issues compared to Axe FX 2

  • FWIW, nobody misses 2 amps at once because the 1:1 realism you get out of a Kemper profile never lets you miss anything to 'enrich' what's already there.


    When I had the Vetta I almost always wanted to use this feature.

    Personally the best amp set up I had used a mix of an OR15 for mids and highs and a 5150 II for the grunt and low end......the OR15 was my main sound and the 5150 was blended in via a volume pedal.......but it was noisy regardless of my use of ground lifts and ABY switchers with isolated outputs and phase inversion etc.


    So, if I could have a profile that allowed me to have a fixed mix, or even better, a way to blend those 2 amps via an expression pedal, I'd be in heaven :)

  • Personally the best amp set up I had used a mix of an OR15 for mids and highs and a 5150 II for the grunt and low end......the OR15 was my main sound and the 5150 was blended in via a volume pedal.......but it was noisy regardless of my use of ground lifts and ABY switchers with isolated outputs and phase inversion etc.


    So, if I could have a profile that allowed me to have a fixed mix, or even better, a way to blend those 2 amps via an expression pedal, I'd be in heaven :)


    Yeah, personally I don't miss it.
    But there's always the possibility to buy another profiler and blend it in...:)

  • Thanks for the response. Well, my tube amp boots for a minute or so. But what I'm talking about is the power blackout. After that tube amp is usually warm enough to go straight to the action again, whereas Kemper boots for another half a minute. Imagine everyone from the band and audience looking at you for loooong 30 secs or more. This vision really frightens me. The use of UPS could be solution to this. But I really don't like when a product itself is designed so that you have to buy another product to be safe when other competition products can be safe without it. Hope that this issue will be addressed in next updates asap ;)



    If the audience gets mad at waiting a half a minute for a power outage they aren't drunk enough! Seriously though I was considering a UPS too but in 100+ shows the Kemper has gone down twice and neither was the KPA's fault, we cracked some jokes about it and went back to the show. Not worth it for me to lug extra equipment that only gets used on rare occasions.

  • If the audience gets mad at waiting a half a minute for a power outage they aren't drunk enough! Seriously though I was considering a UPS too but in 100+ shows the Kemper has gone down twice and neither was the KPA's fault, we cracked some jokes about it and went back to the show. Not worth it for me to lug extra equipment that only gets used on rare occasions.


    FWIW
    just wanted to mention that while it's true that it takes the Profiler about 30secs to load the last active rig, the default rig (CK 01) becomes active much faster.
    I just stopped the time and it takes just about 13secs until you get sound.

  • FWIW
    just wanted to mention that while it's true that it takes the Profiler about 30secs to load the last active rig, the default rig (CK 01) becomes active much faster.
    I just stopped the time and it takes just about 13secs until you get sound.


    Yeah. It would take me FAR longer too hook up my backup solution than doing a reboot of the profiler. Better crack a joke a about technology and go on with the gig. This is much better and will be remembered fondly by the audience.
    It's not a plane engine failure after all.

  • You don't have a member in the band that can talk to the audience for 30 seconds?

    Hello,


    well yes. But this kind of answer can be applied for almost anything right? If necessary I'm sure that my or your frontman can talk to audience and tell the stories for 15 minutes so I can retube my amp or restring my guiar. But I think we are all reasonable here and we all undestand that it should not happen in the first place. So of course, we can somehow manage. And yes, when I'll be playing in some huge act I could afford two more Kempers as a backup and power backup and so on then I wouldn't mind if Kemper boots in 10 minutes. But I can only afford one Kemper and I'm not comfortable with the idea of being the one that the band is waiting for. It is not a huge problem I agree and it certainly is nothing that would make me buy Axe FX instead of Kemper. I just thing this is something that should be improved as the main competitor has it covered and I'm sure there wouldn't be many people missing the longer booting time.

  • Do you ever play live? if there is a power failure, most of the equipment goes down. Your PA will be down. Light might be off. The audience goes to the bar or panics. You've got some imaginary issues. Unless your Kemper or whatever amp you are using is hooked up to a completely separate power feed, then you've got more to worry about than boot time on stage when power goes down.


    Boot time is not an issue with the Kemper, if your band is big enough to worry about 30 seconds break during the gig (I assure you it will be much longer if power goes down), buy 2 Kempers, 2 double UPSes and hire a tech who will switch them on and off when needed.
    Re other stuff: You've been offered a good explanation before, but in my layman terms


    - what would you need tone matching for? It's a gimmick with no practical purpose, especially with Kemper.
    - don't know about rig switch lag. It's comparable to everything else (almost non existent), including some analog pedalboards and switching systems
    - 2 amps at once. Again, if you are so sophisticated in your music live, buy 2 Kempers or one Axe. You will still need a very expensive PA system and very experienced sound engineer to make it sound even remotely good live. In studio, reamp.


    The trouble with your post is that none of these features or problems are either real or have any meaning when you play live. If you dwell on petty things like that and these are issues for you, you will never find a piece of gear which will satisfy you.

    Edited 6 times, last by mdeeRocks ().


  • I find it hard to understand why you allow yourself to determine what he might or might not need.
    Don't get me wrong - for the most part i agree - but that's us, not him. Don't condescend.
    Oh, and the rig switching latency is much, much longer than pretty much anything else on the market today. It is also very far from non existent.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

  • Quitty, I don't know what he needs or not - all I see is person who is nitpicking a piece of gear, bringing out some mostly illusionary issues which in reality mean nothing when playing live - just because "competition has it" . Buy competing product then if this stuff is so important and be done with it. If I needed to switch between 30 rigs every quarter note perfectly in time and have frequent power failures during every gig (because bass player wears high heels and frequently stomps on the kettle pot cable which I use to power my amp) while playing a perfectly tone matched patch from latest NIckelback album in left channel and early Eric Clapton tone in right channel (that's only patch #1, I won't list any of the remaining 29 for clarity sake) - I'd not buy Kemper or Axe or anything like that.


    Also, I want a bloody red Kemper, competition has it, original POD was red, why Kemper can't make red, kidney shaped profiler. That needs to be addressed immediately or 95% (this is important internet statistics so I underlined it) of customers will buy a POD.


    I use mostly 2 or 3 rigs and one switch, so maybe I don't notice any delay between switching them then :).

  • If I needed to switch between 30 rigs every quarter note perfectly in time and have frequent power failures during every gig (because bass player wears high heels and frequently stomps on the kettle pot cable which I use to power my amp) while playing a perfectly tone matched patch from latest NIckelback album in left channel and early Eric Clapton tone in right channel (that's only patch #1, I won't list any of the remaining 29 for clarity sake) - I'd not buy Kemper or Axe or anything like that.

    Ahahahah, that was borderline stand-up comedy :D :D :D

  • I find it hard to understand why you allow yourself to determine what he might or might not need.
    Don't get me wrong - for the most part i agree - but that's us, not him. Don't condescend.
    Oh, and the rig switching latency is much, much longer than pretty much anything else on the market today. It is also very far from non existent.

    Hello,


    yes, exactly. Thank you. As I said it is like with the cars. Some drivers might love manual gearbox, some would prefer automatic. Some say that 0-100km/h acceleration in 10 seconds is plenty quick, some of us would prefer if things were little bit faster - and I don't think you have to be Lewis Hamilton to justify that you ask for a little quicker car. And (sadly) Kemper is pretty much only one model really (well yeah you have rack form factor and both version can be with or without poweramp), so Kemper should (that is my opinion) try to make everyone happy - not just people who think someone else doesn't need this or that. What if Kemper was made according to people whose ideal of guitar tone is: guitar-cable-amp. These people would ask you: "What exactly do you need your compressor/delay/whatever pedal for? It just ruins the tone, man!!"


    If Kemper was made according to these people, it would never have effects built inside. But luckily, Kemper has them, and the tone purists have the choice not to use them, but all others can. The same with bass amp and power. Few years back, 500W bass amp was quite a powerfull beast. Now you can see many amps reaching more than twice as that. And many people seem to be very happy with such amps. And amp producers did not kept saying: "Hey, why would you need such powerfull amp, you better shut up and be glad for your 350 Watts". You can always turn 1000W bass amp down - but you cannot reverse it on the 350W.



    Does anyone here remember dial-in internet connection? It was just a minute, some would say it is just enough to make yourself a coffee etc. Could you use it today? Yes definitely! Would you go back to dial-in connection? I don't think so. The same with booting up old computer vs new one with SSD.



    If you think about it, everything can be taken as it is NOT a problem. String breakage - not a problem. Guitar going out of tune, tube changing, rebiasing, bad cables, moving heavy cabs and equipment - you can say why would you need lighter cab? Our fathers and grandfathers moved those heavy Marshall cabs all their life so I better get used to it too, right?



    To sum up - yes, if power goes down and everything shuts then after that 30 secs is not the end of the world. The audience will understand, the bandmates will understand. Actually you could say that about the quality of the sound of the profiler - I mean who in the audience would really appreciate the sound of the profiler and could really tell if I'm playing cheapo Zoom modeller, Kemper or the real thing - 1-2% of the guys in the crowd? Then why bother?



    Well I would say that Kemper should bother to satisfy its users. It's the feel thing - how satisfied you are and how this feel and satisfation make you relate it to your music. 99% of your normal listeners don't give a damn how did you get the sound and if there were tubes involved in it or not and 90% of them couldn't even tell the difference between Fender and Marshall. So in the end it's you who decide what's good. If the feel of the click on the switch and change of the preset is smooth and satisfy you or you feel something is not right (can be 50ms, can be 10ms, can be 200ms, can be 1sec) - and it doesn't matter to you that your audience won't hear it or wouldn't mind. What makes awesome tone differ from the good tone is actually not that much, it's tiny things, slight details - that add up. Most of the guitars made today are mostly good, but what makes great guitar are little things, little details. You buy expensive perfect guitar and then you find out that the pots are inferior - but who would notice it? So why we replace them with premium ones? I agree that booting time on the Kemper is just a detail, someting like a not that good pot in otherwise nearly perfect guitar and many users of this guitar won't probably notice it. Yes - it is a detail. Exactly.



    The devil is in the details. And so is perfection.



    Maybe I'm nitpicking here. But Kemper developers should be nitpicking as well. Kemper is awesome piece of gear but they should never stop improving it. That means even improving its preset switching lag and its booting time.

  • FWIW
    just wanted to mention that while it's true that it takes the Profiler about 30secs to load the last active rig, the default rig (CK 01) becomes active much faster.
    I just stopped the time and it takes just about 13secs until you get sound.


    Hey Don,


    Maybe a dumb question, but I am not afraid :)
    Would it be possible for anyone to parameter a profile they would have chosen in advance instead of the CK01 as the default rig ? That means anyone could get the tone they want at only 13 seconds.

  • And yet another dumb question:
    I've connected my Profiler through Main Outputs and I don't get ANY sound until bootup process is completely finished and the last used rig is loaded. Have read about this mysterious default rig many times, but I haven't heard it once on my Profiler. Am I doing something wrong?

  • Quitty, I don't know what he needs or not - all I see is person who is nitpicking a piece of gear, bringing out some mostly illusionary issues which in reality mean nothing when playing live - just because "competition has it" . Buy competing product then if this stuff is so important and be done with it. If I needed to switch between 30 rigs every quarter note perfectly in time and have frequent power failures during every gig (because bass player wears high heels and frequently stomps on the kettle pot cable which I use to power my amp) while playing a perfectly tone matched patch from latest NIckelback album in left channel and early Eric Clapton tone in right channel (that's only patch #1, I won't list any of the remaining 29 for clarity sake) - I'd not buy Kemper or Axe or anything like that.


    Also, I want a bloody red Kemper, competition has it, original POD was red, why Kemper can't make red, kidney shaped profiler. That needs to be addressed immediately or 95% (this is important internet statistics so I underlined it) of customers will buy a POD.


    I use mostly 2 or 3 rigs and one switch, so maybe I don't notice any delay between switching them then :).

    mdeeRocks,


    First: please read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem


    Second: What exactly is your idea of discussion forum when you basicly tell people to shut up and get something else? Not much of a discussion. If you don't like to talk about this topic, nobody here is forcing you to participate. If you are the: "do something and stop talking about it for God's sake" type of person then I don't know if discussion forum is a good place for you because - surprise, surprise - people discuss things here and during that time they are not practically solving their problems.


    Third: That you don't see something as a problem or you see it as so minor that it can't bother you does not mean it could not be a more serious problem for the others - as I searched this forum there are quite a few people asking what to do with the preset switching lag. Also I don't see nothing bad on asking for different colours - after all the first version was only silver/white, then there was a dark one and why the hell shouldn't be a visual side of things important for some people? The same for the booting time - I'm glad that you don't mind if there's some improvement in this regard, but I for example would like an improvement. If not for extremely funny circumstances you described as something what happens to me live all the time, then just for the joy of simply not waiting more than is really needed. Its nice that you wouldn't mind to wait for car to be started with starting handle, I on the other hand like to press start button and go immediately off. I like it. What a nerd I am.


    Fourth: Funny, how precisely you gussed what exactly I want to blend in those amp sounds. But now that I think about it, I would rather do something like this amauteur guy (who obviously doesn't know anything about good tone) do (skip to 3:07):


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPeQLaFAvlE

  • Quitty, I don't know what he needs or not - all I see is person who is nitpicking a piece of gear, bringing out some mostly illusionary issues which in reality mean nothing when playing live - just because "competition has it" . Buy competing product then if this stuff is so important and be done with it. If I needed to switch between 30 rigs every quarter note perfectly in time and have frequent power failures during every gig (because bass player wears high heels and frequently stomps on the kettle pot cable which I use to power my amp) while playing a perfectly tone matched patch from latest NIckelback album in left channel and early Eric Clapton tone in right channel (that's only patch #1, I won't list any of the remaining 29 for clarity sake) - I'd not buy Kemper or Axe or anything like that.


    Also, I want a bloody red Kemper, competition has it, original POD was red, why Kemper can't make red, kidney shaped profiler. That needs to be addressed immediately or 95% (this is important internet statistics so I underlined it) of customers will buy a POD.


    I use mostly 2 or 3 rigs and one switch, so maybe I don't notice any delay between switching them then :).


    For me, having a red piece of gear is just as important as having 'fender' of 'Gibson' written on the headstock. You'd be surprised, however, how many people consider this a make-or-break demand.
    That you find certain demands ridiculous does not mean they objectively are.


    I could expand on your points individually as most of them are easily answered, but you were funny, so let's just leave it at that.


    As for the competition -
    if you're looking to develop a product beyond any certain point, the first thing to do is look at the market and competing products. That's what other knowledgeable individuals have assumed is important - be it good switching times, dual amp paths or general redness of plastic.
    Concerning switching times in particular, i'm guessing the (significant) amount of complaints on the subject come from people who expected the Profiler to perform better, because it was claimed live-proof and at ~250ms, it isn't. Not exactly the same as having it in my favorite color, is it?

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."


  • FWIW
    just wanted to mention that while it's true that it takes the Profiler about 30secs to load the last active rig, the default rig (CK 01) becomes active much faster.
    I just stopped the time and it takes just about 13secs until you get sound.

    LOL :D
    And for the remaining 17 seconds you'll need a person to say this to a headbanging metal audience: "Relax folks! In about 17 seconds the guitarist will have his distortion back and will stop playing Greensleeves so you can headbang again"
    :P