Rabea is down With the kemper being able to mimic an amp

Quote from MementoMori

I find the "it doesn't push the same air" complaint a little uneven. Of course the Kemper isn't going to give you the same visceral experience as a tube amp through a proper cab, but when you play out, that "pushing air", "in the room" experience you get is only relevant to you. Your audience is hearing a mic'd cab through PA speakers, so it may as well be a Kemper in the end. There is an argument to be made that how your cab behind you blowing air at your knees affects your playing and enjoyment of the experience, but ultimately something that gets lost by the time it reaches an audience anyway.

They do have a point in that the Kemper's power amp is weak compared to a tube amps (and many other solid state power amps). I know they both have a power rack, but perhaps their experience would be different if they used the Kemper with a Matrix GT1000FX, which adds a lot more "tubey" warmth.

Neither the kemper solid state power amp or the matrix quite gets the job done for me when it comes to "pushing air" with KPA. The best results I've gotten have been using a Fryette power station. It's a tube power amp. Wicked. Side by side compared to Matrix GT1000 it was a no contest for me.

One thing to also add: differences between pickups (apart from quite different ones) are also very "small". But people still swap out one pickup for another. Why?

I believe..

1) Unrealistic expectations about what pickups do and how big differences are (there's always something "better" sold, giving that impression)

2) That small differences in tone (and hence bigger ones in feel, depending on case) do matter to a lot of people.

These differences are rather similar to what you get from amp to profile (at times bigger, others smaller I would say). It's a rare thing though to have people not mind about what pickup is being used.

Live, is that also largely meaningless if I use a wilkinson or a gibson paff? Can be. Largely. Few would agree, possibly, but yea, for me. Even going from Voice 1 to Voice 2 in a Fishman Fluence moderns, for example, yields such a "small" difference -- but the function is still there.

Coming from this perspective for me personally differences between profile and amp matter more and more in controlled environments. The above is why I think of the KPA as having a "signature tone".The differences between profile and amp are most often consistent with my own profiling, and they are big enough to have this perception of KPA.

There have been tests made where people cannot tell the difference between KPA and real amp, but these usually rely on certain type of playing that makes it harder to reveal differences (not saying people do this intentionally!). But most importantly it's not difficult to emulate these tests changing something else (such as a pickup) in the signal chain.

Heck, I think they can even be done with something like a JCM vs JTM and still it would be difficult to tell.

And still some will prefer one pickup over another. Still there are nuances that matter, tonally or when it comes to feel, and the "barometer" about "what matters" is not "the audience" for everyone (differences in that context are more meaningless for me too).

Of course this is not a perfect analogy to kpa either, considering it takes the form of different amps by itself. I just mean that in regards to the existing differences between kpa-profile / say an overwound vs overwound pickup.

Anyway, back to soldering guitars

Cheerios

Quote from fourstrk

I think there are huge differences between cheap and higher priced pickups.

Nevertheless, above a certain price point the PUs sound "different" but never bad.

I am able to accomplish a great tone with solid and valuable equipment. Brands do not matter and depend on personal taste. Eventually, this is not the tone I personally am looking for but it's worthy. Changing high-quality PUs against other high-quality PUs might make a difference. And I state it to be DIFFERENT, not BETTER.

Been recording a wilkinson vs my gibson pickups. Differences are definitely smaller than profile of my laney vs the real amp, considering the recordings, at least with my own ear. Same thing if I record a cheap dimarzio Titan clone to the real pickup. These are cases of cheap pickups being done very, very well (and you can definitely use pickups that sound way different from each other compared to profile and amp).

But I still prefer the gibson PU, for reasons similar that I prefer the laney to the profile. It's in the nuances.

About which pickup (or anything for that matter) is better: I think we'd have to establish what we are looking for. There will exist real differences -- now what one seeks from the device is another story. The device will be "better" in regards to whether it satisfies these "personal" requirements.

So if I say that "real amp is better" I mean "Better considering what I want from my tone". But many prefer kemper tone. It's no wonder, considering it's a more "cutting" tone.

Quote from stratology

Curious - have you actually done a double blind test?

If the answer is yes:
You speak about differences - what exactly are these difference

"KPA" tone = tighter, a bit like tubescreamer on higher values, "cocked wah" feel, slightly more compressed and with less pick attack. than the source tone, whether it be a modelling or amp tone.

They are slight differences but consistently there. Slight tonal changes = bigger ones in feel much of the time.

Plenty of tests conducted . It's possible to mask differences, depending on how one plays, but that doesn't tell me too much either -- can do that with pickups, different amps even at times.

As said: they are differences the audience will not care about. But they are differences I care about if I sit here and record -- which for some others don't matter, and for some make the KPA tone superior to the sources.

I agree with everything said, yeah

Both are possible - - be getting great tones with kpa at bearable volumes, ect, ect, and be doing great music with it...

And also be critical when it comes to nuances that could be improved.

Which is why I always use real amps when I can.

If kemper didn't have the "rasp" issue it would be much closer to the real thing for me.

The issue is there with direct profiles too btw. No difference whatsoever.

Quote from ashtweth

what do you guys think about the cocked wah sound?, do you guys experience it?
Thankfully i have not yet, i cant help to think how does the power amp version of the kemper stack up for this difference verse the passive. ...does it make it get closer with the differences that you guys speak of?
ah who cares as long as we are all having fun no?

Ash

When I talk of "cocked wah" or "tubescreamer on high tone values" it's in comparison to the real amp.

You may not think there's such an effect happening unless you play the real amp. These are evaluative statements and so rely on some reference -- my reference is not "guitar tones" generally but the particular amp tone itself. Some describe this as kemper having "more presence", "more attack", but most of us who bring these words up are talking about similar differences (obviously not easy to describe tone with words). Being used to these differences it has all added up to a "kpa tone signature", in my perception, and I can hear the effect across all my profiles other than super cleans.

In so far as the powered kemper goes - - the modeling is the same. May be that through a real cab the difference are more or less prominent. But this wouldn't be due to a difference in the quality of profiling, just that certain differences may be more or less obvious through certain monitoring solutions.

That's my two drachmas at least

Cheerios

My phone keeps somehow randomly making text bigger. Sorry shout that.