Posts by LastHopeForWorld

Quote from mwk323

When playing at home, I like to monitor in stereo through my 2x12 cab with Kemper Kones. That's great, but then there's no loop available for pedals on my Toaster since the send is used by the stereo monitor out -- and that is a real problem. For this reason, I would love to see an option to run the Kones/imprints on the main outs. Disabling the imprints on the monitor our would be OK then. To be clear, I run gain pedals into the toaster input, but I need a loop for time domain pedals after the amp block.

YES! I also have my KPA integrated with my pedalboard in a beautiful stereo setup and it sounds fantastic through my monitors. However, I also l love the tones I'm getting with my Kemper Kab + Imprints in mono and I would love to add a second Kabinet to use the Speaker Imprints with my whole setup in Stereo as well. Unfortunately that would mean no stereo loop which would render my idea ad absurdum.

Transferring the Monitor Out duty with the Kone / Imprint feature to the Main Out jacks would solve that issue.

The only solution I think there is as of yet is the British Audio Speaker Out mod for the Powerhead, presented by Tone Junkies on their YT channel. It basically splits the Speaker Out into 2x300W outs. However, that mod is no good at least here in Europe because no one offers it and it's way to expensive especially if you already got an unpowered KPA with a proper Poweramp.

I hope ckemper sees this and can implement a solution for us stereo lovers.

I'm also really looking forward to new speaker imprints. I love the ones we have available now and all these features make me want to keep and play my Kemper until it falls apart at some point

Quote from Wheresthedug

However, guitarists are a strange breed and we always seem to want the latest new shiny toy that is going to suddenly give us the holy grail of tone. I am not picking on others here as I myself am a a recovering gearaholic. I still come off the rails from time to time but I am working hard to beat my addiction. ?

Thank you, Alan! I definitely agree with your statement and your analogies.

I would even like to extend your saying: Guitarists are a strange breed, as we always seem to want the latest new shiny toy to chase the oldest of tones ever known

Thankfully our Kemper gives us the means to do just that

Quote from spikey

But, Bea went back and refined the "profile", and to my ears (and his) there was slightly more of a "wooly" midrange (27:25) tone the KPA had that the QC did not. Now that was a fair test done with everything left the same for both (as far as I could tell) and the profiles were "refined".

As I said before, his profile have some extreme parameters like the Definition on 10. Once you reduce that it does give you a more natural sound and a better feel for it. Try it yourself, it definitely worked for me and also we don't know if that was truly how it was set by the KPA.

As good of a guitar player Rabea is, he has shown over and over again that he has no clue how to use the full potential of the Kemper. I really don't see any ill intentions here, just a lack of knowledge.

The point I was trying to make before was: does it even matter how accurate the Profile / Capture is right of the bat and how fair the comparison is, if you can adjust it to whatever works best in the end (maybe even surpass the original tube amp)? Well I guess everyone has to decide that on their own and choose their preferred unit accordingly. And again - that's why competition in this market will always be good for us - the consumers.

Alright everyone, hopefully we all can go back to having normal discussions like rational people. I might have something interesting for you:

I think by now we all know the infamous comparison video by Rabea Massad between Kemper & Cortex. After a couple requests Rabea has now shared the profiles he made in this video so everybody can listen and compare themselves while comparing them with the sounds provided in his video.

[EDIT: By now he's shared the links in the video description & comment section as well]

I think most people missed his post in the Youtube Community section (who really ever looks in there?!), so I'll share the link he posted here as well - but before that an important warning:

BEWARE your ears!

The RIG Volume in the corresponding RIG menu of each profile is almost maxed out on all three profiles - watch your ears when loading them up!

In my setup this pushed everything into clipping right away, just reset it to Default (0) before hitting your strings. Who knows what drove him to put the volume up that high...

Dropbox – Rabea Comparison Video Profiles

My take on this:

These are actually great sounding profiles! I do own quite a lot of commercial profiles including all the official Victory profiles made by Rabea. Even though I don't hate on them as much as I have seen others do (as they are fine once you change out the Cab). However, I feel like he should have used the Torpedo for everything, because it actually sounds way better than any of his other profiles which were miced up traditionally.

I think the tones are pretty intense. After reducing the Rig Volume and adjusting EQ a little to my taste, I actually prefer the tones I'm getting with my guitars way more than the tones he got in the Youtube Video.

Especially the Soldano Crunch profile sounds absolutely fantastic. Try setting the Tube Shape on 5 with some slight EQ to your taste and I really think this a great sound that works with most guitars.

With the Kraken, people keep mentioning the "cocked wah/mids thing", which CK already commented on. Indeed, the High Gain Kraken profile has its Definition setting maxed out on 10. Once I reduced it to something more reasonable, it sounded way more natural and in my opinion better than what he got in his video. The feel was just right to me after my adjustments.

So what conclusion can we draw here?

Speaking for myself, the whole debate of QC vs. Kemper has made me question my actual situation of owning a Kemper and whether new modern tech overcame it. However, in the end I realized how much I actually love my Kemper and the tones I'm getting. Can the Kemper be improved? Sure thing! But I just love the tones I am getting and everything else.

Especially if I use third party profiles, I honestly do not care if the sound I'm getting truly equals the amp which was profiled. What matters to me after all is if I get the sound I have in my head for the specific amp the profile is based on if that makes sense. That leaves me wondering if the sound I get out of my Kemper isn't actually better (to me) than the original miced up signal from whatever amp the profile is based on. That's a win in my book.

I love all the parameters and features the Kemper gives me and I can just highly recommend everyone to get to know your gear as best as you can. Knowing how to use all the parameters to get to my sound is worth so much more than 1% more accuracy while profiling and just having nothing but a basic EQ control to tweak after that.

I know that was a lot to take in, but I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Just remember to stay civil - competition is always good for the consumer

Quote from drew_fx

Yo!

https://www.kemper-amps.com/rig/download/GbyBiPVUjwzFiowfEhJV

That should take you to the profile.

Thank you very much for sharing!

Quote from Wheresthedug

Doesn't seem to be working for me.

It's currently the first entry in the list (VH4 by Drew Vernon), as it's sorted by date per default.

Quote from drop the sun

I bought Peter’s Crazy Pack and have to agree: it is amazing and his Profiles work very well for my taste. I mean, there is so many great Profiles, that it is absolutely imposible to pick a favorite.

You were right. GGD Pack doesn’t have a change compared to Peter’s Profile Pack. Thanks for this tip!!

Happy New Year!

Hey that's awesome! I'm glad I could point you in the right direction

Again, it's not about hating some product, but I'm always for comparing the actual quality & price-to-performance instead of only going by company reputation - and I'd like to recommend everyone to do the same.

There's a reason people don't hype this pack. The profiles are not bad by any means, but not spectacular either. Especially considering the price for the pack, which I frankly think is a joke compared to other offerings. For example, you can get the mega pack from Petr Canov (Peter's Crazy Profiles - great high gain stuff in there) in addition to the Katzbach Marshall pack (two very unknown gems in the Kemper world) for that money and I guarantee you it'll be the better buy, providing vastly more amps and cab IRs, but even more important the same quality if not better.

Again, that's not to say the GGD pack is bad! But out of the box the profiles sound too similar. I had to adjust literally every profile until I was somewhat satisfied: Lower the gain slightly, disable the Green Scream, swap out some Cabs.

In my opinion the GGD pack seems a bit "lazy made" and is not worth the high price: Two profiles of each amp where they slapped exactly two premade IRs on top, put a Green Scream on everything and applied the same EQ to every profile (rhythm & lead).

In conclusion, no hate towards GGD and if you like their pack I'm happy for you, but all potential customers beware and you may want to look into alternatives first - especially if you care about value to money ratio and/or are prone to buyer's remorse

Quote from Strungout82

Thank you for your post and input I will probably make a short txt file with more info about the profiles and cab presets. So about the MTS modules... I really love them. Especially the Salvation audio ones They are really great in person and as profiles. My favourite ones are the Camerock (based on Cameron CCV), Camerica (based on Cameron Atomica but very similar Camerock), Salvado (Soldano SLO) and Stonerverb (based on Orange Rockerverb but much more versatile because of the different modes and switches). I have ordered another module from Tony that is based on the famous Ola Englund's sig amp from Randall I'm going to reprofile the Shiver (Bogner Shiva) and Terrier (VHT Pittbull) modules as I'm not completely satisfied with the profiles yet. And you are right about the midgain profiles. I will do much more of them in the future, not full on metal assault only

Take care

Petr

Hey Petr, thanks for your detailed answer!

I tried the MTS Modules and I agree, they do sound great! Among my favorites are the Salvado and Stonerverb as they got some great gain textures within them. Also I'm looking forward to try your new versions of the Shiver and Terrier. I think they are definitely usable, but not quite on the same level as some of your other profiles.

Making a txt file with some more info might prove useful for new customers. By now I got used to and researched what your profiles are based on - like the MTS modules for that Randall amp, which is similar to the Synergy Amp ecosystem just not officially licensed - but I could see new users having similar questions like me when I got your pack.

Also I love to hear that you agree with my midgain profile suggestion for future profiling sessions and can't wait what you got in store for us in future.

Take care

So after some time I've had a chance to go more in depth into this pack and would like to give some feedback to Petr, as well as other potential buyers. First of, man - if I only found it sooner, it would have saved me some money lol

These are by far my favorite merged profiles I've come across so far. The Cabs are super well miked and even beat some of the ML Soundlab IRs I've been using before to my ears, there are no weak spots whatsoever. There are a lot of single Cabs included and this is one of the rare occasions where when there is a "fat" in the title it actually means fatter tone, same with "tight". I only wished there would be some sort of explanation for the Cabs with the same name, but different iterations (like 01 - 05). However, the full merged profiles already use a great fitting Cab section.

Hard to name my favorites, but I've really enjoyed the Rockerverb MKII, the Kraken and some Diezel profiles. Especially the Mid-Gain Crunch 1 and 2 profiles of the Rockerverb MKII are also really enjoyable with my Strat and P90 Hagstrom, so it's not only pure High Gain madness which I think is great! If you happen to keep updating your pack, I'll be grateful to get more Mid-Gainy profiles of your amps - very appreciated.

I mostly like the natural feel & sound of your profiles. What strikes me most is that even with the same Cab the individual characters of the Diezel/Orange/Mesa/ENGL/... amps shine through without a problem. This is a gripe I've had with a lot of other paid packs, where everything sounds almost the same, depending on the used Cab.

So far I only dug into the "real" amps you profiled and want to dig through all the MTS Mods next. However I have absolutely no experience with those, I only searched their website to figure out what module does what. Any recommendations of your favorite modules, Petr?

After all, I'm super happy with the pack as it is one of those golden "basically a steal" packs which are fairly rare (i.e. the Katzbach pack comes to mind). Everyone who's even partially interested should definitely try it out, regarding the cost there's really no risk to it and it got updated over time which is super nice and expands the value even more!

I hope in the future you'll get your hands on more High Gain gems like a Driftwood Purple Nightmare or the Revv Amps, as I would love to hear your take on them (yes, even for a paid upgrade;) You've definitely proven you got the ear! Unfortunately I don't have any cool gear to contribute, so I'll just enjoy your profiles and spread the word

These profiles are actually awesome!

Nowadays I rarely spend money on more profiles as I'm pretty much covered. For High Gain I settled on JTM (Josh Middleton packs) and GGD. However, I tried out the free profiles here and was pleasantly surprised.

To see the history of the updated pack sealed the deal for me and I purchased the pack, adding it to my go-to list of heavy profiles.

Highly recommended for everyone! The value of the pack is a similar striking deal as the Katzbach Marshall pack - so overall two thumbs up from me for Peter

Quote from rik777

I'm a 3 year Kemper disciple. I love the Kemper. For the first time I'm diving into the DAW and recording world. I just purchase a Focusrite 6i6 2nd generation. Which DAW should I use? I know there re a few free ones out there. I also own an Ipad Pro that has Garageband. All suggestions will be appreciated! Thank you.

All available DAWs differ mostly by their workflow and easy of use - which is highly subjective and therefore best to try some out.

If I remember correctly there should be a copy of Ableton Lite included in your 6i6 purchase, which will be sufficient to start out. Another popular choice is Reaper as you can try it out for free and the personal license is super cheap in comparison. I also tried Cakewalk when I started out, but did not like it, it sure is worth a shot, though.

I finally went with Studio One 4 Professional and don't regret it. It offers a nice interface and is fairly beginner friendly. Another cool DAW is Bitwig Studio, which is awesome and offers a lot of unique creative tools (the grid) to work with.

Just keep in mind that pretty much any DAW will do to record with your Kemper via SPDIF / Main Outs

Quote from ckemper

Well, we make the observation that too many users don't read the documentation. You can tell that even some of the video creators have not cared about the manual. Improving the docs would not change the picture too much, I'm afraid ...

Unfortunately I have to agree with you, it is sad that a lot of people can't be bothered to read the official documentation and ask the most basic question on social media instead.

However, the official manual for the Kemper consists already of 329 pages of pure knowledge which I found incredibly useful when starting out with the Profiler and still consult on a regular basis when diving deeper into a specific functions. Therefore, I think a good official documentation is still important and super useful to those that do read the manual or at least consult it instead of bothering the support or other users - yes, we do exist

Quote from penatuna

Thank you for the review. BTW, how did you find the Camplifier Studio for home use?

You're welcome! I think the small Camplifier is a great solution. It fits right in the back of the Toaster, looks neat and the power brick still fits in the backpocket, so it's a super clean setup. For me it is a great and more affordable solution than going with a powered Kemper, especially for home use when you don't need 600W. The 25W are still plenty to make your ears hurt, even with the 1x12 Kabinet

The sound is just like it should be and in my opinion more reliable than cheap pedal format poweramp solutions. Also, Tilmann Ritter is a super nice dude who provides great support. I can definitely recommend the Camplifier if you want to upgrade your unpowered Profiler.

Quote from ckemper

Please be aware that the Bass Boost is not made for making the Kone sound bigger. The manual will tell you the story.

To adapt the sound to your expectations, the Monitor Equalizer is still active even for the Kone, to give you continuously variable controls and more suitable frequency selections.

Especially the Bass control of the Monitor EQ kicks in at a lower frequency than the Bass Boost.

Try it out!

I'm not worried about damaging the Kone as I only use a small 25 Watt Camplifier for power, but I have to say I do like the effect of the Bass Boost on some profiles. I haven't messed around too much with the Monitor EQ so far, but thanks to your recommendation I will certainly give it a try to check what's possible here. So far, Bass Boost is just useful and a convenient way to get in some cases a bit more depth (i.e. a 2x12 feeling) with the touch of a button, whether the Kab is on the floor or on a stand.

I actually #RTFM first thing, but I generally think some info could be added to the use of direct profiles and how to make sure to get the best experience. That might reduce some confusion like I experienced myself when I got the Kabinet (for example Cab parameters are still active in Imprint Mode, etc). In the facebook user groups and some youtube videos about the Kab / Kone I've seen a tremendous amount of questions where people seem to have trouble to understand the features of the Kone, so I think a more detailed description might save the support team some work.

Quote from ckemper

My question on the other hand is, since you are obviously not planning to use the Main Output for a mixing desk, but only the Kone/Kabinet.

Are you doing gigs at all, or usually play at home / rehearsal room only?

Or do you plan to mic your Kabinet?

Even though this question was not directed at me, please allow me to chime in anyways.

The Kemper Profiler for me means maximum flexibility without any compromises on tone. That means I'll use SPDIF to record and Main Outs to connect to FOH for playing live. I can use the headphones late at night and the Kabinet to just rock out at home or at rehearsal. Sometimes a recorded signal is preferred and sometimes an amp in the room feeling - maybe even both at the same time during a gig using the Kab as a Stage Monitor.

The Kabinet with the Kone continues this tradition of all around flexibility in proving the perfect solution for both a linear and a more traditional cabinet experience in a single lightweight device. Therefore I generally prefer to have full control and set up different Output presets for different situations. I would never say I'd only use the Kemper for one specific thing only.

Well, the only thing I can say for certain, though, is that I won't try to mic up the Kabinet itself

In addition to my original post I'd like to add, that I've tried out putting an empty cab to a direct amp profile and it still didn't work with Imprint Mode. However, when putting other random Cabs onto the Direct Profile it obviously works, but I found there are still subtle changes to the sound even though there shouldn't be any as the Cab should be bypassed (yes, all Cab-parameters on Default). Oh well, I won't get hung up on the direct profiles. If it sounds good, it is good - and so far I've had great results with Studio profiles by most vendors. I'm only asking because I'm curious about the technology behind the great sound I'm getting.

Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate the boss himself participating & answering questions on the forum late at night?

Quote from Wheresthedug

there is no specific tag for Direct profiles for the software to identify. However, you don’t need to create a “workaround” merged profile but simply load an empty cabinet. If you are going to use only direct profiles then the empty cabinet can be locked.

Well, I would think it the Instrument Tag in RM would be sufficient for starters as I'd think the Kemper could easily use this tag as well. Acoustic and Bass Tags on a direct profile could automatically set to fullrange mode and direct profiles tagged as guitar could also be used with the imprint mode.

However, I did not think of the possibility to simply load up an empty cab to a direct profile - thank you for pointing it out!

Also I have to add, that I don't exclusively use direct profiles with the Kabinet. In fact, I got varying results and made the experience that studio profiles sometime sound better with imprint mode than the merged counterpart of that profile for some reason. So I would totally recommend everyone to try out the speaker imprint mode with all types of profiles.

The direct profile "issue" was just something I've been wondering about.

Long time reader, first time poster here. I wanted to share my experience with my Kemper Kabinet used with an unpowered toaster, amplified by a Ritter Camplifier Studio.

So far I've only played though Studio Monitors, some classic FRFR solutions didn't really convince me. Even though money is fairly tight (student budget) I took the dive to try out the new Kemper Kab, because after some time with a Helix, Strymon Iridium and others, the Kemper was the first digital solution that I was fully blown away by. Therefore I was excited to see what Kemper had to offer with their new product on the market.

To make it short, I was pleasantly surprised! For me it is great for both, linear response as well as the amp-in-the-room feeling with the imprints. You could say, it's a great all-in-one solution and with the Bass Boost option it sounds way bigger than it should based on its lightweight size. It works perfectly together with the Kemper Head and the Speaker Imprints really do capture the character of each speaker - much better than a traditional IR in that regard as the microphones and its placements are out of the equation. Please note, that I'm currently not a gigging musician and play & record in my modest home studio instead - often at lower volume levels and even with the speaker imprint mode it does sound better than a traditional cab on low volume.

However, during my playing and testing I asked myself 2 questions:

1) Why do the parameters in the Cab-section (High- / Low shift, Character) still significantly affect the tone in Speaker Imprint mode even though the Cab should be turned off?

2) Why does selecting a direct-profile force the Kemper to use only the linear fullrange mode? I get that it makes sense to do that for acoustic and bass profiles, but most vendors offer both studio- and direct profiles. To me it would make much more sense to only enforce the linear mode if the profiles are tagged accordingly in RM and still enable the Imprint mode for standard guitar direct amp profiles.

I did Email the Kemper support and they basically said:

1) The parameters of the cab-section are currently still active, even though Cab-off is enabled with Imprint mode. The developers are informed and try to figure out whether to change this behavior in a future update.

2) The profiler does currently not differentiate between direct fullrange (i.e. acoustic) profiles and direct-amp profiles. If that behavior changes in future updates remains unclear as of yet.

I personally think that it is a chance missed out on. The workaround of creating your own merged profiles based on direct amp profiles works, but it is a rather inconvenient hassle. If anyone wants to read the original (german) support answer I'll put it below

[EDIT: As Wheresthedug pointed out it is also possible to load up an empty cab to a direct profile to make it work with Imprint Mode]

In conclusion I am very pleased with the new Kemper Kabinet and Kone for that matter. I can only recommend everyone at least to try it out for yourself - especially if past FRFR solutions weren't your thing in particular. In addition, much like the Kemper Profiler, it will only get better with future updates and I'm looking forward to it. A bit thank you to the whole Kemper Team for a great product!