Is the physical Kemper necessary?

Does it need it? Technically probably not but there are some reasons why:

1) For live - not going to run a sounds out of a laptop. even the interfaces for sound add so many variables and not necessarily reliable. Im glad its a dedicated unit.

2) Kemper offer a powered unit. a laptop can't run a cab. Yes there are separate amps but that's one use case gone.

3) Guaranteed platform - otherwise it would be minimum specs, no consistency ( imaging diagnosing issues with just the plug in - yes it can be done but its a complex beast). In other words it reduced variables

4) Kemper profiling is more than IR's. In the profiling process I suspect you want to avoid additional items such as computer interfaces.

5) I prefer a physical unit to adjust than a computer screen.

For me the benefit is its a studio and live tool. Yes you could add a plug in and some people have requested it and make sense for Studio but not for live.

yep not big on getting my tone on stage. From a laptop. And you still need the hardware to profile

I would imagine there would be a Kemper Rig plugin in the future for homebound DAW people. Sort of a Kemper Lite system without the profiling options. Maybe a street price of $499 ?? [drool]

I'd be surprised if there wasn't something different/magic in the input circuit that would be different to just an audio interface/computer that wouldn't be easy to replicate without specific hardware. We often forget that the pickups drive a very weak signal and are sensitive to impedance.

I’m with you Bryon. I’m now an at home player. Had my Kemper for about 9 yrs and love it

but I’ve never profiled , never will and only use about 20 profiles.

I’d love a small Kemper stomp or mini with a few profiles and fx.

I don’t want to do this on a puter tho. I prefer a simple little box, like the tech 21 Blonde,

To be fair audio interfaces have high-z inputs as well more often than not. But it's all zeros and ones so it can be replicated in theory.

Quote from b_ryan

I’m not a live performer. So the question is only about if Kemper could get the “tube sound” without the Kemper itself. And here I mean by using an already made profile. Using it like a plug-in. The profiles can be made by others or Kemper themselves. But to use it at home to record. The profile itself....it’s just data, I guess. And couldn’t that be handled by a plug-in?

TH-U by Overloud is trying to do that - in addition to their classic emulations / simulations, they also offer the use of "captures" - which is a thinly disguised copy of Kemper profiles. They don't offer users to do the actual "capturing", instead they sell captures from third-party providers like Choptones (who also sell Kemper profiles) - you can buy their captured rigs and play them in TH-U.

So yes, it's possible - I can't speak to the difference in quality between the Kemper profiling process and TH-U "capturing", though.

Quote from b_ryan

...., who is to keep other companies from stealing the profiling part and use that to create the sounds for their devices or plug-ins

If a company released a product that copies the Kemper profiling process, it would be very obvious that that they were stealing intellectual property as soon as the "ufo sounds" start up.

It might be possible to create something that plays existing profiles and wrap it in a plugin. Maybe some plugin makers are doing this already? Or maybe there are too many technical pitfalls with reverse-engineering, or latency. Pure conjecture here.

Quote from b_ryan

And if there isn’t anything that makes the use of already made profiles only accessible through a physical device, isn’t the Kemper partly obsolete? Isn’t the Kemper sound just us holding on to something not real, when everyone else are doing the same thing? Ain’t we then fooling ourselves?

I love my Kemper and have had it since they released the green/black toaster.

It's inevitable that technology will advance, that the budget units will continue to improve and software plugins will become more realistic. I don't believe that that makes the Kemper obsolete. The fidelity of the Kemper is at a level where, for me, tube amp emulation is a solved problem.

I'm like you in that I don't gig either. However, I appreciate the physical device because I find the front panel interface very intuitive and convenient. I like being able to plug into an amp sometimes, using headphones other times, and not having to turn on a laptop to play guitar.

So I'm not suggesting that it would be impossible to build a piece of software that gets the same level of tones as a Kemper, but if such a piece of software were available, I'd still prefer the physical unit.

It's much harder to pirate five pounds of Kemper hardware than it is a piece of software.

Copy protection schemes are hated by many and cracks are all over the Internet. The moment you make something a purely downloadable digital product, you're setting yourself up to get screwed. Just ask all the guys around here who used to make a living selling physical albums (vinyl, tape, CD) back when people couldn't just steal them with the click of a mouse and no consequences. At least in the old days if you wanted to shoplift from a record store you had to risk getting caught and thrown in jail. Today, not so much. So, it's not really in their best interest to create a software only version of the Kemper.

But why should I care if Kemper is put out of business from mass piracy? Because if they do, then support (and all these glorious, free OS updates) cease to exist. I want CK and company to be profitable so they live as long as I do.

Also, as V8guitar said, the Kemper was really built for musicians, many of whom aren't computer geeks. It looks like an amp, has knobs like an amp, and if you don't want to fool with computers you can just plug in and treat it as an amp. His point about a dedicated platform is also important. Like many others here, I'm a programmer, so I'm reminded daily just how flaky computers can be. That's the last thing I want to depend on when I'm on stage dodging stray tequila bottles from an unruly crowd.

Would it be technically possible to create a Kemper plugin and / or profiling app? Probably. Is that something they should do? Only if they've had way too much tequila. I know I wouldn't.

I dunno, the plugins never have sounded good to me. I dont know about physical circuitry but computers are ones and zeros. Also, the physical aspect of the kemper is nice. not having to deal with a computer screen, mouse, keyboard, etc is nice.

There are so many good guitar amp plugins, I am sure you can get a good sound that way. If not, Kemper is still way easier than setting up a tube amp to reamp the signal.

Eventually every plugin version is hacked and why would Kemper expose their hard work and secrets to thieves?

Quote from karlic

There are so many good guitar amp plugins, I am sure you can get a good sound that way. If not, Kemper is still way easier than setting up a tube amp to reamp the signal.

Eventually every plugin version is hacked and why would Kemper expose their hard work and secrets to thieves?

They would do that if the benefit to paying users outweighs the potential financial loss. I doubt many Kemper paying users would use a hacked plugin instead if it was available. But that's speculation.

It’s my understanding that the KPA uses a process similar to convolution reverb whereby a known signal is played into an amp and the output from the amp is then measured against the signal. Any differences are the amp sound and this is what forms the basis of the profile. A modeller uses a different mechanism whereby a variety of processors are used to ( very accurately) approximate what effect an amp has on an input signal. I’ve always thought of it like the difference between sampling and additive synthesis. I also understand that KPA coding is specific to a processor contained in the actual unit. Also as Chris Duncan mentions, hardware is much more difficult to pirate than software and I share his opinion that it is desirable for the Kemper company to continue to profit from their innovations and support their users.
I stand to be corrected on any of my assertions here.

Quote from b_ryan

I do understand it from a live perspective. You don’t want to put your faith in a computer for this task albeit a Mac probably would do the task to A+. But a solution you trust is of course better.

But what I cannot seem to wrap my head around is the fact, that it’s 0’s and 1’s and that it somehow is required to be handled by a physical unit. Aren’t we, the Kemper followers, fooling ourselves? In the regards to the tube tonalities. “We” always considered the Kemper the only real option regarding catching the tube tone of an amp. But if others are doing it this way, what makes the Kemper the go-to machine? Beside the fact if you need to profile your own amps of course.

I still like my 0's and 1's in a black and green and understand that tone is mostly to do with eq. That is why the IR is well over half of the tone in traditional modellers like Axe and Helix.

The only way I could see a plugin version of Kemper is if you had to connect the hardware to make it work. I guess the USB lead is not able to do this though. For me a piece of software being hacked would devalue the special nature of the product and divert development time from what we have come to appreciate.

Quote from Morph

I also understand that KPA coding is specific to a processor contained in the actual unit

I'm also of the impression this is the case, that their software won't crossover to different processors

Quote from b_ryan

Isn’t it really only Kemper, Axe FX and a few others that offer some sort of tone matching/profiling

Profiling goes much, much deeper than simple tone-matching, which has been around forever in audio processing. (Remember Steinberg's FreeFilter?)