Kemper Profiler MK 2

[ChordInversion]

Kemper is not dead, but their popularity, no matter how you measure it, has suffered in recent years.

The bottom line is they lack the options their competitors have to improve their standing in the market. Every other modeler can easily add new features in firmware updates or come out with a next gen product. Kemper does not have those options.

Their design is basically unchangeable, so they are limited to only minor updates in their firmware (which usually take years to develop) and they will never have a next gen product.

Agreed.

And there are people, including someone I know and get together with to make music, who will keep playing through their Kempers, blissfully unaware of any decline in popularity. New sales will become harder and harder to come by, but I expect a lot of people will keep happily playing their Kempers.

 

[nicolasrivera]

No, but it indicates if a product is dead or not.

Its dead, but users dont know it yet.

 

[dean701]

I am certainly not discounting that there are many happy exising Kemper users. As sales dwindle and people pursue other modelers with more/better features, at what point does Kemper start losing money attempting to support the current users?
Sales decline, less units are made, costs increase per unit made, staff are released?
Unfortunately money rocks the world.

 

[nicolasrivera]

I am certainly not discounting that there are many happy exising Kemper users. As sales dwindle and people pursue other modelers with more/better features, at what point does Kemper start losing money attempting to support the current users?
Sales decline, less units are made, costs increase per unit made, staff are released?
Unfortunately money rocks the world.

NAM is free, and it has shaken the entire industry.
Nearly everyone is now supporting it or planning to add support in future products and releases. 2026 will be the year of capturing.

 

[paisleywookiee]

2026 will be the year of capturing.

I really hope not, because as I’ve spent the last few months messing with both Tonex and NAM, it’s been exceedingly frustrating.

 

[Orvillain]

I really hope not, because as I’ve spent the last few months messing with both Tonex and NAM, it’s been exceedingly frustrating.

Out of interest, why? What are the top 3 problems you experienced?

 

[paisleywookiee]

Out of interest, why? What are the top 3 problems you experienced?

Capturing is extremely inconsistent, and finding existing captures that I like is like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve got no desire to sift through this shit anymore.

 

[Chocol8]

Capturing is extremely inconsistent, and finding existing captures that I like is like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve got no desire to sift through this shit anymore.

That's the price of free. Paid captures from trusted vendors are a much easier way to find good stuff but that can add up if you want to try a lot of things. It was the same in Kemper land, and QC, and likely will be with Proxy. Crowd sourcing is always going to have a needle in the haystack element.

 

[dean701]

NAM is free, and it has shaken the entire industry.
Nearly everyone is now supporting it or planning to add support in future products and releases. 2026 will be the year of capturing.

Yes and no.
There are fanatics like us that chase everything and want it all but that doesn't speak for the general population.

Some people just want to plug and play and not sift through thousands of options/captures. If it sounds great and the topology works for them, they are happy.

IMO as long as a unit has great and authentic sounds and the integrated models closely reflect the real counterparts captures are not needed at all. Of course in the case of a product only offering captures, the tech has to be there.
I find it odd that QC users want the X versions of the plugs on the QC.
You have modeled versions, then you have the capture tech to cover specific user scenarios. Although the modeled stuff should be close, no? I guess not. People still want the soft versions ported over as a third option. Some users, sometimes me, want it all.
With respect to NAM, it was not designed for modeler use. The NAM loaders in modelers are trimmed down to support the hardware architecture. DAW based users are a different vertical and the software design is completely different.
NAM is also just the flavor of the day, there will be something next.

 

[paisleywookiee]

That's the price of free. Paid captures from trusted vendors are a much easier way to find good stuff but that can add up if you want to try a lot of things. It was the same in Kemper land, and QC, and likely will be with Proxy. Crowd sourcing is always going to have a needle in the haystack element.

All the packs I got from IK weren’t free. Luckily I got them in the deal. I’d be beyond pissed if I spent the actual asking price.

 

[Desertdweller]

Capturing is extremely inconsistent, and finding existing captures that I like is like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve got no desire to sift through this shit anymore.

Truth, but on the flipside if you have amps and the means to capture them, capture technology has become so good, fast, and easy, that you can quickly store your tube amp sounds and recall them instantly when recording.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Truth, but on the flipside if you have amps and the means to capture them, capture technology has become so good, fast, and easy, that you can quickly store your tube amp sounds and recall them instantly when recording.

If you have amps, yes. And if you’ve got a capture method that’s consistent.

 

[Richard_G]

Capturing is extremely inconsistent, and finding existing captures that I like is like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve got no desire to sift through this shit anymore.

That's the price of free. Paid captures from trusted vendors are a much easier way to find good stuff but that can add up if you want to try a lot of things. It was the same in Kemper land, and QC, and likely will be with Proxy. Crowd sourcing is always going to have a needle in the haystack element.

All the packs I got from IK weren’t free. Luckily I got them in the deal. I’d be beyond pissed if I spent the actual asking price.

Yeah. I think I have all the TONEX packs from IK, and frankly I almost never use anything from them. I’m also glad I got these through various bundles and deals — I would have wasted a lot of money otherwise.

I also have a lot of packs from Amalgam, where my experience is the opposite: I seldom have a hard time finding something I like when going through my Amalgam archive. That being said, I’ve spent a lot more on Amalgam captures than I thought I would when getting into the TONEX ecosystem.

So I’d put Amalgam in my «Trusted vendor» category, but not IK.

The possibility of easily making your own captures is, of course, great!

 

[paisleywookiee]

Yeah. I think I have all the TONEX packs from IK, and frankly I almost never use anything from them. I’m also glad I got these through various bundles and deals — I would have wasted a lot of money otherwise.

I also have a lot of packs from Amalgam, where my experience is the opposite: I seldom have a hard time finding something I like when going through my Amalgam archive. That being said, I’ve spent a lot more on Amalgam captures than I thought I would when getting into the TONEX ecosystem.

So I’d put Amalgam in my «Trusted vendor» category, but not IK.

The possibility of easily making your own captures is, of course, great!

And that’s great that you found them. I guess my point is how much sifting through and spending money do I need to do in order to find something? This is why I hate captures.

 

[LP59]

Capturing is extremely inconsistent, and finding existing captures that I like is like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve got no desire to sift through this shit anymore.

The "Needle in a Haystack" problem is problem #1 today IMHO for almost all profilers, and even modelers.

It's exceedingly frustrating in many cases to try to find a sound. If it's not sifting through thousands of captures, it's sifting through hundreds of amp models, or sifting through thousands of IR's, or sifting through millions of possible cab sim parameter combinations. There's gotta be a better way.

Maybe it's using AI like BiasX to provide audio or a conversation to help find a tone. Or maybe it's better browsing by providing a bunch of automatically generated presets you can preview that are similar to an audio example you provided. Or maybe it's by providing better tagging to help the search for a tone. The fact is the UI's of modelers/profilers today all suck for the purpose of finding a tone.

Granted, there are situations where someone knows the tone the tube amp tone they want and they know the settings on the tube amp to get it. For that person, they can go straight to those settings in a good modeler and get what they want. But I don't think that's a common use case these days.

I look at the UI's for editor apps and front panels of modelers/profilers today and think there is a lot of room for improvement. Considering how good they all sound, that's probably where the focus should be right now.

 

[paisleywookiee]

The "Needle in a Haystack" problem is problem #1 today IMHO for almost all profilers, and even modelers.

It's exceedingly frustrating in many cases to try to find a sound. If it's not sifting through thousands of captures, it's sifting through hundreds of amp models, or sifting through thousands of IR's, or sifting through millions of possible cab sim parameter combinations. There's gotta be a better way.

Maybe it's using AI like BiasX to provide audio or a conversation to help find a tone. Or maybe it's better browsing by providing a bunch of automatically generated presets you can preview that are similar to an audio example you provided. Or maybe it's by providing better tagging to help the search for a tone. The fact is the UI's of modelers/profilers today all suck for the purpose of finding a tone.

Granted, there are situations where someone knows the tone the tube amp tone they want and they know the settings on the tube amp to get it. For that person, they can go straight to those settings in a good modeler and get what they want. But I don't think that's a common use case these days.

I look at the UI's for editor apps and front panels of modelers/profilers today and think there is a lot of room for improvement. Considering how good they all sound, that's probably where the focus should be right now.

I don’t entirely disagree it’s challenging to also find tones on modelers. However, the closer a modeler is to a real amp, the easier it is to get a good tone out of it. And the better the presets are, the easier it is too, because a user can find something in the ballpark, and then actually adjust the EQ and gain, like a real amp.

If someone’s NEVER used a real amp, and therefore have absolutely no idea whatsoever what they’re going for, then yeah it’s even more difficult.

With a Fractal or Helix/HX Stadium, you can go “Like a Mesa Mark”, and then go about dialing it in how you’d like it. With captures, at least with NAM and TONEX, if you don’t like how they’ve dialed it in, you’re dead in the water.

 

[Richard_G]

And that’s great that you found them. I guess my point is how much sifting through and spending money do I need to do in order to find something? This is why I hate captures.

Oh, I do see your point, @paisleywookiee. I’m also a modeler-not-capturing kind of guy at heart. I guess I’m just lucky that I like a lot of Amalgam’s work, so I don’t spend much time sifting through hell… uh, I mean Tone.net. So TONEX has been a surprisingly pleasant experience for me (thanks to Amalgam).

I don’t entirely disagree it’s challenging to also find tones on modelers. However, the closer a modeler is to a real amp, the easier it is to get a good tone out of it. And the better the presets are, the easier it is too, because a user can find something in the ballpark, and then actually adjust the EQ and gain, like a real amp.

If someone’s NEVER used a real amp, and therefore have absolutely no idea whatsoever what they’re going for, then yeah it’s even more difficult.

With a Fractal or Helix/HX Stadium, you can go “Like a Mesa Mark”, and then go about dialing it in how you’d like it. With captures, at least with NAM and TONEX, if you don’t like how they’ve dialed it in, you’re dead in the water.

I do think it’s a lot more fun to tweak my new AM4 than to browse through my latest Amalgam purchases.

 

[LP59]

I don’t entirely disagree it’s challenging to also find tones on modelers. However, the closer a modeler is to a real amp, the easier it is to get a good tone out of it. And the better the presets are, the easier it is too, because a user can find something in the ballpark, and then actually adjust the EQ and gain, like a real amp.

If someone’s NEVER used a real amp, and therefore have absolutely no idea whatsoever what they’re going for, then yeah it’s even more difficult.

With a Fractal or Helix/HX Stadium, you can go “Like a Mesa Mark”, and then go about dialing it in how you’d like it. With captures, at least with NAM and TONEX, if you don’t like how they’ve dialed it in, you’re dead in the water.

Yes, but that ignores what is, arguably, the most important component in the tone on a modeler: the cabinet. Finding the IR needle in the haystack isn't much different than hunting through a library of captures. Even cabinet UI's that allow you to move a virtual mic isn't much better since there is an infinite set of cabinets, mics, positions to choose from. And, then there are blends of mics to consider.

UI is the next frontier to be explored for both modelers and profilers. There's a lot of room for improvement.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Yes, but that ignores what is, arguably, the most important component in the tone on a modeler: the cabinet. Finding the IR needle in the haystack isn't much different than hunting through a library of captures. Even cabinet UI's that allow you to move a virtual mic isn't much better since there is an infinite set of cabinets, mics, positions to choose from. And, then there are blends of mics to consider.

Except that the virtual mic setup is exactly what you’d experience in real life; at least, with Helix, Helix Stadium, QC, Fractal, NDSP plugins, and AmpliTube (these are what I’ve experienced). So again, if you literally have zero idea what you’re looking for, then yes. Everything’s daunting.

If you know you like a JCM800 with a 1960 and an SM57, it’s really not difficult to dial it in on a modeler.

 

[Chocol8]

One issue I have seen come up a number of times in the last 5+ years is a LOT of younger players don't have much if any experience with real tube amps and micing real cabs like us old geezers. Their learning curve and experience dialing in a modeler is very different than ours.