Kemper Profiler MK 2

[OneEng]

What scale says they are significantly different?

They aren't that different, but they are different. Thing is, I bet I could tweak the profile (whichever one it is) with a little EQ and they would be nearly identical. Even without that, in a live environment, no one would know the difference.

Having said that, I think that it would be nice if Kemper's new profiling algorithm didn't involve "refining" and was much more push button .... and accurate.

The thing is, for live use, I would feel sorry for anyone on stage using one of those pathetic NAM players.... or God forbid a Tonex. Just to think about the pathetic excuse for efx that Tonex has and all anyone talks about is null tests. This baffles me.

If the Mk2 makes a Mk1 profile sound different, that's a bad thing. He must be making a mistake in his test.

The more I think about it, the more I want to call BS on his test. Many many people have both a Player, which is Mk2, and a Mk1, but I've never heard of any of those people saying the Player sounds different than their Mk1. Kemper's Player product page even says they sound identical. The only other possibility is he's hearing a difference due to different analog components, but that should be a very small difference compared to what he's showing.

That was my thought as well. I made that same comment in that thread. Another tell here is that if there were some "improvement" in MK2 it would seem like Kemper would be shouting it to the heavens and in that thread ..... not a peep.

You've got 4 people right here saying it.

Do you have 4 people saying that either one sounds like crap? Do you have someone saying they can clearly hear aliasing so bad in one that it makes it sound awful?

I am not going to argue that more accurate would not be better though. What I can argue is that for people that play live, the guitar eq on the mixer are likely going to tweak based on the speakers and the room anyway. I spend considerable time tweaking my rigs so that they sound good in the mix, on our bands PA, in a venue size room. These tweaks depart from whatever the original capture is anyway. In many cases, what sounds good in the mix doesn't sound so good by itself.

My guess is that the first clip (less bottom and more mids) would actually cut the mix and sound better even though most people would pick out the 2nd clip as "sounding better" because it has more bottom and is "fuller". In the mix it might well just sound "congested".

 

[riffy]

I don’t know which is which, so there, as far as Deadpans clips are concerned. But, they sound very different to me. My ears like #2 better.

 

[BenIfin]

Word is that the MK2 will ship with a 6 foot replica 1970's red curly guitar lead so if you want a less compressed tone, just step further away from the MK2 to stretch the lead straight.

You're welcome !

 

[Enchilada Jones]

I mean, yeah. I’ve seen this shit happen in person, and it’s kinda funny but not.

“Oh sweet baby Jesus guys I need to have authentic speaker representations for each song!”

Sound guy: “the fuck you do!”

You don’t understand it.
The Kone is for the pleasure of the guitar player. It’s that ‘amp in a room’ sound we all seek.

You don’t mic a Kemper Kone and you can still send a line out to FOH when you are live if you want. You can even lock the output to FOH to single ‘good enough’ cab choice if you don’t want to share your accuracy with the philistines in the audience.

 

[paisleywookiee]

You don’t understand it.
The Kone is for the pleasure of the guitar player. It’s that ‘amp in a room’ sound we all seek.

You don’t mic a Kemper Kone and you can still send a line out to FOH when you are live if you want. You can even lock the output to FOH to single ‘good enough’ cab choice if you don’t want to share your accuracy with the philistines in the audience.

I understand it just fine. I know you don’t mic it. There are going to be times where you’re not going through the PA though, or the amount you’re coming out of the PA isn’t much louder than the cab, in which case changing speaker emulations is silly.

Again, I don’t think it’s stupid or dumb. It’s just that I don’t think it’s worth the effort over a power amp and regular cab.

I also think it’s funny we’re talking about accuracy, when accuracy wasn’t important before, as long as it sounded good.

 

[[Nathan]]

I also think it’s funny we’re talking about accuracy, when accuracy wasn’t important before, as long as it sounded good.

It only applies when the defendant feels like it

 

[BenIfin]

As we might say down here, is it just me, or has this thread actually disappeared up its own arse where the Sun doth not shine (?)

 

[Steinmetzify]

Wait. There’s an MKII? How the fuck did I not know this?! @JiveTurkey wtf bro?

 

[Enchilada Jones]

I also think it’s funny we’re talking about accuracy, when accuracy wasn’t important before, as long as it sounded good.

lol! You definitely don’t get that part. I was highlighting the selective adherence to the ‘accuracy’ jihad with my comments.
I was not changing my own stance, that good enough is good enough.

I was pointing out the selective application of the rule by others.
I think if you reread my comments you’ll find I said that pretty clearly in mostly those same words!

 

[OneEng]

You don’t understand it.
The Kone is for the pleasure of the guitar player. It’s that ‘amp in a room’ sound we all seek.

Seems kind of strange that someone would crave a perfect null, but not care about having the "amp in the room" sound from the cab doesn't it?

I have been on the edge of buying a powered Kab for my Kemper several times and had to remind myself that my band plays all in-ear so the Kab would really only be for my own selfish basement jamming .

It has been my experience that the most difficult change for an old tube amp player to make is losing the "amp in the room" sound in lieu of the "amp mic'ed and amped through the PA" sound. This is much more prevalent IMO than any capture difference would ever be.

I got your point completely and I agree.

I wonder how many people play their capture devices or modelers strictly through head phones?

 

[Mongillo19]

 

[DrewJD82]

The Kone is for the pleasure of the guitar player.

 

[BenIfin]

Short of booking out some time at the Cern Large Hadron Collider .... a well set up and done Null Test is as good as we have for us lay-people to determine how accurate a copy of a static Amp set up is.

In this Context, there is no doubt that NAM is top of the heap ... followed very closely by Tonex .. then some distance to the QC ... and then some more distance to the current KPA MK1 Process.

So whilst music and tone definitely is subjective, NAM [and Tonex] are -objectively speaking- the best Amp copying tools currently available for static capturing .... you know, kind of like water is wet .... they just "are".

This does not though in any way devalue anyone's subjective personal ear-preferences for whatever tone they most like .... plenty of people prefer good modelers like the Axe and Helix and QC .... plenty of people love NAM/Tonex .... plenty of people love the KPA ... so in this respect, there is no objective right answer.

But the whole accuracy -vs- subjective preference in no way invalidate each other, either way.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Here is a Vs using a Mark Vii in iiC mode.

Which is the real amp?

I’d say the second half.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Yeah, they definitely sound different. Which is better? Depends on if you like a sizzle to it, or more muted top end. My issue with profiling the amps I mentioned was that it took multiple times for us to get something we liked. As I previously mentioned, this was a hair over a year ago. Has the profiling process improved? If so, that's good.

As it pertains to the thread at hand, I'd have hoped they'd have ironed out this process, made the overall sound closer, and very importantly, modernized the user interface. That doesn't appear to have happened, at least not on-device.

The tonal difference I can deal with. To me I’d guess the second half is the amp since it’s less compressed than the first.
Which I’m fairly certain will show in the how the attack feels.
Then again, as soon as there’s no real speaker/power amp interaction it feels less fun than an amp.

One of the big reasons that I still run an amp into a cab even with loads/DI.

And an even bigger reason that I’d rather run the MkV pre into the Fryette GPDI-IR then a load/modeller/profiler.

I actually started taking the lil Fryette with me instead of any digi thing.
Even stuff like a Bogner xtc or BAD SLO pedal are more fun that way.

 

[Antipodes]

Wait. There’s an MKII? How the fuck did I not know this?! @JiveTurkey wtf bro?

Geez man. You have really missed out. We have already clocked up to 146 pages of all the edifying material above just on this thread! Looks like your weekend is all booked up now.

Wait a minute ...

After some deep reflection, I must confess - you are probably no more in the dark than the rest of us.

 

[DLC86]

The conversation keeps trying to pivot on some point nobody made because the made point prior was “Kemper doesn’t sound the samest of modern profilers”. That’s it. Then like 20 pages of people quoting that with a list of shit that doesn’t have anything to do with that.

Thanks for the recap, don't have time to read the 20 pages I missed these last days, now I can give my contribution:

KEMPER IS NOT ACCURATE!

 

[Orvillain]

Do you have 4 people saying that either one sounds like crap?

I'm pretty sure a couple of us have said that yes, the 1st one sounds like crap compared to the 2nd one.

Do you have someone saying they can clearly hear aliasing so bad in one that it makes it sound awful?

It definitely could be aliasing causing the cloudy nasty mid-range in the first clip, sure. I'll say that if it makes you feel better.

I am not going to argue that more accurate would not be better though.

I don't know man, you've been arguing that this whole time. Why change?!

 

[Orvillain]

Short of booking out some time at the Cern Large Hadron Collider .... a well set up and done Null Test is as good as we have for us lay-people to determine how accurate a copy of a static Amp set up is.

You don't even need null tests to be able to hear that the Kemper sounds different to the source amp, and in my experience, this holds true 99% of the time.

 

[Orvillain]

As we might say down here, is it just me, or has this thread actually disappeared up its own arse where the Sun doth not shine (?)

lol nobody says that!! Mr. 1880's !!