Posts by Nikos

Quote from OneEng1

I agree with you completely. I am just hoping that the new profiling is released soon. While these points (like the one you just made) are very valid, there are still lots of people that land on profiling accuracy as their holy grail. I personally disagree .... by orders of magnitude ;).

Example: Is the venerable Morgan AC20 rig ACTUALLY accurate? If it isn't, does that suddenly make it sound bad?

Kemper's unique ability to take an amp, profile it, share it with the community, and then EACH of us tweak it to sound best to our ears using our gear.... I really do think this is the best part of Kemper. The ability to get great tone to your own ears using your own equipment .... and fast.

I will be very happy if the new profiling leaves the NULL test with no signal at all (perfect NULL).... Even if it does, is there anyone here that DOESN'T believe that anyone EXCEPT the person that made the profile will end up tweaking it to sound good to them with their gear?

My personal belief is that Kemper as a company has really kinda missed the marketing boat on this one. By making the case that Kemper's value lies almost completely in its ability to profile an amp so close that it is indistinguishable from the original, so many other things that Kemper does better than anyone else are brushed over.

Anyway, it is likely that MK2 and new profiling will put the Null-O's to rest.

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That's their thing. No hype,no "hysteria",always cautious not to appear over exaggerating. I already talked about the definition function as an a example for this.

I think one of their main pillars of how they want to do marketing is to let their product talk for itself. This is a very strange way of marketing in our time and for sure often does not work well on the short run but on the long run..the KPA is still the "standard with the Pros".

And the people in the end will use what the pros use for their recordings & live shows.

Quote from DamianGreda

People keep seeing this “if it sounds good, who cares” argument — and sure, that works… if you bought a modeler. But Kemper isn’t sold as a modeler. It’s a profiler. The whole point is that it’s supposed to capture your amp’s tone with high fidelity. If accuracy doesn’t matter, then why not just grab any unit that sounds decent and call it a day?

Null tests aren’t about ruining the vibe — they’re about checking if the device does what it claims. If it doesn’t, and others do it better, that’s not nitpicking. That’s just holding gear to the standard it advertises.

Yes. Exactly.

You can "grab" Indeed "any unit and call it a day" and they will sound all good!

This is a fact. For some years (3-4) now.

But will they all have a gazillion profiles to choose from? Will they have seamless switching,performance mode,morphing and all the well thought big and small little things me personally make to don't even consider"anything else" and I know I am not the only one to think this way?

Let me tell you an example why the KPA is still "ahead of its time":

Line6 right now is making big noise about "a function" of their new modeler which "makes every amp model sound much better" and "very different" from the "original modelled amp".

We already have this since more than a decade with the "definition"-function in the KPA. No other modeler has this,L6 will be the first company which tries to offer this after all this time.

Just one example.

Quote from OneEng1

Thanks. I haven't been thinking about how different mics, mic placement, room acoustics, etc effect the signal recorded!

Most people have been laser focused on how accurate the recorded sound is to the playback using null testing.

The tiny differences between null tests would have to pale beside the differences in recording techniques IMO.

I wonder if there are any comparisons of Kemper with kab to other capture devices with a FRFR speaker compared to the real amp and can in the room.

Anyway, I think MKII is likely to have more accurate captures, but my biggest hope is for the huge number of new profiles that will be made using the most recent efx, lp, and the new profiling.

Good stuff coming for sure 😃

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Actually capturing a whole rig "to our taste" means pretty much that we colour the result heavily & drastically.

It is debatable how much it is solely a "thing" of the modeler. And ofcourse as I said so often here we already have the technology in form if all the modelers we already use. Tone X(now there is a tone X II with better capturing/profiling!!),NAM,FRACTAL,CORTEX etc..how much "more accurate" do we need?

Quote from Jarick

What's the point? If Christoph said 10 years ago the profiling was "perfect" should that mean he's never allowed to attempt to improve it? Or are we just going to run around with the quote to embarrass the guy?

To me actions speak a lot louder than words. If the new profiling is a big step forward, that will tell the story. If it's nothing to write home about, that will tell the story.

I agree 100%. Actually there is no "point" beyond that the Kemper profiling is still top class and pretty much still "the standard" of many,many professionals.

If this can get any better I am fine with that. As I said before. I described my point of view already often enough in this thread.

Quote from sailor

I have searched through his interviews and have not found any where he says that. The closest I've been able to find is where he says he would like the KPA to be perfect. But I can't seem to find any where he claims it is perfect, or claims that it can't be improved. But if you know of someplace where he said that, please share a link.

Ok. If I find his comments ie this issue I will post it.

Quote from sailor

Do you have a link to a reference for that quote from Christoph?

He said this several times over the last decade. I don't have a link available yet. I would have to search for it.

Quote from Ruefus

That’s not what he said, though.

He said they’d taken the process as far as they could. Not that it was perfect.

Clearly, he/they figured something out.

Hmm..will mark knopfler sell his kempers gen 1 and buy the KPA2??

Or is he already happy with his sounds of the kpa1 he already has??

This is a..question I have on this issue.

You sure understand what I want to say.

Quote from benifin

I hear what you are saying, but the whole major feature of the MK2 is the new Profiling Process which - in paraphrasing Kempers own words - is going to be the "most powerful" - which logically means to me - best out there when it comes out.

The new process from the very little we know is going to be at least partially ML / AI based and will require the use of a separate Computer.

So yes ... the Legacy MK1 / Old Profiling method was as good as possible / unimprovable.

But this new upcoming MK2 process is a whole new ball-game.

At least that is what Kemper are promising.

The tricky part of all this discussion is that there is nowhere a clear advise how to achieve the "best profile/capture" with the "best profile/capturing"-ability.

Mics,preamps,eqs and ofcourse the know how and years of experience in recording/mic placing post editing.

That is the main reason I am in general a little bit sceptical about this whole discussion.

And..the modelers available are all already good enough. They all sound "good". The are all powerful tools. To the degree that I personally believe that the only way to achieve a "better sound" is...to improve our playing. Especially ie the part of playing which makes us "sound better" like ,phrasing, accurateness,vibrato & bendings etc..

Quote from Kim_Olesen

I don’t understand people that don’t understand when it doesn’t make sense to use a null test.

It make some sense for profiling the dog whistle tho..

Quote from OneEng1

I am one of those that don't utilize the profiling capability myself, but use other's profiles and tweak.

Something I am looking forward to is a whole bunch of people making new profiles complete with LP, new efx, new profiling, etc .... giving me access to a brand new batch of great profiles to choose from :).

For me, it isn't even about if I can tell the difference, it's about how it sounds in the mix live. Anyone that tells me they can tell the difference between a Kemper and a real amp live ..... well, they are just not being truthful IMO.

So while I don't expect that new profiles will be so much more exact than the current profiles that it becomes audibly "better" in most cases, I do expect that lots of people will be sending in new profiles with the latest features and efx .... and that is actually a really great thing!

To be quite honest I don't care that much finding "new sounds" in the RM anyore .. I am very happy with the profiles I use for years now.

And to tell you "the truth" I find that the "colour" in the midrange that some people complain about is something some lads I know find very "useful" for some of their profiles. As far as I understand it gives them "more punch" within complex band environments and on stage.

Also one thing most people forget..

We want the "most accurate" profiles of our rigs but use a cheap sm-57 to mic the rig to profile them!?

How funny..

I don't know anyone who uses "super accurate" super expensive Neumanns & Brauners to do this.

Quote from goldensheaf

I dont understand people that do not understanding the point of null tests.

Everyone understands the point of null tests.

But again..we talk about making music.

Some producers like to use 5000$ "super accurate" Brauner microphones to catch the voice of a singer some others take a cheap 50$ chinese dynamic mic to catch the Voice of a singer.

You use what sounds best and what fits to the music you want to make. Only the result matters.

I will be "happy" if the null test will give us 100% "accuracy" but I am not sure if this will lead 100% to "better" profiles. Because if this would be the case all the pro-musicians and the pro-recording studios who still use the KPA would sell it and use NAM or whatever "new" modellers with "100% accurate" null tests are already on the market. But this is definitely NOT the case.

We will see.

Quote from OneEng1

I'm sure everyone here is waiting on pins and needles just because we WANT to know how effective the change will be ...... while simultaneously knowing that what we have already sounds pretty amazing.

Most guys will not hear and feel a difference even if there is some.

Let us not forget that...not so long ago Kemper said that the profiling is as perfect as it can be and..almost everyone here in this forum agreed to this.

Anyway. It will come when it is ready.

Quote from Ruefus

I don’t k own if ‘need’ has much to do with it. Kemper Mk1 still competes well, sure.

Standing still - especially in technology - is a fantastic way to get left behind. It’s “good enough” - until it isn’t.

By then - it’s too late. You never catch back up.

Besides - Christophe is a tinkerer. I believe he developed the Profiling process, at least in part, just to ‘see if he could do it.’ It’s a literal offshoot of his work with his Virus keyboards.

He promised Liquid Profiles *very* early on, then backed away because they couldn’t sort out the ‘how’. Then they finally did and released it.

My (total guess) is that the discoveries made with Liquid Profiles led to other ideas/discoveries and the Mk2 became the way to implement them.

I meant this discussion. Not if we "need" the upgrade. Sorry. My mistake I did not make this clear enough.

Every upgrade us welcomed.

But if this upgrade arrives "by the end of thus summer" or the "beginning of this autumn"..is this really so important?

Quote from Ruefus

You’ve been here before. 😉

We have been here before the digital rigs. In some way.

Marshall has always been "the standard" no matter how many new tube amps appeared.

Silly comparison? I don't think so..the KPA is still the most thouhtful and reliable "all around concept" for studio and live work. And it still sounds amazing without any change to the profiling tech it already has.

Sorry to disrupt this discussion but really..do we need that?

I mean Kemper is still the "standard"..even in the heavy metal scene:

Quote from jaeger 28

In some other forums (TGP, TGF, ..) it's a commonly accepted truth that Kemper is old, sucks and sounds like a cocked wah, Tonex and NAM are way more accurate and QC is kinda acceptable.

Well I got a tonex and the cab/IR part as well as the effects are a joke. Amp model is nice but tends to get bright/thin when used live. NAM is cool, but laptop on stage? It works rather well with Gig Performer but I'm not gonna gig with my Mac.

People just seem to need a scapegoat and null test results give them justification. It's easy to bitch about something you haven't used ever or at least in years. I'm pretty confident that anyone who has seriously worked with a Kemper in the last 5 years will prefer it to Tonex, QC or any of the Chinese contenders. And if you have spent the time to get your head around working with Scenes on Helix or Fractal, because their switching lag is 1s+, you know how easy to use a Kemper is in comparison.

There's a lot of opinionated, uneducated hot air in the internet. Unfortunately it leads peoples' wallets to some extend.

+1

All pro guys I know dont even think about to give their KPA away for NAM or TONEX or anything else. Lets use our ears and keep in mind what is really important.

Quote from JedMckenna

I never thought "Look, you don't even need to press footswitches anymore!" would become a selling point; push this logic further and you might as well put all my guitar parts in the backing track so I could just fake-play.

Unless I'm becoming out of touch, I think actual working musicians can see through the pile of nonsense presented in this video. I fail to see a situation where someone would truly find any advantage or use to most of these functions in spite of what this guy flaunts. "Those functions give you more time to focus on the music and your performance" he says... It seems to me that it achieves the complete opposite; nerding in your room for days trying to program this mess just for your artist to change the song order or add a chorus to the song during soundcheck (which btw happens even at the highest level), or spending your precious time on this damn gizmo beforehand instead of solidifying your songs/performance/delivery. So not rock & roll. People that know what they are doing don't need to touchscreen their way through amp settings (!) and those that don't probably also don't need a $2000 guitar processor in the first place. I always found Line 6 to have a strange take, always sort of blurring the line between pro music gear that is sometimes kickass and cringe toys for beginners/nerds...

I agree with you this new "Stadium" with all these features are not rocknroll. Not a bit.

But there are a lots of other approaches to music and to art in general and for all these possible usages this new tool may be very,very tempting.

Not everyone has roadies and sound-guys. Some people might try to present some experimental stuff in smaller places and they need to do "all this" (video,light etc) by themselves.

I am very happy that now they can do this just with the switches of their modeler. This is a good thing.

Quote from dmatthews

I'll be interested of course to hear it in all its glory, but right now (early) I'm not motivated to change.

I am settled with what I have. For sure I dont need most of all "these things".

I am still waiting for something which makes me "go wow!" soundwise...

Quote from dmatthews

I'm a bit of a geek by nature/job, but that just looks like too much stuff for me...

This is the true revenge of the nerds..

Quote from b_ryan

Exactly. All the hate the mkii gets is crazy. It’s like it HAS to be bad. People haven’t realized that they know nothing about anything here.

On a personal level, I haven’t used the screen since RM was released. I couldn’t care less about a touch screen. I don’t make profiles myself and many others are like me and use other peoples profiles and thus use the Kemper as any other device. But if I would make a profile and my Mac should be connected, my world would not be falling apart. It’s like people forget, that this isn’t a NEW Kemper 2. It’s not a totally different device. It’s an update. It’s an update of a device, that has been updated for a decade or more. Maybe this will be as well. Who knows? Yes, this is MY take on it. It’s not a universal experience. Take a chill pill peepz. Try some stoic calmness and be patient and happy

Where I live we have a word for it:

Katastrophologia

The lust to degrade the whole discussion and sink yourself and the others in misery,raising the black flag.

The Kemper team does not deserve that.