Posts by MKB

Quote from MementoMori

If sales & marketing waited for when developers wanted to release something, think of how slow tech and industry would move. That's not a swipe at developers, but their mentality is very different. Sales & marketing bring in hard dollars, which developers benefit from, and when they set a date, it typically reflects a specific reason and strategy rather than just being arbitrary for the sake of it. The date more often is keyed as a way to maximize a number of factors, but chiefly awareness and profitability.

Very good point, a company has to have cash flow. Also design efforts are expensive, and revenue needs to come in to fund that NRE. On top of that, some engineers really have little concept that the money has to come from somewhere, and you can't twiddle a design forever. Eventually you have to man up and sell the design.

OTOH I have seen quite a few sales folks that have little idea how engineering a product works, and in some cases go out of their way to be ignorant of the process, but will then assign an arbitrary date for completion that is forced on the engineers. And they get angry at the laughter that comes from the engineers when this is done.

In small companies, it's always a balance between resources\customer expectations\cash flow\and time. Often there are compromises that have to be made, and some of these criteria can be immobile.

Quote from PhilUK84

Funny how everyone seems to be a software developer now....

Some of us develop software, hardware, and the firmware running on the hardware. And manage groups doing all of this stuff. Adore the engineering, not so much some of the dates.

Quote from Chris Duncan

No, it's really not.

Declaring an arbitrary deadline is just a bad business decision that only serves to delay and amplify negative consequences. It's short term thinking at its finest.

It's driven by target fixation from sales / marketing without taking the "total cost of ownership," so to speak, into account. Companies declare an optimistic date in order to preempt people buying the competition's product (we used to call it "vaporware"). Also to look good in other such PR ways. All without taking into account the downside in quality, perception and cost of premature releases. Not to mention the fact that grinding the tech staff into burnout as a standard practice rarely produces good work. Or employee longevity.

The fact that it's a common practice in the industry doesn't make it a good way to do things. The individual lemming doesn't fare too well either, even though "everyone's doing it."

Of course, I'm just barking at the moon. Sales and marketing typically have much more influence in the board room than the geeks who actually create the product.

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If a product delivery date was discussed and approved by R+D and sales, it doesn't matter how arbitrary it is, especially if customer expectations were set for that date. If R+D agreed to the date, they simply have to man up and meet it unless it is totally impossible.

On our Sunday AM meeting, we may not like the date, but we don't try to change it if our internal schedule management or basic unknowns caused us to have to work that late time. We agreed to the date in the first place, and the customer had expectations of that date. That's the job.

Quote from TomR

Just a note. In Germany there has been a special holiday on thursday. Maybe they were on vacation on friday as well...

Judging from being in a small self-sufficient tech company, and knowing what it means to not meet deadlines (no matter how good the reason), it's probable some on the engineering staff are working through these holidays to get us the free software we are waiting for. They're probably busting their butts to get this to us ASAP, and that's what I am assuming. I applaud them for their effort, and as we say in our Sunday AM crunch time meetings, "that's the job".

Also you can tap the Quick button to get instant access to the monitor out volume IIRC. Unlink the monitor volume from the main out and you should be good.

FWIW I added a separate volume control on the back of the plate amp I built into my Kemper, that works very nice. Just grab the knob and twist. But that was before I saw the Quick button trick.

Quote from G String

the simple truth of software development is, that things can change at any time. The underlying issue, in many cases, is, that the more an application comes to completion, the better you can test it. In this case, the current state is, that all features have been implemented and we keep running into little things we were not able to see before. From what I've experienced over the years, this is very normal in software development.

I'm totally happy that my last post received such a positive response and I very much appreciate that. I'll try to keep you posted on the progress from this point onwards. I don't think that "a few days" will mean "a month" but when you take into account what I wrote above, you might understand that what I write right now is entirely based on what I know right now.

In my day job we just completed a solid week\weekend of late night work finishing a firmware revision the engineers thought was done a month ago. We spent maybe 28 additional man days straightening out little issues that kept popping up in the "completed" firmware. Sometimes you simply have to get the firmware in a unit and beat the snot out of it to find unanticipated bugs. On top of that, it is amazing how fast bugs will pop up the second you put the software in the field; one of the wonders of the universe is how good customers are in finding bugs that totally hid from all the validation staff.

G String, thanks so much for all you and your staff are doing. I wish all the naysayers had an idea how much effort goes into making firmware and software solid and trouble free.

Quote from junderwood

Apologies for resurrecting this old thread, but I think the context is good to have. I finally got my F12-X200's from Sweetwater (who had a heck of a time getting them from Celestion - we all know about the delays there), so I decided to go ahead and order a couple of the Celestion reference design cabs custom from the excellent folks at Zilla. While I'm waiting for these to be built and delivered, has anyone else in the states received theirs yet? If so, how are they working for you?

I found this video pretty interesting with respect to setting them up for use with a Kemper:

Thanks for the post, very timely in that in the last few weeks I received a pair of F12-X200's from Sweetwater. Got the first one, and liked it so much I got a second. One is in a Rocktron 1X12 ported cab, the other is in a small repurposed Peavey 1X12 monitor wedge cab. I have gigged once with the one in the Peavey cab, and it did a spectacular job. But the Zilla video will also be interesting and I'm sure helpful as well.

The F12's have a great tone to them, and seem to work great with the majority of profiles, and does not work bad with any I've played so far. In fact while testing them I ended up playing continuously for a few hours, which is always good news with a new speaker (you forget it's a test and just dig the playing). Still coming to terms with them, but they seem to avoid the majority of things I dislike about standard FRFRs (tone balance issues at high volumes, harshness, poor dispersion). Very happy with them so far.

The only issues I've run into are these: there were issues getting the speaker to fit in the Peavey cab, while multiple other Celestions fit into that same cab just fine. The frame seems to be slightly larger in diameter than other Celestions, which may affect front load cabs. The other issue is the F12-X200 has an abundance of bass, and I felt the need to roll off quite a bit of lows in the Peavey cab. However the Peavey cab had a unconnected tweeter that I removed, and maybe that caused the bass heaviness. I plan to reinstall the tweeter to plug the hole and try it again on a gig this weekend.

Quote from Awesome_Elvis

I've always called it German Wizardry hahaha

I'm guessing the routing will be focused on the monitor and direct out although I'm not gonna rule out main outs too either at release or either down the road after enough feature requests. For sure Monitor out seems like the no brainer.

I suppose to people may want to have 2 different types of Kones available at the same time too . Greenback for this one and v30 for that one etc.

Not sure how Kemper is doing the Kone thing, but one way would be to have a custom IR made that makes a predetermined speaker (the Kone) have the same response as say a V30 or Greenback, in the same way a IR can make a FRFR sound like a V30 or Greenback. In the case of the FRFR, the assumption is made in the IR capture process that it's response is flat. For a non-flat speaker to work, you would have to take its response into consideration during the capture of the IR. In engineering terms, you would have to perform a A-B operation from the flat IR and the response of the non-flat speaker in the cab. You'd also have to take all the IRs in an environment that would not allow the cab characteristics to color the response (infinite baffle maybe?)

If this is the process Kemper will use, the implication is that they will be adding dual IR capability to the unit; one standard IR for the main out, and the second tweaked IR on the monitor out for use with the Kemper Kone.

I've been pondering the PowerCab and its magic for months now, but am not aware of what IR manipulation tools to use to get the same results. I'm a hardware guy, not too great with DSP engineering. But if I had mad Mathcad skills, I'd try the above to see if it would work. And I finally grabbed a few Celestion F12-X200's, which would be good candidates for such a device.

Wonder if that is one of the promised powered Kemper cabs in the Instagram pic. If not there will need to be a power amp squirreled away somewhere.

Actually I'd be extremely surprised if the current latest firmware releases (v7) for the Stage and standard units are not already ready for the editor. You probably won't have to upgrade your Kemper when the editor is available (if you've already upgraded to OS7).

I'm also surprised the editor wasn't released at the same time the Stage was. Even though the onboard UI of the Kemper is excellent, the idea of having to sit on the floor to do any real editing in the Stage just doesn't make sense. I'm sure the editor is soon to arrive for that reason alone.

Kemper probably won't release the editor until they have internal support resources available to answer questions and deal with potential issues in a timely manner, and all those folks are probably just now winding down from the Stage release. We might need to be a bit more patient, and surely the results will justify the wait.

Quote from Finally

Then you get marketing people and customers talking about engineers like they're children.

Thats ok, you should hear what engineers say about marketeers and some customers. Many marketeers and sales folks I work with act like spoiled petulant preteens.

I was going to wait until the Kemper Kone arrived to start down a different "FRFR" path, but Sweetwater finally has stock of the F12-X200, and I weakened. Will have one of those arriving this week.

It will be extremely interesting to hear how the Celestion works with the Kemper Kone parameters turned on (as soon as that Kemper firmware is released of course).

Quote from Awesome_Elvis

Maybe it's time for the new thread

"Show us a picture of your Kemper bag!"

Starring: My 4 year old bag that's falling apart but still hanging in there despite one side literally busting at the seems.

Parts of the pockets have become unthreaded.

To make it more stable on amps I've modified the the foam layers on the walls so i can fold the flaps and it'll be more stable on a cab or table.

A new bag with removable flaps would be rad.

It's something to consider before the new kemper cabs come out and you find that the flaps either block the speaker or make it unstable when pressing buttons with the flaps folded underneath

Of course, if you take the whole thing out of the bag, none of this applies.

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Indeed, such a thread would be interesting. I'll take a few pics of my shredded bag, but the carry strap is long gone (it fell apart about the same time the strap hook webbing broke and the Kemper hit the floor. Twice.) The bag wouldn't be so bad if it only cost $30 or so, but for the price it is sad.

I'd be pleased if it had the same quality and longevity as most any simple tool bags you can buy at the local hardware store at 25% of the cost. The bag I am using now is a slightly modified tool bag with a handle and rollers, tough as a boot and very protective, and only cost $60.

On the question of Asian manufacture.. my day job is in product engineering for products somewhat similar to the Kemper from a hardware perspective (not operational or even in the same market), and I am involved in design and manufacture of the products. I have seen lots of excellent and terrible products from China, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. And in a previous job I have seen some real junk made in Germany.

The actual location of the factory has no bearing whatsoever on the quality of the product. However it is the responsibility of the parent company to ensure the high quality of the products in their design and testing input, as well as QC. Often some products made in Asia are of poor quality as they were designed to be as inexpensive as possible, with substandard materials and test procedures. If the quality materials and processes were used in these same factories, superior results would be achieved.

It is true that the Kemper bag is vastly overpriced crap, and is totally out of whack with the quality of the rest of the Kemper line. Also Kemper did not make the bag. However Kemper totally bears the blame for the bag's quality, as they specified and approved it, and sells it under their name. They can certainly do much better than that. But all other Kemper products I have used or seen are of terrific quality.

Quote from Antipodes

What about our backs, bending down to tweak a floor unit!

Wouldn't it be cool if you could use a toaster or rack unit as a control interface for the floor unit? Through the ethernet\remote connector? That would be a seriously expensive control surface, but not if you already have one.

Perhaps the floor unit will be meant to be part of an overall ecosystem, with interaction with a current unit in clever innovative ways.

Oh, and I bet the floor unit is the reason that the editor has been delayed so long. The editor is required for a floor unit as nobody will want to bend down constantly to use the onboard UI. I bet they probably had the editor for the toaster\rack units completed months ago, but had to complete the floor unit integration before release.

Quote from digbob

there are new Jensen Speakers D Series for Kemper

maybe they are available

anybody tested them ?

Those are very interesting, their response looks a bit like a whizzer cone full range without the response weirdness. IMHO the Kemper Kone would possibly be closer to the Jensen D than maybe a F12-X200 full range.

Quote from fredrikn

Helix Native sounds exactly like the hardware, and doesn't use that much CPU either.

I have a HX Stomp and Helix Native, and IME Native sounds significantly better (smoother and warmer in the highs) than the Stomp does. This is in direct comparisons with the same presets on each, and even using different interfaces with Native (M-Audio FireWire 410, Behringer UMC22, and even the HX Stomp itself as the interface). It shouldn't be possible, but it is.

This total lack of harshness in the highs is why I like the Kemper so much, and to hear that from Line 6 algorithms is very interesting.

Just reminded myself of the date I asked for availability notifications from Sweetwater on availability of the F12-X200: January 13. It's now July 11. Here's what they've been saying all along: "Reserve your pre-order now, risk-free, or contact us for more information. We expect these to arrive in just a few weeks."

Wow.

Quote from BobWalters

MKB, Cool and Thanks. I had seen it before. Yes a simple design but effective. I too had designed circuits and their layouts for switchmode supplies, but haven't used Mentor Graphics in years. I think in their design they split the resistor values into more than one for either wattage dissipation or they may have wanted to keep the design with 1/4W resistors and maybe for using a pick and place machine? Cheers!

Very good, I've used OrCAD and Cadence since maybe 1988 or so. Perhaps they use through hole parts as the quantities they sell are better made by hand; in all the assembly houses I've visited in the last decade or so, there isn't a single pick and place for through hole parts. You can easily get 1\4W surface mount resistors all over the place.

I have sort of more or less tried to reverse engineer what Kemper is doing from just the pictures, and no topology popped out at me from that picture. However I didn't consider the zero ohm resistors, thanks for pointing that out.

Quote from BobWalters

MKB, There are Zero resistors in the Kemper DI (A single black line on the resistor). Typically used as PC board jumpers, rather than creating a double sided board. I agree, a passive DI box greatly reduces any coloring that transformers or active circuits could add.

The Kemper DI box is a great design and well built specifically for profiling.

The Kemper DI box has 12 resistors and 2 capacitors. 9 of the resistors appear to be 1\4W metal film, and 3 are zero ohm resistors of the same size (and probably wattage). The PCB is clearly double sided construction. Here's the picture I'm referring to:

https://tonymckenzie.com/Site/…kemper-di-box/inside2.JPG

BTW, my main job for about 20 years was PCB design, so I'm very familiar with these things.