Posts by OneEng1

Quote from AndySchick

Not necessarily, eq and volume are linked in my experience. For instance, making a guitar cut through the mix is generally more a matter of eq-ing (mids) than a matter of volume.

True; however, it is rare when an audience member comes up and says "I can't hear the guitar" ;). Still, to your point, what DOES happen is that the guitar is eq'd in too much of a scoop (no mids) that someone thought sounded good alone in the bedroom, but live with the band doesn't cut ..... so it gets turned up ..... resulting in the problem I described above. High stage noise.

Quote from V8guitar

Its funny because I think that getting the balance is the relatively easy part that most people can do. You can easily hear if drums are louder than the vocals...although don't get me started on why so many people get it wrong - its sometimes because the person doing it is a guitarist so makes the guitars more prominent ( same from drummer/singer/bass player obviously)! My point is, Joe Public can usually tell..

EQ-ing is about getting the sonic space right ( I think) which is where I would flounder and is more of an engineering background.

Of course the 2 are linked but volume is less of a mystery ( because its just up and down) but e.q, especially mids, I have trouble deciding...Does that make sense?

Lots of time, the problem with volumes is more insidious that meets the eye. Lets take the example where the guitarist stage volume is pretty high.

Microphones aren't smart devices, they simply amplify the sound they hear. If the guitar is louder at the singer's mic than the singer's voice is, guess what gets amplified more?

So you have this person at the mix board getting complaints that "I can't hear the singer" from the crowd. He pulls up the volume on the singer's mic and gets ...... more guitar and a little more singer. He keeps moving the slider up until he gets feedback .... then shrugs and says "That's all I can do".

High stage volume is where good band sound goes to die!

Now the REAL trick isn't getting a soundman that knows this, it is getting one that the band trusts enough to turn everything on stage down so the mix out front sounds good. It is my experience that IEM's make for a much better FOH sound and a much better musician monitoring solution that a stage full of loud monitors. Additionally, my IEM's are a butt ton lighter than any of my wedges :).

Here is my take:

The firmware will not make it possible for the UNIT to create better tones than it was CAPABLE of before the firmware update.

What it MAY do is allow a typical user of the Kemper to more easily create a better tone than they could before.

Lets take the gain example.

We have all seen what happens when you take a high gain profile and lower the gain to get just grit. It sounds ..... not great in many cases. Now, it can be made to sound great, but you have to play with EQ, Clarity, Definition, and a host of other settings to get there.

My guess is that with liquid profiles, if the real amp wouldn't have gotten muddy when you lowered the gain, then it will behave that way on the Kemper.

To me .... this is a big improvement.

Just one-man's opinion

Quote from Steve5478

In fact, at rehearsal, it's not the most important, we are in circle and can hear each other. We already have the equipment...

It was an example to show that even the music room's manager doesn't know how to tweak a mix table....

I used to do this, but found that the band members got used to looking at each other at practice. At gigs, everyone got messed up trying to look at the audience when they played and missed cues, and generally felt uncomfortable looking out away from the other band members.

I started practicing with the PA and floor plan setup like we gigged and things got much better. Any issues we had with monitoring or feedback got addressed at practice and there were few surprises at the gig (as we all know, there are always venues where SOMETHING really crazy goes on that no amount of planning can avoid ).

DXR10 is well loved, but your band will need subs with it. DXR12 with a DXS18 sub would be divine, but much bigger than the DXR10.

If you have no monitor for your guitar, you will find it difficult to get good feedback action on your strings (unless the FOH is so loud that it bounces around on stage too). I would argue that you want your FOH to sound good first, and then for your Kemper monitor on-stage to sound good 2nd.

If you already have a Kabinet, you already have great on-stage monitoring. For your FOH, what is your budget? A "good" FOH speaker system will be around 4K. A "really good" FOH speaker system will run more like 6-7K. A touring class FOH pro FOH speaker system will be >10K.

FWIW, I always think that bands spend too little on their FOH speaker system. It's a shame since this has the most effect on how good you sound to the audience.

Quote from BayouTexan

I will never love it if I have to go buy a new mobo, cpu, and memory. I do believe there is a work-around posted on the internet to by-pass the Win 11 TPM checks. But then we open up a whole other topic.

I was right there with you! Then, my mb crashed (after almost a 10 year run) which forced my hand and I decided to go ahead and upgrade to Windows 10 .... and got a free update to Windows 11.

Honestly, kinda wishing I was still on 10. So far, not a big fan of 11. Maybe it will grow on me in a year or two :). Windows 7 was a great product.... as was my Core 2 processor and mb ;). Got more than my milage out of it.

I am holding on my opinion for Liquid Profiling. I will (of course) do the update and try it out.

As for a new Kemper? Would be exciting for sure ;). Great rumor!

You guys have covered all my requests; however, I wonder if someone has a guess as to when we can expect a beta with LP in it?

Quote from goldensheaf

Had a few days to ponder since the liqued news Its easy to get excited at some new updates, and i am for one pumped for usb interface recording. But today i tried profiling a open grainy sound akin to a open matchless sound with headphones an again for the life of me was that fricken lower note saturation . It the only way to explain it. Its adding distortion around the A string area an no turning down the gain or any paramater fixes it. The bell like single coil open quality of the amp gets lost. Its like kemper adds overdrive around the note. Ads body were it doesn't need to be. I tried kempers di, webers di (much better by way) all the cables i had, different levels etc etc. Still there. All the liqued profiling in the worlds not going to address it and it may make people forget when your leaving your starting point of a profile. Maybe its kempers way of masking the problem. With NAM an others leading in the accuracy of profiling I really though christoph would come to the party and make some changes in this area. There no point having all the gimicks n the world if your core profile is lacking. I understand Kemper uses their own patened tech but why can they change the goal posts a bit. There is a string thinness and openess thats missing that we like. NAM excels at this, the profile sounds real. The notes are thin in a good way and the frequencies are all there and tight. After we get over this update kempers going to fall into a black hole. If they want to stay relevant they got to bloody fix this. Its the core of this game, the profile itself. Not all the bells an whistles. Maybe the kemper profiles to hot internally, maybe it just internal eq, who knows. Im sorry a few of you are going to bash me here an tell me to sell an get a tone x or whatever. Ill be honest im a bit pissed today becasue I tried so hard an its almost so perfect. IF YOUR READING CHRIS WILL YOU ADRESS THIS! I find it so frustrating the one thing people bash kemper on they have not fixed. Is it really that hard to shift the internal gain or eq or whatever it is in the process? Arghh. Dont tell me to use NAM, i dont want a vst i want kemper just to improve 5 percent at what we here for. PROFILING

Have you tried any of the existing Matchless profiles to see if you can get what you want? I feel that several of them capture a super great tone; however, since I don't actually have a real Matchless to compare it to .... back to my argument. Can I get a great tone from the Kemper (even if I have to purchase a profile from someone who profiles better than I do to get it)? My own answer to this has been a resounding "Yes".

I don't think that Liquid profiling is meant to improve the quality of the profile, but rather the after-profiling tweaking process we all go through to get to a "great tone" to our ears. This will be particularly valuable for people who know a specific tube amp and are able to get that amp to tones they like quickly through its own controls. Others will be more comfortable with utilizing the existing Kemper controls for obtaining their "tweaked in tone".

For those that delight in profiling (really the kempers most unique feature .... at least before QC showed up), I totally understand the frustration of not being able to obtain the results that so many others have managed with their amps.

FWIW, although I did profile my VHT before I sold it, I have found other high gain tones in the Kemper that I like more.

Crispy Panther,

I believe that my post was what you were trying to quote in your original post.

Note: My contention that a Kemper Mini will eventually released does NOT preclude the fact that the original Kemper is "at the top of the tree" and a premium product. Not sure what reasoning you (or ChatGPT) used to arrive at this conclusion.

The release of a Kemper Mini ALSO does not preclude that the current Kemper is or is not the best product in the field today. These things are independent of each other.

The idea that releasing a Kemper Mini will produce more revenue for Kemper than a firmware upgrade .... now THAT is a discussion I am ready to defend.

Most of Kemper's direct competitors have smaller, less expensive versions of their high end products that they sell. They sell these less expensive units ~3:1 compared to the higher end of the product line. This is product management 101. The ROI for such a product is so easy to create that I am quite certain @CK has done the math and understands this implicitly ..... because while I do agree that he really does desire his products to be "at the top of the tree" and works diligently to ensure they stay there, at the end of the day, he has to keep the lights on and make payroll. No company can live off of a strict diet of charity.

As for the argument about being able to hear the difference between the original tube amp and a Kemper? First: Who cares? It either sounds great in the mix or it doesn't. Second: Tell the difference HOW? From two recordings played through headphones? Who cares? Live music is played through a PA with an entire band around it. Recorded music? It is processed after recording to the point of being irrelevant. The ONLY good argument is for people who play with an amp in the room by themselves.

So if you are a live band that doesn't amp your guitar cab, AND you don't care about bringing multiple amps and cabs to a gig? Sure, a tube amp may sound slightly different (not necessarily better) than a Kemper through a FRFR speaker.

For the other 90% of guitar players? It doesn't matter even IF it is true (which is still quite debatable ..... just not the argument I chose to make).

Hard to be anything but happy about free updates to a product I have been playing on since 2013!

Yes, I think the Kemper Mini is a better money making idea for CK, and I am certain this is something they will eventually release; however, I am also very excited to try out the new features when they arrive :).

Quote from Dynochrome

JCM800s were fine before they "updated" them. So is my Kemper. Mine can sound just like a 71 Marshall, a Dumble or a Tweed Deluxe. Nobody complains those amps haven't been updated.

For the most part, I agree.

Great sound, is great sound. The KPA manages to get many different great sounds very right and does it in a VERY gig friendly form factor.

Saying that, in the world of digital amps/profilers, consumer expectations are somewhat different. These products inherently have the ability to be updated, get new features, and greatly improve without the purchase of a new amp.

Personally, I am quite good with the KPA the way it is. It gets the job done in fantastic fashion night after night of use.

Still ..... I look forward to improved "fill in the blank" :). How can one not?

FWIW, I believe that @CK will release a Kemper Mini next. This is, by far, the most marketable and profitable path for him to take for his companies growth. It also completes a really nice product portfolio of profilers.

But you are correct, if you need a gig machine, the Kemper is simply a fantastic product that is unrivaled in the industry for this purpose IMO. No updates are needed to make this true.

I would say that the next generation really does need to have a color touch screen to remain relevant for the next 15 years. That upgrade alone could make for a pretty nice upgrade in user experience for setup. Gigging? Naw. The current FC is a really nice interface IMO. Hard to imagine how to make it much more usable.

Quote from spotter

Kumbucker. (well... maybe not)

LMFAO!

Perhaps a breath freshener feature?

Quote from Ruefus

Clarity and Direct Mix. One or both of those is my best friend when I'm looking for more 'clean' distortion.

Let's also not forget the age-old trick many cry "INFIDEL" when its mentioned.....

Turn. The. Amp. Gain. Down. *gasp*

LOL. Yes! This! ......... especially live.

Quote from Ruefus

After spending enough time with a Quad Cortex to know that 1) It doesn’t suck. Not even close, and 2) it just doesn’t ‘fit’ for me, I recognized a great feature of the Profiler.

The Kemper-only amp controls. Definition, Clarity, Direct Mix, etc.

Minor changes to these can have a huge impact on results. I don’t think that gets talked about enough.

Absolutely!

I generally start with these in parallel with EQ changes to account for the different voicing of pickups/guitar to the one used in the original profile (and also to account for the difference in the ears of the beholder ).

I tend to gravitate toward more clear sound. For those of us here, this next statement will make sense. To anyone else it is complexly an oxymoron: "A Clear Distortion" :).

Too much mud on a guitar keeps it from punching through the mix in a live situation IME.

Quote from Grooguit

I just returned the QC after three weeks. I SO wanted to love!. The KPA generation 1 in my opinion is a superior product and has more power and versatility where it counts.

Pros: the captures and such sounded great, not better than kpa profiles. I like the touch screen for naming things. I like how it took so little room on my desk and could fit in my computer book bag. That's about it. Can function as an interface. But, I already own an interface that I leave on in my office while working, would never want to leave my kpa or QC left on all day so I can use it to listen to music through my studio monitors.

Cons:

1) Dual amps is cool, but I couldn't find a combo I'd prefer to any single amp, so what's the point of adding the complexity for editing sake?

2) No volume compensation. The supposed time saved with a touch screen? I forgot how much I hated compensating volume after making minor gain adjustments; wasted so much time. Set up some scenes with different gain stages, then realize that overall it's too loud compared to other presets. back and forth, back and forth adjust, adjust, compare, hit save, repeat...... Oh wait, I could just adjust the overall volume by adding a EQ effect at end of chain, darn not enough DSP.

3) No dual delays. You NEED to set up a parallel path to merely have a 1/4 and 1/8 dotted delay. Delays in general were quite limited compared to KPA. The kpa delays come with so much complexity that I personally never need two at the same moment in time anyway; with spillover in the delay slot, there's no need to cram additional delays in the same Rig for other songs or parts of songs; just copy paste the rig and add a different delay.

4) No effect presets. You can only set the default for an effect type. Huge waste of time.

5) No ducking anything. I use ducking delays and even a little ducking on more ambient reverb all the time, cuts down on tap dancing. KPA has ducking on all delays, reverbs, mods, pitch, etc.

6) No editor: the touch screen speeds some things up, but then it's on the floor, whereas the iPad/iphone app for the kpa takes a moment to turn on.

7) Not enough foot switches, which are too close together btw. You have to use Scenes since there's an audio gap and no spillover between presets. But it's cumbersome to get to another preset; getting back to preset mode requires stepping on two switches, and then hit them together again to get back to Scene mode. BTW the footswitches make this irritating scratchy sound when pressed. The KPA's front row of switches are closer to the ground requiring less foot raising and easier access to the second row as well. No dedicated tuner button on the QC, I kept screwing up the bpm trying to access the tuner.

7) a vulgar exaggeration of power. I ran out of DSP using a compressor, 1 OD, two captures, an EQ, two delays (necessary because they don't have a dual delay model) and a reverb! I had to turn off the global EQ! And yes I correctly spread everything out among two sections to utilize all of its DSP. Though the kpa only does one profile at time, I could do all of these other things on the kpa, only needing 1 delay module to do what QC needs two to do, add an extra OD model, add a couple mod effects, utilize the looper, transpose, a 2nd compressor via the amp block compression, no need to turn off the global eq! Even better I can do all this on the kpa and go to another rig without an audio gap and maintain spillover, unlike the QC.

The capture menu on the QC is an absolute mess. Even though I downloaded less than 100 amps+cabs, presets, and OD captures it was a total pain to find what I was looking for. Totally disorganized, unsearchable, stupid categories. Suppose you capture the amp and speaker of a Fender twin? This would go in one category. Then capture the Fender twin plugged into a physical separate guitar cabinet. This is supposed to go in another category! Even though they're both capturing an amplifier and a speaker! Create or worse download a bunch of captures and try and remember which ones are in which category! and then scroll down the whole list of each trying to find the one you are looking for.

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IMO, all of this gets down to the basic concept and design goals of the original KPA. It does quite a bit. It does it really well, and it is easy to get there.

While some may advocate a move to the routing monster chain that is Fractal, Neural and Line 6's forte, I am still a very strong advocate of the "Kemper Way".

KISS! (.... and make it sound great).

Quote from Grooguit

The hidden secret about what makes the KPA competitive with the latest/greatest are certain advantages that are related to its simplicity, but not always obvious to those without first-hand experience. A KPA 2 has room to improve, but should seek to continue its unique approach rather than replicating the competition. Profiling is not the only thing that made this unit special.

• Continue to have a fixed (but bigger) signal path with a dedicated amp section. (keep or expand the parallel path and something like the del/rev parallel thing) The reason you can do convenient things like lock certain blocks is because there is such a fixed place for the amp section to go. This is also (probably) what makes the KPA's unique volume compensation when adjusting gain practical. Harder limits on the number of effects per Rig is the reason that there's DSP leftover to allow the Del and Rev slots (the place 90% of guitarist want these effects) to Spillover into other Rigs, as well as global access to the Looper. This is what makes it possible to switch between 5 Rigs in a performance, each with a morph (which is basically a variable second SCENE) during a song, as opposed to the build-a-mammoth preset model of the competition.
• Add 2 effects blocks before the amp section and 2 after, for a total of 6 before and 6 after. Add some sort of dual amps and cabs in the amp/cab section, with three possible modes: One is a simple A or B switching mode to switch between profiles in a Rig, a parallel blend mode (zero is 100% amp A, 100 is 100% amp B, 50 is half and half), and a spread mode (equal amounts of A/B with a single pan knob). These parameters would of course be accessible in a morph or if there’s SCENES.
• Add a parametric and/or graphic EQ as an additional set of parameters in the Cab section (freeing up the X slot that a lot of folks use for post amp EQ, and, more importantly, making such refinements something that can be saved with the amp/cab settings since that’s what’s its tweaked for) Figure out a way to have these dual amp options function without losing the super convenient automatic volume compensation that all the competition lacks. Let people who "need" four amps and cabs at the same time and endless possibilities of parallel satisfy their desire with a competitors product. Allow the saving of single amp/cabs like in generation 1, but also allow the ability to save the entire amp section with both amps as a preset that can be called up in the creation of other Rigs.
• As noted: the automatic volume compensation that lets you dink around with the gain setting on OD models and the amp and not have to adjust volume to taste (and the misery of then having to go back and forth between other rigs to see if the volume still matches) Don't give this advantage up to replicate the open canvas grid model of competitors.
• Don't sacrifice simplicity for the guitarist to make room for other instruments. Seriously, why would anyone ever want to share an all-in-one unit with another musician in a live setting? If you MUST include such a feature, make it fixed and call it the SIDECAR. Single stereo/mono 1/4" input and output jacks; dedicated to this use only. Hit a button and access this alternative signal path that has nothing to do with the main guitarists signal path, other than being able to customize it per Rig, performance, or lock globally. Give it three effect blocks, one of which could be a single amp/cap profile. That will suffice for bass, acoustic, vocals, keys who could otherwise just plug into direct box; beggars can't be choosers. By no means replicate the wide-open grid format of QC and Helix and the DSP juggling game, again let those that prefer that arrangement, buy one of those and live with the disadvantages.
• Importing of KPA 1 generation rigs (one more reason to continue to have a fixed signal path) By default, imported 1st generation Rigs would have their one amp and cab in both the dual amp spots, leaving the ability to swap one of them out later. Effects A,B,C,D would be placed in blocks 2,3,4,5 (leaving the 1 and 6 empty as I proposed 6 effect blocks before and after the amp section) Effects X,Mod,Del,Mod,Rev would go in blocks 8,9,10,11 (leaving blocks 7 and 12 empty). *Perhaps changing where the imported effect blocks of 1st gen Rigs go globally could be tweaked, say if someone wanted A,B,C,D to import to 1,2,3,4 or 3,4,5,6.
• Full stereo signal path. Allow panning of otherwise mono effects like OD models. Perhaps expand the parallel options a bit; there is some in KPA 1.
• Priority spillover. With an upgrade in DSP, minus the extra DSP to do the things I mentioned, perhaps allowing 3 or 4 blocks to spillover; let's assume 4. Don't go the Helix route that allows spillover of everything by giving up half your DSP. Instead allow four effects needing to be in the Del and Rev blocks to spillover, allow them to be wherever. So you can add up to 4 such effects to any rig and not think about it. If you add a fifth delay or reverb effect, either the left most or right most (globally chosen) will not spillover by default. However, perhaps you could manually choose the odd man out if you wanted a fifth delay for some odd reason: choose "no spillover on rig change," in that effect's parameters. Since so many of the singular effects even in KPA generation 1 allow all sorts of parallel/serial, dual and quad, mod and pitch options, having four such simultaneous effects with spillover is more than enough. Allow those that want the never-ending mammoth preset with no spillover and large audio gap route to go to a competitor.
• Profiling OD pedals. Perhaps streamline the controls for DSP sake and give gain, Mix, 3 or 4 band EQ and a simple tone knob, perhaps functioning like the Definition knob that’s in the amp section? Since we’re going full stereo, allow it to be panned left and right. As a different type of profile, (even if the process is similar) your OD profiles are in a separate list/folder than your amp profiles for organization’s sake.
• Blue tooth audio. In a world where $25 blue tooth speakers exist, why not allow your phone to connect via blue tooth (not just for Rig manager) but to stream audio, as you can now use the aux inputs to monitor an external source for practicing along with a recording. Would be nice to not have run a cable for this.
• Scenes: These might be disorganized to offer alongside morphing? Perhaps either or? (you can set up a complex morph or create a certain number of scenes in any Rig) Not sure how I’d organize this though, in terms of number of Rigs per performance or bank, number of possible scenes per Rig. Some way that makes logical sense with the rows of footswitches.
• Keep their unique approach to effects. They are the only unit (perhaps Fractal does this) that provides a ducking parameter to just about all their effects. This feature alone has made me do so much less tap dancing when more and less delay are needed in different places, and therefore less need for something like scenes and more effect blocks or Rigs to get through a song; and it’s a lot easier to set up. The Kemper Drive and Kemper Fuzz are second to none.

Right on the money IMO!

Exactly this. Keep the methodology, provide a migration path from the original KPA, and expand the capabilities within the existing product architecture.

I would add the following:

* Color LCD screen

* Enhance looper to allow up to 3 independent loops (basically give it RC300 capabilities)

* Create an enhanced set of time based effects (chorus, flanger, etc) like KPA did for delay, reverb, and distortion (just to finish off the "premium" effect chain).

That would indeed be a great way to move forward to a KPA2 IMO.

Quote from DonPetersen

back to topic please

I think the OPs Kemper would work better in a country that drives on the right side of the road..... Literally the right 🙂.

At this point, I could only hope that the problem is a hardware issue since this would at least bring closure.

If I were Kemper (I am not), I might be tempted to just swap out the unit.

Quote from Pauliepaul4321

I wonder if the rise of AI will make it easier for Kemper to make an Android version.

Hey chat GPT can you make this code work on Android devices?

Sure...

Job Done!

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I actually had an engineer use a ChatGPT session in an argument with me last week. It didn't go well for him.

From my personal engineering experience, the current state of AI is a long long way from a good experienced engineer.

I suspect it to be very over hyped as of today. I also expect it to be some time before any other engineer in my company uses a ChatGPT log as expert testimony in an engineering discussion.

But to the original question, no. ChatGPT can't rewrite a complex tablet app written in native iOS environment into native Android.

When people say it can write code, they mean pretty trivial code.

I think you have been very reasonable and I personally am not "bummed out" at all, but rather have been impressed with the Kemper forum members supporting you as well as the Kemper company.

I believe that this thread is indicative of how a forum and a company should conduct themselves, but sadly it seems to be a rare thing these days (for both forums AND companies).

This thread really does nothing but reinforce my belief that I have the right product and the right forum