Kemper Profiler MK 2

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To me the Bogner quirk is that they have so much less high end than many other amps that the treble knob is totally useless under about 5-6, and more normal settings are like 7-9. Similarly turning presence up helps.
Cliff (Fractal) talked about this when modelling the shiva, his quote below

"Human nature is to put the knobs near noon. We are reticent to deviate much from noon. Amp designers exploit this and use different tapers to change the sound of their amps WITH THE KNOBS AT NOON. A prime example are Bogner amps. Everyone says "Bogner amps are dark". No they aren't. But he uses a Log10A taper for the treble pot. It's a standard Marshall tone stack. Usually a linear taper pot is used for the treble. The treble knob at 5.0 (noon) on a Bogner is equivalent to the treble knob at 1.0 on a Marshall. People put the knob at 5.0 and go "wow, this amp is dark". No it isn't. If you turned the treble up to 8 or 9 it would sound a lot like a Plexi but humans are reticent to turn the knobs to extremes. Amp designers know this and exploit it to give their amps a "signature sound"."
 
Cliff (Fractal) talked about this when modelling the shiva, his quote below

"Human nature is to put the knobs near noon. We are reticent to deviate much from noon. Amp designers exploit this and use different tapers to change the sound of their amps WITH THE KNOBS AT NOON. A prime example are Bogner amps. Everyone says "Bogner amps are dark". No they aren't. But he uses a Log10A taper for the treble pot. It's a standard Marshall tone stack. Usually a linear taper pot is used for the treble. The treble knob at 5.0 (noon) on a Bogner is equivalent to the treble knob at 1.0 on a Marshall. People put the knob at 5.0 and go "wow, this amp is dark". No it isn't. If you turned the treble up to 8 or 9 it would sound a lot like a Plexi but humans are reticent to turn the knobs to extremes. Amp designers know this and exploit it to give their amps a "signature sound"."
the problem with my Shiva wasn't the treble, it was always up high but that was fine. Problem was the lowend, I think the frequency too low maybe for the EQ dunno.Either no bass or if bass was dialed it, it was good for breakup bloom, but not for gain Angus and beyond.
 
I’d rather have something close to usable at noon with reasonable lateral movement in either direction. Designing your amp to have a secret code where it starts to sound “normal” when the treble hits 9 isn’t great. Just means so much of the movement is wasted.

I’m well aware there’s endless ways to balance a tone but if treble 5 on an amp is equal to treble 1 on another amp, again just a waste of space from 0 to 6-7 there.
 
I’d rather have something close to usable at noon with reasonable lateral movement in either direction. Designing your amp to have a secret code where it starts to sound “normal” when the treble hits 9 isn’t great. Just means so much of the movement is wasted.

I’m well aware there’s endless ways to balance a tone but if treble 5 on an amp is equal to treble 1 on another amp, again just a waste of space from 0 to 6-7 there.
I agree, a good usable range should be the goal.

It's weird that amp designers don't take this into account. Like how does Bogner end up with that specific setup on all their amps? Why does a 5150 have a presence knob that does fuck all until it's at like 7? Why do so many amps have hair trigger master volumes?
 
Kemper keep using the word "resolution", but it's unclear to me what it means. Sounds more like a buzzword. I suppose it's a combination of things.

That said, from the video.. it seems that profiling 2.0 will...

1) Fix the low end (or some of it). So like it had been argued a billion times over the years, there was meaningful room for improvement. Cool.

2) Create more dynamic profiles.

So that's supposed to be closer to the real amp, from what was said in the video. Probably that means more accurate picking dynamics, more accurate results when lowering volume knob and such?

And..

3) Capturing direct amp tones will more consistency work. That was an issue before, but I don't think it was all exclusive to direct profiles.

It will be interesting to see if profiling 2.0 works fine with amps 1.0 profiling doesn't work well with, be it direct or studio profiles.

4) I don't know if improvements extend to profiling multiple distorting stages. They haven't said that's the case, but who knows.
 
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Kemper keep using the word "definition", but it's unclear to me what it means. Sounds more like a buzzword. I suppose it's a combination of things.

That said, from the video.. it seems that profiling 2.0 will...

1) Fix the low end (or some of it). So like it had been argued a billion times over the years, there was meaningful room for improvement. Cool.

2) Create more dynamic profiles.

So that's supposed to be closer to the real amp, from what was said in the video. Probably that means more accurate picking dynamics, more accurate results when lowering volume knob and such?

And..

3) Capturing direct amp tones will more consistency work. That was an issue before, but I don't think it was all exclusive to direct profiles.

It will be interesting to see if profiling 2.0 works fine with amps 1.0 profiling doesn't work well with, be to direct or studio profiles.

4) I don't know if improvements extend to profiling multiple distorting stages. They haven't said that's the case, but who knows.
They can mince words all day long / as much as they like but the proof is always in the pudding: if the new profiling does a good job & users doing the A/B test at the profiling process' end are consistently getting good results, it doesn't really matter.

Given Kemper's record of disclosing "how stuff works", I wouldn't hold my breath for any additional clarifications other than what's already been shared and was, most likely, intentionally made to sound ambiguous.
 
4) I don't know if improvements extend to profiling multiple distorting stages. They haven't said that's the case, but who knows.

^ This ^ is something the current Kemper is useless at - it just has no idea - whereas on Tonex and NAM it works fine.

Its been a clearly known issue from Day 1 .... so lets see what we get.
 
Not referring to the kemper control, but the word they use to describe the new profiling. "Increased resolution". I mistakenly wrote "definition" because no coffee/dumb.

Gotcha. Yeah I heard that too, increased resolution over and over again. I'll be interested to see if that's something truly audible.

I find that Kemper seems to have a bit of high end roll off probably to mask some of the aliasing and also to make it sound a bit warmer and more analog. Maybe the new profiling has a more extended high end?
 
Slightly off topic post but hopefully that won’t kill me off here; I’ve just had had a one week ban from the Kemper forum and a post deleted. First time for me in over 12 years of posting there.

My crime? A guy posted in the Mk2 discussion thread over there that he thought Kemper were holding off releasing mk2 to coincide with the stadium release. Which is an interesting theory that imo makes no sense. He also said the Stadium would have profiling technology in December this year and thought that the mk2 profiling would coincide with the L6 clone tech, release wise. I know Kemper is often late but I thought I’d do my bit to correct the record.

I replied and said that, although Stadium is due out before Christmas, the Proxy clone tech is not out until an unspecified date in 2026. With that in mind, if profiling / cloning is important to you then you’ll be waiting for an unspecified date next year if you go that way. That’s from the official stuff that’s out in the wild from Eric who is always forthcoming with the info he’s able to share.

So they deleted a bunch of posts which were ‘off topic’ (I’m unclear how many) plus I was banned for an off topic post where I corrected a mistruth or two from another user that was *in the favour of the company who owns the forum*…….
 
Can't say i'm surprised thou. Kemper forum is second only to NDSP's when it comes to... creative rewriting of history.

I’ve just looked again and the guy that posted the (incorrect) statement ‘helix is getting profiling in December’? His post is still there, as are several others mentioning stadium. It’s just my post that’s gone missing plus the ban 🙄.
 
I’ve just looked again and the guy that posted the (incorrect) statement ‘helix is getting profiling in December’? His post is still there, as are several others mentioning stadium. It’s just my post that’s gone missing plus the ban 🙄.

Rest assured, there's a metric ton (no, make that a shitload of tons) of idiots populating this world. Some of them decide to become forum moderators for audio hardware companies.
 
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Slightly off topic post but hopefully that won’t kill me off here; I’ve just had had a one week ban from the Kemper forum and a post deleted. First time for me in over 12 years of posting there.

My crime? A guy posted in the Mk2 discussion thread over there that he thought Kemper were holding off releasing mk2 to coincide with the stadium release. Which is an interesting theory that imo makes no sense. He also said the Stadium would have profiling technology in December this year and thought that the mk2 profiling would coincide with the L6 clone tech, release wise. I know Kemper is often late but I thought I’d do my bit to correct the record.

I replied and said that, although Stadium is due out before Christmas, the Proxy clone tech is not out until an unspecified date in 2026. With that in mind, if profiling / cloning is important to you then you’ll be waiting for an unspecified date next year if you go that way. That’s from the official stuff that’s out in the wild from Eric who is always forthcoming with the info he’s able to share.

So they deleted a bunch of posts which were ‘off topic’ (I’m unclear how many) plus I was banned for an off topic post where I corrected a mistruth or two from another user that was *in the favour of the company who owns the forum*…….
That G Spot guy is weird. Doesn‘t really help Kempers reputation in any way. Makes them appear dusted and old and weird.
 
I’ve just looked again and the guy that posted the (incorrect) statement ‘helix is getting profiling in December’? His post is still there, as are several others mentioning stadium. It’s just my post that’s gone missing plus the ban 🙄.
I also checked now and OneEng1 was also banned. Again.
 
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