Kemper Liquid Profiling First Look
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BenIfin
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Ok ... Im not gonna lie .... used a KPA for a few years a few years ago ...Im now a *massive* Tonex Fan ...... I *know* these a very rudimentary and early demonstration videos .... but F%CK ... it really does look and sound like Kemper have actually gone and done what we all thought was "undoable".
Never bet against C.K !
Ben
paisleywookiee
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Not really in the market, but it the concept is cool. I’ll wait until someone else does a video though to check it out, as I will not click on this douche canoe’s videos.
BenIfin
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Kemper has component modeled the full gain and full eq stacks of [as of now] 40+ actual real amps.
If you are doing, say, an AC30 Liquid Profile, you set up the amp, add the "Kemper AC30 Component Model" and adjust the "Kemper AC30 Component Model" settings to match the settings on the AC30 being profiled. Do your profile. When done the Kemper Gain and EQ stack for your profile will be that of the real amp ... and as you change gain, B / M / T / C etc.... in your profile, it will respond like the real amp.
Its a brilliant idea / technique / method.
In the video's, as enticing as they are, they are applying the "Kemper Component Models" to existing "legacy" profiles to "upscale them" to Liquid Profiles ...which in itself is pretty darn impressive.
However, doing a Liquid Profile with the "Kemper Component Models" from the ground up is the "ultimate" way to do a Liquid Profile.
It actually means that - in theory - and as CK said - in practice - you will, say, be able to do a profile of a real amp that is in the 40+ list .... set it to 12 across the board ... when the profile is then done, your profile will react and respond across the full range of its gain and eq exactly like the real amp.
One Amp Profile = a full real Amp ..... provided of course the Amp being profiled is on the 40+ or so list of "Kemper Component Modeled" Amps.
CK made a point of also adding that this intial list of 40+ "Kemper Component Models" will grow over time.
A quick look as they were being scrolled through in the video's shows that all the "big ticket" Amps are there ..... so even at release, pretty much everything people will want is already there.
Ben
James Freeman
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Two big name capture creators pitching a sale?
pipelineaudio
Shredder
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Yay, clickbaitjunkie xl videos
BenIfin
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Two big name capture creators pitching a sale?
To the extent QC Capturing and Tonex Capturing [and NAM Capturing] have an issue, its the "hunt for the perfect" 4 or 5 Captures -and- then avoiding tweaking them directly if you can to maximize and retain their "integrity". Great Capture makers like MBritt and Amalgamaudio have made this *much* easier.
From its release until now, Kemper has also had this "issue".
But if this turns out as good as C.K is saying ... and unlike many others ... he is i.m.h.o ... the master of "under-promising and over-delivering" we will be in a scenario where we will be able to buy [or make] 1 x AC30 Profile, 1 x Plexi Profile, 1 x Deluxe Profile etc, etc.. and then that individual Liquid Profile will have its G / B / M / T / C act, respond and sound [virtually] exactly like the real amp.
If C.K has "done this" .... and my money is on he has .... it is a genuine breakthrough-game-changer.
Ben
Foxmeister
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Entirely subjective of course, but I would argue that component-level modelling already does this...
BenIfin
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Did you mean *power* amp distortion ?
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No.
laxu
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I suppose the usecase would be capturing your favorite real amp, then as long as you can figure out what is the matching tone stack you could also operate it like the real deal.Entirely subjective of course, but I would argue that component-level modelling already does this...
With straight up component modeling you are always playing someone else's reference amp, though if you have EQ match features you could get it to behave closer to your real amp.
Foxmeister
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True, but since most people don't create profiles they are effectively using someone else's reference amp anyway.
I still think it is a great addition to the Kemper, and does somewhat mitigate the static nature of profiles/captures, but it doesn't really "change the game" *for me* enough for me to think about buying a Kemper.
laxu
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Watching the second video, ToneJunkie is always easier to watch when he's not left to ramble on his own but is talking with someone else like an actual person instead of someone playing a character on YT to pad the length of a video.
I agree with them about the Marshall EQs...they just don't do a whole lot. It's funny that my one of my favorite Marshall style amps is the BluGuitar Amp 1 Mercury Edition, which works a lot like Kemper without the new Liquid Profiling:
On the BluGuitar, the tone stack is fixed. On all but the Vintage channel you can blend between two different, fixed tonestacks. The effect is mostly that the sound gets brighter, tighter, angrier on the distorted channels and on the clean mainly just shifts the voicing from a more bassy Blackface type sound to a wirier and brighter Vox type sound (but without actually managing to sound like a Vox). The Vintage channel does not have this feature because Thomas Blug considers it sounds perfect the way it is and I agree.
But where things get interesting is the 3-band shared EQ. This is a low and high shelf filter and 600 Hz midrange filter and that makes it more like an EQ pedal put into the fx loop or something. You can coax so much variety out of this EQ and small changes, like turning mids from 5 to 6 can have a big effect on the sound.
Bringing this back to Kemper, it makes me wonder about how useful the Liquid Profiling will be in the long run. MBritt says they can do less profiles because the user could adjust the EQ a bit so you don't need captures of "Gain 5, Treble 6, Bass 4" and "Gain 6, Treble 5, Bass 3" or something. But that doesn't matter a whole lot to the end user except make picking profiles more straightforward by having less options.
When they show off the generic EQ Kemper has had from the start, you can immediately hear it's far more effective at changing the tone than most of the tone stack options, even if it's not authentic. It's just a question of liking what frequencies that EQ is working on.
I remember seeing some post from Kemper forums where Kemper had been experimenting with a tone stack feature many years ago, but never released it. The cynic in me wonders if they have been sitting on this for a while, and only released it to put the focus back on Kemper from their competition - specifically Tonex/NAM which are both more accurate and massively cheaper.
I want to see some comparisons between a real amp, profiling it at setting A and B, then seeing if the Liquid Profiling feature's EQ can turn profile A into B or vice versa.
I agree with them about the Marshall EQs...they just don't do a whole lot. It's funny that my one of my favorite Marshall style amps is the BluGuitar Amp 1 Mercury Edition, which works a lot like Kemper without the new Liquid Profiling:
On the BluGuitar, the tone stack is fixed. On all but the Vintage channel you can blend between two different, fixed tonestacks. The effect is mostly that the sound gets brighter, tighter, angrier on the distorted channels and on the clean mainly just shifts the voicing from a more bassy Blackface type sound to a wirier and brighter Vox type sound (but without actually managing to sound like a Vox). The Vintage channel does not have this feature because Thomas Blug considers it sounds perfect the way it is and I agree.
But where things get interesting is the 3-band shared EQ. This is a low and high shelf filter and 600 Hz midrange filter and that makes it more like an EQ pedal put into the fx loop or something. You can coax so much variety out of this EQ and small changes, like turning mids from 5 to 6 can have a big effect on the sound.
Bringing this back to Kemper, it makes me wonder about how useful the Liquid Profiling will be in the long run. MBritt says they can do less profiles because the user could adjust the EQ a bit so you don't need captures of "Gain 5, Treble 6, Bass 4" and "Gain 6, Treble 5, Bass 3" or something. But that doesn't matter a whole lot to the end user except make picking profiles more straightforward by having less options.
When they show off the generic EQ Kemper has had from the start, you can immediately hear it's far more effective at changing the tone than most of the tone stack options, even if it's not authentic. It's just a question of liking what frequencies that EQ is working on.
I remember seeing some post from Kemper forums where Kemper had been experimenting with a tone stack feature many years ago, but never released it. The cynic in me wonders if they have been sitting on this for a while, and only released it to put the focus back on Kemper from their competition - specifically Tonex/NAM which are both more accurate and massively cheaper.
I want to see some comparisons between a real amp, profiling it at setting A and B, then seeing if the Liquid Profiling feature's EQ can turn profile A into B or vice versa.
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To me, because most amplifiers have passive EQ's after the preamp has done all of its business, I just don't care if the EQ is a fake Neve 1073 style one, or a model from a list of 40 passive EQ designs, which are all much of a muchness in the end; pot tolerances and the like mean that even two amps of the same model don't really have the same EQ across two or more units anyway.
To me, this is a box ticking exercise and isn't going to do much to change my opinion on the Kemper - which is ultimately it is a cool device, but it isn't particularly accurate and 12 years or so down the line, isn't very competitive anymore in the marketplace. It was fantastic back in 2012 when I first had one. Today?? Not so much.
To me, this is a box ticking exercise and isn't going to do much to change my opinion on the Kemper - which is ultimately it is a cool device, but it isn't particularly accurate and 12 years or so down the line, isn't very competitive anymore in the marketplace. It was fantastic back in 2012 when I first had one. Today?? Not so much.
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BTW, my JVM EQ is VERY effective. Not sure what else to say really.
MirrorProfiles
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They're definitely referring to the non-MV Marshalls, basically anything that came from the 2203/2204 onwards has EQ's that actually work. Its just the old 4 hole non-MV's that do basically bugger all.
