New Kemper Owner- Not too impressed, useable

    Quote from JedMckenna


    the tone disparities I could be experiencing versus the real things (if noticeable) are completely irrelevant in comparison to what/how I actually play when the engineer press "record", how prepared, focused and solid I am at the session and just having the "studio attitude" in general. Much more important for my re-employment to spend my days working on my guitar parts and come in and record them smoothly and quickly with a killer tone (to me) than wasting these hours trying to chase the end of the tone rainbow by investing in more redundant pieces of gear or even debating about it.

    And there you have it...


    Hello Bommel,


    I am a bit confused, here. Perhaps I have misunderstood your explanation? According to CK, the Kemper has difficulty in making an accurate PROFILE of an amp in which BOTH the pre-amp and the power-amp stages are in significant distortion.


    The way I have understood your explanation, is that you have only profiled the power-amp stage (which apparently was successful). You then are then running an external pedal (not profiled) into the front of your KPA, and recording the pedal with your profiled power-amp. This is not the same thing.


    Please correct me if I have misunderstood.


    Cheers,
    John

    I agree with what you're saying and that was a cool test. It's just that kemper does not consider this an issue, as we've seen.

    i never judge a tone by esotheric differcies ... i need some practical advantages ... i a sound sounds digital but reacts to my playing perfectly, so pinch harmonics work well, gallops are tight then i will might use it anyway ... or the other way around


    But if i need a sludgy compressed creamy fuzz sound like this

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    you will have a had time with the kemper ... that is why even with the kemper i only get this sound sound with external pedals ...


    or let's take this amp at full gain ... this is simply not possible on the kemper right now ... and i hope some day there is a solution for this

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    so i really do not chase the tone rainbow but i know what you mean ... some users here have very good trained ears ad hear the kemper in very comparison video ... and since guitarist are gearnerd my nature and get bored very fast with a particular tone i think it would be very important to add something like a poweramp sim on it or add a "from tight to cream" knob so the same thing that happens when you turn up the volume to 10

    yup you understood it right ... the comparison is just to proove the cascading gain stages can enhance the sound and it is in fact a feature in the helix, axe fx and so on were a poweramp volume knob adds more or less power amp distortion


    i just wanted to show that it is a important feature and it would improve the kemper a lot if there would be a poweramp volume knob and maybe some selection of tubes (6l6, el34...) within the kempers amp section ... just to give an exisitng profile a tighter feel (low poweramp volume or a sludgier or creamier feel)


    if i'd hab a second kemper i could add in front of my kemper a normal kemper profile but sadly i have only one :D if somebody at kemper can try this that would be awesome


    and in the sample you can hear in the last clip that even if i eq the distortion without the poweramp i remains stiffer and this is exactly the same what i experience with my kemper profiles (that is why i recommend adding a real overdrive or boost + the bodyrez) ...


    and since i used a real pedal that showed that the problem is maybe not in the profiling process (because the pedal showed the same stiff characteristics) but in the second "gain stage"/ poweramp


    i added my poweramp profiles as a zip here

    Quote from Bommel

    yup you understood it right ... the comparison is just to proove the cascading gain stages can enhance the sound and it is in fact a feature in the helix, axe fx and so on were a poweramp volume knob adds more or less power amp distortion
    i just wanted to show that it is a important feature and it would improve the kemper a lot if there would be a poweramp volume knob and maybe some selection of tubes (6l6, el34...) within the kempers amp section ... just to give an exisitng profile a tighter feel (low poweramp volume or a sludgier or creamier feel)


    Ah, understood. Thanks for the clarification, Bommel. :thumbup:


    Cheers,
    John

    Quote from Bommel

    i just wanted to show that it is a important feature and it would improve the kemper a lot if there would be a poweramp volume knob and maybe some selection of tubes (6l6, el34...) within the kempers amp section

    I think there seems to be a major misunderstanding lately among new buyers here of what the Kemper is trying to be. It's not an amp simulator. If that's what you want, get the Fractal or Helix. They are fantastic at what they do, they try to model the characteristics of an amp with every turn of the knob and offer multi-amp, multi cab options and cascading gain stages, etc. Think of the Kemper as merely a snapshot of an amp rig in which you can make some tonal adjustments. No one claims the Kemper's gain knob will exactly replicate what the gain knob does on a real amp. But it's there, along with other settings to get your tone dialed in if needed. True, there could be some features added that could make it more like the competition but I disagree that your suggestion it's an important feature. Because, you can already profile any multitude of amps at any setting with any powertube. I would prefer if Kemper kept going on their current path and perfecting their "snapshot" profiling process than trying to copy what another company is doing. Having choices and different approaches to amp modelling/simulating/profiling is a good thing

    Quote from ElDoca

    Because, you can already profile any multitude of amps at any setting with any powertube

    Not with multiple stages distorting.


    Which is the issue.


    It's said that there's no use for such tones. I disagree.


    Many of my tones use both pre amp and power amp distortion.


    That said, my criticism of KPA is not so much due to these cases only, even if then the differences between profile/amp can be more exaggerated.

    Quote from ElDoca

    Because, you can already profile any multitude of amps at any setting with any powertube.

    Not any amp can be profiled. It's something known and it's in the the KPA manual.


    Besides that, not any settings can be succesfully profiled (multiple stages distorting). Many amps use cascading gain stages to get their characteristic sound and some settings on those amps (some of them awesome) cannot be accurately profiled. This is probably why I never liked any Trainwreck or Dumble profile I tried.


    Could stacked overdrives into a not so clean amp be profiled?

    Edited 4 times, last by pacocito ().

    Every tool has its limitations and advantages. Working within and understanding the limitations and advantages of the Kemper is key to getting the desired results.


    Small tonal nuances can be as big or as small as one makes them out to be.


    Any cup that is full can be looked at as not really full because 3 to 5% of the cup is empty . For many Kemper users who are getting stunning results, they're certainly not looking at the 3 to 5%, not that there's anything wrong with only focusing on the 3 to 5% as people's outlook are their personal choices,

    Quote from ElDoca

    I think there seems to be a major misunderstanding lately among new buyers here of what the Kemper is trying to be. It's not an amp simulator. If that's what you want, get the Fractal or Helix.

    if i wouldn't think that the kemper is the best option on the market i would still have my axe fx ... and i am really not a new buyer, noob or a bedroom guitarist ... and i profiled every amp of the helix and the Axe Fx 2 so yeah...
    And i get the sound out of the Kemper that i want and i use it in MANY recordings and videos but i do not get the sound i like
    "out of the Box" and for me it was such a big learning curve to find the "right" way to use the kemper that i think that


    • More in depth video tutorials would be great for beginners ... the most videos of the kemper online are about how great the product is or how it works in general but there is no explanation of, what sag is, what the definition knob exactly does, what you can do with the shapers and so on ... honestly after making nearly 900 Profiles myself i figured it out almost but i know many people that gave up on it... and i for example already gave up on the axe fx and the eleven rack, the vetta, and so much more ... and then somebody coems along with the same gear and has a stellar tone ...
    • and some features would be soo great if they were in the kemper like more and better overdrives fuzzes and so on and that poweramp thing ... i do it externally for my recordings and then i'm happy but yeah when a new buyer spends the money he will not be happy about buying some more gear


    as i mentioned before i see a sweetspot when profiling just before the poweramp distorts too much ...
    just turn it up till the poweramp distorts, then the profiling process will not be accurate, then lower the volume do it a again and so on ... until the kemper can read out the signals properly and then you have the maximum amount of the amps dynamics and enough overtones ... but yeah that is at least how i do it and since i do it i like my profiles more then before ... it is a subjective thing of course

    Quote from Dean_R

    Every tool has its limitations and advantages. Working within and understanding the limitations and advantages of the Kemper is key to getting the desired results.


    Small tonal nuances can be as big or as small as one makes them out to be.


    Any cup that is full can be looked at as not really full because 3 to 5% of the cup is empty . For many Kemper users who are getting stunning results, they're certainly not looking at the 3 to 5%, not that there's anything wrong with only focusing on the 3 to 5% as people's outlook are their personal choices,

    Well, I replied to the text, saying what's pretty much in the manual of the unit (apart from last sentence). Because it's just not true that kemper can profile any tone (not that they ever claimed it can).


    I've been using kemper for many things, including paid sessions. For me personally I don't just focus on what I see to be negatives. But if KPA cannot profile multiple distorting stages well, that's something to point out, because if one does not know that there may be issues on that end, it becomes harder to get profiles right.


    For example: I did a fender today and kicked it up to the max. I loved the tone. But the profile was miles, miles apart; the response was gone, the profile wouldn't sag, the dynamics were way different. And that's fine -- we know kemper is not made to do these kinds of tones where everything is blasted to heck.


    And it's also true that the effect of power amp distortion is often exaggerated in importance. As with tests I have published on youtube higher master volumes aren't always better; far from it at times.


    But if I do want these kinds of tones, I simply cannot use kemper as it is. I need to use a pedal of some kind. Which is not a deal breaker for me personally either.

    Quote from Bommel

    as i mentioned before i see a sweetspot when profiling just before the poweramp distorts too much ...
    just turn it up till the poweramp distorts, then the profiling process will not be accurate, then lower the volume do it a again and so on ... until the kemper can read out the signals properly and then you have the maximum amount of the amps dynamics and enough overtones ... but yeah that is at least how i do it and since i do it i like my profiles more then before ... it is a subjective thing of course

    For me there are certain kinds of differences consistently there in many cases where no power amp distorts. That's with tests running preamps through 200 watt power amp (just to make sure nothing distorts!). These differences are more on the subtle end.


    Then when power amp starts to compress KPA starts to feel more "congested". As you get into distortion it gets worse. That said I have had cases where I didn't notice any difference there either, with preamp+power amp distorting or not -- it was the same from low to high volume.

    @Dimi84 ahhh okay well like i said that was just my way of doing it ... and many amps on the axe fx and helix had a lot poweramp distortion and that is what i did then to get the best out of it ... and there is always this "kemper flavour" but as long as the sound overall does its job and fits in the mix i do not care too much

    sorry I'm OT but I like this sound a lot...what did you use? again...sorry for the off topic...

    "...why being satisfied with an amp, as great as it can be, while you can have them all?" michael mellner


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    Quote from Bommel

    @Dimi84 ahhh okay well like i said that was just my way of doing it ... and many amps on the axe fx and helix had a lot poweramp distortion and that is what i did then to get the best out of it ... and there is always this "kemper flavour" but as long as the sound overall does its job and fits in the mix i do not care too much

    I think your approach is very good. That's what I also try to do most of the time; it's a fine balance, I agree.

    Quote from michaelmellner

    sorry I'm OT but I like this sound a lot...what did you use? again...sorry for the off topic...

    Hey :) Thanks, I'm glad you like it, it is a profile of just the poweramp of my Victory Kraken D.I. and i added my Orange ppc hp8 cab to it and in front of the Kemper is the HBE Big D Distortion pedal

    Because of course, one's audience is completely dependant upon every single amp nuance :) I've never witnessed a punter walk out of a gig because of such trivial matters... However, I HAVE seen a few punters walk out because the the backline was too loud..


    It's beginning to seem a lot like the "Emperors New Clothes" are fading and the inevitable backlash is starting..


    Stop comparing and start gigging.. Only then can a PROPER comparison be made IMHOOC :)