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

[Orvillain]

iPads and formatting are a match made in heaven (hell)

File down yer flippers! You'll be alreet.

 

[Sascha Franck]

When it first dawned on me that adding pcom to the QC would mean a bunch of locked content it rubbed me the wrong way, but the way it’s implemented is actually the best they could have done it.

Fwiw, I'm not even saying the way NDSP are doing it is necessarily all bad. As I don't own any of their plugins or hardware items, as I also have no plans on changing that any day soon, I've got no horse in that race, either.

All I wanted to say is that Kemper isn't the firsto to offer paid content for a hardware modeler (Line 6 offering their models for the PODs has been mentioned already, too).
Ok, admittedly, with both L6 and NDSP, what they're selling is "content", whereas Kemper is trying to sell "functionality" - which is indeed a first, at least from all I know. And yes, that's kinda weird - and I do happily agree that it rubs me pretty much the wrong way, too. Makes my interest in their products dwindle quite a bit.
It's kinda like buying a guitar for, say, €800 and the company telling you that the actual fixing screws for the already mounted locking tuners would cost you another €200 (with no option to replace them with 3rd party tuners).

Yet, all I wanted to say with my initial post on the subject was that we will likely see more of that kinda thing. Once whatever hardware is sort of "perfect" (I know it never is, but let's just assume it is for now), once the hardware has plenty of headroom for future software to run on and once the market of people interested in that product, there's really only two ways for the company to still generate money from that hardware:
1) Try to build some planned obsolescence in.
2) Charge for software updates.

Alternatively, you could deliberately build less than perfect hardware (not lasting long, see planned obsolescence, or not offering enough DSP juice for new features).
Or you could just try to come up with a new and better product and stop supporting the old one so your users would buy the new thing. Which would as well only work so-so-ishly in case the older product was pretty mature already.

As a user and as someone to actually care about the environment, I'd personally rather have "perfect" hardware with ongoing software support. But the only way to get that would be by paying for updates.

 

[Tanax]

View attachment 29545

I mean, at this point I think the crown goes to Fractal for having the longest new-product tease

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

Sure they do. Fractal charges for being able to have 2 amp blocks for instance. That's an upgrade in capabilities. You need to buy the appropriate unit because the FM3 is not powerful enough (at least not with current modeling performance). Imagine if you could pay to upgrade your FM3 to have 2 amp blocks though? No longer do you need to go through the hassle of selling your FM3 and "upgrade" to a more powerful unit, or be forced to buy a larger unit that you have to lug around, you can just unlock that via paid upgrade and keep the FM3 form factor.

I don't know what is best to be honest. I think it mostly boils down to that this is a "new" thing to do in the guitar world, having the option to upgrade your unit to unlock more capabilities. People feel like they are paying for hardware that is "gimped" and have to pay to unlock it. But the truth is that the Player still has everything it did when they bought it, nothing has been removed (they actually gained all amp block parameters with the new firmware). They now just have the option of bringing it up to almost feature parity with Stage, but much smaller.

If you compare a fully unlocked Player to a Stage, you're basically paying 500€ less for the Player for almost the same capabilities. Granted, on the Stage you get some more FS, the screen and capture of course. But it's a pretty sweet deal if you previously were forced to get the Stage because you wanted all of Kemper's effects for instance and don't need the capture or as many FS. It might even be a great option for some that are looking to downsize their rig.

Either you are locked by the hardware, or you're locked by software. It might "feel" better to be locked by hardware, because then you know you get the most out of the hardware you paid for, but it also offers the LEAST amount of flexibility for the user that is now forced to buy a whole new unit if they want more capabilities, rather than just pay for an upgrade and you're good to go.

Again, I'm not sure which is best.

 

[yeky83]

That's a bit of a dumb analogy, given you'd know going into it that the pricing is tiered, not a year later.

1. Why does it matter that it’s a year later, you paid low tier a year ago and can pay high tier now, as long as the food’s good who cares, they have great ribeye for goodness sake along with pretty good Chinese, Italian, shrimp, tater tots, and ice cream, why would you not go cus it’s tiered you weirdo, make it make sense.
2. If you didn’t know this was hinted a year ago, I take away your gear obsessed forumite badge.

 

[paisleywookiee]

1. Why does it matter that it’s a year later, you paid low tier a year ago and can pay high tier now, as long as the food’s good who cares, they have great ribeye for goodness sake along with pretty good Chinese, Italian, shrimp, tater tots, and ice cream, why would you not go cus it’s tiered you weirdo, make it make sense.
2. If you didn’t know this was hinted a year ago, I take away your gear obsessed forumite badge.

 

[Mongillo19]

1. Why does it matter that it’s a year later, you paid low tier a year ago and can pay high tier now, as long as the food’s good who cares, they have great ribeye for goodness sake along with pretty good Chinese, Italian, shrimp, tater tots, and ice cream, why would you not go cus it’s tiered you weirdo, make it make sense.
2. If you didn’t know this was hinted a year ago, I take away your gear obsessed forumite badge.

Someone is hungry

 

[paisleywookiee]

Someone is hungry

If there's one thing I enjoy more than car analogies, it's food analogies. Amirite?

 

[JiveTurkey]

What are we actually arguing on here? Is it too expensive? The functionality capability was paywalled like they said it was going to be from the beginning? Or the tech is decade + old and not worth it? Or all of the above?

 

[paisleywookiee]

What are we actually arguing on here? Is it too expensive? The functionality capability was paywalled like they said it was going to be from the beginning? Or the tech is decade + old and not worth it? Or all of the above?

I honestly have ran out of all the fucks I had to give this weekend. Godspeed, Kemper and Kemper fans!

 

[Mongillo19]

What are we actually arguing on here? Is it too expensive? The functionality capability was paywalled like they said it was going to be from the beginning? Or the tech is decade + old and not worth it? Or all of the above?

All you can eat buffets

 

[creative360]

OK I thought this thread was just another good ‘ol ton of Kemper-hating non-owner salty retiree misinformation and worse, and all sprinkled with a bit of dime-store business advice. Tradition! Then I went and spent a couple hours on TOP’s version of this thread. WHOA.

My bad! You guys are the best! I missed you!

That’s where a smarter person than myself would end this post.

Meanwhile Kemper is, even in 2024, including the Player, still a perennial bestseller. Their founder and the company are always best when they stick to being expensive and original. Screw the half in or the half out. Player shoulda been released at $1,200. Then everyone who was never going to buy it anyway could complain about the price and move on. End of story.

PS for some reason I remember a brief passing interview remark where CK said that if they could figure out how best to implement profiling in the tiny box it could be added later as a firmware update. Based on their long history of benchmark non-sleazy business practices, my guess is that that would be free.

Let’s discuss in 2026. .

 

[Sascha Franck]

if they could figure out how best to implement profiling in the tiny box it could be added later as a firmware update.

Sell a profiling breakout box (connected via USB). Problem solved, shitloads of money earned.

 

[creative360]

That’s an interesting idea. It would be even more interesting if the box produced the equivalent of a DNG file. That was the version of raw that all the cameras could read, an alternative to their proprietary algorithms.

But I’ve lived through like over a decade of people writing how they’d never be interested in profiling amps, and please make something that just plays and doesn’t profile. Then eventually other companies finally lifted and implemented the concept and suddenly it was everybody’s dealbreaker; like I don’t want any box that doesn’t have it. Kinda funny.

Anyway I never worry about Kemper making money. And I’d ask him for business advice way before I’d ever offer him any.

 

[creative360]

***adding it to the pre-existing device for free would still be preferable

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, an industry file format standard for captures would be fantastic. Just as .wav for IRs.

 

[[Nathan]]

NAM would be the only one that has a chance on that front. It's open source and ready to be adopted by anyone who wants to play ball. I can obviously see why companies would rather take a fork of NAM and market it as their own magical capturing tech, but base NAM has the best chance at becoming some kind of standard (at this point anyway, maybe something better will come along).

 

[BenIfin]

NAM [is] open source

Just to continue our friendly point-counter-point debate on this :) ... it is my view that ^^ these 2 words ^^ are the very reason why NAM will never ever be any sort of Industry Capture Standard.

There has been / is / and will continue for some time a "default de-facto" standard ... which is Kemper Profiles ... but again, for obvious reasons, they too will never ever be any sort of Industry Capture Standard.

In fact, I would argue - theoretically - that if there were to be another widely-adopted-format for the emerging near future, Tonex would have the lead by a mile ...... I don't think a product has exploded and spread so widely in the M.I in my memory in recent time .... but even Tonex will never be that.

Just my 11c :)

 

[Sascha Franck]

NAM would be the only one that has a chance on that front. It's open source and ready to be adopted by anyone who wants to play ball. I can obviously see why companies would rather take a fork of NAM and market it as their own magical capturing tech, but base NAM has the best chance at becoming some kind of standard (at this point anyway, maybe something better will come along).

I'm not into NAM capturing technology, so: would it be possible to build an offline standalone capturing box creating NAM profiles? I'd think it should be possible (due to the open source nature of the format).
I think that's something many people would be interested in, especially as you could just carry it around with you and take captures wherever you go and as you possibly wouldn't have to clog up your computer. The ongoing input level issue coud be adressed that way, too.

As far as the actual calculation process goes, such a box could offer different options.
First off, it could do everything on its own. Might take longer but wouldn't require an internet connection, a computer or whatsoever. Ideally, you'd be able to grab the data of a whole bunch of captures and queue them up so the actual calculation could be done, say, over night.
Another option would be to again queue all captures up and do the calculation once the box is connected to a computer. You might then as well use some server-based calculation.

Anyhow, I really think such a capture-only box would be cool. After all, it wouldn't have to be too expensive, either, especially in case you keep the actual calculation outside. Hardware could be mono I/O (TS out, XLR/combo in) with trimpots and a circuit board to play out the required capture trigger signals and then record and save the input. Anything else could be taken care of with a mobile app.

Especially for a company such as Dimehead this might be a great thing to add in addition to their pedal.
@Dirk Dimehead, what would you say?

 

[Sascha Franck]

are the very reason why NAM will never ever be any sort of Industry Capture Standard.

Why not? WAV/AIF turned into the standard for IRs as well. Really not all *that* much different.
Besides, it's up to both companies and users. In case more companies support NAM and their products get bought, it'll already become a sort of standard.
Fwiw, this is why I really wish folks such as the Dimehead guys as much success as possible (too bad they messed up so many things, at least IMO).

 

[[Nathan]]

Just to continue our friendly point-counter-point debate on this :) ... it is my view that ^^ these 2 words ^^ are the very reason why NAM will never ever be any sort of Industry Capture Standard.

Yeah I think the tech moves too fast, it's kind of like saying whats the defacto standard for amp modelling... there isnt any, many different approaches. I mainly say NAM because anyone can grab the tech and do what they want with it whereas Kemper/QC are locked up. I'm pretty sure ToneX is a stones throw from NAM but there's something different (imo worse) about it.

I mean in theory a dimehead pedal could do the capturing/processing but typically need a GPU. I guess they could link up to wifi and do the processing in the cloud like Tonocracy. Tons of options out there, just what makes business sense to someone. There's so many capture solutions out there who even knows if the demand is really there. Deal with ToneX or grab a QC/NC/Kemper and call it a day. Maybe Line6 and Fender have something up their sleeves as well. Captures seem like something that will eventually be a bolt on / nice to have thing and the rest of the FX/Routing/Amp Model ecosystem will be the selling point. Feels like capture only has been conquered already.