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is the kemper guy related to thoman b lug? They both have that same plan- oh wait they are both german correct?
Some interesting news from Kemper (Profiler Player)
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Ed DeGenaro
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Eeeeeasy there big fella, so am I
Well only when absolutely necessary and/or convenient.
Mongillo19
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I think it sets a dangerous precedent. I've seen it happen in the video game market. Developers release half baked games for full price and then add in patches or "live service models". It kills games.
It's very hard to do right and I don't see it working out in the digital realm. To be honest, I hope it doesn't
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DeGenaro sounds italian....Eeeeeasy there big fella, so am I
Well only when absolutely necessary and/or convenient.
Ed DeGenaro
Roadie
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Well it says in my passport its my artist name…was also moms maiden name.
Ed DeGenaro
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Yeah, for me the milking thing is instant dismissal.
Especially when my interest was curiosity rather than want let alone need”.
GuitarJon
Roadie
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It's funny how it's being marketed as a Profiler but it can't make profiles, right?
AFKAEjay(retired)
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Maybe check the explanation on the kemper forum.
I don’t think your doing justice to the company with the wording “milking”.
My initial thoughts where…not a “kemperish” thing to do also…
Sascha Franck
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Why not? The way they're still making bags of money from comparatively old hardware is quite qualifying. Yes, it's somewhat of a win-win situation, so their users defenitely profit, too. And yet, there's some pretty suspicious things going on in Kemper land - such as the audio interface they've simply hidden from their users for a decade. Could've been part of some "pay for extra features" plan as well (that they then abandoned for the time being).
Anyway, I think it's not necessarily all that bad of a thing. I mean, in software land paying for new features is absolutely common already and nobody's complaining.
AFKAEjay(retired)
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There’s a lot of assumptions in that reasoning tbh…could be true, but there are also very plausible other thinkable explanations.
In my mind everyone would agree that a company needs to make a profit, and when we feel it’s too much we call it milking…and we do so without knowing their books/company from the inside.
The way I look at it: They seem to be the only one on the market with a hardware strategy that has the bank account of their customers in mind, were clear from the get go that even IF they ever replaced it they would keep supporting older ones, and have updated their units with actual new features for free. (Where the competition mostly does more of the same).
As I understand it, the Player was aimed to be simple and price competative for a certain part of users…seems to me the did that “as is”.
Folks like you and me are a bit disappointed cause we want the “full enchilada“…happens the hardware can offer that also…but they want to prevent canibalising their bigger units which need pay for their development/coding effort. I kinda get the though decision here.
They are jerks if they don’t allow full potential of the player, jerks if they charge for it, and jerks if they dont manage the company well enough to keep going forward and develop new stuff.
I hope they will offer the full enchilada….left or right
Sascha Franck
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Nah, not really. As said before, I want clever designs. And the Kemper Player, at least IMO, features some rather not so clever designs. Soundwise, it'd be all I ever wanted, but the functionality is severly crippled for no good reasons (and unlike, say, the newer drives, can't be brought into the thing with updates, paid or not).
laxu
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For context on some of the previous discussions, this is what Christoph Kemper said on their own forums:
We are aware that the Profiler Player has the potential to serve the needs of very different users. On the one side there is the connaisseurs of pure amp tones, without the need for sprawling effect arrangements. On the other side there is the wish to play complex Rigs taken 1:1 from the big brother Profiler units. The Profiler Player has the theoretical potential to play full-blown Rigs. But I think it is understandable that we have not drawn a Profiler at half the price of a Profiler Stage but 85%-ish of it‘s featues.
Thus we consider since quit a while to offer one or two software upgrade (with costs), that will boost the Players features towards the Head, Rack and Stage.
The ability to create Profiles on the Player is also a story discussed by our team. There is a few issues to be solved, such as how to use the sole input of the Player for the return path and provide an A/B comparison.
The last paragraph is particularly interesting because it means they might offer a way to create profiles using the Player. That would give it more value because it would work for those with amp collections.
I looked at my used market recently and you can get a used Kemper Rack or PowerRack for only 150-200 € more than the Player, but the Player is much more compact and portable.
We are aware that the Profiler Player has the potential to serve the needs of very different users. On the one side there is the connaisseurs of pure amp tones, without the need for sprawling effect arrangements. On the other side there is the wish to play complex Rigs taken 1:1 from the big brother Profiler units. The Profiler Player has the theoretical potential to play full-blown Rigs. But I think it is understandable that we have not drawn a Profiler at half the price of a Profiler Stage but 85%-ish of it‘s featues.
Thus we consider since quit a while to offer one or two software upgrade (with costs), that will boost the Players features towards the Head, Rack and Stage.
The ability to create Profiles on the Player is also a story discussed by our team. There is a few issues to be solved, such as how to use the sole input of the Player for the return path and provide an A/B comparison.
The last paragraph is particularly interesting because it means they might offer a way to create profiles using the Player. That would give it more value because it would work for those with amp collections.
I looked at my used market recently and you can get a used Kemper Rack or PowerRack for only 150-200 € more than the Player, but the Player is much more compact and portable.
Foxmeister
Roadie
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They should just create a software profiler to run on a computer a la ToneX.
They could charge for this if necessary, and not include a software profile player so that it is essentially "tied" to the Kemper Player.
Sascha Franck
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I'd possibly even buy this thing and pay for some updated features instead of going for a Stage - but the aforementioned issues are absolutely nothing I'd want to deal with in that case (and quite obviously, there's no updates that'd fix them). Too bad, really. Maybe they should've consulted some folks outside of their fanboy bubble (aka Ingolf and Co.) before developing this thing. I mean, you see people complaining about the lack of even a small display everywhere. And even if it's not as important for most folks as it is for me, nobody likes the "new" knobs, either.
They should as well have thought about those paid update plans before. I'm sure plenty of folks would've been like me, considering this as a pretty viable alternative to a Stage (especially in case you already own a nice existing pedalboard) and even happily playing almost as much for it (once you wanted the updates). But with the hardware being crippled that much, chances are that people with rather give it a pass. As do I.
They should as well have thought about those paid update plans before. I'm sure plenty of folks would've been like me, considering this as a pretty viable alternative to a Stage (especially in case you already own a nice existing pedalboard) and even happily playing almost as much for it (once you wanted the updates). But with the hardware being crippled that much, chances are that people with rather give it a pass. As do I.
BenIfin
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This might be "old" news but it looks like (?) amongst other "cut downs" the Amp block in the Player is *missing* the deep-edit-amp-parameters ... see this video that dropped about an hour ago.
Maybe I'm wrong ?
No secrets here on the TGF just how much I love and rave about my Stage running the new ground-up LP's.
This Player [product] isn't for me ... I get that ..... and maybe I'm just too old-school and not "2023 enough" ..... but this product strikes me as extremely albeit deliberately under-engineered / heavily neutered for the price ... which is about %50 the cost of a full Stage ?!?!?
And people are supposedly going to have to pay extra $$ for future feature additions (?) ... full Amp block controls ? ... morphing ? more efx types ? etc.... ?
I'm a massive Christoph / Kemper fanboi ..... but this has me stunned in many different not good ways
Ben
Maybe I'm wrong ?
No secrets here on the TGF just how much I love and rave about my Stage running the new ground-up LP's.
This Player [product] isn't for me ... I get that ..... and maybe I'm just too old-school and not "2023 enough" ..... but this product strikes me as extremely albeit deliberately under-engineered / heavily neutered for the price ... which is about %50 the cost of a full Stage ?!?!?
And people are supposedly going to have to pay extra $$ for future feature additions (?) ... full Amp block controls ? ... morphing ? more efx types ? etc.... ?
I'm a massive Christoph / Kemper fanboi ..... but this has me stunned in many different not good ways
Ben
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Boudoir Guitar
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DANGEROUS!!!!!
laxu
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It’s not like they don’t have plenty of them in inventory. Their “full fat” products use exactly that. :)
I am squarely in the “some kind of display is better” camp. In my experience, any device this complex gets a little bit cryptic when you start trying to perform even mundane tasks (e.g. preset management, system configuration) without some kind of graphical or language-based feedback. I tend to lose patience with the need to memorize arbitrary LED states or button press sequences. “To enter mode X, stand on your left foot and flap your arms like a chicken three times… or was it four… until the LED turns the OTHER shade of orange. I think?” (The EHX Attack Decay is a brilliant pedal that sits unused on a shelf for these same reasons.)
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