Posts by creative360

Bias knob would be great. Since it’s what many of us already know.

I can understand the “moving on” mentality, freeing-up space physically and emotionally . But for me the Kemper has been at least amp-like, with so many nuanced tones I’ve created over many years, and from amps I’ll never meet again, and even because things like this fuzz are so specific to the device. And since it earned its cost back within days of owning it so many years ago, I kinda hope whatever else I experiment with, that I don’t let it go. No plans to. And if CK & Co do introduce a newer unit with compelling advantages that I could migrate these tones to, yeah I’d be down with that too. Sorry the QC sounds good but it just doesn’t seem so ”pro” yet. I love the Neural plugs as well, but there too, there are certain limitations that don’t allow for quite the granular control I need at times. Kemper is a great balance between easy peasy and deep deep. ymmv

What an amazing, even game-changing update!

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Dude is trying to make a living, and have some fun doing it. His business model, giving away a bunch of free stuff, is also kinda nice. I own some but I don’t use ‘em, but I don’t see a problem with him being him. I’m seeing people here and on TGP criticize how he looks and what his voice sounds like—really!?—and it reminds me of when people who didn’t own Kempers would criticize CK’s “personality” and second-guess his business decisions etc. etc. You really can’t win on the internet, but it still surprises me every time.

Some people simply don't want their personal/proprietary core tones managed through and living on a corporate database. For people who are in to the cloud, the sharing, the tones living on Neural DSP's servers, no one is judging you for that. But it seems like the people who are fine with all that can't seem to let anyone else have a different perspective about it. Not sure why, because there are several obvious negative ways of looking at it that make perfect sense and will keep a lot of pros and producers off of the platform. Again, cheers to those who are all in.

There are several documented examples of serious musicians and producers who are proponents of one or the other of each of the three types of profiles. And that includes the original studio profiles which are often magical little things. Yes it’s a guess by the device, but many studio profiles sound absolutely killer through guitar cabinets with the profile’s cab block turned off (and the full profile sent to foh).

There’s accuracy, then there’s all those novel amp parameters that truly extend creative freedom, and the brilliant global tone stack (versus modeling) but finally there’s simply great tone. And none of this, not even tone, is important when it exists outside of a cool piece of music. But in the right context the Kemper has proven itself over and over again for a decade. At a certain point—like from the get go really—all the hairsplitting on the forums ceases to matter and it’s all about making art.

CK & Co made a concerted effort on one hand, to respect a host of physical and auditory traditions among professional guitarists and their road crews, and at the same time on the other hand, to gently push the boundaries in terms of what each of us could ask of our amplifiers, sonically, and present new tools and ways of thinking about achieving those sounds. I’d call that a legendary contribution.

That cool, new little shiny QC is the brainchild of a very different thinking group of talented, stubborn programmers and sound designers. It’s amazing that they’re out there fighting the good fight. I don’t know enough about the machine to estimate exactly what truly novel elements they’re introducing (accurate or not Capture is not novel, obviously) but I’m psyched that they’re out there and I’m looking forward to hearing what may result from their efforts.

I like the stripped down elegance and simplicity of their plug-ins and they’re clearly attempting to bring that approach to a hardware device.

Regarding “pro” features they seem committed to decisions that give many pause. But again, using an atypical connection or sort of forcing the market forward a bit, however exasperating it is to many, hasn’t hurt Apple.

Oh just a final point. In terms of “professional“ opinions, to a man, all of the endorsees touting at this moment the QC (and in the past the Kemper and other devices) all still choose their tube amp setups when given any choice. That’s why people make lists—Pat Matheny Mark Knopfler Lionel Loueke—when discussing guitarists who have “gone digital”.

I love it, you love it, but it is by no means the number one approach used to get it done, even in 2021.

I don’t hear anyone arguing in this thread, except where some people (not moderators) seem to believe that they’re in a position to dictate what others write about, and then to dismiss those concerns and the people who voice them with name-calling if those posts don’t feed some blurry concept of what they think a thread about a product that NOT A SINGLE PERSON HERE HAS EVER HELD IN HIS OWN HANDS should read like.

I‘m seeing musicians, several of whom are satisfied owners of multiple digital guitar platforms, who are taking issue with a social-media-style opt-in-only approach to creating and saving personal tones, and maybe some others who are dismayed by the leave-no-doubt commercialization of some of their heretofore favorite theoretically “impartial” influencers.

Anyone who’s been around the Kemper forum for years knows that pretty much everyone who has posted a bunch has at least posted a bunch of “wishes“ or complaints along the way. Live and let live. Some of those wishes have come true, and some of those musicians have moved on to other gear.

It seems as if in this moment, expressing any opinions other than “yay NDSP” now equals hater? I guess that’s the third thing that several people have noted about the rollout of this device. There’s a lot of bullying going on.

For anyone taking issue with the nature of this thread, just read a handful of pages from the one on TGP and you’ll get a taste of something truly special. It all reeks of the energy surrounding one of those other brands in the early days, but to the nth degree. And some of these folks are actually running back to TGP and reporting that the “Kemper Guys” are all upset?

Hahaha. What’s a Kemper guy!?!? Is that a musician who actually uses gear that exists? Today? For the purpose of making music?

Question: will everyone who plays frigid outdoor gigs need to wear special smartphone gloves in order to operate their QC touchscreens?

Unless NDSP is different than every other company with a silicon valley start-up mentality and delusions about its centrality in the role of the lives of its customers, then a walled garden—which is always spun as a benefit to its members—is a data mining portal and proprietary tech protection system that also enables marketing streams and monetization on multiple levels. And however it’s been sold-in, it’s all created primarily for the benefit of the corporation itself.

It’s an elegant solution from the standpoint of a paranoid corporation. Again, the CEO referencing Instagram several times as his model .. well, beyond delusional it also suggests that all the constant IP and privacy snafus endemic to that “elegant” platform are also an afterthought here. We all use it, but with the freedom to use it selectively.

Sure, there’s potential convenience in using a cloud, but only as an option. There are simply too many professional scenarios where that system won’t fly, and shouldn’t have to. And there will obviously be instances of the creation of tones and captures that for whatever reason—probably because those sounds are integral to new copyrighted creative projects—that an artist will simply not want to have his work and workflow processed through the clearinghouse of a third-party cloud app that’s sucking timestamps and all sorts of other data from the file for an ever-growing portrait of the private practices of its user base.

There are tons of absolutely amazing KPA profiles created by artists we all love in legendary studios that will never see the *public* light of day (other than on recordings and tours). The rig exchange is cool, and free rig manager profile packs are very cool, and commercial packs can be amazing. But there’s also something really great about a Kemper being able to exist on its own unique plane, filled with wholly original tones created by a musician who has purchased the device outright for his own use. Just like every other amp that any of us has ever owned.

Hey at the moment this is something that can’t even be addressed on TGP without a surly pile-on from forum newbies, or an exasperated dismissal from the CEO himself, but it’s relevant. It has nothing to do with luddites versus futurists. The most vocal critics of the pitfalls of these types of closed systems are the very architects who invented them. Ultimately, you can’t fault a CEO for accepting the windfall financial benefits, even from the purchases of a mob of devotees, but that thread over there, and his association with it, will most definitely leave a lasting bad taste association to his products among levelheaded, brand-agnostic musicians who would otherwise be interested in his products.

ymmv

PS there’s rarely an upside to posting on guitar forums and so I usually go back and delete what I’ve written. Sorry. Again, ymmv.

• Any suggestion that Kemper spent ten years refining the quality of its amp tones is incorrect. In late 2012, it sounded fabulous—hence its wildly fast adoption among pros. And to the company’s credit, despite years of incremental advances in conveniences and in internal effects, the tones that sounded great back then sound essentially identical today. So no, today’s KPA is not a completely different animal than the one released way back when.

• Periodically, Kemper announces complimentary profile packs. Some are simply commercial vendors sharing a taste of their wares, and others are designed specifically as free packs in collaboration with artists. Either way, at this point pretty much anyone can find what he needs in the rig manager, without ever surfing the exchange or purchasing commercial packs. The fact that the company hasn’t itself monetized device add-ons is important to me. I love the plug-ins that UAD creates and own pretty much everything they’ve released, but the prospect of turning on my guitar amp and seeing an a la carte menu of features I have to purchase in order to use is a turn-off.

• I always become excited about the latest form factors and functionalities and do lust a bit for these new products. Inevitably, at least thus far, my infatuations pass. This is not a judgment about what those new products ultimately turn out to be. It has more to do with that what I already own, the KPA, continues to deliver what I need. If it didn’t, sure my investigations for alternatives might take on a greater urgency.

ymmv

(All this from a guy who is rooting for the QC to be great, but who is also finding the roll-out and much of the surrounding related discourse a bit yucky.)

PS

I have always wished that this forum offered a “delete post” option. Sometimes I write things that sure I do stand by, but that don’t necessarily need to live on forever on the internet.

I love the Kemper, obviously. I understand what people refer to as a cocked wah phenomenon. It’s a nasally mid-rangey thing. It doesn’t reveal itself consistently in the profiles where I’ve noticed it—and I’m talking about respected, commercial profiles of clean and edge of breakup amps that I have tweaked extensively. Hence I believe it's the result of certain sets of (user designated) variables across (arguably too many) stomps and eq’s, as CK suggests. Or it may be the result of failing to refine some of the amp parameters if in fact gain stage “abnormalities” are inherent in a particular (especially modern, hi-gain) rig being profiled.

Sorry I’m just not one to stop and analyze my rigs to clarify, since it’s not a problem. It has never appeared on a recording. I’ve noticed it now and again since forever, but when it occurs, for whatever reason I don’t mind, and since it happens intermittently, I have to believe it has more to do with extended parameters that weren’t available to us in the analog realm (again, that’s on the user not the tool). Ymmv, as this is coming from a guy who actually used both a cocked wah and a pedal that simulates one for years.

One parallel may be in PhotoShop and digital images, where levels of color saturation and hue were suddenly on tap that had never been achievable with film. Theoretically that’s a good thing, but film had already “automated” color science. The new extended parameters were a fantastic development, but they also resulted in a generation or two or three of images with wonky color. User error.

One of the reasons that guitarists who are experienced with gigging Fender Deluxe Reverbs and Marshall 50watt heads respond to MBritt and Bert M profiles is because those guys have been chasing tones meant to fit in mixes for decades. They’re not creating cartoon tones for bedroom fantasists. They’re using their experienced ears to get at good old normal guitar sounds. They’re not exploiting the extreme settings of the device simply because they’re there. That may bore some people, but it’s incredibly useful for a lot of us.

Anyway, I quote Ingolf because yes, the tenor of this whole QC device rollout has a bit of that historically [Fractal] bloodthirsty “us versus them take no prisoners by any means necessary” vibe that for whatever reason—ethics, decency?— Line 6 and Kemper were always able to sidestep no matter how much the fanboys (and competing ceos) goaded them in to a fight.

No doubt CK can play hardball. What successful entrepreneur can’t? But no, there’s no documented history of snark and deceit and acrimony coming from his camp.

And for people who say let’s talk about the QC not reviews and influencers, at this point that’s all there is. And yeah, however appealing the potential is for the new device, its introduction most definitely leaves a bad taste.

Quote from Ingolf

........And this also cast a bad light onto NDSP.

If I were CEO there I'd have forbidden any comparative advertisement pre-sale when done so badly, because it is so uncool and un-classy. I'd have insisted to let the unit speak for itself. Instead we see all half-assed downplaying of the contender.

How embarrassing! In NDSP's shoes I'd already feel a certain degree of external shame right now.

We have to assume that Mark Knopfler got pretty close to his preferred personal amplifier tones or he would not have toured with the Kemper. With all due respect, my top line gear decisions have always been made on the basis of how that equipment is put to use by beloved artists, not by internet influencers.

Anyway my guess is that only a tiny percentage of KPA users actually exploit the profiling feature on their own. And for ten years Kemper devotees have been listening to the rest of the internet malign the very nature of profiling (versus modeling).

The number one complaint has always been that there is no authentic recreation of the actual amp controls (component modeling etc.), that it’s only a snapshot. And yet now that same internet is going berserk over a new iteration of the profiling concept, but one that offers way less post-capture sculpting capabilities.

The Quad Cortex may offer an accurate capture, but my prediction is that all these people heralding that capability won’t even be using it once they own the device. They’ll be buying packs from Michael Britt and Tone Junkie and Bert M. I’m not a betting man, but I’m inclined to think that at least some of those fantastic commercial QC packs will be comprised of captures of, you got it, Kemper profiles.

Historically CK has mostly been pretty cagey about what‘s going on in his profiling process. We already know it’s a scrappy approach, incorporating a repurposed language and beyond clever economy. What else do we really need?

The thing is, CK marketed the magic of the Kemper. The science was besides the point. Ndsp promoted the science, and so yeah I guess for some people being able to discern whether or not that aspect of it is complete bs or not is valid.

That said, CK has a lot more in common with the CEO of Neural than he does with any one of us Kemper users. Doug Castro could learn a lot from him. Innovation and creativity is one thing: producing a hit(s), managing international retail relationships, and keeping the pipeline stocked with product, all while overcoming the predictably unpredictable nightmare manufacture snafus, that’s another thing altogether.

And hey while I like that recently CK seems more interested in participating in the discourse, and relatively relaxed about fielding opposing points of view, him staying completely out of the fray for years, especially on TGP—except in particularly extenuating circumstances—was also its own kind of gift to the community, by promoting the autonomy of the people interested in discussing his products.

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The Quad Cortex is cool. Accurate or not, I like several tones that I’ve heard. A tiny, excellent-sounding, easy to navigate device holds great appeal. I could probably put one to good use.

Shrug. I still fail to see the necessity to chase new gear. My ancient powered Kemper is sounding better than ever—I mean it’s delivering truly great mission-critical, inspiring tones. It’s been a reliable, beloved amp that neither my career nor my creativity have outgrown. The recent drive update is great. I’m looking forward to further developments there, as well as the aforementioned master fuzz stomp.

Typical of the internet: legions of “Profiling” and “Snapshot” ‘s most vocal detractors are now all frothing and fevered about “Capture”, a seemingly more primitive implementation of a nearly identical technology. If you couldn’t mic an amp before, your Captures won’t be any better than your Profiles. I’m not saying they haven’t solved certain “issues” that some may have with the KPA. But like anything else, the new device will obviously introduce issues of its own.

Whatever. The QC will be or already is popular (and I’m hoping that it deserves to be). Regarding the Kemper, I always go on and on about how Kemper melds innovation and market domination across decades (while also seeming to have fun doing so). But in comparison, Kemper’s most noble innovation may be that he sidestepped monetizing profiles and instead created an ecosystem where third-party businesses could profit by expanding the Kemper library of tones. Kemper commands a premium for his products, but it never feels as if he’s trying to stick it to his customers both coming and going. Again instead, he and his team continue to offer free tones, and more importantly, further device functionality through complimentary updates.

Here finally—sorry—is why I was inspired to comment: There are already signs that Neural DSP will build paid “in app (device)” development in to their business model. Yuck. After a decade of getting Kemper’s “all” for free, as well as many of the greatest commercial profile packs for $10 and $15, the idea of a company charging a la carte along the way for “their best” or for “added value” feels a bit gross, almost like a betrayal before even selling the thing. Kemper and Line 6 make surviving in the major retail hardware sales universe seem easy, but striking that balance that ultimately engenders customer loyalty is actually a pretty rare thing, especially for big ticket items. Good luck to Neural. Don’t be evil.

Morph is fabulous and easy. The prospect of "doubling" its reach is in itself badass. Including the user base in the discourse about what this extended functionality will look like is cool and generous.

One guitarist's hypothetical dream features and novel usage scenarios shouldn't negate the potential for a different approach by another. Hopefully CK & Co at least begin the process of this latest innovation by using music and the hurdles of guitarists in "traditional" live and recording situations as the driving force behind their team's coding decisions.

Just like the Kemper itself, the morph feature means one thing to one guitarist and something entirely different to the next. Therein lies the genius of the device. For starters, the simple option to divvy morph parameters up across two pedals versus one will be a great advance.

Looking forward.

It's true that lots of famous Klon users use more of the gain than the typical "prescription" many of us are always evangelizing about. I've really only ever used first a Klon and then several klones with the gain set to almost nothing, ten o'clock at most, tone to taste, and output as boost. It's an amazing circuit and whatever anyone wants to say, plenty of great guitarists have stuck to it religiously for decades. But again, my boost implementation isn't all the pedal is about for everyone.

I just wanna throw out there that regardless of anyone being “in denial“ or not, the owner of the company is here, in the discussion, attempting to incorporate every possible bit of information, i.e. the request for backups etc., into the team’s analysis of this subject. While I’m guessing after a long period of development he and his team would love this to be done, again he is here.

Historically, a defensive posture doesn’t necessarily equate to a resistance to hearing about and then addressing substantiated issues with coding updates. Ultimately this company has built its reputation among professionals first and then among a broader base. If there’s something here, I’m guessing regardless of any perceived “tone“ in response that this is something Kemper is deeply invested in fixing.

Maybe the frustrated parties will understand that changes that impact thousands of users will be implemented only after serious deliberation.