Kemper Profiler MK 2

[Sascha Franck]

this is absolutely not a requirement for NAM in any way. It’s one possible method.

Oh, can you create them completely locally? Didn't know that.

 

[ejecta]

Mean Girl'd

The girl above your post could be as mean to me as she wanted.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Many people see the convenience of the Kemper in being a mature gigging rig. Nothing either ToneX or NAM qualifies for.

Sure but that’s only one use/market for it. Why not open it up at this point to plugins too, given no one is going to steal the tech when there are open source options that beat it. STL and Overloud already essentially started eating their slice of the pie, Kemper can still cash in what’s left if they want to.

Oh, can you create them completely locally? Didn't know that.

Yep, ever since day 1. And in fact, you kind of need to train locally to do hyper accuracy and custom architecture stuff if you’re going deep on it. And it’s also possible to make you’re own trainer or custom software to do it, it doesn’t have to be limited to any one method.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I owned a Nano for 28 days and returned it. Clumsy as a performance tool. MIDI is unevolved on it, as is the hard FX chains. Fixable yes, but released before it was finished. Sounded on par with tonex, but with better FX, even if they're inflexible.

Cool. Not everyone shares that view though, and it sounds better than a Kemper capture.

 

[ian_dissonance]

That depends…..Are you an EE? I think that is required.

“EE” is what my tinnitus sounds like.

 

[paisleywookiee]

So it sounds like the new Kemper is basically a $1400 dongle/interface for Nam captures, that then get converted into a proprietary format. To then be used with their effects.

 

[Mongillo19]

So it sounds like the new Kemper is basically a $1400 dongle/interface for Nam captures, that then get converted into a proprietary format. To then be used with their effects.

They would be very lucky if it was NAM quality imo

 

[Mongillo19]

To be completely honest. If it does come out they are of NAM quality, I'd pick up a player

 

[JiveTurkey]

I'll always pick Kemper over the other capture offerings in this space. Accuracy be damned. I like their effects and cherry picking profiles you know you like can work.

 

[paisleywookiee]

To be completely honest. If it does come out they are of NAM quality, I'd pick up a player

Actually, yeah, I’d consider it too

 

[LP59]

So it sounds like the new Kemper is basically a $1400 dongle/interface for Nam captures, that then get converted into a proprietary format. To then be used with their effects.

That's not a bad idea.

 

[timbuck3]

I've read this before, and own a Hotone Ampero 2 so I'm in the perfect position to comment.

I think it works pretty well, but has its own share of issues.

Hotone currently has two grades of modeling on the A2. They have standard and a few "HQ" models that they call "Hotone's next gen modeling" in the amp model's description. The only HQ models in the unit are all channels of Soldano SLO and JP2C. There's SLO models available as both standard and HQ versions, and the HQ ones do sound a bit better.

The main difference in the HQ models seems to be a much more configurable poweramp model where you can pick tube types, adjust some params etc.

Overall either model types do a pretty good job, but I've noticed a bunch of problems:

• Not all amps have authentic controls. E.g Mark IIC model is missing the 2nd gain knob.
• Master volume amps do not go into poweramp distortion.
  • Non-master volume amps do go into poweramp drive.
  • This is a big accuracy issue, but realistically not a dealbreaker because I run pretty much all my real MV amps without poweramp drive.
• I found a bright switch on a Dumble model that seems just broken. It makes the model much quieter and bad sounding. I reported it to Hotone but so far haven't seen fixes.
• Models seem to be darker than e.g Helix in the 5KHz+ frequency range.

I've tried the JP2C into a Fryette PS and compared it to my Mesa Mark V 90. I also tried the JP2C preamp into the Mesa poweramp. Both cases did a pretty good job, and the JP2C preamp into the Mark sounded very similar to the real ch3 preamp.

But for a relative newcomer in the modeling game, at a cheaper price point no less, I think Hotone does a pretty good job with its models. Despite inaccuracies, they sound good and feel good to play. If they keep figuring out how to upgrade them in future products (or better yet...current ones!) then they'll have a very competitive product. That's a pretty good result considering they don't have like 20+ years of experience like Fractal or Line6 do, and have only "a bit more than HX Stomp" level processing power.

So what about Kemper? I think they could get a better result if they adopt this sort of system. "Liquid profiling" is pretty similar to the Hotone system in concept, the difference being that with Kemper you could apply this to any amp. So if their upcoming new algorithms will do a better job at it, maybe it will work pretty well.

So basically profile/captures I have a ways to go versus actual modeling of amp, which would make sense and of course, either can advance in the future although maybe modeling incrementally advances whereas profiling or/captures take larger, advancement steps?

 

[GTR37]

So, apparently "MKII" profiles can only be created if your Kemper is hooked up to Rig Manager?! You can see @GuitarJon 's heart break in real time as he explains this.

Wow that a new level of dumb
So that explains how mk1 can do the MK2 profiles it not the hardware but all through software
So MK 2 is really just a nice new shade of on a

 

[Jarick]

You should give it a go.
Lemme know if you have questions!

For me I like to have everything in one hardware box, so the software plugin (or even standalone like Tonex) isn't all that appealing. But maybe I'll check out at some point.

I can’t believe you still have to Refine using the same process for the Mk II. It’s totally random every time, even if you try to do the same thing it’s nearly impossible to Refine exactly the same way for every Profile unless you are using a DI track (which I’ve done). Also some amps come out better when you don’t Refine! Yeah, read that again.

That's not the new profiling process...no idea if that has refine yet or not. Right now Mk2 is basically Mk1 with some extra fixed effect blocks and faster interface.

 

[Jarick]

Wow that a new level of dumb
So that explains how mk1 can do the MK2 profiles it not the hardware but all through software
So MK 2 is really just a nice new shade of on a

We have no idea. It's all guessing games until the new profiling comes out.

 

[laxu]

So basically profile/captures I have a ways to go versus actual modeling of amp, which would make sense and of course, either can advance in the future although maybe modeling incrementally advances whereas profiling or/captures take larger, advancement steps?

Captures/profiles have a harder time making improvements without moving into things like parametrized models. Which might be something that an end user cannot easily do, and is more suited for things like Neural DSP's TINA process for data collection.

I feel like Fractal is not too far from perfecting their amp modeling. Maybe Axe-Fx IV will give some extra performance to really nail the little things.

Other companies will likely aim to use machine learning to shortcut a lot of the hard parts of measuring component behavior and whatnot.

We are so firmly into "almost everything is good enough" territory that I'd rather see more innovations on cab simulation and effects.

 

[Jarick]

Captures/profiles have a harder time making improvements without moving into things like parametrized models. Which might be something that an end user cannot easily do, and is more suited for things like Neural DSP's TINA process for data collection.

I feel like Fractal is not too far from perfecting their amp modeling. Maybe Axe-Fx IV will give some extra performance to really nail the little things.

Other companies will likely aim to use machine learning to shortcut a lot of the hard parts of measuring component behavior and whatnot.

We are so firmly into "almost everything is good enough" territory that I'd rather see more innovations on cab simulation and effects.

What I've been trying to do is dial back the Kemper compression and EQ that I like into the Fractal models. If I can do that, to me that's going to really make me enjoy the Fractal more. I'm hearing the stuff that bugs me a bit about the Fractal models and getting closer with some tweaks now.

Despite Kemper being old tech and lower fidelity models, there's still a lot of pleasing things happening. I said elsewhere, there may be errors in the profiling but if they error in a good way, that could actually be useful.

 

[laxu]

Disingenuous, maybe, but NAM and Tonex needs outboard processing to create higher rez captures/profiles. NDSP allows pure self contained capturing but is not quite in Tonex or NAMs league.It's obvious, this is how they maintain the same internal component hardware, but are able to use outboard processing for horsepower not actually in the unit.

Yeah sounds very much like that sort of deal.

But the stupid thing is that why do you need a MK2 series in the first place, if the upgrade is entirely software?

Again, the Kemper Player is supposed to already have the needed hardware, but the only difference I know is a faster auxiliary processor which I expected would be for UI, footswitching, param control etc type of stuff. It still has the same Motorola DSP so why can't the MK1 run those same higher quality captures?

 

[GTR37]

What I've been trying to do is dial back the Kemper compression and EQ that I like into the Fractal models. If I can do that, to me that's going to really make me enjoy the Fractal more. I'm hearing the stuff that bugs me a bit about the Fractal models and getting closer with some tweaks now.

Despite Kemper being old tech and lower fidelity models, there's still a lot of pleasing things happening. I said elsewhere, there may be errors in the profiling but if they error in a good way, that could actually be useful.

Have you tried the output compression set it to feedback and use sparingly
Also input dynamics on that page
Those 2 controls can get you more of that Kemper feel IMO

 

[DLC86]

The issue with using loudness-adjusted measurements for accuracy testing is that how humans perceive things has little to do with how similar two audio signals are.

It has a lot to do with how similar those audio signals are if the goal is to make them sound similar - or hopefully identical - to our ears.
The alternative is to use raw dBFS peak values if you just want to analyze the differences at the single sample level and with no weigthing or averaging... but that produces results that might seem huge differences for stuff that's actually inaudible (like short transients or 5 Hz content), so I surely prefer LUFS there.

As you mentioned, LUFS highly favors the mid- and high-end, so low-end inaccuracies will have little impact on the resulting measurement, even though those differences will be completely audible.

Again, the K-weigthing low end response closely follows the sensitivity of our ears (at 80 phons iirc), so if something has little impact on the measurement it also has little impact on our perception.
Something that has little impact on the LUFS measurement and makes you go "OMFG THAT'S A HUGE DIFFERENCE" simply can't exist, that's the whole point of LUFS and LKFS: make the measurement adhere to our perception (unlike dBFS peak values).

But wait, we listen to signals with our ears, right? Problem is, the fact that humans perceive bass as less loud than treble at a given level doesn't mean bass goes away entirely.

Never said that.

The bass region for two different profilers could measure the exact same in LUFS, yet sound wildly different.

Sure, and in that case the LUFS measured on the null test between those two profilers will reflect that difference. If it's huge to your ears it will be huge in the measurement as well.

Just do a quick search on his YouTube channel I like how Leo bothers to include these clips in his shootouts.

Will do.