Kemper Profiler MK 2

[Sascha Franck]

Kemper/Neural- Don't do that at all.

Well, "at all" isn't really true. Kemper has delivered quite some not exactly expected updates for free over the years.
NDSP not so much (the free updates still don't get them to what they promised at launch).

 

[OneEng]

Fortunately, that's not what's happening.

I'd say a vocal majority of this forum see the differences between the way the companies respond to their customer base and voice their dissatisfaction when things aren't moving in the best direction for the customer.

Fractal/Line 6- two companies constantly looking to give the customer more after the initial purchase, you never have to ask for a refill and they're free.

Kemper/Neural- Don't do that at all. I started going into detail but ended up with a wall of text, you can just read through the pages in this thread to see the gripe about Kemper and any NDSP thread clearly shows where the ire there is aimed at. Your server is in the walk-in with the cook and your cup's been empty for 20 minutes. And when you do get your refill, you're paying for it.

If anyone is interpretting that as a personal attack on their own character, that's their own problem. I certainly can't change the way someone feels internally when they read someone saying "I think Kemper is doing something shitty here", or "NDSP just failed to deliver on their own word....again" and that should never be the responsbility of anyone but the person who feels such things.

Until the introduction of MKII, (From 2012 until now), Kemper provided a host of free updates and capabilities for Toaster, Rack, and Stage. It wasn't until the Player that the concept of a paid update was introduced.

I have an itching feeling that the entire purpose of MKII was to justify a paid update to MK1 users. The only reason Player users are being given the "free update" is because they already pay for Level II and III (my speculation).

I also have seen unusual behavior with respect to the Kemper forum where the powers that be aren't always tolerant of negative opinions.

Certainly the latest business model changes at Kemper invite some criticism; however, it seems to be a pattern. In vehicles, there are now many OEM's that offer paid activation of hardware features that are already on the vehicle.

MS Office no longer offers anything but a subscription as I understand it.

As for the attacks (if you want to categorize this as an "attack"), I firmly stand by my skepticism that no one can hear the difference between top end products we are all talking about here in the context of a full band in a live venue. I would further defend my disbelief that any of these products actually sound "bad", especially in the context of a live band or even in a recording of a full mix.

The criticism of MKII for its lack of .... well anything much really is absolutely well founded as is the praise of the new Stadium and its litany of new features and astounding Ui/Ux improvements.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Line 6- two companies constantly looking to give the customer more after the initial purchase, you never have to ask for a refill and they're free.

Big Line 6 and DI+Igor fan but I would not say Metallurgy received anywhere close to that kind of experience. There are still bugs in Metallurgy that have been present and reported for 3+ years that haven’t been fixed, because there hasn’t been a single update in that time. As a customer of Metallurgy, I’m not exactly happy with how things have panned out because it’s a total contrast to what I’ve had from HX Stomp and Native. 3 years with no updates at all (when something is broken, and even got fixed on other Helix products) is pretty poor, honestly.

If someone is looking at buying a plugin suite, who would recommend Metallurgy over anything NDSP make? One of those companies has supported and updated and improved their product, the other hasn’t.

 

[laxu]

Until the introduction of MKII, (From 2012 until now), Kemper provided a host of free updates and capabilities for Toaster, Rack, and Stage. It wasn't until the Player that the concept of a paid update was introduced.

I have an itching feeling that the entire purpose of MKII was to justify a paid update to MK1 users. The only reason Player users are being given the "free update" is because they already pay for Level II and III (my speculation).

I also have seen unusual behavior with respect to the Kemper forum where the powers that be aren't always tolerant of negative opinions.

Certainly the latest business model changes at Kemper invite some criticism; however, it seems to be a pattern. In vehicles, there are now many OEM's that offer paid activation of hardware features that are already on the vehicle.

MS Office no longer offers anything but a subscription as I understand it.

Enshittification is the term you are looking for. For big companies this is the "profits must always go up" capitalism pitfall that eventually leads them to become brands people don't want anymore because the offering has gone way past what people will accept.

Kemper is not there yet, but the whole tiered level thing is hard to swallow when no competitor does this pattern, and the Kemper Player is not cheap enough to start that it feels acceptable. Like we accept e.g streaming services doing enshittification because all of them do it, but when you can buy a full featured Hotone for the price of a Kemper Player, or a Helix LT for the price of Player + one upgrade tier...it just doesn't add up to a good value.

As for the attacks (if you want to categorize this as an "attack"), I firmly stand by my skepticism that no one can hear the difference between top end products we are all talking about here in the context of a full band in a live venue. I would further defend my disbelief that any of these products actually sound "bad", especially in the context of a live band or even in a recording of a full mix.

Last time I heard Kemper live was last fall at an outdoor rock/metal festival in Tokyo. The bands using them didn't really sound worse than ones who used something else. Turn it loud enough, and a lot of stuff just sounds good.