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

[Orvillain]

These forums don’t represent a “majority” of people looking at the “situation”, more like the opinions of 15 people, maybe 20, and most of those are folks who have historically avoided Kemper anyway. There’s no situation. This is yet another successful product launch. And yeah some of us wish it had been handled slightly differently.

I've had a good look across social media, and there are a LOT of people either raising eyebrows at this, or outright hating on it. It definitely isn't just 20 people.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I've had a good look across social media, and there are a LOT of people either raising eyebrows at this, or outright hating on it. It definitely isn't just 20 people.

I have a soft spot for Kemper but it's a bit ugly across the internet on this one.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

So if I got the gist of it within the first minute or so I watched... he's trying to do the whole reverse uno card "No! The haters are the weirdos! Not me!" thing.... well.... <laughs> ... that surely didn't backfire!

How did "I'm rubber you're glue" turn into "reverse Uno" in the modern lexicon?

 

[Whizzinby]

Once @Whizzinby drops his new (soft-launched elsewhere) video—and agree or disagree, I’ll be one of the first to stamp it with a big heart or much love emoji—will there be anything left to say?

The gram is messing up the pacing on it, so you can rest easy my friend.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I think what rubs many people the wrong way (certainly the case for me) is the fact that they don't actually *add* stuff to the Player. It's not like the folks at, say, Line 6 or FAS sitting there and carefully modeling yet another device. No, the Kemper folks actually do *nothing* - and still charge you a premium. Because they left stuff out deliberately.
That's pretty much the Apple way. "Let's equip our super hot laptops with laughable amounts of SSD space so we can really fuck up people by charging them unholy amounts of money for extra SSD space!"
Now, you possibly don't really need all the features of Kempers up-leveling (just as you possibly don't need more than 256GB of internal SSD storage), but how many people will think along the lines of "uhm, this surely will come in handy!" and just buy the upgrades, regardless of the obscene price? Likely a lot.

Add to this that we already knew Christoph Kemper is a weirdo of the highest magnitude. I mean, they were keeping their audio interface functionality hidden for friggin' 10+ (TEN!) years! Who's doing such things? People trying to milk an idea as much as possible. Yeah, I hear you already. "But the audio interface thingy was a free update!" Sure. But you can bet it's been part of a plan to keep the KPA attractive, even after all these years, so the thing might still be interesting for new users.

No, these are neither particularly new or bad ideas - but I still don't like them.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I think what rubs many people the wrong way (certainly the case for me) is the fact that they don't actually *add* stuff to the Player. It's not like the folks at, say, Line 6 or FAS sitting there and carefully modeling yet another device. No, the Kemper folks actually do *nothing* - and still charge you a premium. Because they left stuff out deliberately.
That's pretty much the Apple way. "Let's equip our super hot laptops with laughable amounts of SSD space so we can really fuck up people by charging them unholy amounts of money for extra SSD space!"
Now, you possibly don't really need all the features of Kempers up-leveling (just as you possibly don't need more than 256GB of internal SSD storage), but how many people will think along the lines of "uhm, this surely will come in handy!" and just buy the upgrades, regardless of the obscene price? Likely a lot.

Add to this that we already knew Christoph Kemper is a weirdo of the highest magnitude. I mean, they were keeping their audio interface functionality hidden for friggin' 10+ (TEN!) years! Who's doing such things? People trying to milk an idea as much as possible. Yeah, I hear you already. "But the audio interface thingy was a free update!" Sure. But you can bet it's been part of a plan to keep the KPA attractive, even after all these years, so the thing might still be interesting for new users.

No, these are neither particularly new or bad ideas - but I still don't like them.

Kemper isn't the first to do this in the music industry though -- Everyone who ever "bought" a UAD plugin before the Native versions was buying nothing more than an unlock code for something that was already on the firmware of their UA device; same with Eventide H9.

I think the issue is that Kemper is the first one to release the nerfed version well over 10 years into the life cycle of the product when there are fully unlocked versions of the full featured devices available on the used market for about the same price as the fewer-featured and fully-nerfed device and way less than the fewer-featured device once unlocked.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Kemper isn't the first to do this in the music industry though -- Everyone who ever "bought" a UAD plugin before the Native versions was buying nothing more than an unlock code for something that was already on the firmware of their UA device; same with Eventide H9.

Sure, but they weren't crippling down the hardware functionality, which is pretty much what Kemper is doing (yeah, I'm aware they aren't exactly hardware things, but more FX slots or a parallel path is pretty much along those lines).

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Sure, but they weren't crippling down the hardware functionality, which is pretty much what Kemper is doing (yeah, I'm aware they aren't exactly hardware things, but more FX slots or a parallel path is pretty much along those lines).

I would say loading a DSP chip with dozens of algorithms, but requiring you to "send money now!" to unlock each one individually is crippling down the hardware functionality?

Regardless, the main point is that this wouldn't be such a beef if it weren't SUCH old technology at this point that you were being asked to pay to unlock. Even UA, the king of all of this, has had to start using near fire-sale tactics with their DSP plugin sales the last year or two.

 

[Enchilada Jones]

Boss is actually the king of arbitrary inclusion or withholding functionality depending on which device they put their software in. But no one declares them evil. It’s just well known that Boss gives and Boss takes away as it suits them in pursuit of expanding sales and extending life of the devices.

Kemper could be on Profiler 4 right now and Player 2 just announced. And how much more cash could they have squeezed out of the market if they, you know, did it the old fashioned well accepted way?

 

[JiveTurkey]

Boss is actually the king of arbitrary inclusion or withholding functionality depending on which device they put their software in. But no one declares them evil. It’s just well known that Boss gives and Boss takes away as it suits them.

Kemper could be on Profiler 4 right now and Player 2 just announced. And how much more cash could they have squeezed out of the market if they, you know, did it the old fashioned well accepted way?

Boss doesn't price their units up in the region where anyone questions them on anything. That's how they get away with it.

 

[Enchilada Jones]

Boss doesn't price their units up in the region where anyone questions them on anything. That's how they get away with it.

So Kemper is the new Boss same as the old Boss.

They need to hurry up and get the Tremelo Slicer thing released so I can play that while I say it…

 

[Orvillain]

I would say loading a DSP chip with dozens of algorithms, but requiring you to "send money now!" to unlock each one individually is crippling down the hardware functionality?

No, because if I had an Apollo x8p (which I did) I could fill it up with as many Distressor plugins as I wanted, until I exhausted the DSP resources. They didn't limit the hardware at all.

 

[Orvillain]

Boss is actually the king of arbitrary inclusion or withholding functionality depending on which device they put their software in. But no one declares them evil. It’s just well known that Boss gives and Boss takes away as it suits them in pursuit of expanding sales and extending life of the devices.

Kemper could be on Profiler 4 right now and Player 2 just announced. And how much more cash could they have squeezed out of the market if they, you know, did it the old fashioned well accepted way?

This is a fallacious argument. No one moans that a DD8 is lacking features that a DD500 would have, because they're not the same thing.

Maybe if Kemper were on profiler 4 right now, their profiling wouldn't suck balls and they would've kept up with the times in terms of workflow and feature set.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

No, because if I had an Apollo x8p (which I did) I could fill it up with as many Distressor plugins as I wanted, until I exhausted the DSP resources. They didn't limit the hardware at all.

Only after you paid them for the right to do that - until you did that the software piece of the hardware was locked.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

No, because if I had an Apollo x8p (which I did) I could fill it up with as many Distressor plugins as I wanted, until I exhausted the DSP resources. They didn't limit the hardware at all.

And as someone with literally all UA plugs, when i sold my Apollo 16 i sold it without plugs so theyd have to upgrade.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Boss is actually the king of arbitrary inclusion or withholding functionality depending on which device they put their software in. But no one declares them evil. It’s just well known that Boss gives and Boss takes away as it suits them in pursuit of expanding sales and extending life of the devices.

Kemper could be on Profiler 4 right now and Player 2 just announced. And how much more cash could they have squeezed out of the market if they, you know, did it the old fashioned well accepted way?

I don’t remember Boss charging for sneaky amps on the Katana.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

And as someone with literally all UA plugs, when i sold my Apollo 16 i sold it without plugs so theyd have to upgrade.

 

[Orvillain]

Only after you paid them for the right to do that - until you did that the software piece of the hardware was locked.

I feel like you're wilfully misrepresenting the situation and equivocating death by maow maow, and death by over eating cheese.

 

[Enchilada Jones]

This is a fallacious argument. No one moans that a DD8 is lacking features that a DD500 would have, because they're not the same thing.

Maybe if Kemper were on profiler 4 right now, their profiling wouldn't suck balls and they would've kept up with the times in terms of workflow and feature set.

There are like semi monthly rants for years about Boss introducing new product that touts inclusion of their amp modeling but upon inspection deeper than the release notes you discover it was previous generation modeling. Why? Because it would devalue their other product.

I don’t remember Boss charging for sneaky amps on the Katana.

And you don’t remember Kemper charging for USB audio or a half dozen other things they could have charged for because those things didn’t pose a problem devaluing the product….or they are evil and forgot they were in those instances…you get to decide how to interpret their motive.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I feel like you're wilfully misrepresenting the situation and equivocating death by maow maow, and death by over eating cheese.

To be honest, this all started with a reply to a Sasha post which means i probably missed the premise.

My bottom line is that if this were a collection of products launched today with New Tech, nobody would complain about it. It’s hard to stomach on stuff this old.