Kemper Profiler MK 2

[Ed DeGenaro]

You’re a ray of sunshine today.

This is me in a good mood.
But let’s just call it realism.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

This is me in a good mood.
But let’s just call it realism.

Note to self: Never call the chap before he finished his morning coffee

 

[paisleywookiee]

This is me in a good mood.
But let’s just call it realism.

I’d say it’s realism with a heavy dose of cynicism. Not all companies are complete shit.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

I’d say it’s realism with a heavy dose of cynicism. Not all companies are complete shit.

Guilty I guess.
Yet I didn’t say FA about them being complete shit but the vast majority if not all upsell hard.

 

[GTR37]

As in you like them and they aren’t broken?
Awesome, but I’m not sure how that gives you insight whether the company thrives.

The sad truth is that customers love to believe that the makers of their toys are special.
The reality is that the cottage industry that the MI biz is is nearly as much smoke n mirrors as Giacomo Turra.

I keep hearing about this guy no idea who he is , is he the next NDSP Archetype?

 

[Lysander]

You know what we need to talk about?

Oh, Cordy definitely lurks around here!

 

[Lysander]

Starts at 3:29

Yes, i saw the video. They're talking about the modelling engine, which (very simplified) runs blocks from which virtual amps are constructed. There's no "one central model" involved.

FWIW, neither does Fractal. Their approach to modelling is basically real-time SPICE circuit simulations.

 

[norminal]

I keep hearing about this guy no idea who he is , is he the next NDSP Archetype?

 

[Dom Mcsweeney]

It's a shame he was so scammy, we could have had a nice Laney Lionheart NDSP suite.
Dammit.

 

[paisleywookiee]

It's a shame he was so scammy, we could have had a nice Laney Lionheart NDSP suite.
Dammit.

I think it’s just going to be a plugin with CTRL+C, CTRL+V, and a knob for speeding things up.

 

[norminal]

I think it’s just going to be a plugin with CTRL+C, CTRL+V, and a knob for speeding things up.

Guitar Pro integration or GTFO.

 

[OneEng]

From a Kemper Employee:

"All MK 2 units will maintain full compatibility with previously created content.

All MK 1 units will be able to play back the new Profiles, in the resolution of the classic Profiles"

I find it interesting that the Mk1 can still play the "new" profile format. Makes me wonder what the new profiles truly are that they can be reverted to a lower quality?

Thanks for that.

So I can see a butt ton of videos coming out comparing MK1 with MK2 when using the new profiles.

I tend to agree. But I struggle to see the relevance of this for your pov in the discussion.

Very little admittedly.

I am an audio engineer, software developer, and music tech expert who has been in the industry for 18 years. My ears are very good. I don't need a doctor.

All evidence to the contrary.

If accuracy isn 't important to you, why are you using a device that claims to capture a real amp, when you could just as easily get tones out of a Blackstar amp with clean/crunch/lead models? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to be honest. I don't really believe anyone who says that they don't care about accuracy, or that they wouldn't care if the Kemper made improvements in that area.

Their claims of accuracy have nothing to do with why I use the Kemper. I fully expected to be let down in tone quality when I sold my VHT and Fender tube amps and purchased the Kemper. My motivation for going with Kemper was completely driven by the desire for a lighter and more simple stage setup (I gig regularly so it is really important).

The fact that my stage sound improved was a surprise. The fact that I preferred 3rd party (some free, some paid) rigs to my own tube amps was a surprise.

There was never ANY thought that the capture of my existing amps was important to me, and it still isn't (I no longer own a tube amp, but certainly I have access to a butt ton of them from friends that gig).

Further, I absolutely love some amps (and gig them frequently) that I would never have heard. The free Morgan AC20 on rig exchange is pure pleasure on a host of tones (as an example).

The ability to setup my foot controller to do a host of modifications to a single rig is really great and having a single Ethercon cable out to my gigging position on stage is fantastic as well.

My back is SUPER happy I am not lugging that VHT 4x12 slant top and 2x12 fat bottom cabs around! A single VHT cab weighs about double a MESA cab and triple a Marshall!.

You clearly don't gig, or these things would make a great deal of sense to you. Accuracy? Seriously, who cares? It sounds great and is an excellent piece of gear to gig with.

Yeah, I would buy one. The areas I would be interested in are:
- Capture accuracy
- Aliasing
- Improved IR capabilities

It will be interesting to see how it goes when they release the new profiling algorithm.

While I don't care much about the capture accuracy, I have had issues with Aliasing on some rigs I have auditioned. I don't know how they get the problem, but certainly you wouldn't have it in the tube amp used to create the profile. I just chuck those and move on to ones that don't have the problem.

Off subject, sampling at a rate high enough that people can't hear aliasing is very easy to do with today's DSP's. 48Khz is more than enough to keep things clean with respect to aliasing far beyond the point of human hearing (and certainly any guitar players hearing).

I find it hard to believe your choice of an example ‘any other device is good enough’ was literal and wasn’t presented without the intent to challenge the validity of the premise of good enough.
You would have to believe the Kemper user truly would find no difference, dismissing the Kemper users preference and any reason for it, because accuracy is paramount and what it sounds and ‘feels’ should be unimportant to them.

That would be a very simplistic perspective for an extremely experienced engineer. It’s like a mechanical engineer arguing with an architect that the sweeping curve of the designed building should be altered to a simple cube shape because the strength of the cube is all important and the architect assertion that the curves are strong enough is wrong.

Apt comparison.

My POV has always been that Kemper sounds great, and is simply the best gig rig on the market (for a number of reasons). I don't actually care if the rigs I use are exact duplicates of the amps that created them. Good lord knows that among the MANY sonic imperfections at a live performance, any miniscule difference would be grossly overshadowed. Shoot, the choice of mic selection and mixer eq alone effects the signal of a real tube amp 100 times more than any change a Kemper profile makes to the tone..... and that is before we start talking about room acoustics.

Things that ARE important to me:

1. Sounds good
2. Is easy to get sounding good
3. Light and easy to carry
4. Robust mechanically (needs to survive drunk girl's beer spill ... at least the FC does).
5. Reliable
6. Fast setup time on stage
7. Highly readable in a gig
8. Tone not changed when firmware is updated
9. Easy to setup main and monitor feeds

Aside:

I suspect that the new Kemper will capture more accurately that the existing MK1; however, Changing the sample rate back DOWN for MK1 should not cause ANY loss of fidelity IMO (assuming that the MK1 utilizes at least 48Khz sampling). Should this be proven true, then it might make sense for MK1 users to get new updated profiles ..... but I doubt it.

As I have stated, nothing the MK2 (or any other digital amp) can bring to the table will make me love the Morgan AC20 rig I have any less (or any of my other favorites I use to gig with).

Now, should something happen to my MK1, then certainly an MK2 would be in my future. There would be no need to go with an older technology.

 

[timbuck3]

Wow obviously talented guy this jocumo but not very otiginsl

 

[BenIfin]

Hey Tech Gurus

Given this thread has many tangents, I have a question re: Aliasing, in say a Top tier unit like a Fractal or Helix.

I know the -lack- of Aliasing in say a Fractal or Helix, is, in 2025, very good, but I don't know about some specifics.

So .... do the following blocks add much to the overall Aliasing (?)

=> IR block
=> Delay Blocks
=> Reverb Block
=> EQ
=> MultiBand Comp
=> Flanger / Phaser

Or ... is the bulk of the total Aliasing in these units produced by the Amp Blocks and Drive Blocks (?)

Ta

 

[the swede]

How can this Kemper thingy stir up so much emotions?!?
OOOOOOR, there just has to be a grumpy old fart thread going at any given time, somewhere on TGF.

lets see.....
nope... i cant see anything to feel grumpy about.

 

[Orvillain]

All evidence to the contrary.

@AFKAEjay(retired) - this is what I get when I post sincere and polite responses to people. So... please tell me why I should bother; coz you are extremely fond of calling me out by stealth, yet you never call these kinds of people out. Why tone police me, and not other people?

As to the claim that the evidence is to the contrary... doesn't even warrant a response. It is just stupid, and the entire planet has just lost half an IQ point because of it.

You clearly don't gig, or these things would make a great deal of sense to you. Accuracy? Seriously, who cares? It sounds great and is an excellent piece of gear to gig with.

I've got 18 years of gigging under my belt too. But you'll just come back with another stupid response to that, is my guess. You're an extremely bad faith person.

While I don't care much about the capture accuracy, I have had issues with Aliasing on some rigs I have auditioned. I don't know how they get the problem, but certainly you wouldn't have it in the tube amp used to create the profile. I just chuck those and move on to ones that don't have the problem.

Aliasing is not a per-rig phenomenon. It is a product of the entire DSP system. It is genuinely hilarious that you think you can avoid it by just avoiding certain rigs. You reveal your ignorance once again.

Off subject, sampling at a rate high enough that people can't hear aliasing is very easy to do with today's DSP's. 48Khz is more than enough to keep things clean with respect to aliasing far beyond the point of human hearing (and certainly any guitar players hearing).

Well, firstly, it isn't off subject. It is precisely what we're talking about.

Hey Tech Gurus

Given this thread has many tangents, I have a question re: Aliasing, in say a Top tier unit like a Fractal or Helix.

I know the -lack- of Aliasing in say a Fractal or Helix, is, in 2025, very good, but I don't know about some specifics.

So .... do the following blocks add much to the overall Aliasing (?)

=> IR block
=> Delay Blocks
=> Reverb Block
=> EQ
=> MultiBand Comp
=> Flanger / Phaser

Or ... is the bulk of the total Aliasing in these units produced by the Amp Blocks and Drive Blocks (?)

Ta

Aliasing happens when you apply non-linear processes to a signal, that create overtones or harmonics. These harmonics extend out from the fundamental, up through the frequency range. When they hit Nyquist, if they're not dealt with, they will wrap around and cause unpleasant chipmunk or squirrel artefacts. In the case of the Kemper - as the video I linked earlier shows - they're extremely audible.

How do you handle aliasing? You filter. How do you filter? There are a range of techniques. One of them is to apply a FIR filter just below the Nyquist frequency, so that frequencies above bounce back and get filtered before they have a chance to be audible.

Another way is to perform an FFT on the signal, attenuate or zero out bins that fall above a certain threshold, and then inverse FFT it back. This method, while computationally more expensive, can offer precise control over the frequency domain and is often used in convolution-style processes or spectral shaping tools.

But most importantly — and here's where many profiling and modeling systems fall short — the best way to mitigate aliasing is to oversample the non-linear process before it generates the alias-prone content. You run your distortion (or other non-linear effect) at, say, 4x or 8x the sample rate, then filter and downsample it back. This dramatically reduces foldback aliasing.

It is way more involved than simply saying "run at 48kHz and everything will be fine".

So to answer your question:
=> IR block - very low risk of aliasing being introduced here.

=> Delay Blocks - moderate risk of aliasing here, depending on how the delay line interpolation works and the non-linearities added in the circuit.

=> Reverb Block - same as the delay block; there's a possibility you could introduce aliasing here if you don't support fractional delay times within the feedback paths used to create the reverb.

=> EQ- very low risk of aliasing being introduced here.

=> MultiBand Comp - There could be some risk here, depending on non-linearities and the design of the crossover filters.

=> Flanger / Phaser - Same sort of thing as the delay and reverb blocks; if you're modulating delay lines, then you could introduce aliasing.


Using band-limited interpolation techniques and oversampling within the blocks where delay lines are modulated, is how you would address any potential sources of aliasing.

 

[Orvillain]

How can this Kemper thingy stir up so much emotions?!?
OOOOOOR, there just has to be a grumpy old fart thread going at any given time, somewhere on TGF.

lets see.....
nope... i cant see anything to feel grumpy about.

It's a discussion Swede. You're the one imparting emotion onto it.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Wow obviously talented guy this jocumo but not very otiginsl

Out of interest: Did you get what the video was about?

 

[the swede]

It's a discussion Swede. You're the one imparting emotion onto it.

Guilty as charged!

 

[Orvillain]

Guilty as charged!