Neural Quad Cortex

Quote from unclemar

if it aint broke..... don't fix it ?????????? Kemper is jus fine,,Leave all the options,,,its what makes it great and a cut above all others,

,,if you want something else, go get it, Kemper is just like the telecaster, everyones' been trying to improve it for 50 years, but you cant, because Leo got it right the first time,, just like CK,got his unit,,RIGHT,,, I know it pisses a lot of gear chases off, but you will just have to deal with it,they have all been chasing CK and always will,, sorry,, but facts are facts,remember, most of these folks yakin are GEAR CHASERS,( you must admit your problem before you can get better) and as soon as the next wiz bang unit comes out,,with the special Moon chips,, they will jump on that train as well,

"Oh LOOK,, 9 amps at once,,,,,,..." I prefer to write tunes, record, and play music with my Kemper,, what a concept,,,rather then sit in a room to see how many delays I can stack up before it craps out,,, Lets see in a year from now just how many Quads are on the road with super stars, gig after gig,,I see Rack fulls, of Kempers on stages around the world in every type of music,,the rest is just noise from endorsers and gear chasers, who will move on soon enough,,its what they do,I may try other gear,,The Quad may be cool,,,or not,, time will tell,,not UTUBE,, but I will never sell my Kemper,,

And,, I sure hope he( CK) has something cool in the works,,,

And where did I advocate for changes? Please read what I wrote again thanks.

Quote from Monkey_Man

Indeed, Christoph.

The amount of misrepresentation that's been going on in YouTube clips is starting to get annoying.

I mean, we've seen it in political contexts and other agenda-driven areas, but I'd never have guessed that this sort of thing would rear its ugly head with regards to our beloved Kemper. Big thumbs-down to this from lil' ol' me, brother.

Lets be honest, how many of the "pro" profilers REALLY know how to do it "the right way". Everyone is doing what he likes best, but all the years since owning the profiler, I was again and again shocked at how little the commercial sellers know about profiling. Many still don't know how to do a merged profile the right way. Some making obvious mistakes here for years.

People tell me that Kemper cab is superior to IR, while they don't realize how many of their beloved profiles exist (RE and sellers) that just have IR copied to direct amp profiles or are profiled using IR. Or sellers tweak their profiles in a brutal way to compensate for not profiling it right from the start. How authentic are these profiles? We don't have the reference setup to compare.

But now 10 years later, we can watch videos, how to do it "the right way" for the first time.

Still these videos don't show all reality. In reality refining is not so easy and can bring really bad results. As soon as you have refined too much, you ruined the profile and have to start from scratch. There is no undo function! So you have to make several attempts and listen which version is best.

You can argue the Profiler is a creative tool. And you may like the profiles (like I do!). But look at how the profiles of Katzbach or Victory (Rabea) have been HEAVILY tweaked (also cab section). Now tell me these guys completely understood how to get authentic profiles from scratch! We are not talking about finetuning here!

You think all sellers do direct amp profiles and merged right on every pack? But why do their merged rigs sound way off from the same studio profiles?

Does it matter, if we just like the tones of their result? Yes and no ?

Quote from SeanChristopher

In the situation in the video, I think Jarrod (from ToneWars video) didn't Refine. When I asked him, he said he get's bad results from Refining and his Profiles sound further from the source Amp when he Refines. I think in this situation, at least part of the audible difference is because of a lack of Refining the Profile properly.

Also, in the past he's been vocal about disliking Pure Cabinet for high gain tones and like many high gain Profile users-he prefers Pure Cabinet off for anything high gain and he always has it off globally. I doubt he would have had it on in the video but I'll ask him and update this post later

Ask him for sure!

I am confident that he had Pure Cabinet on. There is no way to make a Profile sound this way, except Pure Cabinet or fiddling with the Cabinet parameters afterwards.

It might be a good way to set Pure Cabinet to zero default.

However, it might not have prevented him from having Pure Cabinet on, as he is aware of it and disliking it. So he has it on the radar, and he might have switched it on accidently.

He might have noticed it an hour later, when it was about making a Profile for himself. But this was a comparison video, and thus a different workflow.

Neural DSP bought opinion forming youtube "artists" for big commercial campaign that is rising their plugins and Q- Cortex instantly to the top tier units league ( maybe even in that time before it was released ). And I just laugh when I see "fast" unproperly profiled Kemper profiles in "A/B" tests with Cortex. But It's OK. It's their business model. Iam just wondering how many hot new improved "quad cortex" octa cortex,head,rack, MK II., anniversary,limited-painted etc. versions/models will appear in next maybe 2 years.

Don't be mad at me guys. Its only my humble opinion.

Btw, a video about how to refine "the right way" for making a merged profile would be cool. When I have made a refined studio profile (step 1 in making a merged profile) do I refine the direct amp profile too (step 2)??

I guess not refining at all, refining only studio profile, refining only direct amp profile, refining both - all will give different results for merged, or not? So does refining both give the best possible separation of amp and cab (the main benefit of merged)?

How does Guido do it?

Edit: I'll just ask him

Edit2: Guido says they are refining both ?

Quote from stef iv

Neural DSP bought opinion forming youtube "artists" for big commercial campaign that is rising their plugins and Q- Cortex instantly to the top tier units league ( maybe even in that time before it was released ). And I just laugh when I see "fast" unproperly profiled Kemper profiles in "A/B" tests with Cortex. But It's OK. It's their business model. Iam just wondering how many hot new improved "quad cortex" octa cortex,head,rack, MK II., anniversary,limited-painted etc. versions/models will appear in next maybe 2 years.

Don't be mad at me guys. Its only my humble opinion.

Weird first post.

Quote from drew_fx

I think morphing on the Kemper is pretty poor, overall. I don't think it works as well as having a proper assignable expression pedal or snapshot assignments like on Axe FX/Helix.

What do you mean by a proper assignable expression pedal? You can actually programme the morph to sweep within a limited range on pretty much any parameter, for example from midi values 30 to 99.

Also, which expression pedal are you going to use that will allow you to raise the delay time while reducing the size of the reverb and also changing multiple other parameters up and down?

That would be very difficult with most other modellers.

Also, morph isn't only available with an FX pedal. Look at it as a button assignment: you basically are automating parameter changes on a vast scale.

And don't forget that you get to decide the rise and descend time for the morphs.

I think only a few of the more expensive midi foot controllers (like my Gordius Little Giant) will allow you to do that on other devices. On the Kemper, you can activate a morph with just a simple footswitch. Not sure if there are other devices that have similar functions, at least I haven't seen that done.

I dislike the marketing bullcrap that’s being pulled, it feels very underhanded. But I also think there are some take-aways from the discussions surrounding this that are worth considering.

The point of profiling for me is to automatically capture a signal chain, amp, cab, mic, any mic preamp, room.

I bought into that with the Kemper, so honestly I don’t want to adjust definition, pure cab or any other setting to get it right. I don’t want to refine really. This stuff defeats the purpose of having a system automate setting parameters to me. It’s things we’ve grown used to doing over the years but maybe we shouldn’t have.

I also really don’t want to have certain combinations not work.

The NDSP a has the single advantage of workflow on capture. You don’t futz with it to get it right, you don’t appear to have to go through any voodoo to work out the right combinations that will capture, no standing on mountaintops at midnight with a front left paw of a hare, it works with mic pres, power+preamp distortion, there don’t appear to be any amp makes that don’t capture, you don’t have to stay in AB mode to get an accurate sound etc. In user terms it’s just simpler, that makes it appear more accurate.

Here’s what I’d change about the Kemper -

1. On profile reset any relevant settings to factory default for most accurate profile and store them as part of the profile include pure cab

2. Store a spectral IR of room background noise at its quietest point, then offer the option to recreate background noise by filtering a simple white noise with this IR as part of the profile. This will keep the AB sound even outside of AB. Either that or work out a psychoacoustic compensator that adjusts the frequency response of the profile against the background noise to give you a sound that seems to be where it should be once the background noise loop is removed

3. Improve the algorithm to handle edge cases, amps that currently have problems, mic pres in the signal chain, power + preamp distortion etc

4. Investigate whether the algorithm can be enhanced to reduce the need for refining further (possibly obviated by 3)

To my ears from all the demos the NDSP has its own sound just as the Kemper does, the NDSP sounds closer to a classic amp sim. More compressed, more glassy, gives me AxeFX and Line6 vibes. That tends to feel very immediate. I prefer a more analog hairy tone and I think the Kemper is still better there, but it’s reminded me that there is room for improvement on that core stuff and that’s a good thing, especially as the Kemper is still being updated with cool new features after all this time. Something that I doubt the NDSP will when it reaches this age.

Christoph is a workflow guy so I am sure he will examine all these possibilities and everyone’s thoughts on this stuff (and all the marketing fud) and will probably mull over many concepts none of us could think about to create the perfect response.

Quote from Per

The NDSP a has the single advantage of workflow on capture. You don’t futz with it to get it right, you don’t appear to have to go through any voodoo to work out the right combinations that will capture, no standing on mountaintops at midnight with a front left paw of a hare, it works with mic pres, power+preamp distortion, there don’t appear to be any amp makes that don’t capture, you don’t have to stay in AB mode to get an accurate sound etc. In user terms it’s just simpler, that makes it appear more accurate.

That's a two edged sword.

On on hand you have QC which automagically creates a profile without asking if you think it's accurate enough and offers no way of messing with it. As of know I've yet to hear a capture which sounds identical to the source and you can't do anything about it.
On the other hand you have the KPA which basically requires you to offer your input but if you do it right you can make it sound identical to the source as seen in the guidorist videos. Of course this is assuming you do it right other it can go very wrong.
Seeing those videos made me regret selling my Kemper ...

Quote from andreio23

That's a two edged sword.

On on hand you have QC which automagically creates a profile without asking if you think it's accurate enough and offers no way of messing with it. As of know I've yet to hear a capture which sounds identical to the source and you can't do anything about it.
On the other hand you have the KPA which basically requires you to offer your input but if you do it right you can make it sound identical to the source as seen in the guidorist videos.
Seeing those videos made me regret selling my Kemper ...

A double edged sword indeed! But, it doesn't have to be that for the KPA.

I think it'd be best to have both with the KPA. It'd make a lot of sense to add an automatic Refinement to the Profiling process, while still keeping the manual Refine option to allow further accuracy. Because as I've mentioned before, not being able to improve a Capture any further after it's taken is a huge drawback in comparison to the KPA's ability to keep trying to Refine to perfection

And sorry to hear about you selling your KPA. Sellers remorse is rough when it hits you hard! Lol but I'm sure another KPA, or another great unit, will be in your near future I'm sending you some positive vibes brother!

There's no denying the Cortex profiles (whoops 'captures') well, but I'm much more concerned how if plays under the fingers.

I love my Kemper and I think its the stand out piece of guitar equipment I own, but as close as it might be to a tube amp, a tube amp it aint.

For me this is where the most important comparison between the KPA and Cortex will come into play and what I'm most intrigued about.

This'll be subjective of course, but individually we'll only know for sure if we get to try the new kid out, and are honest with ourselves.

I reckon Kemper already have a head start on this after introducing the excellent Kabinet, so roll the dice......

Quote from nightlight

What do you mean by a proper assignable expression pedal? You can actually programme the morph to sweep within a limited range on pretty much any parameter, for example from midi values 30 to 99.

Also, which expression pedal are you going to use that will allow you to raise the delay time while reducing the size of the reverb and also changing multiple other parameters up and down?

That would be very difficult with most other modellers.

Also, morph isn't only available with an FX pedal. Look at it as a button assignment: you basically are automating parameter changes on a vast scale.

And don't forget that you get to decide the rise and descend time for the morphs.

I think only a few of the more expensive midi foot controllers (like my Gordius Little Giant) will allow you to do that on other devices. On the Kemper, you can activate a morph with just a simple footswitch. Not sure if there are other devices that have similar functions, at least I haven't seen that done.

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Maybe I just don't understand it well enough and I was overly harsh by calling it poor and I'm totally happy to accept it if that is the case. But on the Kemper it seems like you've got distinct destinations for the expression pedal inputs:

Volume

Pitch

Wah

Morph

and that you cannot just assign them to any parameter that you want; you have to assign the expression pedal to the morph functionality, and then set the morph functionality up to change the parameters you want.

This is distinctly different from having freely assignable expression pedals to parameters, and in some ways is easier to use and understand, but is also not quite as flexible.

If I want one pedal to control one delay's feedback, and another pedal to control a different delay's reverse mix, and another pedal to control the reverb mix, and a final pedal to control the depth of a tremolo, and have individual control over all of these things.... Kemper wont give me that.

It gives me a lot of control to be sure, but it's a different kind of workflow to what I'm using to from other devices, and I find it confusing and limiting.

On Helix the way I run is I have 8 snapshots in one preset. Each snapshot controls a dozen or so parameters across 12 or so effects blocks. The built in expression pedal controls multiple blocks to create a nice washy delay oscillation effect that doesn't dominate or cloud my playing. I do this by controlling parameters on several delays, EQ, compressor, reverb, and a gain stage; all on a parallel path. The snapshots change my valve amp's channel at the same time; I have a variation of this preset that also changes the preset on my Timeline, Mobius, and BigSky too.

The Kemper is much more narrow in it's control and automation than the Helix in my experience; simply based on the distinction that even though on Helix I have less expression pedal inputs, I can actually assign them to anything.

I guess it comes down to the usecase - I don't jump from tone A to tone B like the Kemper offers in it's performance mode. I tend to have 8 core sounds for each song that I improvise with and play around. I'm sure you can do similar with the Kemper, but I find it a bit confusing and unwieldy.

To my knowledge the morphing feature in the Kemper is the easiest, most flexible and most powerfull way to control parameter with an expression pedal I found in any devices I tried and used. In fact I would have a very hard time now using a device without this amazing feature.

Pick909 That's cool, everyone is different. I'm not saying it's totally crap or unusable. It just isn't at the heirarchical level I like. It's definitely designed to be easy to use, but that ease costs some expressivity IMHO.

Now... if there were 4 morph controllers, and you could assign each one to it's own expression pedal, and then each parameter got assigned to 1 of the 4 morph controllers.. we might be cooking with gas then!

To me, the Helix is more flexible because I don't have to just rely on having one morph parameter. I can effectively have three of them - two expression pedals and then the selected snapshot.

The Axe FX II/III feature-wise are the most advanced for controllability. But it comes at the cost of it being very involved and tricky to use. It's all a balancing act.

Quote from drew_fx

Pick909 That's cool, everyone is different. I'm not saying it's totally crap or unusable. It just isn't at the heirarchical level I like. It's definitely designed to be easy to use, but that ease costs some expressivity IMHO.

Now... if there were 4 morph controllers, and you could assign each one to it's own expression pedal, and then each parameter got assigned to 1 of the 4 morph controllers.. we might be cooking with gas then!

Ok, If for you the paradigm is to be able to use several expression pedals to control independantly each parameter then I understand that the morphing feature can be a downside for you. I'm on the absolute opposite and like to have one wah and one expression pedal and the fact that I can control a lot of parameters with the same pedal with a surgical precision for each is a real must for me. The best solution for both would be the possibility to use several morph pedals and it could be an upgrade for Kemper to consider.

Feedback request regarding design of a potential second Morphing

Quote from ckemper

Ask him for sure!

I am confident that he had Pure Cabinet on. There is no way to make a Profile sound this way, except Pure Cabinet or fiddling with the Cabinet parameters afterwards.

It might be a good way to set Pure Cabinet to zero default.

However, it might not have prevented him from having Pure Cabinet on, as he is aware of it and disliking it. So he has it on the radar, and he might have switched it on accidently.

He might have noticed it an hour later, when it was about making a Profile for himself. But this was a comparison video, and thus a different workflow.

Jarrod posted a new vid and it turns out, he had the Pure Cab setting turned all the way down in the Output section, but PureCab was still on. A common and understandable mishap. I can see that it definitely wasn't any intentional thing and was an accident as you had predicted.

I've actually had issues with the PureCab setting in the Cab section even with it off in the Output section (checkbox unchecked as well). I've often been setting PureCab on a per rig basis in the Cab section and even with it set to 0, it's often still on. I almost always have to turn it back up and then down a few more times to get it to turn off all the way. It's quite frustrating but, I never reported a bug or posted about it because no one else seemed to have an issue with it and I don't often like to make a fuss unless it's necessary in a situation lol. It makes me wonder though, how many people have completely turned off PureCab in the Ouput section, and then turned it to 0 in the Cab section with it still being on without their knowledge. Because at that point, the only way to tell it's on is to turn the PureCab setting in the Cab section back up and down over and over until you can audibly hear it off all the way, and that's hard to tell with no sonic reference to how a Profile sounds without PureCab enabled to begin with.

Anyways, I thought it was interesting at the least.

A common mistake, i'm sure

He seems to have Refined this time, based off of the reaction of the first vid. Definitely a genuine guy and it takes a lot of balls to own to to a mistake and to be real about personal growth and learning things along the way. I have a ton of respect for that!

The Kemper sounds great in this comparison IMO!! As it always does!! You've created something truly awesome sounding CK! We all are extremely lucky to have your innovations be brought to fruition in our lifetime

Quote from Per

The point of profiling for me is to automatically capture a signal chain, amp, cab, mic, any mic preamp, room.

I bought into that with the Kemper, so honestly I don’t want to adjust definition, pure cab or any other setting to get it right. I don’t want to refine really.

I also really don’t want to have certain combinations not work.

You don’t have to stay in AB mode to get an accurate sound etc.

Here’s what I’d change about the Kemper -

1. On profile reset any relevant settings to factory default for most accurate profile and store them as part of the profile include pure cab

2. Store a spectral IR of room background noise at its quietest point, then offer the option to recreate background noise by filtering a simple white noise with this IR as part of the profile. This will keep the AB sound even outside of AB.

To my ears from all the demos the NDSP has its own sound just as the Kemper does, the NDSP sounds closer to a classic amp sim. More compressed, more glassy, gives me AxeFX and Line6 vibes. That tends to feel very immediate.

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Hi Per,

The Profiler has no problem with Mic Preamps at all. I think the majority of commercial and private Profiles are made with Mic Preamps.

There are certain limitations with Pre / Power amp combinations or overdrive pedals, as known. Limitations like that can also be heard in QC captures in the videos.

There is no need to adjust the deep amp parameters to achieve a good profile. It is just an option.

There is one exception: when you profile a power amp distortion, it is advised (in the manual) to control the Tube Shape towards high values to match the glassy sound of tube power amps. The distortion character between warm and glassy is in your hands.

Refining should not take more than a minute, as seen in the Guido Bungenstock videos. We might replace in the future, still.

When you start Profiling, every relevant parameter is reset, as you propose.

And there is no need to stay in AB mode to get an accurate sound, of course.

However, it is a good idea to stay in Profiling Mode while doing the A/B comparison, by many reasons mentioned. This has never been a burden at all, when you check the profile that you have just created. There is not even a reason to leave the Profiling Mode at that moment.

The global Pure Cabinet feature is an overlay effect for all Profiles on your machine, in difference to the individual Pure Cabinet setting, which is also reset when you start profiling.

A mishap as in the recent videos never happens when you aim to make your own profile.

It has never been put on video before, but now it has happened twice in a row, stayed unnoticed by the makers.

How would you prevent this from happening what would never happen to you IMHO? Throw the global Pure Cabinet over board?

Quote from CelticGibson

And where did I advocate for changes? Please read what I wIf you are thinking of limiting the options in regards profiling (which might help level the playing field with these kinds of unscientific videos), can you make it a choice so the original options remain?

celtic, I agree with you, did not mean to direct this to you, jus speaking in general about this whole thread, I like it jus the way it is,sorry for any misunderstandings,,

Quote from ckemper

Refining should not take more than a minute, as seen in the Guido Bungenstock videos. We might replace in the future, still.

A mishap as in the recent videos never happens when you aim to make your own profile.

It has never been put on video before, but now it has happened twice in a row, stayed unnoticed by the makers.

How would you prevent this from happening what would never happen to you IMHO? Throw the global Pure Cabinet over board?

Adding a Refinement process to the Profiling algorithm or something of that sort is a great idea, and I'd be excited to see what you the Kemper team would do with it! But even if those changes are made, I hope the original Refine option is still available

It is always a positive thing to allow reaching further accuracy. The ability to keep Refining to reach higher accuracy is a very strong advantage that the Kemper Amp has over any competition

As for Pure Cabinet, it would make sense to keep both the Global Pure Cabinet option, and the Cabinet section option for setting it for each individual rig. But making the factory settings have Pure Cabinet off Globally would make it so it's only activated consciously by the user. That would make it so the user is aware of Pure Cab at the point it's activated, rather than users being unaware of having on a global blanket effect that changes the original sound of Profiles noticeably.

It's an amazing effect and I think it definitely has a strong place in the KPA It's a huge positive of the KPA and should remain. But I just don't think it's the best idea to have the factory settings have it on Globally, considering people typically using the unit with factory settings are new users. It makes sense to give new users the pure sound of the Profiles without any Global effects or Global EQ's active.

Of course, I mean all of this with respect to you and the Kemper team