Here comes Kemper. Bye Felicias

laxu said:
The best thing to come out of the Liquid Profiling is not necessarily more accuracy, but less fluff. Looking at Jarick's video, there's thousands of captures in some of those folders. That's a ridiculous amount of stuff, nobody has the time to go through all that. If Liquid Profiling means you can have just a handful of profiles of each amp, that's closer to what e.g Fractal or Line6 has with different models for channels/switches/variants.
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Exactly!

My biggest issue with the Kemper has been having to deal with so many profiles. Typically you get between 10-30 profiles of a given amp at different gain levels and settings. You can find a few profiles at different gain levels that sound good, but they may sound quite different. One is bright, one is dark, etc.

Now you can adjust the gain levels, but more than a couple clicks in either direction would lose some of the character of the profile. Too little gain and it sounds very flat. Too much gain and it doesn't sound like the amp. EQ can help a little overall but again anything more than a couple clicks would lose character.

For most of the profiles I've tested, liquid profiling does seem to help the gain and EQ work at all settings in a more natural manner than before. It won't change a bad profile into something great, but I think I showed on the video you can take a great profile and make it versatile enough to replace several old profiles.

For me that will mean I can find one really good profile per amp, save it to the Kemper, and then never have to plug it into the computer again. Rig Manager is really unstable with my computer and crashes constantly. Over the weekend it had some kind of memory leak and hit 40 GB worth of usage and crashed everything. It's been like that for years.

But really, it makes it much closer to using an actual amp where I can just tweak the knobs to taste, add effects, and go on my way. That's been my issue with all the modelers, really. And to reiterate, that's more of a me problem than a modeler problem. Having to fuss with the cab block and thousands of IR's and EQ just drives me nuts.
 
Jarick said:
But really, it makes it much closer to using an actual amp where I can just tweak the knobs to taste, add effects, and go on my way. That's been my issue with all the modelers, really. And to reiterate, that's more of a me problem than a modeler problem. Having to fuss with the cab block and thousands of IR's and EQ just drives me nuts.
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That's why I'm big on usability being important on these things. Obviously getting a great sound matters too, but getting your preferred sound faster is important as well.
 
Jarick said:
My biggest issue with the Kemper has been having to deal with so many profiles. Typically you get between 10-30 profiles of a given amp at different gain levels and settings. You can find a few profiles at different gain levels that sound good, but they may sound quite different. One is bright, one is dark, etc.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I feel Fractal is making things too complicated so I can only imagine how this issue would be highlighted even more on the Kemper. You're not actually selecting an amp from the amp list on Fractal, you're selecting an amp *channel*. If I want a JVM410, I should just be able to select that. What should be 1 option, is actually 6 options in the amp list, leading to an unnecessarily long list. What complicates things even further for me is for instance with Friedman BE100, they have different "models" (channels) with different toggle switches on the real amp engaged or disengaged. So they have one model with C45, one with Bright, one with voicing in position X, etc. But what if you want to combine those? I don't know, it's just a weird concept.

Didn't mean to rant on specifically Fractal. I don't have a Kemper so I'm not favoring either of them.

I guess my point is that I wish all of them would focus more on UX instead of just "let's add yet another feature with 10 new knobs and switches". The feature set of most modelers (if not all) are already good enough, especially in the case of Fractal. Time to focus on usability.
 
laxu said:
That's why I'm big on usability being important on these things. Obviously getting a great sound matters too, but getting your preferred sound faster is important as well.
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If you want to get your exact preferred tone fast and aren’t planning on making your own profiles, then…Kemper was never the right tool for the job.
 
Tanax said:
This is exactly what I feel Fractal is making things too complicated so I can only imagine how this issue would be highlighted even more on the Kemper. You're not actually selecting an amp from the amp list on Fractal, you're selecting an amp *channel*. If I want a JVM410, I should just be able to select that. What should be 1 option, is actually 6 options in the amp list, leading to an unnecessarily long list. What complicates things even further for me is for instance with Friedman BE100, they have different "models" (channels) with different toggle switches on the real amp engaged or disengaged. So they have one model with C45, one with Bright, one with voicing in position X, etc. But what if you want to combine those? I don't know, it's just a weird concept.
Click to expand...
While I can understand the annoyance of every amp channel and mode being its own model, at least there's a technical basis for that, even if the UI could hide that from the end user and just swap them behind the scenes. Hopefully next gen will do just that.

To me the big usability improvements Fractal has made over the years are:
  • The double click shortcuts on the front panel.
  • Authentic controls for Amps.
  • Dyna-Cabs.
All of these make a big difference in reducing the work needed to get a great sound. If you know how to mic a cab, or adjust a particular amp, you can get a great sound out of it pretty fast. And if you have to use the onboard UI, being able to go back to the previous block alone saves so much time.

But pretty much every modeler maker has things they adamantly refuse to address, like having actually good content browsers for presets/IRs/captures etc. Or having Helix Native scale to modern high res displays, or have sensible scroll behavior.
 
Tanax said:
This is exactly what I feel Fractal is making things too complicated so I can only imagine how this issue would be highlighted even more on the Kemper. You're not actually selecting an amp from the amp list on Fractal, you're selecting an amp *channel*. If I want a JVM410, I should just be able to select that. What should be 1 option, is actually 6 options in the amp list, leading to an unnecessarily long list. What complicates things even further for me is for instance with Friedman BE100, they have different "models" (channels) with different toggle switches on the real amp engaged or disengaged. So they have one model with C45, one with Bright, one with voicing in position X, etc. But what if you want to combine those? I don't know, it's just a weird concept.

Didn't mean to rant on specifically Fractal. I don't have a Kemper so I'm not favoring either of them.

I guess my point is that I wish all of them would focus more on UX instead of just "let's add yet another feature with 10 new knobs and switches". The feature set of most modelers (if not all) are already good enough, especially in the case of Fractal. Time to focus on usability.
Click to expand...

I've said 100 times that it would be super useful to have a cabinet block that was built more for guitarists than for studio engineers. All the work has already been done to capture the cabs and process the IR's, just need to put it into an interface that is stupid simple. That's a big part of why Strymon and UA have such success. Simplify.

I'm thinking you pick your speaker cab, you have a slider that goes from "bright" to warm" (that could mix between an SM57 and an R-121), you have a slider that fades in the room sounds (either mics or reverb), you have a knob for low cut, you have a knob for high cut. That's all 99% of people need.

Modeling companies are definitely trending in the right direction, I just think they could add a simple mode on top of it.
 
Jarick said:
I've said 100 times that it would be super useful to have a cabinet block that was built more for guitarists than for studio engineers. All the work has already been done to capture the cabs and process the IR's, just need to put it into an interface that is stupid simple. That's a big part of why Strymon and UA have such success. Simplify.

I'm thinking you pick your speaker cab, you have a slider that goes from "bright" to warm" (that could mix between an SM57 and an R-121), you have a slider that fades in the room sounds (either mics or reverb), you have a knob for low cut, you have a knob for high cut. That's all 99% of people need.

Modeling companies are definitely trending in the right direction, I just think they could add a simple mode on top of it.
Click to expand...
I don't think that ends up being much easier than the Dyna-Cabs where you can just play around with the mic position until it sounds right.

I get that there's still some "what's a Dynamic mic, when should I use a Condenser" etc hurdles there.
 
laxu said:
I don't think that ends up being much easier than the Dyna-Cabs where you can just play around with the mic position until it sounds right.

I get that there's still some "what's a Dynamic mic, when should I use a Condenser" etc hurdles there.
Click to expand...

It would cut down on the mic position/distance decision.

This is a great "dummy mode":


rt_ox_image_3.jpg
 
Jarick said:
It would cut down on the mic position/distance decision.
Click to expand...
I think that's one of the easiest ones to make tho. Even if you've never miced a cab, you can just move the little dot on the Fractal Dyna-Cabs around until you like how it sounds.

I think if Fractal wanted to improve the experience, they could figure out what to them is a great "works for most things" starting point for each cab/mic combination and default the cab/mic to that when selected.
 
laxu said:
I think that's one of the easiest ones to make tho. Even if you've never miced a cab, you can just move the little dot on the Fractal Dyna-Cabs around until you like how it sounds.

I think if Fractal wanted to improve the experience, they could figure out what to them is a great "works for most things" starting point for each cab/mic combination and default the cab/mic to that when selected.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's where I was thinking too. Preset starting points for each cab/mic combo. Line 6 is good about that.
 
laxu said:
While I can understand the annoyance of every amp channel and mode being its own model, at least there's a technical basis for that, even if the UI could hide that from the end user and just swap them behind the scenes. Hopefully next gen will do just that.

To me the big usability improvements Fractal has made over the years are:
  • The double click shortcuts on the front panel.
  • Authentic controls for Amps.
  • Dyna-Cabs.
All of these make a big difference in reducing the work needed to get a great sound. If you know how to mic a cab, or adjust a particular amp, you can get a great sound out of it pretty fast. And if you have to use the onboard UI, being able to go back to the previous block alone saves so much time.

But pretty much every modeler maker has things they adamantly refuse to address, like having actually good content browsers for presets/IRs/captures etc. Or having Helix Native scale to modern high res displays, or have sensible scroll behavior.
Click to expand...

Jarick said:
I've said 100 times that it would be super useful to have a cabinet block that was built more for guitarists than for studio engineers. All the work has already been done to capture the cabs and process the IR's, just need to put it into an interface that is stupid simple. That's a big part of why Strymon and UA have such success. Simplify.

I'm thinking you pick your speaker cab, you have a slider that goes from "bright" to warm" (that could mix between an SM57 and an R-121), you have a slider that fades in the room sounds (either mics or reverb), you have a knob for low cut, you have a knob for high cut. That's all 99% of people need.

Modeling companies are definitely trending in the right direction, I just think they could add a simple mode on top of it.
Click to expand...

Yes, in Fractal's case they could literally just slap a "simple mode" on top of it. Get rid of the grid. I don't want that. One click "enable" the drive pedal, it should already be laid out in a fixed position.

And call me simple (or old fashioned - even though I'm only 33), but I would prefer having an amp block that actually looks like the amp it's modeling. They can easily circumvent any potential law suits by tweaking it slightly and not displaying the real name obviously. I don't need all those deep pages for editing. It's distracting. I don't think they realize how much humans use visual cues to associate things. The generic interface for basically all blocks makes it.. confusing.

I get it though. Fractal is 100% designed for sound engineers, not for guitar players.
I'm not a sound engineer, I don't sit by my computer when I play. I want to play. Maybe tweak slightly with an easy physical knob. Just like real amps.

The physical unit needs more knobs for easy editing.

It's not for nothing Kemper is still very popular despite its age. It has an incredibly easy interface compared to other digital offerings.
But the Kemper too can improve. Hopefully both Kemper 2 and AxeFX 4 makes it a priority to focus on usability and hopefully they are released '24.
 
laxu said:
I think that's one of the easiest ones to make tho. Even if you've never miced a cab, you can just move the little dot on the Fractal Dyna-Cabs around until you like how it sounds.
Click to expand...
The central problem you have is, most guitarists don't actually know what GOOD TONE is. And I don't mean to say there is objectively good tone and bad tone. What I mean is, they don't even know how to get the right tone for what they are trying to achieve. Throwing the possibility of different tones through moving a microphone around isn't the solution everyone thinks it is.

Moving mics is for audio engineers. Not glue sniffing guitarists and sister seducing bassists.
 
I do realize TJ is not the most "warmly embraced" Y/T'er around here, but this is his Liquid Profiling 101 video ... still just applying the LP to a Legacy Profile ... but its one where he knows the settings .. I think the Amp Tone and Gain variations speak for themselves ... and again, no Kemper "tone-finger-print" .. its gone !

Looking "more and more better'er" every day :giggle:

Ben

 
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Orvillain said:
Erm... what?
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Several years ago when I was using a KPA, I found that just about every crunch-gain-rock profile I bought and used [I never made my own due to lack of decent amps] had what I refer to as the Kemper "tone-finger-print" .... it was a compressed-mid-range-bump that was just always there ... for me ... it was impossible to dial out.

Very subtle, but there ... it gave my crunch-gain-rock sounds a slight but audible degree of "sameness".

Now I should add that that was several years and FW's ago, so it may well have been "fixed" long ago .... but I am very pleased that it is not there in these LP video's.

I used only Mbritt and Top Jimi Profiles and a Tele .... so I doubt they were "wrongly" made.

Apart from the great EQ stack, it was the first thing I noticed when I first tried Tonex ... in that it didn't have any kind of "issue" like this.

But like I said, I think my last Kemper FW was ~ 4.x so it may well have been long gone regardless of LP'ing.

Ben
 
yeky83 said:
Oh you mean like their library of IRs?

IRs was the easy mode. Y'all wanted this.
Click to expand...
No, Dyna-Cabs default positions. If the default position is good, then little to no adjustment is needed for the average user. Sort of like loading most of Fractal's effects sounds good out of the box.

Put this up as a wishlist thread on Fractal forums.
 
Another great video from the Aussie Kemper Guy .... the ground up full Liquid Profiles he makes of the real Amps on Full Gain and EQ all at 12.00 sound much less harsh and less stiff and way less Linear than the same Legacy-Generic Profile of the same Amp [again] with the real Amp on Full Gain and EQ all at 12.00

He re-iterates an excellent point which [I'm pretty sure] is also in the OS 10 Manual / Addendum ... which in hindsight is stating the [very important] bleeding obvious:-

(a) potentiometer manufacturing variations are +/- in quite large % value terms
(b) these variations will be cumulative across all the Pots of any Real Amp being "modelled" .... as such
(c) it is absolutely unavoidable that any resulting LP will need some minor G/B/M/T Pot tweaking to exactly match the exact same Amp Pot settings ... not an issue but something to be aware of

ie:- the Kemper Amp Channel Models may well be identical to the Amp "they" modeled, but not to your same Amp that you will do a LP of .... same of course applies comparing a Fractal or Helix etc... Models of any Amp "they" model, and then comparing that to the real model of that same Amp you have

Also .... Rig Manager currently does not include the Bright Cap Control in its software - its only on the hardware unit .... it is of course a Beta and I'd be surprised if this wasn't done for the "release" ... here's the Video:-



For those who watched the Sydney 2000 Olympics,
Ben "Aussie Aussie Aussie ... Oi Oi Oi" Ifin
 
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