NAMM News - Is there anything new from our friends at Kemper?

  • About that USB audio thing. Anybody planning on using it for reamping? My regular setup is that my monitors are connected to my Apollo Twin. It's guess I have to learn how to use Asio4All in aggregated mode in order to reamp with Kemper and USB audio while still hearing the results on my monitor right? Using Cubase.

    Am I overlooking something?

    Kemper PowerRack |Kemper Stage| Rivera 4x12 V30 cab | Yamaha DXR10 pair | UA Apollo Twin Duo | Adam A7X | Cubase DAW
    Fender Telecaster 62 re-issue chambered mahogany | Kramer! (1988 or so...) | Gibson Les Paul R7 | Fender Stratocaster HBS-1 Classic Relic Custom Shop | LTD EC-1000 Evertune | 1988 Desert Yellow JEM

  • About that USB audio thing. Anybody planning on using it for reamping? My regular setup is that my monitors are connected to my Apollo Twin. It's guess I have to learn how to use Asio4All in aggregated mode in order to reamp with Kemper and USB audio while still hearing the results on my monitor right? Using Cubase.

    Am I overlooking something?

    I guess it’ll work like spdif already does and the usb should show up in your DAW inputs and outputs.

    A brace of Suhrs, a Charvel, a toaster, an Apollo twin, a Mac, and a DXR10

  • About that USB audio thing. Anybody planning on using it for reamping?

    Oh yes. Very much looking forward to this. Call me naive but right now I think it is just about pulling out the SPDIF cables (same setup as you have here as well) and re-route in Cubase. Done. Sounds easy and will potentially also eliminate the Master/Slave aspect around the SPDIF. That would be awesome and I could use both SPDIFs for other purposes then. Cubase is probably way flexible enough to deal with that. Never experienced real limitations with routing there in the recent versions (11 Pro here right now, 12 in the pipeline).

    Thus I think that USB Audio piece is still a big thing and great development. Thanks Kemper team for picking this up :thumbup:8)

    Edited once, last by deadman42 (May 7, 2023 at 12:01 PM).

  • AFAIK in windows you can't have 2 different audio devices reproducing audio at the same time.

    Yeah that is my impression as well. Unless you use Asio4All in aggregated mode. Just tried it with a blend of UR22 and Apollo and it kinda worked.

    Kemper PowerRack |Kemper Stage| Rivera 4x12 V30 cab | Yamaha DXR10 pair | UA Apollo Twin Duo | Adam A7X | Cubase DAW
    Fender Telecaster 62 re-issue chambered mahogany | Kramer! (1988 or so...) | Gibson Les Paul R7 | Fender Stratocaster HBS-1 Classic Relic Custom Shop | LTD EC-1000 Evertune | 1988 Desert Yellow JEM

  • I guess it’ll work like spdif already does and the usb should show up in your DAW inputs and outputs.

    See above. I don't think it's that easy. But we'll see.

    Kemper PowerRack |Kemper Stage| Rivera 4x12 V30 cab | Yamaha DXR10 pair | UA Apollo Twin Duo | Adam A7X | Cubase DAW
    Fender Telecaster 62 re-issue chambered mahogany | Kramer! (1988 or so...) | Gibson Les Paul R7 | Fender Stratocaster HBS-1 Classic Relic Custom Shop | LTD EC-1000 Evertune | 1988 Desert Yellow JEM

  • I think the USB in would be great for some but It won't matter to me at all. I use the XLR outs in the studio mainly because when I take it to a gig, that's what I'll be using so I'll expect no difference besides the environment and monitoring. Many top pros use the XLR outs as well even though they could use the Sony Phillips out. If it's good enough for them, it for sure is for me.

  • Crispy Panther,

    I believe that my post was what you were trying to quote in your original post.

    Note: My contention that a Kemper Mini will eventually released does NOT preclude the fact that the original Kemper is "at the top of the tree" and a premium product. Not sure what reasoning you (or ChatGPT) used to arrive at this conclusion.

    The release of a Kemper Mini ALSO does not preclude that the current Kemper is or is not the best product in the field today. These things are independent of each other.

    The idea that releasing a Kemper Mini will produce more revenue for Kemper than a firmware upgrade .... now THAT is a discussion I am ready to defend.

    Most of Kemper's direct competitors have smaller, less expensive versions of their high end products that they sell. They sell these less expensive units ~3:1 compared to the higher end of the product line. This is product management 101. The ROI for such a product is so easy to create that I am quite certain @CK has done the math and understands this implicitly ..... because while I do agree that he really does desire his products to be "at the top of the tree" and works diligently to ensure they stay there, at the end of the day, he has to keep the lights on and make payroll. No company can live off of a strict diet of charity.

    As for the argument about being able to hear the difference between the original tube amp and a Kemper? First: Who cares? It either sounds great in the mix or it doesn't. Second: Tell the difference HOW? From two recordings played through headphones? Who cares? Live music is played through a PA with an entire band around it. Recorded music? It is processed after recording to the point of being irrelevant. The ONLY good argument is for people who play with an amp in the room by themselves.

    So if you are a live band that doesn't amp your guitar cab, AND you don't care about bringing multiple amps and cabs to a gig? Sure, a tube amp may sound slightly different (not necessarily better) than a Kemper through a FRFR speaker.

    For the other 90% of guitar players? It doesn't matter even IF it is true (which is still quite debatable ..... just not the argument I chose to make).

  • This unwavering mission to sound *exactly* like the real amp drives me nuts.

    Alter a profile's settings even 1/10th of a value.....it's no longer the 'real amp'. Does it sound good? Yes? Isn't that the goal? To sound good?

    I thought that was the point. EVH gets trotted out a lot, but he's a great example. He wasn't trying to recreate Clapton's sound or anyone else's. He had a sound in his head he kept chasing. Of all the players I know - he was the least precious about what came before....and couldn't have cared less whether someone else thought he was 'violating' some oath to authenticity.

  • This unwavering mission to sound *exactly* like the real amp drives me nuts.

    Alter a profile's settings even 1/10th of a value.....it's no longer the 'real amp'. Does it sound good? Yes? Isn't that the goal? To sound good?

    I thought that was the point. EVH gets trotted out a lot, but he's a great example. He wasn't trying to recreate Clapton's sound or anyone else's. He had a sound in his head he kept chasing. Of all the players I know - he was the least precious about what came before....and couldn't have cared less whether someone else thought he was 'violating' some oath to authenticity.

    I mean, the real amp doesn’t even sound like itself 5 minutes after turning it on. Tone changes pretty much constantly as the tubes heat up. One of the reasons I love the KPA, if you’re famous enough to gig constantly with your own tone and a tech good luck to you, I’ll stick with this sounding good all the time 😀. (disclaimer, the kit not necessarily the player)

    A brace of Suhrs, a Charvel, a toaster, an Apollo twin, a Mac, and a DXR10

  • This unwavering mission to sound *exactly* like the real amp drives me nuts.

    Alter a profile's settings even 1/10th of a value.....it's no longer the 'real amp'. Does it sound good? Yes? Isn't that the goal? To sound good?

    I thought that was the point. EVH gets trotted out a lot, but he's a great example. He wasn't trying to recreate Clapton's sound or anyone else's. He had a sound in his head he kept chasing. Of all the players I know - he was the least precious about what came before....and couldn't have cared less whether someone else thought he was 'violating' some oath to authenticity.

    For my use case the Kemper sounds BETTER then a real amp + pedalboard in terms of sound consistency, noise floor, volume management, routing flexibility and whole list of other reasons... heck, I can change the complete signal chain pressing 1 switch and morphing is just science fiction with any analog signal chain, No temperature, humidity, flacky electric power or bumped mic is affecting my sound on stage or in studio anymore.

    Do somebody want it to behave 100% real? Then we need a completely new set of features: % of experience of sound guy micing your cab, Temperature variation of the tubes, Blowed Tube, Simulation of Ground Loop, Sag linked to the Master volume, Broken Patch Cable.....

    If something is too complicated, then you need to learn it better

  • Had a few days to ponder since the liqued news Its easy to get excited at some new updates, and i am for one pumped for usb interface recording. But today i tried profiling a open grainy sound akin to a open matchless sound with headphones an again for the life of me was that fricken lower note saturation . It the only way to explain it. Its adding distortion around the A string area an no turning down the gain or any paramater fixes it. The bell like single coil open quality of the amp gets lost. Its like kemper adds overdrive around the note. Ads body were it doesn't need to be. I tried kempers di, webers di (much better by way) all the cables i had, different levels etc etc. Still there. All the liqued profiling in the worlds not going to address it and it may make people forget when your leaving your starting point of a profile. Maybe its kempers way of masking the problem. With NAM an others leading in the accuracy of profiling I really though christoph would come to the party and make some changes in this area. There no point having all the gimicks n the world if your core profile is lacking. I understand Kemper uses their own patened tech but why can they change the goal posts a bit. There is a string thinness and openess thats missing that we like. NAM excels at this, the profile sounds real. The notes are thin in a good way and the frequencies are all there and tight. After we get over this update kempers going to fall into a black hole. If they want to stay relevant they got to bloody fix this. Its the core of this game, the profile itself. Not all the bells an whistles. Maybe the kemper profiles to hot internally, maybe it just internal eq, who knows. Im sorry a few of you are going to bash me here an tell me to sell an get a tone x or whatever. Ill be honest im a bit pissed today becasue I tried so hard an its almost so perfect. IF YOUR READING CHRIS WILL YOU ADRESS THIS! I find it so frustrating the one thing people bash kemper on they have not fixed. Is it really that hard to shift the internal gain or eq or whatever it is in the process? Arghh. Dont tell me to use NAM, i dont want a vst i want kemper just to improve 5 percent at what we here for. PROFILING

    Edited 2 times, last by goldensheaf (May 8, 2023 at 4:08 PM).

  • This unwavering mission to sound *exactly* like the real amp drives me nuts.

    Alter a profile's settings even 1/10th of a value.....it's no longer the 'real amp'. Does it sound good? Yes? Isn't that the goal? To sound good?

    I thought that was the point. EVH gets trotted out a lot, but he's a great example. He wasn't trying to recreate Clapton's sound or anyone else's. He had a sound in his head he kept chasing. Of all the players I know - he was the least precious about what came before....and couldn't have cared less whether someone else thought he was 'violating' some oath to authenticity.

    Well your goin to love my new post. Its not about sounding exact but when kemper distorts the A string area when the amp is cleanish thats a big bummer. When all the refining, playing soft an your just squeezing to get the note to play clean yea thats a elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Listen to what larry says about the kemper here. 28.50 mins.

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    28.50

    Edited 2 times, last by goldensheaf (May 8, 2023 at 4:06 PM).

  • Well your goin to love my new post. Its not about sounding exact but when kemper distorts the A string area when the amp is cleanish thats a big bummer. When all the refining, playing soft an your just squeezing to get the note to play clean yea thats a elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Listen to what larry says about the kemper here.

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    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Meh.....it really makes no difference to me. That hasn't been my experience, so it doesn't much matter.

  • Had a few days to ponder since the liqued news Its easy to get excited at some new updates, and i am for one pumped for usb interface recording. But today i tried profiling a open grainy sound akin to a open matchless sound with headphones an again for the life of me was that fricken lower note saturation . It the only way to explain it. Its adding distortion around the A string area an no turning down the gain or any paramater fixes it. The bell like single coil open quality of the amp gets lost. Its like kemper adds overdrive around the note. Ads body were it doesn't need to be. I tried kempers di, webers di (much better by way) all the cables i had, different levels etc etc. Still there. All the liqued profiling in the worlds not going to address it and it may make people forget when your leaving your starting point of a profile. Maybe its kempers way of masking the problem. With NAM an others leading in the accuracy of profiling I really though christoph would come to the party and make some changes in this area. There no point having all the gimicks n the world if your core profile is lacking. I understand Kemper uses their own patened tech but why can they change the goal posts a bit. There is a string thinness and openess thats missing that we like. NAM excels at this, the profile sounds real. The notes are thin in a good way and the frequencies are all there and tight. After we get over this update kempers going to fall into a black hole. If they want to stay relevant they got to bloody fix this. Its the core of this game, the profile itself. Not all the bells an whistles. Maybe the kemper profiles to hot internally, maybe it just internal eq, who knows. Im sorry a few of you are going to bash me here an tell me to sell an get a tone x or whatever. Ill be honest im a bit pissed today becasue I tried so hard an its almost so perfect. IF YOUR READING CHRIS WILL YOU ADRESS THIS! I find it so frustrating the one thing people bash kemper on they have not fixed. Is it really that hard to shift the internal gain or eq or whatever it is in the process? Arghh. Dont tell me to use NAM, i dont want a vst i want kemper just to improve 5 percent at what we here for. PROFILING

    Have you tried any of the existing Matchless profiles to see if you can get what you want? I feel that several of them capture a super great tone; however, since I don't actually have a real Matchless to compare it to .... back to my argument. Can I get a great tone from the Kemper (even if I have to purchase a profile from someone who profiles better than I do to get it)? My own answer to this has been a resounding "Yes".

    I don't think that Liquid profiling is meant to improve the quality of the profile, but rather the after-profiling tweaking process we all go through to get to a "great tone" to our ears. This will be particularly valuable for people who know a specific tube amp and are able to get that amp to tones they like quickly through its own controls. Others will be more comfortable with utilizing the existing Kemper controls for obtaining their "tweaked in tone".

    For those that delight in profiling (really the kempers most unique feature .... at least before QC showed up), I totally understand the frustration of not being able to obtain the results that so many others have managed with their amps.

    FWIW, although I did profile my VHT before I sold it, I have found other high gain tones in the Kemper that I like more.

  • AFAIK in windows you can't have 2 different audio devices reproducing audio at the same time.

    Well, actually you can't have two devices with an ASIO driver work together.

    today i tried profiling a open grainy sound akin to a open matchless sound with headphones an again for the life of me was that fricken lower note saturation .

    I couldn't watch your video, but might what you're describing depend on the following?

    Quote

    Q: The A/B comparison within the KPA is not comparing the real thing with the profiled amp. The sound of the real amp is modified by the KPA’s buffering and again altered when passing the A/D section in order to route to the monitors. Comparisons should be made between the amp and the KPA in Browse mode?

    A: [[ckemper]] Going from Profile to Browse mode the sound changes. The actual change is just a pure level change tho. When you profile a slightly crunched amp, it will have a volume compensation for the lower gain. But the volume compensation is counterproductive during the profiling process, thus switched off. When you return to the Browse mode, the volume compensation is activated, then increasing the volume of the sound a bit. The sound is not colored by this whatsoever.

    Still chasing a worthy one :/

  • Had a few days to ponder since the liqued news Its easy to get excited at some new updates, and i am for one pumped for usb interface recording. But today i tried profiling a open grainy sound akin to a open matchless sound with headphones an again for the life of me was that fricken lower note saturation . It the only way to explain it. Its adding distortion around the A string area an no turning down the gain or any paramater fixes it. The bell like single coil open quality of the amp gets lost. Its like kemper adds overdrive around the note. Ads body were it doesn't need to be. I tried kempers di, webers di (much better by way) all the cables i had, different levels etc etc. Still there. All the liqued profiling in the worlds not going to address it and it may make people forget when your leaving your starting point of a profile. Maybe its kempers way of masking the problem. With NAM an others leading in the accuracy of profiling I really though christoph would come to the party and make some changes in this area. There no point having all the gimicks n the world if your core profile is lacking. I understand Kemper uses their own patened tech but why can they change the goal posts a bit. There is a string thinness and openess thats missing that we like. NAM excels at this, the profile sounds real. The notes are thin in a good way and the frequencies are all there and tight. After we get over this update kempers going to fall into a black hole. If they want to stay relevant they got to bloody fix this. Its the core of this game, the profile itself. Not all the bells an whistles. Maybe the kemper profiles to hot internally, maybe it just internal eq, who knows. Im sorry a few of you are going to bash me here an tell me to sell an get a tone x or whatever. Ill be honest im a bit pissed today becasue I tried so hard an its almost so perfect. IF YOUR READING CHRIS WILL YOU ADRESS THIS! I find it so frustrating the one thing people bash kemper on they have not fixed. Is it really that hard to shift the internal gain or eq or whatever it is in the process? Arghh. Dont tell me to use NAM, i dont want a vst i want kemper just to improve 5 percent at what we here for. PROFILING

    I think you should start a specific thread on this because this seems a relatively ( maybe 1 year) new problem.

    Blind tests were showing that it was "virtually" indistinguishable from the original but you concerns have been raised more than once.

    So either:

    1) Its always been a problem but people's standards have been raised and hence more noticeable

    2) Kemper has made some changes that have taken a backwards step.

    I've still no idea which it is so it would be good to get opinions on a dedicated thread. Unless there is a consensus of something that is actually broken and needs to be fixed, then it won't happen.

    Profiling should be about accuracy as a base tone so it is important as a basis for good sound. But of course the end result is the priority, so I don't fully care if its 100% accurate, only if its adding unwanted artifacts that detract from the sound.

    So I think both parties are right, the best sound is ultimately the target but profiling accuracy has to be the starting point.