Kemper Profiler MK 2

[laxu]

I agree with what you are saying. Kemper has some fantastic features (especially for live and tweaking existing profiles) and some world class efx (especially for live performances). I just wonder if they need more than that to go up against a Stadium with color OLED scribble strips?

It's always a balancing act.

Over the past few years I've seen a lot more newcomers interested in the Quad Cortex because of its modern touchscreen, Apple-like form factor and marketing prominence. Yet the QC has not managed to completely overshadow Line6, Fractal or Kemper, with each having their fans. Part of that is of course NDSP's inability to make their "great on paper" premise a full reality.

There's plenty of people who don't mind putting up with clumsier user interfaces if it does the things they want well enough and sounds great to them. But I think it's harder to attract new buyers if your gear seems like it's old. Many are worried about buying an older piece of gear only for it to be replaced by something much more modern, leaving them with FOMO. The Kemper MK2 is now "new" so it might alleviate people's worries about it getting replaced.

When the Line6 Stadium launches and the dust settles a bit, I think people will find that it's a work-in-progress. Everything Digital Igloo has said points to that being the reality. That doesn't make it bad because it still has everything Helix offers, which is already a lot. But it will likely take 2026 and 2027 at least to polish its features. People will be clamoring for more Agoura models, new fx and eagerly waiting for promised features like captures, Showcase improvements etc.

For Kemper, part of the challenge is that there's a lot of cheaper, more modern "more than good enough" products with capture tech now, from Tonex One to Valeton GP5, Mooer GS1000 and Hotone Ampero 2. So Kemper is squeezed both from the bottom and top with no real way to go other than drop prices. They can't put out something new without rewriting what they have or starting from scratch.

This next gen of modelers will be really interesting because there's a lot more pressure to come up with unique features that elevate your product above the competition. Having a touchscreen UI, great modeling and fx are no longer huge selling points. We can look at the Fender TMP as a product that on paper does a lot of things right, but doesn't bring anything you haven't already seen. Very different response to its release compared to the Stadium.

 

[Eagle]

It's always a balancing act.

Over the past few years I've seen a lot more newcomers interested in the Quad Cortex because of its modern touchscreen, Apple-like form factor and marketing prominence. Yet the QC has not managed to completely overshadow Line6, Fractal or Kemper, with each having their fans. Part of that is of course NDSP's inability to make their "great on paper" premise a full reality.

There's plenty of people who don't mind putting up with clumsier user interfaces if it does the things they want well enough and sounds great to them. But I think it's harder to attract new buyers if your gear seems like it's old. Many are worried about buying an older piece of gear only for it to be replaced by something much more modern, leaving them with FOMO. The Kemper MK2 is now "new" so it might alleviate people's worries about it getting replaced.

When the Line6 Stadium launches and the dust settles a bit, I think people will find that it's a work-in-progress. Everything Digital Igloo has said points to that being the reality. That doesn't make it bad because it still has everything Helix offers, which is already a lot. But it will likely take 2026 and 2027 at least to polish its features. People will be clamoring for more Agoura models, new fx and eagerly waiting for promised features like captures, Showcase improvements etc.

For Kemper, part of the challenge is that there's a lot of cheaper, more modern "more than good enough" products with capture tech now, from Tonex One to Valeton GP5, Mooer GS1000 and Hotone Ampero 2. So Kemper is squeezed both from the bottom and top with no real way to go other than drop prices. They can't put out something new without rewriting what they have or starting from scratch.

This next gen of modelers will be really interesting because there's a lot more pressure to come up with unique features that elevate your product above the competition. Having a touchscreen UI, great modeling and fx are no longer huge selling points. We can look at the Fender TMP as a product that on paper does a lot of things right, but doesn't bring anything you haven't already seen. Very different response to its release compared to the Stadium.

The core tone is by far the most important part. Most digital platforms are weak at clean / crunch.
I will probably buy one at some point.

 

[OneEng]

It's always a balancing act.

Over the past few years I've seen a lot more newcomers interested in the Quad Cortex because of its modern touchscreen, Apple-like form factor and marketing prominence. Yet the QC has not managed to completely overshadow Line6, Fractal or Kemper, with each having their fans. Part of that is of course NDSP's inability to make their "great on paper" premise a full reality.

There's plenty of people who don't mind putting up with clumsier user interfaces if it does the things they want well enough and sounds great to them. But I think it's harder to attract new buyers if your gear seems like it's old. Many are worried about buying an older piece of gear only for it to be replaced by something much more modern, leaving them with FOMO. The Kemper MK2 is now "new" so it might alleviate people's worries about it getting replaced.

When the Line6 Stadium launches and the dust settles a bit, I think people will find that it's a work-in-progress. Everything Digital Igloo has said points to that being the reality. That doesn't make it bad because it still has everything Helix offers, which is already a lot. But it will likely take 2026 and 2027 at least to polish its features. People will be clamoring for more Agoura models, new fx and eagerly waiting for promised features like captures, Showcase improvements etc.

For Kemper, part of the challenge is that there's a lot of cheaper, more modern "more than good enough" products with capture tech now, from Tonex One to Valeton GP5, Mooer GS1000 and Hotone Ampero 2. So Kemper is squeezed both from the bottom and top with no real way to go other than drop prices. They can't put out something new without rewriting what they have or starting from scratch.

This next gen of modelers will be really interesting because there's a lot more pressure to come up with unique features that elevate your product above the competition. Having a touchscreen UI, great modeling and fx are no longer huge selling points. We can look at the Fender TMP as a product that on paper does a lot of things right, but doesn't bring anything you haven't already seen. Very different response to its release compared to the Stadium.

I agree. Kemper MK2 is going to feel pressure from the bottom from units that capture very well even if they lack in all-in-one capabilities in comparison .... and from the top with not only great sound, but a litany of features and dazzling Ui/Ux.

What generally happens in the market once a product line flat-lines in terms of capability and usability (ie, there isn't much room for any device to "get better") is that prices start falling. It is no longer a matter of who can "make the best", it is a matter of "who can make it cheapest". Sadly, I think that Kemper isn't well positioned for a high volume price war. Pretty sure we can expect plastic pedalboards with pretty OLED scribble strips along with fully integrated PCB's. Kemper took a gamble (or even planned in the roadmap) the upgrade to the surf board plug-in module by putting a DIMM interface on the board. No one does this in a high volume product because it costs too much in both parts and labor (plus it adds another failure point in production).

I can see Line 6 making the Stadium VERY well designed for manufacturing. Yamaha is well versed with doing this. Yamaha also has a sourcing strategy that likely dwarfs anything Kemper has imagined.

Having said all this, I think MK2, if the new profiling meets muster, will keep them in business for the next 5 to 7 years without issue.

 

[Jarick]

I have been thinking about my next steps a lot lately, and the choices keep coming down to 1) Analog pedal board into real amps when they make sense and pedals into TONEX when I want digital, vs 2) pedals and amps when I can, and a Stadium all in one rig, but likely not until they have captures and the looper functionality...unless I get too much GAS.

Kemper and QC are pretty much out of the equation for me, and Fractal and NAM are on my interesting and I will keep watching list, but I think I want a lot more than "best sound quality" in any new flagship type purchases going forward.

There's so many cool things out there nowadays...depending on what type of tones you're after, maybe one of the preamp pedals could be a cool idea when you need to go direct.

The more I spend with the Player, it's really cool but almost has to be self contained or in a pretty limited pedalboard. It's a shame they don't have an effects loop onboard as that would have made it a lot more flexible. For instance I'd love to run direct profiles into my Ox Stomp and then feed back for stereo effects in the Kemper but that's not possible.

 

[Jarick]

I bought the Tone Junkie everything pack in my last go around and kind of forgot about it. I never loved his BE100 but didn't realize there was a BE50 Deluxe. These profiles sound fantastic, super balanced. I'd say much better than the Michael Britt ones and even a bit better than the Bert M JJ Junior pack I recently got.

There's over 10,000 files in this massive folder so I've got a lot of digging around to do...

 

[LP59]

Kemper actually shines in the, IMHO, most important area of the UI, the editor. Preset management in the Rig Manager is better than what anybody else has. With meta data like comments and favorites and ratings and organizational tools, it's quite good. The UI for I/O options is clean and well thought-out.

I don't understand the praise the Fractal editor gets. It's very primitive by comparison. You can't even organize presets into folders and has terrible support for managing presets on your computer. The UI for scene controllers in the editor is awful, as is the UI for I/O options.

I think the lesson Fender taught us with the TMP, is a UI that is focused on optimizing the user experience for the first 15 minutes with the device is important. The TMP UI is great to get anybody up and running in those first 15 minutes. It's quite poor after you've spent some time with it and have become familiar with it, but people tend to review its UI based on the experience of those first 15 minutes, so it has a reputation for a good UI, when I think the opposite is true.

 

[OneEng]

Kemper actually shines in the, IMHO, most important area of the UI, the editor. Preset management in the Rig Manager is better than what anybody else has. With meta data like comments and favorites and ratings and organizational tools, it's quite good. The UI for I/O options is clean and well thought-out.

I don't understand the praise the Fractal editor gets. It's very primitive by comparison. You can't even organize presets into folders and has terrible support for managing presets on your computer. The UI for scene controllers in the editor is awful, as is the UI for I/O options.

I think the lesson Fender taught us with the TMP, is a UI that is focused on optimizing the user experience for the first 15 minutes with the device is important. The TMP UI is great to get anybody up and running in those first 15 minutes. It's quite poor after you've spent some time with it and have become familiar with it, but people tend to review its UI based on the experience of those first 15 minutes, so it has a reputation for a good UI, when I think the opposite is true.

Agree, but I would very much like to have a built in setlist manager where you can assign a performance and / or rig in that performance to a specific song. Then if you could just create your setlist in the order you want the songs in, a method of just hitting a single -> forward command to go to the next song in the setlist would be fantastic.

I actually started writing one myself a few years ago before Kemper released the rig manager, but they wrote me and said something was in the works.

I understand that there are now setlist managers that include MIDI integration which would handle this though.

I generally do agree with you that the ability to find rigs you need for a specific sound is very good in Kemper.

 

[LP59]

Agree, but I would very much like to have a built in setlist manager where you can assign a performance and / or rig in that performance to a specific song. Then if you could just create your setlist in the order you want the songs in, a method of just hitting a single -> forward command to go to the next song in the setlist would be fantastic.

I actually started writing one myself a few years ago before Kemper released the rig manager, but they wrote me and said something was in the works.

I understand that there are now setlist managers that include MIDI integration which would handle this though.

I generally do agree with you that the ability to find rigs you need for a specific sound is very good in Kemper.

Kemper is the best at the moment, but all of the editors from Kemper, Fractal, Line6, NDSP, Fender, etc. need improvement. Everybody has been so focused on getting tone to a high quality level that the UI has been given low priority. Line6 seems to be the first to understand that focus should now be turned towards user experience.

 

[quadgear]

Kemper actually shines in the, IMHO, most important area of the UI, the editor. Preset management in the Rig Manager is better than what anybody else has. With meta data like comments and favorites and ratings and organizational tools, it's quite good. The UI for I/O options is clean and well thought-out.

I would not say that Kemper shines in editor or preset management. It's archaic/limited in many respects. Being at parity with (other) bad software does not create a great user experience.

Kemper is very much stuck with a mindset that it's perfect as-is and should not be improved. Perhaps even worse is categorizing issues as "impossible" to fix (these are quite rare when you control the firmware and the editor).

Here are a few limitations:

• Comments are pretty limited to a one line that does not wrap or have any formatting. There is no separation of your notes versus the notes of the original creator.
• Simple things like nudging a value by arrow buttons, key press, or edit boxes would be very useful.
• There are huge feature gaps between the mobile and desktop versions of Rig Manager.
• The output block is pretty confusing in terms of which outputs the EQ affects. This may be a KPP specific issue.
• Many operations are limited to "one rig at a time", ignore folders, etc.
• Backups of a profiler are not strictly supported inside of rig manager (you can't simply copy contents and then restore them)
• Most of the effects power comes from "presets" that immediately lose their identity. Load a specific type of wah or overdrive and you'll never know which one you chose previously.
• No way to view or edit settings without a Profiler connected
• [Will stop here to avoid derailing the conversation. Specific issues are not the point. The point is that there are significant improvements which would be useful.]

The core issue is that people get used to their tools imperfections and ignore any possibility of improvement. Kemper also seems to get blocked by prior (implementation) decisions, extremely literal interpretations of requirements to resolve, and a tendency to categorize changes as "impossible" ... especially when the change might need a change in firmware.

 

[OneEng]

I would not say that Kemper shines in editor or preset management. It's archaic/limited in many respects. Being at parity with (other) bad software does not create a great user experience.

Kemper is very much stuck with a mindset that it's perfect as-is and should not be improved. Perhaps even worse is categorizing issues as "impossible" to fix (these are quite rare when you control the firmware and the editor).

Here are a few limitations:

• Comments are pretty limited to a one line that does not wrap or have any formatting. There is no separation of your notes versus the notes of the original creator.
• Simple things like nudging a value by arrow buttons, key press, or edit boxes would be very useful.
• There are huge feature gaps between the mobile and desktop versions of Rig Manager.
• The output block is pretty confusing in terms of which outputs the EQ affects. This may be a KPP specific issue.
• Many operations are limited to "one rig at a time", ignore folders, etc.
• Backups of a profiler are not strictly supported inside of rig manager (you can't simply copy contents and then restore them)
• Most of the effects power comes from "presets" that immediately lose their identity. Load a specific type of wah or overdrive and you'll never know which one you chose previously.
• No way to view or edit settings without a Profiler connected
• [Will stop here to avoid derailing the conversation. Specific issues are not the point. The point is that there are significant improvements which would be useful.]

The core issue is that people get used to their tools imperfections and ignore any possibility of improvement. Kemper also seems to get blocked by prior (implementation) decisions, extremely literal interpretations of requirements to resolve, and a tendency to categorize changes as "impossible" ... especially when the change might need a change in firmware.

All very valid points. Also add typing in values vs using the GUI to achieve a value .

While you can name an effect in your library, as you point out, the name doesn't stick when it goes into the performance or rig.

 

[LP59]

I would not say that Kemper shines in editor or preset management. It's archaic/limited in many respects. Being at parity with (other) bad software does not create a great user experience.

Kemper is very much stuck with a mindset that it's perfect as-is and should not be improved. Perhaps even worse is categorizing issues as "impossible" to fix (these are quite rare when you control the firmware and the editor).

Here are a few limitations:

• Comments are pretty limited to a one line that does not wrap or have any formatting. There is no separation of your notes versus the notes of the original creator.
• Simple things like nudging a value by arrow buttons, key press, or edit boxes would be very useful.
• There are huge feature gaps between the mobile and desktop versions of Rig Manager.
• The output block is pretty confusing in terms of which outputs the EQ affects. This may be a KPP specific issue.
• Many operations are limited to "one rig at a time", ignore folders, etc.
• Backups of a profiler are not strictly supported inside of rig manager (you can't simply copy contents and then restore them)
• Most of the effects power comes from "presets" that immediately lose their identity. Load a specific type of wah or overdrive and you'll never know which one you chose previously.
• No way to view or edit settings without a Profiler connected
• [Will stop here to avoid derailing the conversation. Specific issues are not the point. The point is that there are significant improvements which would be useful.]

The core issue is that people get used to their tools imperfections and ignore any possibility of improvement. Kemper also seems to get blocked by prior (implementation) decisions, extremely literal interpretations of requirements to resolve, and a tendency to categorize changes as "impossible" ... especially when the change might need a change in firmware.

I share the same frustrations and as I said above, the Kemper editor needs improvement. But at least Kemper has comments and a browser for presets on your computer and a mobile app and folders, etc.. By "shine" I meant Kemper is the least bad editor out there .