Neural Quad Cortex

  • Little OT here but sometimes good to reflect:

    Does anybody know a species that is as complicated as guitarists?

    Never ever 8o ...but all good with that as long as there is no bashing of others with another opinion, taste or preference. I really like the often heard saying here in this forum: If it sounds good for you then it is good!

  • I became sloppy in my conversations during this covid lockdown..at least my girl friend says so..


    Anyway..when I say 15-25...I mean plug ins!Laptop.Smartphone/tablet.


    In any case your observations are correct except one point:


    Guitar is still a cool instrument.Most kids of my friends,relatives e5c have one.I mean a electric guitar.Where ever I go..one is standing there somewhere in the kids corner..


    And why not.They have become so cheap,so good,you can buy them in the big discounters.Bring it to some experienced player who will do the set up...voila..


    Duncan I have read some very interesting and very,very shocking articles,surveys which say music in general is just not that important for kids anymore as "news messenger".What clothing,how about first relations,friendship,what is hip,how do you talk how is your relations with their parents and how do you grow up..etc..blabla..


    All this has been taken over by "social media".


    Do I believe all this?


    Yes I do.I have to.As shocking and awful this sounds to me.


    Music is just a byproduct now,not the "ce ter" of youth culture"..now its "showing skillz".Like doing tricks with dancing or bycicle sports.


    Ofcourse not all kids.Not so surprisingly most of these "guitar influencers" and most of all "skilled ones" like Tom Quayle or Matteo Mancuso come from families which are heavily involved in music.

    And this will not change. When you have music and instruments all around you from the moment you are born...combined with all today's youtube,internet information and easy access to greatest gear for little money..this is good..


    So I dont worry for music anymore like I did some time ago.Love for music will continue and will remain in good hands.


    Anyway..


    The quad cortex is damn expensive.As is the kemper and ofcourse the fractal stuff.


    This is only for musicians which "take it very seriously".Ofcourse there are a lot of people who can afford to buy their kids a kemper just for fun..but..ya know..


    What do I want to say...I conclude:

    Small tube rigs,small pedal boards(with nice sounding,colorful pedals) and plugins for recording.

    This is what we will see in the next time.I guess cheap modelers will disappear in some years as plug

    ins get better and better leaving only "more expensive hardware /modelers/interfaces" on the market.Which are for working musicians who need all this we talked about so many times..

  • These vids are promotions.For kids.


    Sorry to be that rough.


    But as soon as this tool will appear we will learn about it.I cant take any of these promotions serious since it it obvious that some if these guys "hide shortcomings".Thus is my opinion.


    If it is good..we will see on the "battlefield"..of recording in serious studios and on stage with the big names touring it.If they do.


    Everything else is just hysterical bullshit..again sorry but I am a little fed up with this hilarious hype.

  • With this I agree 100%.

  • Again I go back to reviewers like Mack from Worthabuy for videogames. He's universally hated by the games companies because he doesn't take their coin to write biased reviews. He purchases the games himself so he can look at the game from the view of a customer and not a reviewer handed a freebie or a perk. He even goes so far as to repeatedly state this on his own videos time and time again that he doesn't get paid to review games so he's giving you his unvarnished unbiased opinion that may or may not offend fanboys.

    When reviewers for musical gear do the same, I will pay attention but not until then, no matter how good or bad a piece of equipment is.

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  • They are entertaining and informative in terms of what the unit can do. I'm sure most of us can look past the hype and make some kind of judgement based on the sound alone.


    I always prefer when the review plays some riffs or chords, as that is easier to judge. Amazing lead players just make anything sound good.

    Karl


    Kemper Rack OS 9.0.5 - Mac OS X 12.6.7

  • I bought an HX Stomp in addition to my Kemper and it shows you can get great tones from any of these devices if you are patient.


    The best point of QC is that it brings every idea of modelling to one place. The real downer is the power supply and I would prefer a rack version.

    Agreed, all the main digital solutions are now so good that if they sound bad it is the user not the gear that is the problem.


    Also agree that a wall wart power supply has no place on pro level stage gear. In the studio or bedroom the wall wart isn't an issue. So it seems strange for the apparent target market of a pedal board form factor.


    There will likely be people (like a lot of the Worship guys) that use it with a massive traditional pedal board though. In this situation it would be getting powered from a decent isolated power brick anyway so the wall wart won't be used.


    Maybe they have done their research and know their market better than us. Bedroom players, home studios, pro/semi pro studios, live on a bigger board.... If so, the number of people who are like us and would want a robust all in one solution that only needs a IEC connection is probably a minority of the target audience.

  • The biggest benefit I see would be the ability to run multiple amps at once.


    For live work for me it would be too hard to adjust on the fly like I do with my toasters ( although I guess no different from the Kemper Stage )

  • Mr. Kemper was always saying that there is no "Kemper signature tone" that is kinda added in profiling and that no one ever could bring proof or examples for the "cocked wah sound", so that he could have a deeper look what is going on. Here it is in Rabeas video.

    Or what is the explanation?

    I believe that everyone of you would be able to push those profiles to perfection easily in a minute or two, so much closer than in the videos.


    This has been done thousands of times by musicians creating profiles for their concert tours or recordings, and professional profile makers.

    For sure we get calls from the pro's that e.g. a certain amp is troublesome to profile, or that a combination of an amp with a certain overdrive pedal cannot be profiled.

    However, we have never got a message from pro's about a profilers negative signature sound, or a cocked wah problem.

    No videos on Youtube in the past about such phenomenons, but numerous "can you tell the difference" comparison videos such as the famous Andertons "Can Kemper save Chappers" (and Rabea) video.

    However, we take said reports seriously and we are trying to pursue it, as mentioned.


    When Profiling was developed, we have decided to give it an interactive aspect. That is, the user is asked to refine the Profile if needed by playing his guitar dynamics and the machine listens to it.

    The Refining is made for polishing minor differences as well as an option to get sound issues under control of difficult situations that we cannot anticipate from the distance.

    When you refine, then you will instinctively check the result and refine again a few times.

    We offer numerous controls to adjust the sound of the amp. While most of them are optional and not crucial for a profiling result, checking the Tube Shape is recommended after profiling, as it turns the flavor of the amp from a softer and more compressed sound towards an open and glassy sound. This works with every Profile that you have on your machine, even afterwards!

    This all takes a few minutes only, should be fun and it's not a science at all.


    The Soldano SLO and the Kraken (presumably, I have never tried it) are easiy to profile and to refine.

    The sounds in the videos are subpar still, they were not refined in the right direction, as you guys would instinctively do.

    To much bass, the sound is not balanced at all.

    Rabea mentioned having boosted some volume before refining the Kraken.

    No palm mutes were played when refining the SLO. If it was for authentic profiles, you would not just stop after a few seconds but check again.


    While we saw the interactive profiling and the amp parameters as a chance for achieving the best profiling results, it now seems to be a burden for those that have a different dedication.

    Maybe it's time to rethink our approach.



    PS: Profiling with a power soak or a speaker simulator is no problem.

  • The biggest benefit I see would be the ability to run multiple amps at once.

    Me too.


    The Kemper is a very well thought out device. As a user since 2014 I'm still super impressed with the sounds I can get out of this thing. The delays and reverbs will be hard to give up, they are to my ears on par with expensive studio hardware.


    The QC gets the form factor right, and as mentioned the possibilty to run several amps at once. I have done this by reamping mulitple times with the Kemper up to this point. The UI is also interesting. I would really miss SPDIF functionality. I think that's a no brainer with a digital device.

  • ckemper thanks you for your valuable input as always. I always value your insight and knowledge as I am sure others do.


    PS: Profiling with a power soak or a speaker simulator is no problem.

    You might want to update this section of the manual then ;)



    KEMPER PROFILER Main Manual 7.5

    Why do I need my guitar cabinet when I want to capture a PROFILE without a cabinet?

    It's true, the sound of the speaker will not be captured in this case, but the complex impedance behavior of the speaker is still needed to create those oft-mentioned interactions between the power tube amp and the connected guitar cabinet. The DI box will ensure that there are real-life interactions for the PROFILING process to capture. Later, when the PROFILE is played back through the built-in Class D power amp, or an external solid-state power amp, it will recreate the same impedance situation to that of the connected guitar cabinet. This is the key to making our built-in power amp sound like a tube power amp.


    For this reason, we recommend that you don't use any kind of power-soaks or power-attenuators, either as a substitute for, or in addition to, the DI box and true speaker. Those devices work mostly with simple resistors, which might inhibit the desired impedance interactions, thereby resulting in an inauthentic PROFILE.


  • That part of the profiling manual is for when you want to capture DA or Merged profiles, accurately separating the cabinet from pre- and power amp. Rabea was only trying to capture a Studio profile, so it didn’t apply.

  • No palm mutes were played when refining the SLO. If it was for authentic profiles, you would not just stop after a few seconds but check again.

    So palm muting while refining would have tamed low end content?

    Karl


    Kemper Rack OS 9.0.5 - Mac OS X 12.6.7

  • For this reason, we recommend that you don't use any kind of power-soaks or power-attenuators, either as a substitute for, or in addition to, the DI box and true speaker. Those devices work mostly with simple resistors, which might inhibit the desired impedance interactions, thereby resulting in an inauthentic PROFILE.


    I was sure I wasn't making that up ckemper, I'm guessing it's ok to profile in this manner but I'd be correct in saying it's sub optimal?

  • @CK


    I still believe you dont need to explain anything.The people using your KPA on their world tours speak for themselves.


    Anyway.


    It is sad to see what YouTube reviews have become.This is not bashing anyone.But I will say only this and only this as a classical example knowing the answers as "but they solved it with the scenes"..


    Not mentioning the volume drop during changing presets SHOULD be mentioned anyway.It IS a serious shortcoming for many reasons and many people working with modelers on a high level will tell you why..


    In any case..this somple example shows what serious reviews SHOULD be about and what we had here in reality.


    Again..this is only one example.I will keep the rest for me about what I saw in these promos..I dont need to expose anyone.This is not my job.


    Peace.

  • While we saw the interactive profiling and the amp parameters as a chance for achieving the best profiling results, it now seems to be a burden for those that have a different dedication.

    Maybe it's time to rethink our approach.

    Thanks for your input ckemper. As always, very informative and valuable.

    So if you ever do rethink your approach, please do it in an incremental manner? Maybe keep the actual profiling process as is, and then add a "key in the hand" option for those who would like a non-interactive profiling process?

  • If they truly have machine learnining in their process, they also do the same as refining, just in another sense. The sequence sent for almost 3 minutes straight is a set sequences that tries to feed the learning modules so the networks are adjusted towards the actual output vs the expected. A non invasive way to do refining yould be a "refining sequence that explores all the difficult transient and dynamic characteristics, multiple times, so the profile compares back and forward. You hit a button, and wait a minute for the sequence to complete (maybe the results wont be as good, but it might be a more homogeneus method than refining). Just pleaaase, do not ever remove the old refining method, all my favorite profiles turned spot on after refining.


    If anyone ask me, its just the "new guys" and the media suddenly talking about a "cocked wah" sound in the kemper, never heard that, and also had a debate about the "signature kemper tone" and we came to the conclusion most people confuses their rig or frfr tone with "kemper signature tone". Its silly....

    The answer is 42

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    If anyone ask me, its just the "new guys" and the media suddenly talking about a "cocked wah" sound in the kemper, never heard that,

    the cocked wah issue has been around a long time. Just Google it. There are many kemper forum threads on it dating back 8+ years and it is there.

    I would describe it as an eq difference that's all.

    It would be nice if the guitar wasn't part of the equation for the profiling. Some sort of loopback device you plug in would be better that doesn't take into account the guitar being used.

    Edited 6 times, last by dean701 ().

  • Just wondering - it's taken 10+ years for someone to employ similar tech to the Kemper for profiling an amp. There are profile "players"such as THU already.

    Break-throughs seem to snowball rapidly in tech, wonder now how long it will take someone like Line 6 to bring their own "improved" version of the QC profiler to the table?