Kemper Profiler MK 2

[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.

 

[Dimiguitar]

I had my first run with Kemper in 2012. I couldn't stand the aliasing, which at the time was quite severe for my tolerance level.

I eventually got back to Kemper when they improved aliasing performance. I'm surprised they (apparently?) act like aliasing was never a problem for people.

Profiling for me was always a mixed bag. Profiling multiple distorting stages (like preamp and power amp gain) often resulted to an exaggerated cocked wah sound. But the manual itself explained results may be off with such chains.

In cases when profiling worked its best (hundreds of profiles made, many amps), at least with distorted tones, there was a"tubescreamer"-like feel and sound.

This is easier for me to feel than to hear, but there's many blinds tests I've made where it's audible enough. Depends on many things, including what you play, in my experience. Especially the feel is something I grew to dislike.

Saying all this, I used to make public tests and hoped Kemper would improve profiling. It was so close yet somehow so far. Eventually, after enough (arguably) gaslighting from the Kemper side, and the feeling they believed accuracy to be perfect, I stopped caring about the matter and moved on.

I don't think Kemper is a bad unit. It was great when it came out and you can still make great albums with it.

That said, I do hope the MKII profiling is better. I'm glad they finally seem to have understood or accepted that profiling is not perfect and are taking steps to improve it. Would have been nice if some of us old users got a cake in the mail or something, but it ain't about to happen!

I won't buy a Kemper unit again, because not in the market for anything, but I hope the new unit does what marketing seems to claim.

 

[Orvillain]

I tried to find the "huge irony" emoji but couldn't. Your self proclaimed sense of neutrality and evenhandedness is a testament to your inability to be self aware.

Reading comprehension.

FWIW, I don't think ANY of us could pick out one digital amp from another in a mix (not any of the decent ones anyway). The fact you proclaim you could appears to be self delusional.

Reading comprehension.

Many side by sides have been done with Kemper (your favorite pissing hole) where people couldn't tell the amp from the profile even when the exercise is carried out with the guitar in isolation. In a mix, there is no way people could tell the difference.

Reading comprehension.

In a live situation, this is even more true.

Reading comprehension.

Funny how just when I start believing that you can have reasonable discussion, you prove me wrong.

Reading comprehension.

Just out of morbid curiosity, do you believe that all the people touring with Kemper are daft .... or perhaps hearing impaired?

You're the one throwing insults about people's hearing around, not me.

Also, reading comprehension.

 

[DrewJD82]

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.

While I don’t doubt any of that, I have practically no knowledge of that plugin at all outside of it being a metal-based plugin from Line 6. Certainly fair to hold them to the fire for not updating/fixing it, but in the broader sense of customer care/support, outside of them not fixing the 2203 in the Helix this is the first complaint I’ve heard about them not taking care of something.

As for the last question, hahahah while I do suggest to others that the NDSP plugins are great for what they are, I don’t for a second believe those plugins would be updated at all and the only reason they are is because they had to for QC functionality and that company will never get a dime from me.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

While I don’t doubt any of that, I have practically no knowledge of that plugin at all outside of it being a metal-based plugin from Line 6

It’s their attempt at a NDSP style suite of amps. I bought all 3 with high hopes based on Line 6 turning the page from the Podfarm 2 days when I was also left with unsupported software. Sucks as a customer when the product was essentially dead on arrival, literally not a single updated since when it was launched.

I don’t for a second believe those plugins would be updated at all and the only reason they are is because they had to for QC functionality and that company will never get a dime from me.

I think that’s a bit QC centric - there has been many updates to all of their plugins over the years that had nothing to do with PCOM etc. Maintenance, QOL, bug fixes, Apple Silicon Support etc. I have no interest in the QC and I’m sure a significant majority of plugin users are not QC users, but I’ve been happy with the updates and stability. I don’t really see any reason to think that updates wouldn’t have happened, the track record is pretty solid. It doesn’t feel like I’m sat on dead products like I do with the 3 suites in Metallurgy. I don’t want to go overboard on defending NDSP, but some people here would have an absolute field day if they went 3 years without any kind of update on any of their plugins. Plenty of valid criticisms to point at them but plugin updates really isn’t one of them.

 

[GTR37]

Yes, and it is a German joke so it doesn’t even have to be funny.

 

[quadgear]

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 very much doubt that Kemper will charge for upgrades.

It is far more likely this is isolated the Player and it's levels because:

• Kemper wanted to release a Player at a lower price point that would not compete with its larger, more expensive products.
• They also wanted to make the Player competitive against the products from other companies at varying price points.
• They didn't want to release a separate version of the Player that came with more features at a higher price.
• It's far cheaper for Kemper to reuse the same hardware across multiple products.

It's very telling that they are going to be giving away for free the ability to capture Profiles on the player. They could have easily charged for that.

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

Yes. There is intolerant behavior by the mods on their forum. It goes far beyond negative posts. They seem to review every post, openly quash ideas they currently have no interest in pursuing, and adjust the capitalization on thread titles. I wonder how much this is a policy, cultural differences in conformance, or just a few people with the wrong attitude/skills for the job.

Anyway, it's their forum. They can do with it whatever they want.

 

[DrewJD82]

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).

NDSP does it with content, Kemper does it with hardware.

I don’t find the Tiers/locking features behind a paywall to be a benefit to the customer and I’d be willing to bet that if you asked everyone who owns a Kemper to write down a list of everything they’d want to see in the MK2, nothing about the MK2 as it stands now would be on that list. Mainly because they already own everything but the 7 fixed effects that are coming with the MK2. They’re wanting customers to dish out $1400 on the hopes of ‘better’ profiling (since they were cautious to remove any verbiage about it being more accurate or the most accurate), after Kristophe has spent the last 14 years saying he doesn’t want to change it at all.

The only people I’ve seen excited about it are the hardcore Kemper fans that don’t seem to operate in the same reality you or I do. There’s more people who want to wait and see what’s happening with it than buying one right away and that’s definitely not the way things generally work with a new product launch from one of the heavy hitters.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I don’t find the Tiers/locking features behind a paywall to be a benefit to the customer and I’d be willing to bet that if you asked everyone who owns a Kemper to write down a list of everything they’d want to see in the MK2, nothing about the MK2 as it stands now would be on that list. Mainly because they already own everything but the 7 fixed effects that are coming with the MK2. They’re wanting customers to dish out $1400 on the hopes of ‘better’ profiling (since they were cautious to remove any verbiage about it being more accurate or the most accurate), after Kristophe has spent the last 14 years saying he doesn’t want to change it at all.

Yeah well, but that's not what my reply was about.

I mean, you were saying this:

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.

And then this:

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

But they actually did that. The Tier thing with the Player was a first, before all updates were free. And IMO there's been quite some substantial ones. Possibly not as great as with other companies, but without any doubt, the thing got free updates for over a decade.

 

[Tanax]

People have mentioned aliasing a few times.
As a stupid guitar player that just plugs into the amp and play, what is aliasing in this context?

 

[Orvillain]

People have mentioned aliasing a few times.
As a stupid guitar player that just plugs into the amp and play, what is aliasing in this context?

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

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.

I’m not sure L6 should get a pass here…what was it Pod Farm add-ons.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I’m not sure L6 should get a pass here…what was it Pod Farm add-ons.

You even had to buy some models for the POD HD series, IIRC.

 

[Chocol8]

People have mentioned aliasing a few times.
As a stupid guitar player that just plugs into the amp and play, what is aliasing in this context?

I am not sure I can explain accurately in a few words but aliasing is basically high frequency reflections that shouldn't be there. It is mostly at a much lower level than the main signal and at frequencies few if any of us can hear, but it looks really bad on a graph if you make the graphs to look really bad and then you can make YouTube videos and forum posts bashing various products for their bad aliasing.

In some cases it is audible and then it should be addressed, but it has been blown WAY WAY out of proportion online these days.

 

[Sascha Franck]

It is mostly at a much lower level than the main signal and at frequencies few if any of us can hear,

And that's precisely what's not true. There's the "foldback effect", throwing these frequencies back into the well audible spectrum - and even in a pretty weird way. Such as when you bend a note up, the thrown back frequencies would go down.
Orvillain has posted this before, but here it is again:

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

they'd have to rewrite the entire Kemper processing. Which is when you would be better off just rebuilding the entire unit from scratch for both hardware and software. Which means it's going to take years to get a product to market.

They literally had YEARS to do it, though. And they chose not to.

 

[Sascha Franck]

In some cases it is audible and then it should be addressed, but it has been blown WAY WAY out of proportion online these days.

Fwiw, I agree on that nonetheless. It's out of proportion.

 

[Sascha Franck]

They literally had YEARS to do it, though. And they chose not to.

Whereas Line 6 did. And I guess we'll see the outcome of these different "treatments" soon-ishly.

 

[Deleted member 490]

at frequencies few if any of us can hear

That's a misconception, aliasing is spread quite evenly across the entire spectrum.