Posts by KeysAndGuitars

RichReavis do you remember the 1967 “Summer of Love?” I was pretty small, so I don’t, but…

Was this the summer of longing?

They say “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Perhaps CK is testing how much we really want Profiling 2.0?

Waiting with baited breath…

Many in the Kemper (and Access Virus, when that was an active product line) user base will buy based entirely on trust built up over a long period of time.

True, some of that trust has been eroded by the long delay in releasing Profiling MK2. Hopefully this update will exceed expectations, restoring customers’ confidence.

As a longtime Access Virus owner, I was very excited when the Player became available. I knew it would be a quality product, and I wasn’t disappointed. After decades away from the electric guitar, I restarted that musical journey (on the guitar, after focusing on keys for years) with a Headrush MX5. Frustration with the “modeler tone-chase” led me to order a Tonex, which sounded much better, but lacked effects, has a frustrating workflow and less than “pro” build quality.

The Player feels like pro-level gear and sounds like it. I can plug in my LR Baggs Hifi Duet-equipped hand-built acoustic (just to reveal the level of gear I like) or my Guild Starfire V, and pretty quickly get to the tone and touch response I want, using stock and purchased rigs.

Perhaps my expectations are lower than many others’, but I don’t see any need to compare the Kemper to the Stadium, Quad Cortex or the Fractal line.

As I’ve said in this forum a number of times, Christoph Kemper and his team understand musicians’ needs on a level that few others in the industry can touch. His products are niche; they’re not for everyone. Kemper doesn’t need to match the marketing sophistication or slick communications of any competitors, as long as they keep on getting right.

Yes, the delayed feature is frustrating. My intuition is that CK will “hit it out of the park” yet again with Profiling 2.0, and I’m very happy to wait until the release.

For many of us who use Kemper products (I own both a Player and an Access Virus TI2), the power of the Kemper paradigm is incredible software wrapped into a pro-level hardware platform.

Quote from quemper

Probably time to move on and stop the back and forth on the tangent before this thread is closed....

Perhaps this (at times ludicrous) thread has become a form of entertainment for ckemper ??!!

An observation from a very satisfied Kemper Player and Access Virus TI2 owner:

This thread could be the subject of a sociological study. Here’s a product most of us love and enjoy (Kemper Profilers, MK1 and MK2), with an announced but unreleased feature (hopefully) on the way.

This thread has little to do with the actual product, which is amazing and unique. It has nothing to do with the use of the Profiler (by playing music). It has more to do with the thought process of so many people who attach huge importance to the unreleased feature, which they know very little about. These discussions would reveal to a psychologist or sociologist so many interesting things about people.

Fascinating!

I live in Israel. I used to buy everything from Sweetwater, where I purchased before moving from the US. I kept buying from them for a while until my rep couldn’t give me good shipping costs anymore. Then, I bought from Thomann.

I’ve learned my lesson. Virtually everything is available from local dealers, and at reasonable prices when considering shipping, customs, etc,

I would buy from a UK dealer. They take care of the import hassles and can (I assume) provide service.

This discussion is heading in a direction that I won’t participate in.

Let’s play some music instead of speculating about Mr. Kemper’s intentions.

I’m not sure I would assume nefarious intent to deny us capabilities. It may just be creativity under competitive pressure generating new ideas.

Perhaps they will come up with a way to support MK2 profiles on MK2 hardware.

Meaning profiling will work on Player with MK2 software, but we were told there would be no profiling on Player?

I think this whole MK2 reflects a package of new technical solutions developed under the creative pressure of competition in the market

OneEng1 we don’t know how much the supporting CPU and other elements play into the process of interpreting a profile.

Clearly, there are two possibilities, big picture:

1. “New” profiles could be made to work on MK1 hardware, but Kemper is preventing that to enable sales of MK2 products
2. “New” profiles can’t work on MK2 hardware for technical reasons

Do you believe that Kemper Music would do #1?

It seems to me that the MKII models and the Player are a classic digital instrument upgrade “one-two punch:”

(1) The architecture has been updated for greater general processing power, with attending OS changes to support the new hardware.

(2) The software will soon (we hope!) receive a major enhancement in the form of the new, more accurate profiling. Some parts of the profiling process will move to the PC or Mac running Rig Manager, leveraging the greater horsepower available there for more detailed analysis of amp/cabinet sound. The new profiles demand more resources in the Kemper to be “played” (without an attached computer), so all the new sonic goodness will only be available on the Player and MKII units.

This makes sense of the many changes to the OS to accommodate the Player. We know that it uses the same DSP as previous models, but the MKII infrastructure enhancements necessitated many updates to the software before the Player would support the existing Kemper feature set (minus Performances and FX locks, if I understand correctly - I’m new to the Profiler ecosystem and joined by buying a Player).

sailor have you opened a Profiler Player and seen that the DSP is specifically the 720 variant?

Very cool product!

It’s amazing. The “Kemper ecosystem” has embraced the Player!

Frank67 I came to Kemper after owning an Access Virus synth for a few years. When the Player came out, it gave me the excuse to sell my other 2 modelers and upgrade to the pro build quality, incredible design informed by a keen understanding of musicians’ real-world needs, and magnificent sound that Kemper offers.

Why did Kemper stop making the Access Virus, an incredibly successful product? None of us really knows, but perhaps it was the end-of-life status of the 56k DSP chip it is based on, as well as the scarcity of programmers interested in coding in assembler, rather than a higher-level language like C or C++, on a chip that virtually no one else builds products on any more.

Eventually this same issue will plague the Profiler. Profiler runs on a slightly different version of the same 56k chip.

Will ckemper keep innovating for guitarists? Will he reinvent the synth once again on a different DSP platform? Who knows!

Meanwhile, as I’ve said a few times here and in other forums, I hope to enjoy my incredible and now “vintage” Access Virus TI2 and Profiler Player for many years. They are awesome products!

Quote from Ruefus

It’s not an issue. It’s still in production, and my guess is Kemper is sitting on a stockpile large enough to cover the next century.

Ruefus indeed the NXP 56720 still appears to be available in large quantities, despite being declared “end of life” in 2023.

I imagine you are correct that Kemper has a large inventory of these chips. The nearly 30-year investment Kemper has in assembler “coding to metal” on the 56k platform is undoubtedly a huge barrier to switching to another CPU platform, especially when the chips are still available. Further, the requirement to rewrite everything in C for a different chip would necessitate years of costly development before even a comparable product (let alone one with real advantages) would see the light of day.

As I said earlier, my Virus TI2 synth and Player are almost perfect for my needs, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of their incredible power. Why would I switch to other tools that sound worse, do less and aren’t as well constructed? The latest is not always the greatest!

G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) is such a tempting way to burn money and time. Make music instead. It’s so much more satisfying!

As an aside, ckemper please reactivate the Access Virus forums! Your loyal synth customers don’t expect you to update the Virus any more, but the Virus forum, like this space, is such a valuable resource for the multitudes of Virus players.

I own a Virus TI2 and a Kemper Player. These are both incredible category-leading products that combine pro gear construction quality and technical wizardry, and both reflect a unique and deep understanding of a musician’s needs. Cristoph Kemper is a true genius who has pulled off what no one else has, in a little German company likely without the level of capital that an industry-giant wields.

CK’s synths and guitar products share a reliance on the long-obsolete Motorola 56k DSP chip. I’m sure Kemper’s team has more knowledge and skill “coding to metal” on the 56k platform than any other. That said, translating the Virus and Kemper and Profiler algorithms to run on another chip will require a full rewrite. This is a huge a project, and it’s hard to imagine that this plucky little German company has the resources nor Mr. Kemper the desire to invest in such an effort.

Too bad! Meanwhile, I will enjoy my Virus and Player for as long as they last. They are the best tools for my needs, with no reservations. Thank you ckemper!

Late to the party, but just realized how nice it would be to use my AirTurn BT500 S-2 to control my Player without using a Bluetooth “dongle.”

+1

I agree with the OP. We could really benefit from a Player-specific forum.

+1

Long and short press would significantly increase the control options.