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

[ian_dissonance]

I tend to see IEMs plus whatever backline or bringing their own cabs. That’s how we usually do it, but running our own IEM rig and don’t have to worry about communicating too much. If there is a backline I’d rather use it than cart shit, but if it’s iffy or unknown I prefer a full range monitor.

 

[JCW308]

Most odd, because the Android version seems to be fine.

View attachment 29988

How do the reverbs look when you go to select them? Old school or new Level 3 stuff in the list? What about assigning combo switches under System? Do they hold?

 

[creative360]

I like digital. Can’t claim to have always used it to its greatest advantage live, but most of that was early days in a run of a hundred shows in a small space first with DXR10 then CLR then back to DXR10 then finally to real cabinets. In that context, even today, an amp and pedals with a tiny bit of PA fill is still a great, maybe even better way to go. But I love an all in one, with maybe two expression pedals on the floor nothing else, and a bit above waist high amp to occasionally turn around and tweak without bending down, so I embraced the powered Kemper live early, and almost without weighing pros or cons, just went for it.

 

[creative360]

Luxury pricing aside—and for whatever reason that doesn’t bother me like for instance the price of a Fender custom shop guitar does—even without exploiting everything a Player can do, it’s a cool little box that would probably work just fine for me.

 

[JCW308]

Luxury pricing aside—and for whatever reason that doesn’t bother me like for instance the price of a Fender custom shop guitar does—even without exploiting everything a Player can do, it’s a cool little box that would probably work just fine for me.

It is a cool little box!

I have mine set like this:

Left - clean with delay / press again for morph to turn off delay and add tremolo
Middle = ambient clean / press again for morph to ambient crunch (use with expression pedal for swells)
Right = crunch with just a hint of reverb / press again for morph to lead with delay
Combo 1&2 = sense tempo
Combo 2&3 = tap tempo
Expression pedal toe up = tuner

 

[Orvillain]

Luxury pricing aside—and for whatever reason that doesn’t bother me like for instance the price of a Fender custom shop guitar does—even without exploiting everything a Player can do, it’s a cool little box that would probably work just fine for me.

I played a Fender Custom Shop once. It truly felt no different than a Mexican made strat to me!!

 

[Mongillo19]

I played a Fender Custom Shop once. It truly felt no different than a Mexican made strat to me!!

I can't wait for another 35 pages of why you are wrong

 

[Orvillain]

I can't wait for another 35 pages of why you are wrong

Well... ackshually....

 

[Orvillain]

Fucking hell.. that cat looks like my missus when she's 85 years old.

 

[Mongillo19]

Fucking hell.. that cat looks like my missus when she's 85 years old.

I'm sure she'd love to hear that

 

[JiveTurkey]

@Orvillain you are terrible

 

[Sascha Franck]

I played a Fender Custom Shop once. It truly felt no different than a Mexican made strat to me!!

Mate of mine, incredible player, used to play a CS Tele for ages. Even had it modified to suit him even better. Great Tele to be sure. Some years back, he accidentally tried a Harley Benton Tele (around €200 or so), exchanged the pickups and ever since the CS axe is serving as a backup.

 

[OneEng]

Well the discussion about Kemper lagging behind is about accuracy, so you’re missing the main point here. Profiling is reliant on being accurate otherwise it’s a total waste of time. At one point Kemper was the best option for profiling. Now it isn’t. You can be happy with it being “close enough” but that doesn’t mean other options in 2024 do the job much better.

Anyone who’s still happy with Kemper is more than entitled to be and no one is saying it sounds bad or unusable. But it’s a fact that other platforms all match their reference much closer and most can be had for less money too.

The POINT is that many (most) people don't care about profiling/capture at all. For those that DO care, Kemper is demonstrably not as accurate as ToneX and QC (for most amps), but sonically may actually create a "better sounding" capture to some peoples ears.

For those who feel that "main point" is profiling accuracy, Kemper isn't the best answer.

This whole thing is poopy.

1. It aint accurate. Objective. Disprove or shut up.
2. It doesn't sound good. Subjective. Nothing to prove or disprove.
3. It aint good value for money. Subjective. Nothing to prove or disprove.

Thus endeth my involvement with the thread.

1) It aint AS accurate as some others (I agree). Furthermore, it requires a butt ton more work to be accurate in the first place.
2) This is just BS and is STATISTICALLY, QUATATIVELY and EMPERICALLY incorrect. It is the most used digital box for people who tour live (by a long shot).
3) It depends on what you intend to do with it. Pick a use model, then a good discussion can be had.

For live players, they surely do.

Agree. For live, nothing else is even in the same league.

As said before, some people seem to think that Kemper profiles actually *sound* better than their originals.
I know, we're in the realm of semantics here - but to avoid confusion, it's absolutely relevant to make a distinction between "does thing XYZ scientifically better" and "sounds better".

Sure, we could then as well instantly stop any discussion once it's about the (highly subjective) perception of sound/tone, but in this case (or in case of, say, L6 vs. FAS or anything else...), there's some kinda factual evidence for certain devices (in this case the Kemper) to sound absolutely fine on a very high level as there's quite some high profile players using it live since a long time already.

Now, just so that nobody gets me wrong: I absolutely applaud anyone diving deeper into "graph territory". Not only because I'm interested on a sort of scientific level but also because it's defenitely pushing things forward.
In case people wouldn't do so, we possibly still wouldn't have the 2203 in the HX ecosystem (which instantly became one of my more used amps).
And threads such as the plugin leveling one wouldn't exist, either (which I am pretty grateful about as it finally made me analyse my plugin-sim-chain a bit more carefully).
So, I'm all for scientific exploration of whatever it might be.

And still, completely dismissing the Kemper as an inferior sounding unit isn't the entire truth. Not only is there several other aspects to it, no, it's also that the Kemper's (factually) inferior profiling isn't necessarily making it a worse sounding unit. It's just no as accurate.

I agree.

My POV:

1) We are still talking about the Kemper Player competitive position with its L2 and L3 upgrades ..... right? Lets quit talking about what brand of decaffeinated coffee is best.
2) Compared to other products targeted at the same market, it is arguably too expensive depending on your use model. Still, it isn't out of the galaxy too expensive, it's just enough so that people are either saying "Oh He** NO" or "Really?".
3) It is the only full Kemper backup solution you can put in a small bag. No other solution exists at any price.
4) It is competitive as a stand alone 3 button digital amp solution; however, it depends on what you need and your wallet size.

 

[Orvillain]

I'm sure she'd love to hear that

She laughed!

 

[Orvillain]

2) This is just BS and is STATISTICALLY, QUATATIVELY and EMPERICALLY incorrect. It is the most used digital box for people who tour live (by a long shot).

Cool. Then you have evidence you can present to support this.

I don't have any figures that breakdown touring live versus home players. I don't even really know why you'd make the distinction, other than snobbery against people who don't play live.

I would cite this page:

Thomann Sales Rank

Guitar Multi Effects at Europe's largest retailer of musical instruments - fast delivery, 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee and 3-year Thomann warranty

www.thomann.co.uk

There's obviously a lot of variability here, and it doesn't go into live versus non-live usage. But again, I don't even think that is relevant. Quite clearly, Kemper is in there, for sure. But not top dog. Not even 2nd dog.

 

[Mongillo19]

Cool. Then you have evidence you can present to support this.

I don't have any figures that breakdown touring live versus home players. I don't even really know why you'd make the distinction, other than snobbery against people who don't play live.

I would cite this page:

Thomann Sales Rank

Guitar Multi Effects at Europe's largest retailer of musical instruments - fast delivery, 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee and 3-year Thomann warranty

www.thomann.co.uk

There's obviously a lot of variability here, and it doesn't go into live versus non-live usage. But again, I don't even think that is relevant. Quite clearly, Kemper is in there, for sure. But not top dog. Not even 2nd dog.

Dang top 3 are NDSP

 

[Orvillain]

Dang top 3 are NDSP

For all the hoopla about it being shite, the Turdmaster Pro has done quite well as well it would seem! More reminders that forums and forumers are largely NOT your target market, and they're largely useless as a barometer for public mood and opinion.

All I will say is, I've noticed an increase in Kempers being available on Reverb, eBay, and Gumtree over the past few years. But that is just an anecdotal slice of course.

Harley Benton take the 10th, 11th, and 12th spots. That tells you that price point is quite a major thing for a lot of people.

 

[yeky83]

Cool. Then you have evidence you can present to support this.

I don't have any figures that breakdown touring live versus home players. I don't even really know why you'd make the distinction, other than snobbery against people who don't play live.

I would cite this page:

Thomann Sales Rank

Guitar Multi Effects at Europe's largest retailer of musical instruments - fast delivery, 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee and 3-year Thomann warranty

www.thomann.co.uk

There's obviously a lot of variability here, and it doesn't go into live versus non-live usage. But again, I don't even think that is relevant. Quite clearly, Kemper is in there, for sure. But not top dog. Not even 2nd dog.

This looks like a "top sellers of the week/month-ish" list.

 

[Orvillain]

This looks like a "top sellers of the week/month-ish" list.

Yeah, that's all you can get, seemingly:
"Here you'll find a ranking of all products in Guitar Multi Effects - sorted by daily sales and taking into account availability."

 

[yeky83]

Yeah, that's all you can get, seemingly:
"Here you'll find a ranking of all products in Guitar Multi Effects - sorted by daily sales and taking into account availability."

Oh daily.

The Kemper Player's doing better than I thought it'd be