Kemper Player - 1st [ Paid for ? ] Update coming very soon ?

[SillyOctpuss]

There are no words:-

Holy shit. No fucking way. Guy who made his entire career off kemper thinks it's a good idea.

Man I need a lie down, I did not see this coming.

 

[laxu]

I think Kemper might have looked at the QC when it was announced as the only offering by a competitor that seemed to be a rival for the crown.

But NDSP made a lot of mistakes and Kemper had the proven history of being a professional solution, tried and true with a vast catalogue of free content and third party vendors churning out interest as well.

With QC still failing to deliver what they promised over a year after the big debut, then all these little devices get tossed into the market.
Sure the science on paper says they have now surpassed Kempers process but the results sound much closer than the stats suggest.
And when you try to actually use those little things….create a set list of presets on the new devices and play a set live you realize they all are sorely lacking in effects, content management, software editors, etc. And even the QC two years post debut is not running away with the working musicians endorsement.

So Kemper may have thought…”Hey! You want to take shot at the King you better kill the King! So fuck that noise, slap our board in little enclosure built to our superior specs with half of our content enabled and we own the little Player segment of this market niche for the next year or two without spending a single dime on R & D or even software development.”

No harm no foul, just pro ball.

And I think people are missing the reality of the situation when they complain about ‘Kempers ‘old tech’
The fact that Kemper can bring their decades old systems to the fight and score so big is illustrating just how half assed the competition still is today.
So I say let the competition continue. After all, it shrunk my Stage down to a great tiny version for an even trade in cost!

Kemper is just trying to react to their falling position. They have felt they don't have to do anything as they dominated their niche until 2021 when the QC released. They just got lucky that the QC had so many issues, and was pretty expensive so it didn't straight up dominate the modeler market, even if it is still the top seller in its category.

The Kemper Stage released a few years too late for what it is, considering people had been asking for a "floor Kemper" for years already.

Kemper's "Liquid Profiling" feature is a kneejerk reaction to the QC captures. On Kemper forums afaik they were experimenting with this years ago but never released it.

The Kemper Player is another product that would have been successful if it came out in say 2020 instead of at the end of 2023. It must've taken them at least a year or two to develop the Player (you don't just "slap" something like this together), so if anything it's most likely another response to the Quad Cortex. "Hey, here's a capture player/multifx for much less money than the QC!"

What they didn't account for is the rise of Tonex and NAM. Now there's not a whole lot of reason to buy Kemper for the average person (rather than the gigging pro) that drive the sales numbers. You can get Kemper's #1 feature for 177 € in a Tonex One. IK's crap software and Tonex One's limited functionality is far less of an issue at that price.

 

[Orvillain]

I don't think NAM is much of a factor for them, aside from maybe their engineers having bruised egoes that a bedroom dude with some Python came up with something way better than what they came up with.

But ToneX, QC, and the onslaught of Chinese companies making accessible products, almost certainly has a lot to do with their defensive position. A lot of music companies are facing stiff competition from the latter.

 

[Tanax]

Hey, it could've been worse....

It could've been a subscription

 

[laxu]

But ToneX, QC, and the onslaught of Chinese companies making accessible products, almost certainly has a lot to do with their defensive position. A lot of music companies are facing stiff competition from the latter.

For sure. Captures are now a commodity, so it will only take one of the more budget range manufacturers to make a good enough multifx unit with captures for amp models to push it to that sweet spot where it's cheap enough to be affordable to many, and sounds good enough that they aren't thinking of upgrading to the higher end units.

Something like a "Hotone Ampero III Stage" with captures for amp models would probably do very well as they have a compact form factor, very solid touchscreen user interface and good enough effects at an attractive price point.

That has to have all of the high end modeler manufacturers sweating a little bit. I think Line6, Fractal and even Boss are in a better place than Kemper, because their technology is not just limited to copying existing amps but they can make new custom models, have amps that behave like the real deal for controls etc. I think that will always have some appeal to people who own the real amp, or are familiar with them.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Hey, it could've been worse....

It could've been a subscription

 

[Joshual-L]

Spoiler : kemper didn’t release a new product but tried a new business model

They could have released the Player with full capabilities right from the start and charge a little more.
Everybody would have say « Whaou perfect ».

But no, they decided to do the worst business model ever.

 

[Joshual-L]

How I feel right now:

Christmas gift !!!
Profiling now available as an update !!!
Our team at kemper worked so hard to give you this update!
Level IV will be available in December!!
Only 199$!!
Another great news : pre-order now and get a 14$ coupon to spend on our profiles store!

 

[Aynirar27]

I feel like people are confusing upgrade with update.
Kemper updates are still free from what I can tell. The upgrades cost money, as is normal for any upgrade for anything ever

 

[Mongillo19]

The upgrades cost money, as is normal for any upgrade for anything ever

But let's say an update adds an amp model or effect, isn't that also an upgrade? No other company charges for this

 

[dk_ace]

Somebody at Kemper sat down and said "what can we remove and charge for later?" and then made two lists.

And I really think that is as much thought that went into this as they could muster. The way the two lists are compiled are designed to greedily extract as much money from users as possible. It all looks pretty desperate to me.

I wonder what the reception would have been like had they launched it like this from the beginning?

I think that might have been an interesting proposition, more H9 like. One hardware sku to manage, multiple levels of functionality depending on what you want. Buy the one that’s the best fit for you.

I’d probably rather them taken a simpler approach like pick one price in the middle and just have one clear offering.

I’m talking out of both sides of my face, I freaking hated the H9 model when the H9 came out. I was broke then too, which definitely impacted my opinion lol.

D

 

[Orvillain]

I wonder what the reception would have been like had they launched it like this from the beginning?

I think that might have been an interesting proposition, more H9 like. One hardware sku to manage, multiple levels of functionality depending on what you want. Buy the one that’s the best fit for you.

I’d probably rather them taken a simpler approach like pick one price in the middle and just have one clear offering.

I’m talking out of both sides of my face, I freaking hated the H9 model when the H9 came out. I was broke then too, which definitely impacted my opinion lol.

D

All good questions. I honestly don't know. But I suspect I would've still been sniffy about it, considering I just don't like the tones from the Kemper. It sounds like Amplitube 1 to me.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Good lord. This is definitely causing some push back across the internet. People in an uproar all over the place.

 

[DrewJD82]

Nothing would make this more complete than a good semantic debate over “update’ and “upgrade”. Dancing right on that “implemented” ground!

 

[Orvillain]

Nothing would make this more complete than a good semantic debate over “update’ and “upgrade”. Dancing right on that “implemented” ground!

TOP's already doing it!!

 

[Joshual-L]

I feel like people are confusing upgrade with update.
Kemper updates are still free from what I can tell. The upgrades cost money, as is normal for any upgrade for anything ever

How is it an upgrade when you already have everything in the box ???
Do kemper send you a upgrade kit?

 

[MTB1973]

Kempergate

 

[Blix]

Good lord. This is definitely causing some push back across the internet. People in an uproar all over the place.

I think they had fared better if the cost was more on the reasonable side, this just seems greedy.

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

I laugh so hard at all this. It's dumb, I agree.

But in dark corners of other device forums, the users literally ask for this type of update/upgrade, and are willing to pay for it mind you....just like this.

So one person's dumb, may be another's wishlist item....just for perspective sake.

Users of devices like Headrush and BOSS have asked specifically for these types of services from each respective manufacturer.....and no one has replied back.

Yet Kemper does it, and everything falls apart...very interesting juxtaposition.

Hi guys!

 

[deepskyone]

I think they had fared better if the cost was more on the reasonable side, this just seems greedy.

Yes, a single-tiered $99 DLC would still have been a dick move but probably more palatable for people that are already invested in the ecosystem.
But asking for 40+% of the price of the unit on top is just ridiculous.