Posts by hoth

    My understanding is there's really no issue profiling a clean Amp you will get a very good profile
    its when you remove the cab that most will all sound the same.
    Most of the character of of the profile of a clean amp seem to be in the Cab.


    That was my understanding too. I think the point is not that all the KPA cleans sound the same because the preamp sounds the same, but that the foundational dynamics of the clean amps will be similar. On top of that are layered some additional dynamics differences from the poweramp interaction and then eq'ing in the cab section. So it would be a problem for those going into a traditional poweramp+cab as removing the cab in the profile you would lose the changes from the default preset, but it should be fine for those using FRFR.

    Just uploaded my attempt at a big ENGL 456 amp. Capturing your favorite sounds for perpetuity is fun. Hope you like it.

    Thanks so much for this profile! I really like these. The H&K 18 reminds me of a modern Marshall that has been tuned properly. The lead has a really good mix of distortion, quack and sustain. Keep 'em coming... :)

    I have now hit my one month point with the KPA and thought I would share some of my thoughts. Not that these mean anything to anyone but me, but I am enjoying being a part of this community and think there is tremendous potential in this great group of folks here. I will stick to the most significant good and "to be improved" points in my estimation. I have owned and used professionally just about every modeler out there so I have just enough experience in this area to be dangerous ;-).


    The Good:


    1. Now that I know how to dial in my FRFR and have a much better feel for the KPA, it's hard not to get a good sound of this box. Now I didn't say great. To get a great sound depends on a) the profile, b) your understanding and the quality of your amplification, and c) your ability to (slightly) tweak the KPA parameters. If you have a good handle on each of these three things, I think you will be blown away by the KPA.


    2. When you get a good profile, the feel and dynamics are fantastic. Now I am not talking about the sound. I am talking about the reaction of the profile when you change your picking dynamics and when you play with the guitar's volume knob. In many of the profiles, I feel like I am really playing a tube amp and feel the push/pull of the amp.


    3. The UI is something different from what we have experienced in the past and shows that there was some real thinking put into how one interacts with the various parameters of the KPA. I really like how just about everything is accessible from the front panel and even deep editing parameters are only one or two button pushes away. Also, the really esoteric parameters that have little bang for the buck in tweaking are optimized and totally hidden from the user to keep the interaction straightforward and easy. The lights and colors are all there to make it easy to get an idea of the settings on a dark stage just by glancing at the box.


    4. There are a good number and types of effects and a flexible loop so that you can add to your basic sound just about whatever you would need.


    What can be improved:


    1. The most significant issue I have with the KPA are the effects. I do not feel that they are numerous enough or of high enough quality for me to be comfortable using. The delay is likely the best of the FX, but again, I would need additional options or presets. I use an outboard reverb and that I think is unfortunate in a box of this quality.


    2. The USB needs to be activated for more than just attaching a USB stick. For a box that costs $1,800+, there really needs to be more attention paid to this functionality. Even if you cannot use the KPA as an outboard audio device (which you should), you should be able to at least transfer profiles and do backups using the USB and/or network port. I have equipment that costs less than $100 that can do this.


    3. There must be an editor and a better on-device management system. With the number of profiles people go through, there just has to be a better method to organize, audition and use profiles. I know that this box is relatively new, but this is an aspect that really should have been thought through and addressed in development.


    4. I would hope that there would be better information about how to and what makes for a great profile. It seems that it's not just the mic'ing technique or the gear used. There seems to still be some magic that even the developers don't quite understand. The best recording engineers out there are not making the best profiles. So what is going on? This box is only as good as the profiles so whatever we can do to optimize those should be a priority.


    I have a number of other nigly annoyances or things that make me smile about the KPA but I will stop at these which are the most significant to me. I hope that these have helped in either giving kudos to what you already believe are the strengths of the KPA and should be recognized or are items that developers should really be focusing on. I have very much enjoyed the KPA and use it now as my primary guitar sound. That - to me - is the best praise that I can give it.


    I hope that the manufacturer keeps developing it aggressively and thank them and the users on this board for everything that they have done for me thus far.

    I didn't mean be careful in the sense that you are doing something wrong or there is some danger in switching cabs. I just meant that people are very quick to put Till's (or other) great cabs on anything and everything and that they should just recognize that a) the final profile may not be true to even to the preamp anymore; and b) you may get a more pronounced effect or a different effect than what you expected. That's all. Yes, as always, use your ears. But I am a big fan of knowing what's going on and I am not really into "secret sauce". Transparency in information is always a good thing.

    That is not a miracle.
    The cabinet will define the overall sound by 60 to 70% in my estimation.
    Even in the real world, when you use different amps with the same cab, you will achieve very similar sounds.
    One day at a profiling session we have managed to get absolutely the same sound from a Bogner and a Soldano, only by coincident, and of course using the same physical cabinet.
    They were absolutely indistinguishable.


    The effect of equal sounds that you were experiencing is not caused by the way the Profiler handles amps. It's the nature of amps.

    CK, again our sincere thanks for the time you are taking explaining this issue to us. But I think we have to be clear to people since I can very well see someone changing a clean profile's cab to another cab and getting unexpected results. Then this whole issue would come up again and someone could get up in arms about it. But although I understand what you are generally getting at, and agree that the cab is much of the final sound, it still should be made clear that the preamp is the same across all clean profiles and the preamp/cab division of sound is not exactly true to real life. As we already see people put Till's cabs on almost everything, they should know to be careful about doing so.

    It is true that on clean profiles a preset preamp is taken, as there is no distortion to detect.
    The profiler cannot create an appropriate preamp if no distortion reveals information about its sound.


    Unfortunately that information fell out of the manual in the writing process.


    CK

    I don't understand why this is so. A fender, vox, mesa will all have different clean sounds. If you are running a test signal through each of these clean preamps and modeling the output, wouldn't you get a different modeling response for each of the preamps? (Many thanks for you being on these forums and responding to our questions.)

    I actually think I get that same thing even on 1.0.7 sometimes. I thought that was the bug in 1.0.6 that was fixed. It is much better now, i.e., it is a much more rare occurrence but it still happens. I will be playing and suddenly the sound out of the mains goes to 0. I then turn the master knob a bit and it will show the level of wherever I was at but it's like starting the volume over from there.

    Hi guys,


    This is my second time around with the Kemper. I got one right when it first came out here in the states. At that time I returned it due to a combination of user error and not many user profiles to hear what this box can really do. After extensive testing with it and an Axe Fx II over the last month, I decided to keep the Kemper. What sold me is that the KPA makes it easy to get a great sound and I could pull a lot of money out of my Axe rig :) (which never hurts).


    After being a gigging musician and doing production and management work, I am happy to just settle in with some good tones at the end of the day - even if I don't have access to every last amp parameter. I will though miss the Axe's FX, however, I really didn't take advantage of the vast majority of them. t was waiting a bit for the next Axe firmware to come out which promised tone matching, but I decided that I was very happy with what the KPA does right now and I don't need anything else.


    That's my story. I look forward to becoming a contributing member here.


    Thanks!