Paid Profile sharing

  • You paid $2k for the Kemper ...you (or anyone) can't afford $5-$10 for a profile?


    I feel the same way about the profiles that I do about music. Sure, you can steal it for free...but for the price of a latte' or two, you can buy it and support the artist, ensuring that they'll continue to make new music (or profiles).

  • Exactly, so the reasonable price (around $1 per song) acts as a foil to the temptation to steal.


    That was the point I made earlier, and the drop from, in my country at least, $25 or more for a CD album to 10 bucks from iTunes would've prevented many a potential thief from giving in to the temptation. IMHO.

  • Why are people saying profiles are expensive? Try buying a Dumble...that's expensive.

    When I bought the powered toaster, my first thought was, "$2400? Are you kidding me? " Then I started looking around and realized that in many cases, 100 watt heads were going for $2000 - $4000. And that's before you get anywhere near something crazy like a Dumble.


    Okay, so the price of the head is comparable to others. Fair enough. But wait, there are commercial profile packs, and I have to pay money for them?


    There are 13,000 free profiles on the Rig Manager, but I figured the best way to see what this galaxy class starship can do would be to buy some stuff from professionals who were really good at profiling. So, I tried a pack of high gain sounds from a well regarded profiler. It was $40. The quality was excellent. But still, it's a digital product, and I had to pay the guy 40 bucks for it. On top of what I paid for the Kemper!


    I decided to do the math on it. Here's a list of the amps that were profiled, and what it would cost me to buy each one today. Not counting the speaker cabinets, or the mics, or the hourly rate from a guy who clearly knows his way around a recording studio and guitar amps. Just the heads.


    Friedman BE-50 Deluxe - $5,000

    Soldano SLO 100 - $5,000

    Mesa Stiletto - $800

    Marshall DSL 40C - $500

    EVH 5150 III 50 - $1000

    EVH 5150 III 100 - $1,800

    ’78 Marshall JMP 100 Super Lead - $1,700

    Bogner Shiva - $2,500

    Carvin Legacy V3 - $600


    That comes out to $18,900. I paid $40.


    And of course, this is just an example from one profiler. The math is going to look very similar with any of these guys.


    Now in fairness, I don't get every position of every knob on every amp in the profiles I paid for. However, if I wanted to get the sounds I paid for, that's what I'd have to pay for the amps. And frankly, part of what I was paying for was the expertise to get the most out of these amps, so I don't want every knob position anyway.


    Because I'd just purchased the Kemper and wanted to get it loaded up with a good selection, and it was the Black Friday weekend, I splurged and ended up spending several hundred dollars on profile packs from a number of vendors. Based on the simple analysis above, it wouldn't surprise me if it came out to a quarter million dollars worth of amplifier inventory. At any rate, it would easily exceed $100,000. I spent $500.


    Expensive? This is the best bang for the buck I think I've ever seen.


    There's also a very practical reason for wanting to pay these guys rather than try to find a way to pirate them. I want them to stay in business so that the next time I want to get the sounds from the latest Hot New Amp, they'll still be around and offering this kind of insane value. If I don't pay them, or enough people rip them off, they'll quit doing it. Then I'd have to buy the amps and figure out how to get the sounds myself. Screw that. :)

    Kemper remote -> Powered toaster -> Yamaha DXR-10

    Edited once, last by Chris Duncan ().


  • Gonna have to add to your post Chris- 100% agree.


    I needed a specific amp for one of our songs - and it's no longer in production. In fact, it hasn't been in production in 30 years. It was rare to begin with- getting one now, getting it working, setting it up... my time is also valuable. So this profile saved me more than just the cost of the amp.


    I'm sure thousands of us are in the same boat.


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.

  • Anyway, if you don't like purchasing professional profiles, Kemper provide sets as part of the purchase of the Kemper and a lot of them are quite excellent. I am addicted to GB Engle Powerfall II. It's a killer profile and I stumbled across it when I was looking through the rig packs in rig manager and I can't stop playing it. Of course in order for this profile to even exist must have required a lot of investment by the profiler in question I'd imagine. The amp, cab and mics costing a bucket load of cash, not to mention the expertise in capturing the signal chain which itself is priceless. All of that is possible because of the professional profile business model which, I for one, am more than happy to support as the value is there in spades.

  • Good bad right wrong political capitalistic ethical whatever ... Most of these commercial profile purchases are just simple agreements made with a single individual .. usually another musician.


    By making the purchase we are accepting the terms set forth up front by a fellow musician. OP can justify it any way he likes, but if he’s not honoring those agreements then the only ethical conundrum here is why he made the purchase in the first place, and why he believes that that deceit is okay.


    Regarding amp manufacturers, that’s the profiler’s not the end-user’s problem. Ultimately the advent of digital creative processes has forced the manufacturers of legacy analog equipment to rethink their positions in the music creation spectrum and there are business model implications that go along with these changes.


    But it’s not all bad. I would argue that Kemper, as a tone archive device, accurate and with an ungoverned, open-ended palette, is a fantastic advertisement for the endless combinations of components that it emulates. And amps are still very popular, like the vintage-inspired studio stuff, even experiencing a bit of a rebirth of its own. Expensive though.

  • I've seen when others sell their kemper they sell it with the included commercial profiles and sometimes tell which vendors profiles that are included. I will never sell my kemper and I've paid for the profiles I use and why should I give away them for free to anyone else? No way!

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

  • Early days I sold my powered rack on the TGP emporium when I got a powered toaster. I wiped it clean first, didn’t include anything. It was in near-mint condition and the buyer loved it. The manufacturer immediately transferred the remainder of the warranty. Those used ads irk me; it’s as if those sellers think that because they don’t plan to use the Kemper anymore that it’s okay to betray their commitment to the commercial profilers. And anyway everyone assumes that they’ll hang on to copies of all that paid stuff and if they ever buy another Kemper they’ll load’m right up. So it’s not cool and it’s also a bad look.

  • Definitely not cool, its software piracy so apply common sense, don't do it because you wouldn't want someone to do it to you. But I'm not pro commercial profiles either - I feel they betray the community spirit and prey on newbies insecurities.

    I see no problem with people selling their profiler along with all the profiles they've purchased if they think it'll up the value of their sale. After all they have invested however much in these commercial profiles, they're not going to be able to use them anymore as the Kemper is a hardware dongle. Sure there's the possibility that they buy a new Kemper in the future, but quite honestly if there's one pattern you'll have noticed on social media and the forums, it's that the kinds of people buying a tonne of profiles then selling the Kemper are the kinds of people searching for something that they didn't find with the Kemper and they're really not likely to be back. They're stuck in GAS, they think gear is the solution currently so let them go.