Kemper Profiler MK 2

Orvillain said:
I know right!?! I don't like it either, but dems the brekz.
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Dude, seriously, I didn't even do anything to piss in your soup. I admitted that the Kemper's accuracy wasn't as good as people would like it to be. And that's common wisdom already. Yet, you are the one entering each and every Kemper related thread to tell the same story over and over and over again. Fine. But how you keep on going after people who happen to like the thing is just embarrassing.
 
Sascha Franck said:
Dude, seriously, I didn't even do anything to piss in your soup. I admitted that the Kemper's accuracy wasn't as good as people would like it to be. And that's common wisdom already. Yet, you are the one entering each and every Kemper related thread to tell the same story over and over and over again. Fine. But how you keep on going after people who happen to like the thing is just embarrassing.
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I haven't gone after anyone; I've kept my posts reasonably limited to the device in question, and haven't spoken about anyone specifically.

But if you re-read my post, you'll see it wasn't anything to do with you. It was a retort to some of the drive-by posters who want to attack me, but won't use my name. Like @AFKAEjay(retired) who consistently refuses to engage with anything I post, because he doesn't like my tone.

I don't think you got my joke, ultimately.
 
And fwiw, that *cocked wah* thing is pretty much along the same lines. Yes, there's some amps the Kemper can't profile properly - maybe even up to the point of the profiles being downright non-usable. One of the issues might be the cocked wah syndrome. And yes, I've heard it myself already. Yet, claiming that "all profiles" are a victim of a cocked wah sound is just utter nonsense.
 
Orvillain said:
It was a retort to some of the drive-by posters who want to attack me, but won't use my name.
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At least that's not true for me, something you should know by now.
Anyhow, seriously. I think at least round these parts *everybody* knows about the Kemper's accuracy issues. But very often it's ending up with some "sublime" messages that people who still like the thing wouldn't know what they're doing, their ears would be bad and what not.

And FFS, "if it sounds good, it is good" defenitely *IS* a thing. In fact, it's the most important thing in music by a wide margin. Making fun about that statement is just weird.

Now, *of course* sounding "good" doesn't have anything to do with accuracy. And it's absolutely fair (or even great) that there's people analysing all that stuff, doing A/B comparisons, nulltests (graphs included) and what not. I actually applaud these people and sincerly wish that they continue their work!
It's great for people who are looking for certain things (such as accuracy, low latencies and what not), it's great to bust myths (I'm defenitely a sucker of some proper myth busting), hence falsify bold marketing claims and what not. In the end, every user profits.
So, great. And yes, I am *absolutely* serious about it.

And still: If it sounds good, it is good, period. It might not be accurate, it might not be what marketing claimed (that hardly ever is true anyway), but if it's still good, it just is.

Seriously, out of the things I owned or just tried a bit more thoroughly, the Kemper ranks very, very high. And I had almost bought one just to have access to profiles such as the MBritt ones, who, accurate or not, provided the highest level of instant gratification straight out of the box I ever experienced with any remotely comparable unit. And yes, that includes a testride of the Axe FX III (even if it might be on par).

Same goes for the UI. Very obviously, there's pretty good reasons to blame the Kemper UI. Yet, it depends on how you use it and whether it gets in the way. For me personally, it has again been the Kemper providing instant gratification out of the box UI-wise. I know there's some issues (as with everything), but I could've started using it for a live gig after maybe 10-30 minutes.
As a (not exactly suitable, but you may still get the gist) comparison: Folks round these parts pretty much praise the HX Stomp UI. I don't. I think there's tons of room for improvement (or at least for some improvements that would make a *very* significant difference) and I can actually *prove* some of those issues. Yet, people keep telling me how I must be doing things wrong or whatever. But when it comes to the Kemper, people are all up in arms - even if there's some most excellent UI aspects, which is almost proveable, such as the most important amp paramaters being instantly exposed, nicely displayed by proper LED rings. There's not even one other modeler doing it that way.

Sure, you might be thinking totally different, none of all that might be important for you - but it certainly is for quite some folks. Not that my opinion would be even remotely important in any greater scheme of things at all, but personally, I almost bought the Kemper for exactly two reasons: The sound of at least some profiles and the UI, namely the two things many people around here seem to just hate. Go figure.

Hence: If it is good, it is good. And if it's not, it's not. Both opinions being absolutely valid, just depending on your POV.
 
Sascha Franck said:
At least that's not true for me, something you should know by now.
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Sure, which is why I was surprised slightly that you didn't grok what I was saying. It's cool.
Sascha Franck said:
Anyhow, seriously. I think at least round these parts *everybody* knows about the Kemper's accuracy issues. But very often it's ending up with some "sublime" messages that people who still like the thing wouldn't know what they're doing, their ears would be bad and what not.
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I'm not sure that is necessarily true. For me it is more that the super hype-fanboys have a certain kind of attitude, and it is one that I want to tackle. It is more akin to religious dogma than an actual honest appraisal of the sonic quality of the unit.

Sascha Franck said:
And FFS, "if it sounds good, it is good" defenitely *IS* a thing. In fact, it's the most important thing in music by a wide margin. Making fun about that statement is just weird.
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I know it is a thing, but it is also a phrase used in quite a derisorily way. The way it is used most often is in a kind of "you're just a guy who rants on a forum, if you were doing 'real' guitar work, you wouldn't care, you'd use whatever it takes to get the job done. But you're not a real guitarist, because you don't play anything valuable, or you
don't play for money" - very literally I've seen those kinds of comments.
Sascha Franck said:
Now, *of course* sounding "good" doesn't have anything to do with accuracy.
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Yeah, and I've even pointed that out before too. I think the Kemper can sound good. But that isn't enough for me.

Sascha Franck said:
And it's absolutely fair (or even great) that there's people analysing all that stuff, doing A/B comparisons, nulltests (graphs included) and what not. I actually applaud these people and sincerly wish that they continue their work!
It's great for people who are looking for certain things (such as accuracy, low latencies and what not), it's great to bust myths (I'm defenitely a sucker of some proper myth busting), hence falsify bold marketing claims and what not. In the end, every user profits.
So, great. And yes, I am *absolutely* serious about it.
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It is also just fun. Which is a completely valid motivation too.
 
of course it doesn’t matter if it’s the best on paper if you like the result. But the idea of profiling is to get a 1:1 digital representation of a very specific piece of hardware. Saying otherwise is nonsense, IMO. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it if you like it. All the high gain profiles I played through had a weird “extra” sound going on with low chugs when there was one living in my practice space a few years ago so I never really messed with it much. If you like the gear and you don’t notice the issues others do, carry on. Continuing to argue that things that are clearly audible aren’t or don’t matter suggests maybe you’re not as happy with it as you’ve projected.
 
The cocked wah thing - if I remember rightly - comes from when you crank the living tits out of the definition parameter. If you do that, then any profile will bring out that sound.

You'll notice when you capture an amp, and the capture comes out too dark and muffly, if you save it and raise the definition parameter, it gets closer to what you originally wanted. The opposite is true too; if the profile comes out trebly and peaky and wah-nasally, if you lower the definition parameter, it can clean up a lot of those side effects.
 
Okay I got in the Kemper Player yesterday and have been tinkering with it for a few hours.

It's different. Most profiles sound like ass but good ones are really fun to play. There does seem to be some kind of "warmth" in the Kemper, maybe it's lower fidelity, I dunno. There's also a bit of a grainy tone or some type of congestion with higher gain. The effects generally seem more subtle than other modelers, or are better at staying out of the way of the main tone. The hardware itself has some limitations but having dedicated knobs for a lot of things is useful. Only three footswitches but there are soft buttons to select rigs and turn a couple effects on and off. It seems like a good desktop unit.

I'll be honest and piss some people off, but I don't love Fractal amp modeling. There's extra frequencies going around that you have to wrangle in. Less obvious in a mix or with high and low cuts. But it's not a perfect magic plug and play box. Took a while to realize that. I love the effects in the unit generally, and the power of the Axe 3. Sometimes I enjoy the tone, other times I don't. I'd love an all in one device so I keep chipping away at it though.

I don't think Fractal is 100% there, maybe it's closer to 90% and the Kemper is 85%. But Kemper errors in ways that may be pleasing, like chopping off some high and low frequencies and boosting mids. Fractal might error in ways that are less pleasing and make me want to dial things out. Tonex is probably at 95%, so if Kemper can get up to that level, then that would kick ass IMO.

I'm not sure if I'll keep the Player. The effect limitations are really annoying and I don't know if I want to pay $300 on top of the $700 of the device to unlock it. It might be useful as a change of pace device, or for pure practice reasons. Not sure if the new profiling stuff will be out while I'm in return policy. I'll keep tinkering with it to see.
 
ChordInversion said:
I've seen multiple opinions about shortcomings in Kemper high gain sounds. What about other sounds? I'm a low to mid gain player.
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I play profiles of the preamp of my own D style amp, which allows me to directly A/B between real/digital version, both on QC as well as Kemper.
I have no preference between real/digital, both QC as well as Kemper sound spot on to me.
 
molul said:
I just learnt about those LVLs in Kemper. Wow, that sucks a lot. I hope Line6 doesn't ever go that road with Helix.
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Oddly enough I don’t mind paying for add ons if they are useful and the device comes all ready full featured or on the other side just a simple brain at a lower cost and you can pick and choose what you want to purchase

If NDSP had something like that for the plug-ins I would have been interested
Just ship it with say Plini or Nolly Archetype then I can choose SLO or whatever I want , really no different than buying IR packs , it a nice way for a guitarist to customize his set up
I might want a JVM/SLO/
Someone else a Twin/DRZ etc

But if you are paywalling functionalities like looper
Morphing , extra blocks
That’s kind of crappy
And similar to new car trim packs to get the sunroof I have to pay for all this other crap I don’t need
 
ChordInversion said:
I've seen multiple opinions about shortcomings in Kemper high gain sounds. What about other sounds? I'm a low to mid gain player.
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Kemper does high justvas good as anything.

Not sure what others would be referring to?

Here is just one sample:

 
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