Kemper vs. Real Amp Test - Cameron CCV

  • Thanks for playing along. The results:


    1st clip - Kemper
    2nd clip - Amp


    Good job to those that guessed correctly. I do hear a difference between the two, mainly that the real amp sounded more open. But I think any differences would be more or less minimized once you get it in a mix.


    Guitars would likely get EQ'd when mixing anyway, so...

  • Good job to those that guessed correctly.

    Guessed? Nahhh, simply for Me - you hear the differences or you belive thats both sounds the same spot on kemper better than real amp. End of story - but for sure dont sounds the same.


    Stay Metal!

  • Guessed? Nahhh, simply for Me - you hear the differences or you belive thats both sounds the same spot on kemper better than real amp. End of story - but for sure dont sounds the same.
    Stay Metal!

    Yeah I'm in the same camp as you.


    From taking a few hundred profiles of my amps I can usually hear the difference between the the real amp and the profile, more so with direct profiles than studio ones. These differences are very subtle and to be honest more than good enough to me. But...I'm not a believer that the Kemper carbon copies a tone and I don't get super defensive about this if it's questioned.


    Am I happy with my Kemper? Yes I absolutely love it, it's possibley the best purchase I've made in years, but I can also say that it's not absolutely perfect.

  • Yeah I'm in the same camp as you.
    From taking a few hundred profiles of my amps I can usually hear the difference between the the real amp and the profile, more so with direct profiles than studio ones. These differences are very subtle and to be honest more than good enough to me. But...I'm not a believer that the Kemper carbon copies a tone and I don't get super defensive about this if it's questioned.


    Am I happy with my Kemper? Yes I absolutely love it, it's possibley the best purchase I've made in years, but I can also say that it's not absolutely perfect.

    Amen to that. It seems that some people (though probably not as many as with some other products) have such a bizarre need to defend the kemper as always being absolutely spot on. It feels.. .religious at times.

  • Amen to that. It seems that some people (though probably not as many as with some other products) have such a bizarre need to defend the kemper as always being absolutely spot on. It feels.. .religious at times.

    I know exactly what you mean. Sorry to @Webb for slightly taking this off topic but after this I'm done lol.


    The Kemper, for me playing fly dates and also gigs such as festivals with a quick change over time is untouchable and indispensable for me, it really is one of the greatest if not the greatest tool for me out there without a doubt. A while ago I wouldn't have believed I could get my tone and all effects in a single bass drum pedal gig bag and carry it on a plane as hand luggage, that is really out of this world for me.


    I have also experienced so many times my tone to me has been much greater than say the other guitar players tone. That would be me going direct to the FOH with the Kemper compared to his real head, real 4X12 and real mic setup, due to either incompetent engineers, bad rental/house gear or rushed setup and sound check times.


    However, I cannot say that the Kemper, even when using my own profiles of my modified Marshall JMP Super Lead (which are as close to my amp as I can ever imagine getting) or any others for that matter sound as good as my real amp at gig level, my real cabs with a good SM57 positioned correctly on a stage with enough space to keep spill to a minimum. The real thing just has that extra cut, moves that little more air, fills in the sound space that bit more, reacts that little better. After all, once you have you gear dialed in exactly how you like and mic'ed exactly how you want no matter what, the profile is an approximation/simulation of the real deal and that's the facts. But if the amp is falling just a little short of what you want to hear, the tweaks you can make in a profile of that amp within the Kemper could actually improve on what you hear from the real amp no doubt.


    When I have the time, transport and space to set up my full Marshall stack I actually still run the Kemper with the 4 cable method for just effects in the front of the amp and the loop of the amp as I love the effects in the Kemper bar the lack of a plate reverb. This way if you switch to a rig with the Distortion Loop turned off and turn on the Amp and EQ within the stack section I can still get a sparkling clean sound out of my cranked single channel Marshall.


    Having the Kemper means I have the choice for the best of all situation that should arise.

  • Hey guys, I've been making some profiles of a Cameron CCV amp and decided to test the profile against the real amp. Listen below - One is the amp...the other the Kemper. Any thoughts?


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    Were you reamping?

  • The Kemper gets so close to the real thing that the differences are nearly impossible to spot in the mix IME.


    What is NOT up for debate is how much easier it is to setup the Kemper to get a great Fender clean, a HUGE Mesa Crunch, and a twangy Vox at a live venue. Just my VHT rig alone busted my lower vertebrae ;)


    The Kemper remote is also way more convenient that a huge pedal board is.


    I'll vote .... not perfect, but so close, only a guitar player could tell the difference ..... and then only in isolation (not in the mix).


    I would give up my left nut before going back to carrying around tube amps and 4x12 cabs again :) :)

  • As skeptical as I am that you could pick it out of a mix, the more germane question is does it matter? The differences are so minute that only a handful of people would complain it wasn't "perfect" enough despite being 95% there. Further, nobody listening at your show or on your record would notice or care outside of other purist, gear snob guitar players.

  • As skeptical as I am that you could pick it out of a mix, the more germane question is does it matter?

    No. Of course it doesn't matter. I'm just responding to the notion that it would be difficult or impossible to identify in a mix as has been mentioned in this thread a couple of times.

  • From taking a few hundred profiles of my amps I can usually hear the difference between the the real amp and the profile, more so with direct profiles than studio ones.

    Yes. There is room for improvement in the DI profilling process.


    Studio profiles of my Fuchs ODS are acceptable but DI profiles sound terrible.


    Studio profiles of my JTM1 are ok but every atempt to DI profile it at low gain settings ends up in a distorted terrible profile.


    Only clean profiles of some Bass DI boxes I tried are ok. The distorted ones have problems below 100 Hz.

  • I'm fairly sure I could identify it in a mix. The differences wouldn't be as apparent, but I believe it's possible.


    What I hear in the clips is not just a matter of eq. The cleanest notes sing in the real amp while they are compressed in the profile. Dynamics cannot be recovered while mixing and, for low gain players with lots of dynamics, the difference is very important as they influence the way you play.

  • What I hear in the clips is not just a matter of eq. The cleanest notes sing in the real amp while they are compressed in the profile. Dynamics cannot be recovered while mixing and, for low gain players with lots of dynamics, the difference is very important as they influence the way you play.

    While there is a difference, I don't think the discrepancy would be wide enough to influence the way I play. That's me, though. In this case, there's no difference in playing because the sample was re-amped.

  • I think there might be room for improvement when it comes to your profiling skills as well. "acceptable" and "okay" is not a common result. in fact, the common result is: you practically cannot tell. did you contact support re. your issues? maybe something is broke, maybe something is wrong?

    Get in touch with Profiler online support team here

  • I think there might be room for improvement when it comes to your profiling skills as well. "acceptable" and "okay" is not a common result. in fact, the common result is: you practically cannot tell. did you contact support re. your issues? maybe something is broke, maybe something is wrong?

    It would be nice to see a Kemper instructional video of an incorrect way of profiling and the solution.


    Common trouble shooting videos.
    Example; How to profile a smaller lunch box head. Show the common incorrect way then the correct way. Lower the master volume, gain,etc.

  • I think there might be room for improvement when it comes to your profiling skills as well. "acceptable" and "okay" is not a common result. in fact, the common result is: you practically cannot tell. did you contact support re. your issues? maybe something is broke, maybe something is wrong?


    Yes I did for the last item (DI boxes) and after some emails, tests and some reponses from my side, they never come back to me. Ticket ##KA00123028


    DI profiling with a Kemper DI box is not space engineering. It's just putting the di box between the amp and the speaker and have a look at those leds (those are still alive in my KPA) avoiding clipping, keep the master low enough so there is only one significantlly distorting stage (and this is room for improvement in the profiling process). So I think there is no room for improvement in my profilling skills.


    And, as I said to the support team, everything sounds ok when cheking the reference amp so nothing is wrong with my Sommer cables and a profile with only those cables between the direct out and the return works perfectly.


    I'll post a video of the whole process so you can see what's happening.

    Edited 3 times, last by pacocito ().