Kemper Profiler MK 2

[paisleywookiee]

One issue I have seen come up a number of times in the last 5+ years is a LOT of younger players don't have much if any experience with real tube amps and micing real cabs like us old geezers. Their learning curve and experience dialing in a modeler is very different than ours.

I guess if we’re walking everyone back to complete “I know nothing about amps, know nothing about positioning a mic”, then absolutely everything is daunting.
It’s very disappointing to see someone just willing to scroll through some pre-fab sounds, and not learn how anything works. But maybe that’s where we’re at with newer players.

 

[LP59]

I guess if we’re walking everyone back to complete “I know nothing about amps, know nothing about positioning a mic”, then absolutely everything is daunting.
It’s very disappointing to see someone just willing to scroll through some pre-fab sounds, and not learn how anything works. But maybe that’s where we’re at with newer players.

I don't think that's where we're at.

I think where we're at is there is a wealth of choices for us to explore. With today's modelers, we have hundreds of amps and thousands of cabinets/mics at our fingertips. Even the most experienced person on earth with tube amps would find it difficult to explore that universe of sounds in a productive manner.

It's not about duplicating one sound that I know from using a tube amp. That's trivial. It's also uninteresting. It's about expanding horizons by exploring how things work and finding interesting new tones that appeal to me. Making that exploration productive and rewarding is the challenge of today's modelers and profilers.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I don't think that's where we're at.

I think where we're at is there is a wealth of choices for us to explore. With today's modelers, we have hundreds of amps and thousands of cabinets/mics at our fingertips. Even the most experienced person on earth with tube amps would find it difficult to explore that universe of sounds in a productive manner.

It's not about duplicating one sound that I know from using a tube amp. That's trivial. It's also uninteresting. It's about expanding horizons by exploring how things work and finding interesting new tones that appeal to me. Making that exploration productive and rewarding is the challenge of today's modelers and profilers.

Sure, that’s going to be the blessing and the curse of it. But I guess I’m not really thinking it’s that difficult to explore either.

 

[RevBillyG]

I find it odd that QC users want the X versions of the plugs on the QC.
You have modeled versions, then you have the capture tech to cover specific user scenarios. Although the modeled stuff should be close, no?

Most of the NDSP plugins are software modified amps... they don't exist in the real world. Same with the effects.

 

[Mongillo19]

Most of the NDSP plugins are software modified amps... they don't exist in the real world. Same with the effects.

I mean sure but they also have

Mesa 2C+
Fortin Nameless
Fortin NATAS
Tone King
Granophyre
Fortin Cali
The 3 amps in the new JM plugin are real
3 amps in the Morgan Suite

 

[TubeStack]

Personally, I would never approach a profiler with the idea of finding useable tones out of profiles made by others, at least not as my main way of getting a sound. Too many variables, especially differences in guitars and pickups. Profile your own amp, on a setting that you love. That was the best use I had for my QC.

 

[ChordInversion]

Capturing is extremely inconsistent, and finding existing captures that I like is like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve got no desire to sift through this shit anymore.

Add to that the fact that that they can't be dialed in like models. I had to find a new capture every time I wanted to swap guitars or whatever. It sapped much of the enjoyment I get out of gear. I'm getting a Stadium, and I can promise you I'll never so much as touch Proxy when it's ready. It's just not for me.

 

[LP59]

Personally, I would never approach a profiler with the idea of finding useable tones out of profiles made by others, at least not as my main way of getting a sound. Too many variables, especially differences in guitars and pickups. Profile your own amp, on a setting that you love. That was the best use I had for my QC.

That was originally a popular way to use a profiler. These days though, I'd guess something like 99% of profiler owners only use profiles created by others, experts at that task. Kemper's most popular model, the Player (this is a Kemper thread ), doesn't even currently have the ability to create profiles.

 

[OneEng]

Kemper is dead

Not right now it isn't, at least not yet.

I am certainly not discounting that there are many happy exising Kemper users. As sales dwindle and people pursue other modelers with more/better features, at what point does Kemper start losing money attempting to support the current users?
Sales decline, less units are made, costs increase per unit made, staff are released?
Unfortunately money rocks the world.

I completely agree.

NAM is free, and it has shaken the entire industry.
Nearly everyone is now supporting it or planning to add support in future products and releases. 2026 will be the year of capturing.

Literally everything you stated (other than NAM being free) is incorrect.

• Most people buy tube amp rigs still. All digital amps of any kind are still the minority AFAIK
• The list of products supporting NAM vs those not supporting NAM is silly lopsided toward "not supporting".

Yes and no.
There are fanatics like us that chase everything and want it all but that doesn't speak for the general population.

Some people just want to plug and play and not sift through thousands of options/captures. If it sounds great and the topology works for them, they are happy.

IMO as long as a unit has great and authentic sounds and the integrated models closely reflect the real counterparts captures are not needed at all. Of course in the case of a product only offering captures, the tech has to be there.
I find it odd that QC users want the X versions of the plugs on the QC.
You have modeled versions, then you have the capture tech to cover specific user scenarios. Although the modeled stuff should be close, no? I guess not. People still want the soft versions ported over as a third option. Some users, sometimes me, want it all.
With respect to NAM, it was not designed for modeler use. The NAM loaders in modelers are trimmed down to support the hardware architecture. DAW based users are a different vertical and the software design is completely different.
NAM is also just the flavor of the day, there will be something next.

I agree. First, most people don't have a bunch of amps of their own to capture/profile. That means that the majority of users that buy a capture device are downloading existing captures/profiles and tweaking them. IMO it isn't that different from a pure modeler except there are MANY fewer starting points to start tweaking from.

Even a tube amp rig with pedals will be tweaked. Of course, the options for tweaking are much more limited, but certainly no one buys an amp and turns it on and doesn't touch anything but the volume and gain knob.

Great tone is great tone. It doesn't matter how you got it IMO. It does matter some how hard it was to get there though. This is what I think Stadiums strength will prove to be.

One issue I have seen come up a number of times in the last 5+ years is a LOT of younger players don't have much if any experience with real tube amps and micing real cabs like us old geezers. Their learning curve and experience dialing in a modeler is very different than ours.

I also think they are not a picky in their tone as we older players .

Personally, I would never approach a profiler with the idea of finding useable tones out of profiles made by others, at least not as my main way of getting a sound. Too many variables, especially differences in guitars and pickups. Profile your own amp, on a setting that you love. That was the best use I had for my QC.

It is literally the only way I have ever made rigs I use live. While I profiled my VHT and my Fender BF and by buddies MESA MKII and my friends Randel .... and those profiles were very good copies of those amps compared A/B, I found profiles I liked better on the rig exchange in some instances, and paid in others. Those are now my go-to live rigs. I also found great amps I didn't even know about doing it this way (Morgan AC20 anyone?).

Add to that the fact that that they can't be dialed in like models. I had to find a new capture every time I wanted to swap guitars or whatever. It sapped much of the enjoyment I get out of gear. I'm getting a Stadium, and I can promise you I'll never so much as touch Proxy when it's ready. It's just not for me.

I actually consider that to be one of Kemper's greatest strengths. You can easily tweak a profile to the sound most pleasing to you.... ok .... at least I can. YMMV.

 

[ChordInversion]

That was originally a popular way to use a profiler. These days though, I'd guess something like 99% of profiler owners only use profiles created by others, experts at that task. Kemper's most popular model, the Player (this is a Kemper thread ), doesn't even currently have the ability to create profiles.

Yes. While I can absolutely understand the appeal, especially for touring musicians, of profiling rigs used to record an album (which can vary a lot in terms of gear and settings), I personally don't have amps I ant to profile. I want the device to be the place where I dial in sounds. So modeling is for me. But profiling/capture is clearly popular with some players.

 

[RevBillyG]

With a Fractal or Helix/HX Stadium, you can go “Like a Mesa Mark”, and then go about dialing it in how you’d like it. With captures, at least with NAM and TONEX, if you don’t like how they’ve dialed it in, you’re dead in the water

Uhhhhh.... no.

On something like a boogie the EQ is interactive. Most people who don't own one wouldn't know how to dial it in anyway. Most people give up & move on. The tone stack on most other amps are passive & really doesn't act much different than ToneX or Kemper placing it before or after the gain stages.

ToneX & NAM gives you a generic "Gain" control which works pretty well for the most part. But you're stuck with the way their model alters compression of the gain stage. Unless you have a Kemper.

Simply put, even the most modest NAM player gives you plenty of tone shaping tools to get really good results. If you get a chance, download Two-Notes Genome & load a NAM capture in their Codec block. That's some good stuff.

The point is you are not "dead in the water." Can you take a capture & get every possible tone you could get out of a real amp, or a component model? But most respectable capture merchants will give you enough captures to get just about anything you want.

Close enough for most of us who are using way too much gain or way too many effects.

Forgot to add... if you like the Litigator & the Aristocrat... or the amps in some of NDSP's Archetype plugins, how accurate a model/profile is becomes less important. Good tone is good tone.

 

[RevBillyG]

I mean sure but they also have

Mesa 2C+
Fortin Nameless
Fortin NATAS
Tone King
Granophyre
Fortin Cali
The 3 amps in the new JM plugin are real
3 amps in the Morgan Suite

I don't understand why people are clamoring for those to be ported to QC... those tones are easy enough to get & probably why NDSP aren't making haste to do them.

 

[RevBillyG]

That was originally a popular way to use a profiler. These days though, I'd guess something like 99% of profiler owners only use profiles created by others, experts at that task. Kemper's most popular model, the Player (this is a Kemper thread ), doesn't even currently have the ability to create profiles.

With the last update, Level 1 can make profiles.

 

[RevBillyG]

IMO it isn't that different from a pure modeler except there are MANY fewer starting points to start tweaking from.

Until you consider people buying presets.

 

[LP59]

With the last update, Level 1 can make profiles.

No . You’re thinking of morphing.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Uhhhhh.... no.

On something like a boogie the EQ is interactive. Most people who don't own one wouldn't know how to dial it in anyway. Most people give up & move on. The tone stack on most other amps are passive & really doesn't act much different than ToneX or Kemper placing it before or after the gain stages.

ToneX & NAM gives you a generic "Gain" control which works pretty well for the most part. But you're stuck with the way their model alters compression of the gain stage. Unless you have a Kemper.

Simply put, even the most modest NAM player gives you plenty of tone shaping tools to get really good results. If you get a chance, download Two-Notes Genome & load a NAM capture in their Codec block. That's some good stuff.

The point is you are not "dead in the water." Can you take a capture & get every possible tone you could get out of a real amp, or a component model? But most respectable capture merchants will give you enough captures to get just about anything you want.

Close enough for most of us who are using way too much gain or way too many effects.

Forgot to add... if you like the Litigator & the Aristocrat... or the amps in some of NDSP's Archetype plugins, how accurate a model/profile is becomes less important. Good tone is good tone.

Uh, yeah. You’re dead in the water if it’s a Mesa in a capture, because you can’t change shit. There are also lots of other amp captures that sound weird/sound like shit when you start messing with the EQ. Marks, Rectos, Badlander caps have all sucked, SLO caps, old PV 5150 caps.

I’ve also already done everything you’ve mentioned, and I definitely disagree.

Thanks for mansplaining how everything works though. But I've already spent a lot of time with it, as well as many of the real amps that have been captured.

 

[Lysander]

I don't understand why people are clamoring for those to be ported to QC...

Maybe because they sold units on that promise?

 

[nicolasrivera]

Not right now it isn't, at least not yet.

I completely agree.

Literally everything you stated (other than NAM being free) is incorrect.

• Most people buy tube amp rigs still. All digital amps of any kind are still the minority AFAIK
• The list of products supporting NAM vs those not supporting NAM is silly lopsided toward "not supporting".

I agree. First, most people don't have a bunch of amps of their own to capture/profile. That means that the majority of users that buy a capture device are downloading existing captures/profiles and tweaking them. IMO it isn't that different from a pure modeler except there are MANY fewer starting points to start tweaking from.

Even a tube amp rig with pedals will be tweaked. Of course, the options for tweaking are much more limited, but certainly no one buys an amp and turns it on and doesn't touch anything but the volume and gain knob.

Great tone is great tone. It doesn't matter how you got it IMO. It does matter some how hard it was to get there though. This is what I think Stadiums strength will prove to be.

I also think they are not a picky in their tone as we older players .

It is literally the only way I have ever made rigs I use live. While I profiled my VHT and my Fender BF and by buddies MESA MKII and my friends Randel .... and those profiles were very good copies of those amps compared A/B, I found profiles I liked better on the rig exchange in some instances, and paid in others. Those are now my go-to live rigs. I also found great amps I didn't even know about doing it this way (Morgan AC20 anyone?).

I actually consider that to be one of Kemper's greatest strengths. You can easily tweak a profile to the sound most pleasing to you.... ok .... at least I can. YMMV.

Wrong.

 

[Sascha Franck]

It's exceedingly frustrating in many cases to try to find a sound. If it's not sifting through thousands of captures, it's sifting through hundreds of amp models, or sifting through thousands of IR's, or sifting through millions of possible cab sim parameter combinations. There's gotta be a better way.

There is. Just don't do it.
I was quite afraid I'd be wading through endless captures when I jumped onto the Tonex bandwagon. But I actually ain't. I was looking for a mere handful of sounds I wanted, found them and kinda called it a day. I am still trying out some things, but always only when I kinda feel like. Which isn't too often.

 

[paisleywookiee]

There is. Just don't do it.
I was quite afraid I'd be wading through endless captures when I jumped onto the Tonex bandwagon. But I actually ain't. I was looking for a mere handful of sounds I wanted, found them and kinda called it a day. I am still trying out some things, but always only when I kinda feel like. Which isn't too often.

Well I guess I’m done then. Because unless I do my own caps, I’ve not found anything that works well for me yet.