wish for kemper editor software

Quote from dougc84

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Again, totally agreed. But an editor really should be in the pipeline. They obviously have semi-competent software developers, as they have built OS X and Windows versions of Rig Manager, though it's certainly far from perfect. Maybe the solution is to outsource it to a team to build a great editor that works by USB or MIDI, then pass it off to Kemper to maintain as their device improves. Rig Manager just really needs a bottom (or top) panel to display and configure settings when clicking on a rig. They could also look at what Line 6 has done in the past for editor software, such as for the HD or X3 - it's all been very nicely laid out, though a bit clunky. Fractal's software is way too complex to even consider for many ideas, since the Kemper doesn't have routing and all that stuff.

What do you mean by Editor?

1) There is open source software Toaster, which acts as software version of Profilers interface. You can turn knobs, engage effects on your laptop's screen. This is just virtual version of Profiler's LCD.
You can't build your rig from scratch.
You cannot preview all your cabs with given amp.
You can't store your modifications to local library....

2) When I hear Editor I think 11 Rack editor, where you can build your chain from scratch.
Question no1: what should be the number of amps and cabs used to build you new rig? 300-something amps of factory rigs? So you have 300 items on the list. Or maybe add 7400 amps from RigExchange. Oh and you have bunch of commercial profiles. Ok let's assume there are 8000 different "amps" from which you can start building profile. Imagine how to scroll through that list.. The same goes for cabs. Check here -----> DISCUSSION
But what if there are different amps/cabs on Profiler and in your local library. Then synchronization and cross checking comes into play.
Ok you have empty Kemper (no amps/cabs/profiles - forget Crunch/Initialised...) all profiles are in Local Library, but all FX are in Kemper. So building rig from scratch would require constant transmission of data / constant synchronization between Editor(amps) and Kemper(FX) (think how Rig Manager synchronizes when you upload/delete rigs)
This is undoable*

With great respect (Kemper is unbeatable in terms of pure tube amp sound, period), I bet that this kind of Editor, where you build rig from elements will never happen. For sure I might be surprised*
But watching Rig Manager development in that field I will play better than Paul Gilbert sooner.

Regarding Maybe the solution is to outsource it to a team to build a great editor
Maybe exposing full API of patented and such technologically advanced product to external company could be uncovering a bit of a mistery.

Quote from skoczy

What do you mean by Editor?

What the entire topic is about - a dedicated editor for the Kemper that can create, read, update, and delete settings on the Kemper. That's not just a rig manager. Being able to adjust multiple parameters quickly on a piece of software would be much easier than, say, going into a stomp, going to the right page, adjusting the parameter, going into another stomp, oh wait wrong one!, go to another one, page over, adjust what you need.

Quote from skoczy

1) There is open source software Toaster,

I'm familiar with Toaster, but the problem I have with Toaster is that
1. it was built cross-platform. This is great for getting it out to windows and OS X users, but in both cases, the chrome surrounding the actual editing content looks and functions poorly and unlike a true, native app, particularly in regard to key bindings.
2. It's alpha. That's pre-beta. It's buggy as hell.
3. You have to depend on the developers to update it. That means when a new Kemper OS comes out, any changes to the OS that conflicts with Toaster means the experience could either not be optimal, or just flat out do something wrong. A Kemper-designed solution would have complete parity with the current OS version.

As far as your point #2, you have valid points. But the reason everything would be a mess would not be due to a matter of how many rigs you have available to you, but how unorganized the Kemper filesystem is. I guarantee you I have presets I've never used, but because I encounter those menus so rarely, and it's so clunky to clean up, that it's just not done. In addition, filtering mechanisms could be put in place to "show only rigs and presets on the Kemper" or "show only rigs from folder ___". There are ways around the madness, and it would result in a much, much better strategy for setting up the device as a whole.

You can set up a chain from scratch on the Kemper. You just null everything out and you have an empty rig. My guess is some people would love this feature, and others would rather build off an amp profile they already have.

And as far as "constant transmission," you're wrong. If everything was like that, web pages would be hundreds of times slower. Search engines don't hit every single website on the internet when doing a search to find a search phrase - they use a cache. Download the data from the device to the computer (caching), and you send over delta (or partial) changes when a change is made. You don't need to download those presets every time you access the list - you only need to get the preset files once, and occasionally check for unexpected timestamp changes (which is what Google does, for instance - it hits websites once a day or once a week and looks if there are any changes to the content). It's also the same process that DOOM (the original, DOS version) could host 8-player multiplayer games over a 2400 baud modem.

Quote from skoczy

Regarding Maybe the solution is to outsource it to a team to build a great editor
Maybe exposing full API of patented and such technologically advanced product to external company could be uncovering a bit of a mistery.

Again, an API would be fantastic. I would certainly build something. But that gives the same problems as Toaster has - you're relying on external developers which may lose parity with the current release, or lose interest and not update it. A development project is only great if it has momentum, letting it sit around almost instantly causes it to lose interest and die. When I'm working with projects and I need a new library, I hit up GitHub. If the developer of a library on GitHub hasn't responded to issues or pull requests in several months, or hasn't committed any code, I consider it abandonware. It may be perfectly fine - or it may not work in 3 months.

_

Quote from dougc84

1. it was built cross-platform. This is great for getting it out to windows and OS X users, but in both cases, the chrome surrounding the actual editing content looks and functions poorly and unlike a true, native app, particularly in regard to key bindings.

What's the problem with multi-platform? Qt is a very mature framework, it exists since 1991. From the technicall point of view it is much better than MFC, the Windows Framework (which imho is just shit). There is a lot of software, which use Qt.
Key bindings? Has nothing to do with multi-platform ability. Do you want a feature -> open a issue on github.

Quote from dougc84

2. It's alpha. That's pre-beta. It's buggy as hell.

Yes, it is alpha, it may be buggy. But there are no issues opened by a dougc84 on github. No feedback, no fix; simple, heh?

Quote from dougc84

3. You have to depend on the developers to update it. That means when a new Kemper OS comes out, any changes to the OS that conflicts with Toaster means the experience could either not be optimal, or just flat out do something wrong. A Kemper-designed solution would have complete parity with the current OS version.

Toaster is open source. So you are welcome to join the development. The more developers are involved, the faster adoptions to a new OS can be made. Simple again.

Cheers
Thomas

Thanks for your responses here.

Quote from virango

What's the problem with multi-platform? Qt is a very mature framework, it exists since 1991. From the technicall point of view it is much better than MFC, the Windows Framework (which imho is just shit). There is a lot of software, which use Qt.

Qt is, and I agree, mature, but, at least on OS X, it looks like a Java app. There's not much that can be done about this, but configuration and the application chrome don't look like native OS X apps. It feels cheaply made. No fault of yours, but, instead, a fault of the framework itself. And it's a fault of multi-platform development - you just can't make a shareable library with all the base code that works with Objective-C/Swift as well as C# (or whatever the Visual Studio kids are on about these days) except in something like Qt or one of the many other multi-platform frameworks. The UI will never follow the human interface guidelines recommended by both Microsoft AND Apple. It just won't.

Quote from virango

But there are no issues opened by a dougc84 on github. No feedback, no fix; simple, heh?

I don't submit issues or PRs for issues that are already known, nor do I for alpha software unless I'm in a focus group. For example, I was in the focus group for Polymail during app development and provided a lot of feedback because it was specifically asked, not just a community project. Much of that feedback made it into their OS X and iOS apps.

Quote from virango

The more developers are involved, the faster adoptions to a new OS can be made. Simple again.

Agreed. But how fast is fast adoptions when you aren't attached to a computer 24/7? You don't want someone you don't know (or trust) willy-nilly accepting pull requests and merging (or making changes :shudder: directly to master), and deploying a new version without review. Sure, for some things that might be just fine; for others, it could seriously screw up the code and create unstable versions. But regardless, the Kemper team could anticipate changes if they had their own editor software, and it would be released with the OS, instead of in a day or two. For some people, that makes a difference.

Honestly, I don't have a lot of direct interaction with Toaster yet, but it seems like it works for what it does, though I have encountered bugs. I'm just wanting an official editor, or an official, non-MIDI API. It's not easy to connect via MIDI either when you have other MIDI devices in your chain. Again, no fault of yours, but Kempers.