 was found to have a neck and body from different years when they took it apart to make replicas. I've read and understood the 3 bolt Strats as them trying to cut costs even further. Find one that spent it's life under someone's bed, and it's probably fine stability wise. But get one that's gigged a lot, and you might have trouble keeping it in tune.

I haven't owned a 70's Strat myself, I've never cared for the bloated version of the iconic headstock. However, a really good friend of mine who tours and records has played the whole spectrum. (Fender, PRS, Shur, Anderson) When we first met, he was primarily an LP guy. He had two "Partscasters" that he had used for years. He finally wore out the body (trem posts) on one of them a couple of years ago, and was looking for a replacement. About that time, I visited and brought one of my Kiesel guitars. He was blown away by it, and decided to get his own. (Photo below) He says it is hands down the best Strat style guitar he's ever played. It has a roasted maple neck, and a set of "Mark's singles" pickups. This week, he ordered his second one, Tele style. For 2k, I'd go for something like that or a PRS/Suhr.

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I second this. Your best bet is to try out as many Teles as possible, and figure out what neck shape, radius, and bridge you like. Different eras (or their re-issues) have different specs. Pickups, tuning machines, pick guards, etc can be changed: the rest, not so easily.

I grew up playing the cello, and have always gravitated to guitars with figured woods. I wanted a T-style guitar in that vein. This was the last Kiesel made for me. They make a Johnny Highland model if you want a more traditional instrument.

Chambered ash body
Master Grade Flame Koa Top
Flame Maple Neck
Royal Ebony Fretboard
Lollar "Novel-T" and "El Rayo" Pickups

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Doing some work on this Rhodes. Holy cow, it is like moving a pin!

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Looks cool to me!

If you haven't bought any, or can return what you did, buy yourself locking tuners and a Graphtec nut. If you need some pickup suggestions, let me know.

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They are Ikea. Hemnes is the series, I believe. I cut 1/2" plywood to go behind the cabinet, and screwed it to the studs. This took up the dead space behind the floppy backing, and allows secure attachment of hangars anywhere in the cabinet.

Ha! I do have a blue guitar, but the edges burst to purple. Every instrument in my collection, save for my acoustic, has a transparent finish to see highly figured wood. These are all figured maple: (clockwise) burled, flamed, and quilted.

My affinity for figured maple started with the cello in 5th grade, though I didn't get the one pictured until several years ago.

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One that is set up well, on a quality guitar is a dream. A cheap guitar with a poor setup is a tuning nightmare.

Does it do it with multiple guitars? What happens on a guitar with the volume all the way down?

Are you crazy, or bi-polar? (Kidding)

Cool guitar. What is the story? I thought Michael Schenker, but that signature looks like something else.

Wow! Still has the stickers on the push pull pots. Must have been owned by Nigel Tufnel. Great looking guitar.

Wow. Not only do they have a capo on a violin, but it appears that every person is "playing" behind the capo. Is it really that difficult to find someone with basic knowledge of how things work?

I own a Kemper myself and love it. But at this stage of the game, I would suggest a POD GO. It is the best bang-for-the-buck, great sounding modeler out there. You will get a chance to try out all kinds of effects, routing, and combinations. It shares the sounds of the full size Helix, but in a smaller package. You can't run as many simultaneous blocks as the full size, but again, at this stage of the game that isn't a big deal for a new player. There are a lot of good options out there that owe their existence to the Kemper. It took them nearly a decade to catch up to it's ever-updated design. What other product is still running the original hardware, and is still considered top shelf 10 years later?

I've been through every stage of guitar effects: crappy multi-effects of the 90's, first tube amp with a few pedals, G-System with pedals in a rack, full custom pedalboard that I built myself (including the compressor and all of the drive pedals), and now a Kemper. In many ways, this is the golden age for musical gear: There is still access to real amps and pedals, inexpensive guitars are easily found that are often built to manufacturing standards that make them actually playable, and many modeling units are indistinguishable from "the real thing" in a FOH or recorded session.

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Have you tried custom IR's in your Helix? That can make a world of difference. The interface and effects on the Helix are great.

The Quad Cortex is really good. They are basically continuing what Kemper came up with, but with the advantage of a decade of advancement in processing power, and several other manufacturers to pull ideas from. I have several friends who have switched over with great success.

I think the goal with modelers should always be to find your base tone, and stick with it. That is what you do with a real amp, isn't it? With my Kemper, my method has been assigning a profile to each guitar, and I add the effects as needed. There are some guitar/profile combinations that just have a magic. Where people get into trouble, and it is easy to do when you have nearly unlimited options, is to find oneself in endless choice purgatory. If you haven't found your base tone after 2 years with the Helix, maybe it is time to try something else. The good news is that you can probably sell your Helix for a high percentage of the cost you paid. I am sure that there is more than one band you like that is using some modeler live: find out what they are using, and how they are making it work. Even people with amps on stage are often only using them for stage volume: FOH is from a modeler.

Looks cool, but heavy!

What kind of tone are you after?