Kemper Profiler MK 2

[JCW308]

If I weren't explaining what I was doing throughout this it could have been done in less than half the amount of time-



The only time you'd have to get into any Scene Ignore or Scene Manager editing is if you're looking to add different Channels into the mix and have to utilize the same effects blocks. Considering the amount of blocks available on an AxeFX, that's unlikely to happen unless you're into some Dweezil Zappa shit.

Um, it's light years easier on a Kemper to do the same thing. Sheesh.

 

[nicolasrivera]

They're doing fine. They sell plenty of Players.

They may not sell many Stages these days though, and I doubt they sell any rack/toasters at all, so I don't know what the point of the Mk2 models was, unless they couldn't get the parts for the Mk1's anymore.

As far as the new profiling, they're not saying it's better than the old profiling, let alone better than the competition, so I'm not sure what point of that is either.

NAM is the absolute king in capturing quality, no one can contradict that. Tonex is second. Kemper is in last place. They introduced the concept to the guitar industry, but have not done anything at all to better the quality in 15 years. Until now, and it's more than probable that Kemper with its supposed new tech will not be on par with TONEX, let alone NAM.

 

[Mongillo19]

NAM is the absolute king in capturing quality, no one can contradict that. Tonex is second. Kemper is in last place. They introduced the concept to the guitar industry, but have not done anything at all to better the quality in 15 years. Until now, and it's more than probable that Kemper with its supposed new tech will not be on par with TONEX, let alone NAM.

Depends on what you want. While Kemper might not be the most accurate, some people don't care as long as it sounds good to them.

Also, Kemper is the only one of the products you mentioned that has an entire suite of effects

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Yeah, but most people read up a bit or ask questions before making a $1800 purchase and word of mouth will catch up to them.

1800? I guess that’s the powered version cause the regular track or toaster is like 1400$

As for word of mouth catching up. They likely loose more folks in the 30 day return window due to the attitude on their forum then word of mouth
No bad bad peas type of thing.

And it’s not just limited to Kemper

 

[LP59]

Um, it's light years easier on a Kemper to do the same thing. Sheesh.

I do that every day on both Fractal and Kemper. There are a lot of use cases for morphing, depending on how you want to control the change, how many states you want, how gradual you want the change to be, what morph shape you want, etc. Fractal offers a lot more depth for more use cases, but for the simple cases like in the video, it's usually fewer clicks on Fractal. But no, one is not "light years easier" than the other.

 

[Chocol8]

Toaster with foot controller is $1800, as are the power rack and power toaster without the controller. More with it.

 

[LP59]

NAM is the absolute king in capturing quality, no one can contradict that. Tonex is second. Kemper is in last place. They introduced the concept to the guitar industry, but have not done anything at all to better the quality in 15 years. Until now, and it's more than probable that Kemper with its supposed new tech will not be on par with TONEX, let alone NAM.

Kemper had things easy 10 years ago, but those days are over. For technical reasons, they can't advance as fast as competitors can, if at all, but that's a long way from being "doomed". They've still got things going for them besides profiling accuracy.

The Player still occupies a unique niche that nobody else quite matches. They've got great name recognition...in some circles "Kemper" is synonymous with "amp sim", like "Kleenex" or "Q-Tip". They've got a great library of profiles. They've got really good effects. And, null tests or not, a Kemper can still sound great.

 

[ejecta]

My point was simply that they need to be careful about claims because the online world will be brutal to them.

As far as how they really perform (a couple years ago) I tested (my) Kemper against (my) Tonex and (borrowed) QC side by side right after the Tonex Pedal came out. For some things I do, I didn’t need a null test to instantly know the Kemper was struggling and Tonex and QC were neck and neck and really good. Other tests, the Kemper sounded really close to the other two and also the real amp played through a Suhr RL and the same amp as the captures. That said, I am a clean to medium gain player, and since I did that testing (and sold the Kemper) I learned that Tonex and QC can still struggle with higher gain which I did not test.

All that to say, I think Kemper needs to do BETTER than Tonex across the board to even have a chance to stay relevant. The null tests may be useful to prove that out, but how they are run and what they are run on can make a huge difference. I could have run a set of null tests that show the Kemper is already pretty good or I could run a set of tests where the results were laughably bad. Had I tested Tonex and QC differently they likely would not been as good as I thought at the time. Again, I could produce good and not so good null tests knowing where they struggle and where they excel.

Null tests or AB comparisons are really only a snapshot and don’t tell us nearly as much as actually playing a bunch of stuff through the device. Even then, what and how we play can have a big impact on the results. Be careful taking too much away from any tests you didn’t run.

Which of those units do you find comes closer to the amp loaded down into a capture? Also do you find much difference in a good amp capture and the amp loaded down?

 

[ejecta]

NAM is the absolute king in capturing quality, no one can contradict that.

Game changer.

 

[DrewJD82]

Um, it's light years easier on a Kemper to do the same thing. Sheesh.

I love how this keeps getting stated for something that took me literal seconds to do when I wasn't even positive I was going about it the right way and I was talking the entire time I did it, while completely ignoring the fact that that one screen I'm working within provides considerable more control to entirely different functions than morphing and morphing isn't even something listed as a feature in a Fractal unit, it's just an offshoot of the options. Hashish.

 

[ejecta]

He’s dreaming of smooching his.

 

[Orvillain]

I’ve never seen it be much different since I first started hanging out on guitar forums. It must be kinda common in people to care quite a bit about what other people think about the things they choose to spend money on. I find that weird cause I could care less.

It’s been one of the most fascinating things I’ve witnessed of human behavior especially how amplified it seems to be on the internet. I don’t recall seeing that in the real world at that level.

I mean, I'm like this about air fryers and washing machines. Like a real fucking modern man.

 

[Chocol8]

Which of those units do you find comes closer to the amp loaded down into a capture? Also do you find much difference in a good amp capture and the amp loaded down?

What do you mean by "loaded down"? Are you referring to an impedance mismatch or capturing the amp into a reactive load and not the cab, in other words a DI capture?

Depending on the amp, the load can have a significant impact on the tone, so doing side by side tests, I used the Suhr RL built in load to make the captures and then played the amp through the Suhr into a Mosvalve power amp and then into the speaker cab. The captures were played back through the same Mosvalve amp and same speaker cab. We tested a BF Super, a moded SF Twin, and a 50 watt 1968 plexi clone. If doing it again, I would definitely use a wider amp selection, but just three was pretty time consuming.

When I make captures for normal use, I stick the Suhr in between the amp and cab so that the internal load is bypassed and the amp sees the actual cab's impedance curve. All the difference is in the amp reacting to the load, the capture devices handle them exactly the same.

For the amps I have tested, and again I am NOT a high gain player, NAM (tested later) Tonex and QC are so darn close to each other and the amp it is hard to impossible to tell them apart most of time. Kemper was often easy for me to spot. I think Tonex handled wider swings in guitar volume output better than QC, tested with a Strat with the Fender mid boost circuit installed. I did not test NAM to the same extent, and not at the same time.

All in all, I would have a very hard time picking out Tonex from NAM from QC or from the real amp for these tones. Tone would not be a consideration for which one I would use. Tonex kills NAM for me simply because of the hardware options. Tonex beats QC for me because I am using it as a substitute for a real amp and all the effects are usually coming from a pedal board. If I wanted an all in one solution, Kemper or QC would have beaten NAM and Tonex, but in the future I am guessing it will be Helix Stadium for my inevitable next all in one digital rig.

Separately, I did some much less rigorous comparison of the capture plus York IR into a CLR against the Twin with D120's side by side. They were closer than I expected but still easy to tell the "amp in the room" from the IR into "FRFR". This is a pretty imperfect test though because even though York's IR was captured with a Twin as the cab, it was a different cab, different (old) speakers, and then there is the mic'ed cab vs the real cab issue.

It may seem weird, but I have never done full captures with a mic in front of the cab. I prefer to be able to change speakers/IR's as a tone shaping tool, my mic collection is pitiful, and I am not particularly skilled at micing a cab. So, I only use DI captures that I made or from Amalgam, and then I play through real cabs, or if I want to use headphones or an "FRFR" (very rare) I add IR's from various sources.

 

[JCW308]

I do that every day on both Fractal and Kemper. There are a lot of use cases for morphing, depending on how you want to control the change, how many states you want, how gradual you want the change to be, what morph shape you want, etc. Fractal offers a lot more depth for more use cases, but for the simple cases like in the video, it's usually fewer clicks on Fractal. But no, one is not "light years easier" than the other.

I have both, too. For many years.

 

[nicolasrivera]

Depends on what you want. While Kemper might not be the most accurate, some people don't care as long as it sounds good to them.

Also, Kemper is the only one of the products you mentioned that has an entire suite of effects

NAM is being supported in $89 units! to 1,500$ units that have the full gama of FX

 

[LP59]

He’s dreaming of smooching his.

You have to admire his ability to create videos where he talks for 20 minutes yet says nothing.

 

[Frodebro]

Watching 70's rock gods in the 80s is so painful. How could we let that happen?

I really liked Plant’s solo stuff, I had a couple of his albums as well as the Honeydrippers EP.

 

[paisleywookiee]

NAM is being supported in $89 units! to 1,500$ units that have the full gama of FX

Which higher end units support NAM? The nicest one seems to be the Dimehead.

 

[nicolasrivera]

Which higher end units support NAM? The nicest one seems to be the Dimehead.

Anagram!

 

[Lysander]

I really liked Plant’s solo stuff, I had a couple of his albums as well as the Honeydrippers EP.

Reverend!