STILL no software editor ..?

    Quote from Soloist74


    I'm a software engineer. :)
    Trust me, you are most definitely off-base, here.


    Hello Soloist74,
    Since you are new here, you get the benefit of the doubt...so I presume you were not intentionally being rude as well as cryptic. If it wouldn't be too much trouble...would you mind elaborating upon your comment. In other words, provide us some details on how implementing a USB-based software editor and establishing a direct PC link with the Kemper's user interface does not also open up a potential back-door pathway to the source code and programming algorithms. Are these things mutually exclusive? Is there a hard firewall between what the typical user can access, and the Kemper "state secrets". Keeping in mind that a "typical user" might actually turn out to be a determined hacker.

    Quote from Tritium


    Since you are new here, you get the benefit of the doubt...so I presume you were not intentionally being rude as well as cryptic.


    Peace and love, brothers. :)


    Hackers? Reverse Engineering? I really dont get that. To reverse engineer the Kemper, you must just buy one and try to dissasemble and understand the OS (aka firmware) and its algorithms. And which Hackers? The ones who sit there all night and try to change the sound - from the far - of somebody sitting in hiis living room, with a laptop connected to his Kemper?


    To open USB for an external editor would just mean that there are "public" functions like "increment the gain by 0.5" or "switch off stomp A". In other words: just a copy of what is visible on the real UI on the Kemper itself anyway. I cannot see severe security issues here.


    The Kemper is not like many of the other digital amps, with the lack of real and well positioned knobs and switches but just generic up/down left/right OK cancel buttons and a tiny cryptic display. With those a software editor is a total must. For the Kemper it is kindof neat and nice to have. And therefore my first guess would be: the Kemper team has very low priority on that. Its more important to fine-tune the Kemper itself and (hopefully) the RM. I bet that the editor will come, but some time later.

    Ne travaillez jamais.

    Like 1
    Quote from benvigil

    Well... while I DO think there should be an editor, my personal opinion is that it's an exaggeration to say there's a need for one with the Kemper. With my AX8 or any other FAS product, the editor is definitely a requirement with the vast number of possible adjustments. With the Kemper, I don't think I'm mistaken in saying that Kemper (the company) designed the Profiler to not need an editor. I think it succeeds.


    That said, the primary valid argument I see for an editor is in the studio where you don't necessarily want the Profiler on your desk, or maybe you want it in a rack where it's not easily accessible.


    I feeel it the same way.
    With the kemper I tweak less, play more and have more fun.


    To hack the Kemper Profiler one would have to reverse engineer the binary code of kaos.bin file.
    But even then the profiling method as we know is patent protected until 2026, so one can fly to the moon and produce Profilers.

    Quote from skoczy

    But even then the profiling method as we know is patent protected until 2026, so one can fly to the moon and produce Profilers.


    Its the real world. Unfortunately. There is a bunch of companies all around the world which dont care about patents, copyrights or what ever. Examples: SLR Camera firmware to unlock "expensive" features. Rolex / Breitling / Fender / Gibson and what more fakes with "original" logos on it. And they are neither produced nor sold on the moon ;)


    But to reverse engineer the Kemper should be way more complicated. I dont think it will happen too soon. :P

    Ne travaillez jamais.

    Quote from SpinnerDeluxe

    But to reverse engineer the Kemper should be way more complicated. I dont think it will happen too soon. :P


    I tried hard few times to reverse engineer operating system but all I got was this:


    ¬5U|`xCWÖHéÁ6-5jt©›š
    EŚŃקI—dň)ôéŇĄJ•*UŞT¨PˇC† 2dÉ“'Ož=zôéËVÓ})“YhĆň?­›II@@ţ&‡ĽŮPßdő•ń›¦ě1bdQ.&
    ľ™~v°ôĄŔM‚«éҤH A‚¸™ś Á¨÷K^ÔšŰÄ‚öK=ţDMžÜ
    ĽŢ5ÄpĆ.äe4)ĽĚaŃnitLÁ‘â|zM™ťÝćÍ›–ŚŰ¶Í;K•*A¨R¤\“$I‡$J”=ďE¸qă¦ë}ZŕÁŹ 3Z=täŘşg‡™2eČ•WŻ_˝÷ţćÍ™0cĉ$J•+z‡|Ć=ň>}Ť’Ś«ŃŠÜ…ş˙$H“&Mš0hŐŞTGŚi˘5Fü


    :D


    P.S. "5" as the second char in 1st line doesn't mean this is version 5 OS here.... :D

    i guess the silence from the top tells the story here. too bad . i think a lot of people have made it clear that they would like to have an editor. to me its just as important as delays and other features but for some reason this is not going to happen. time to move on from this dream....

    For me, the lack of an editor is becoming an accessibility issue as my vision is not the best. I wear glasses to see distance but the text on the KPA screen is virtually unreadable from hand length away. So I'm force to remove my glasses and lean in to try and read the screen. With an editor, I'd be able to see thing much clearer and even adjust text size if needed. I hope Kemper is thinking about issues like this when determining future plans.


    Cheers,


    jayson

    Quote from jayson

    For me, the lack of an editor is becoming an accessibility issue as my vision is not the best. I wear glasses to see distance but the text on the KPA screen is virtually unreadable from hand length away. So I'm force to remove my glasses and lean in to try and read the screen. With an editor, I'd be able to see thing much clearer and even adjust text size if needed. I hope Kemper is thinking about issues like this when determining future plans.


    Cheers,


    jayson


    So your saying Kemper isn't handicapped friendly? 8o


    Hey that just might work. Let's shame them into giving us an editor!

    Honestly, the lack of any meaningful communication "from the top" was the reason I shy'd away from FAS during the AX8 launch. The same issue here with Kemper is one of the reasons I ended up waffling and buying an AX8.


    The AX8 Editor is fantastic, I have to admit.

    Quote from Tritium

    [quote='Soloist74','https://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php/Thread/29894-STILL-no-software-editor/?postID=321575#post321575']Since you are new here, you get the benefit of the doubt...so I presume you were not intentionally being rude as well as cryptic.


    I don't know where you saw rudeness there, but let me tell you anyway that I didn't mean to be rude at all. Sorry if I hurt your feelings. Peace. :)
    As a newbie with only 20 years of experience in software engineering I'd be more than happy to elaborate my cryptic statements, but I think SpinnerDeluxe and skoczy already did a great job at that (thanks guys :thumbup: ) and I don't want to be redundant.

    Do you mean to tell me that sitting in a back breaking position trying to get our eyes to focus on the Kemper screen whilst tweaking for endless hours isn't good enough for you guys? ;) C'mon...It's a character builder!

    If we don't get an editor, at least we need a sdk so some 3rd parties can make one.
    This is an idea I wrote here some years ago but sill nothing...
    I think a SDK with some functions to control most of the KPA features would be quite easy to do for the Kemper engineers, they may even have one already for their own purpose.
    My first thought was they didn't offer one because they intended to produce their own software, but after so many years without anything I think I was wrong. They're just sleeping on it...

    Quote from Soloist74


    I don't know where you saw rudeness there, but let me tell you anyway that I didn't mean to be rude at all. Sorry if I hurt your feelings. Peace. :)
    As a newbie with only 20 years of experience in software engineering I'd be more than happy to elaborate my cryptic statements, but I think SpinnerDeluxe and skoczy already did a great job at that (thanks guys :thumbup: ) and I don't want to be redundant.


    No worries, Soloist74...and I apologize if I seemed overly terse. What I was trying to get at, without intending to cause offense, is that I had presented a possible argument as to why Kemper GmbH has been reluctant to release a USB-based Editor. I fully admitted that my argument was purely conjecture, as my background is engineering and mathematical physics (not programming). What I was hoping was for a more detailed, technical explanation as to why my conjecture is not valid...and not just a recapitulation of "you are off-base", with no further details or rebuttal.


    In other words, I was hoping to learn something from those with direct experience in these matters.


    Again, no harm, no foul. :):thumbup:


    Cheers, mate.


    John

    What can be done is MIDI over USB. If the KPA appears to the PC as MIDI interface without MIDI cables, a SW Editor will be easily feasible (as long as all relevant MIDI commands and NRPNs are documented). I have created this kind of SW for Roland VG 88 and other DSP interfaces. And there is no way to re-engineer the KPA OS this way, the PC sees only a MIDI interface over USB. The only thing to do is on the KPA to create a USB descriptor block, which suggest to Windows (or any other OS), that it's a standard MIDI interface. It has been done and it's easy. I also can't understand, why it's not happening. I've done this stuff for a living before and most companies are happy to supply the necessary information.

    I think it's pretty stubborn on the part of Kemper, if the customers want an editor, and it's possible, give them an editor. I know a couple of players who recently were tossing up between The Kemper/ Helix went for the Helix just because it's easier to tweak settings with a mouse and screen. Surely it's just stubbornness ?

    For me the biggest argument is what is written above. The dispaly is , sorry, nearly a joke for such a unit and the display of the remote too. Its nice when you sit nearby and when you are on your knees, but can you read anything when your are standing on stage? Halelulja, we have leds with different colours, but its not state of the art. Whatever, i love my kpa and the remote too, because i think the biggest point for me is what comes out of the box and this is state of the art.


    Hope they give us an editor and this endless scrolling will be history ( to choose cabs and stomps is painful when you have more than 50 ones in stock).


    So last but not least
    +1 for and editor and a cab manager function in rm, again, again, again, again!!