where the guitar is actually MIDI and uses a plug-in.
My favorite! My economy picking sounds great that way. The so-called bonanza.
Posts by Dimi84
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Of course Kemper does steal the soul of the amps
When I make 100 direct amp profiles of - lets say a 1-channel tube amp head - I have covered all usefull settings I'll ever need... and more.100 or 200 profiles of one amp (there are bigger packs out there) are not "snapshots" anymore - so many pictures make a movie
You can argue with studio profiles. They do capture a signal chain. But with direct amp profiles it IS and feels like owning the amp (or very close to it).
I mostly only shoot direct profiles, due to convenience of using these profiles later on, and typically prefer the real amps at home. But I would agree, as per my own standard, that kemper is very close -- depending on the playing, audio test,just what the evaluative framework is. It's often not clear what is meant by "close" or "99 percent", pla pla.
In terms of snapshots, I've found that -- relatively often -- I need to shoot too many profiles for kemper to remain convenient in every day use for me personally -- a movie typically doesn't require manually switching frames
Neither do amps magically set dials for us, but at least real pots allow me to get what I want quicker (compared to going through libraries of profiles, trying to find what works among a million possible settings) especially when some experimenting is needed, considering the nature of how most such dials typically work. That's also where modelling gains ground for me.Then there's also settings that I just can't profile well enough. In these cases, I must use the real amp if I want anything resembling the "tone in my head". I can't produce good enough profiles of my orange when it's smoking and farting all over the place. Can't do that with a fender amp either I wanted to "keep". Can't do so even with a particular, modded jcm I used extensively, and which tends to sound pretty good, provided the right settings, when dual stages are distorting -- of course always according to my own, limited taste. Then again.. more often than not, I don't need such "cranked" tones from master vol amps, so that's not some kind of a massive deal breaker. Definitely not.
For the first reason, I've mostly kept profiles that some "standard settings" I'd use. But still, quite often, I tend to dial in an amp tone first for a particular purpose and THEN use that with kemper for convenience if I don't have access to the amp in ideal set up/scenario. It's usually all within the span of some particular project though. That's probably the most common way I use kemper.
Point is that for me, in real world use, there's some nuance to the whole "stealing soul of an amp" narrative, provided my own preferences.
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Again, the Dave Friedman's of the world, and his defenders, can't fault Kemper for:
1. Choosing to be uniquely innovative in their chosen segment of the consumer electronics marketplace.
2. Introducing a brilliant product that creates a paradigm shift in how many view a decades old technology; the facsimile of guitar amps.
3. Being very successful with the branding and marketing of their product.
4. Doing everything legally and by the book. (we all know lawsuits are a dime a dozen in this industry)
I don't see someone doing that here though. Personally I don't think what friedman says in the video ads up either. But there's reasons why that sentiment exists.
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I think this is getting back to the culture thing. No seriously informed consumer is ever going to believe this, even if they do like to brag otherwise - and we can't blame Kemper for that.
No seriously informed user will believe what exactly? That profiling is 100% accurate? Or that a profile "is the amp" in some other sense?
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Would the same people not buy because of a poorly made model?
You mean amp sim?
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I've brought this point up many times. Even in my own case the KPA has gotten me far more interested in amplifiers I was unaware of because of a good profile. Though, that cuts both ways as I mentioned before. Plenty of people abandoning their amps because they feel they've captured their tone or would rather buy thousands of profiles than an amp.
And also quite a few times, I think, people make assumptions about disliking an amp as based on profiles... Where as the reality of sitting right there with the amp, dialing it in, not relying on snapshots of a source tone set using particular pickups... Can bring about different results.
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we’ll have to agree to disagree on that on then
as for the culture issue, I still think it os the reverse of what you are saying. If I buy an AXE FXiii and it faithfully models the amp schematic in theory I have the full amp. That should be a bogger worry and a bogger reason to never need to buy an amp again than the Kemper which only faithfully captures a specific snapshot of an amp or amp plus speaker plus mic(s). Regardless of what people say, the threat to real amps is from modelling if it manages to capture the circuits accurately enough.
2 meaningfully separate things though: a "cultural threat" in terms of user perception, and then just how good, accurate the modelling and sound is (and I know fractal does sound tests too; modelling components doesn't just go "one way" per se -- not that you claimed so). Surely the later influences the former, but more comes into play.
In my perception, what's bugged some amp makers the wrong way when it comes to Kemper is in part the narrative of "perfectly cloning the source tone". Kemper put an A/B testing section in their device, inviting such comparisons, and that's imo a massive reason why the toaster gained as much popularity... considering it gets as close as it does to source when all works ideally, of course. At times people deduce exaggerated conclusions from all this.
Aaaaand sure such a "user centered" testing function wasn't part of fractal or line 6 products. It's not that fractal amp Sims aren't good -- I've emulated my amps with axe fx and its tone matching as good as anything can. Yet some amp manufacturers don't care much about axe fx even if they know what it can do. They are more focused on this culture bonanza, or their idea of its existence.
And there's a further case: when you release a new amp, it's quite unclear axe fx will include it. But with Kemper? Part of user perception of some is that you will have not only all current amps in kemper -- but future ones. We don't have new amp packs for axe fx every time an amp comes out. That's so even if you could replicate most of them via tweaking and tone matching.
But with Kemper? It's an endless process, isn't it -- there's always some new amp coming out and user interest growing for such profiles. That includes marketing from sellers, an important element in all this, it seems to me.
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Surely the way forward for Freidman...license his "sound".
I'd rather pay for an endorsed product than just someones attempt at it.
Assuming they do a good job and get the tones I'd expect/want from these Amps... Which... May or may not be there.
In this case Friedman already has the vst app and it's quite good imo.
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That’s what we’re talking about. I was just pointing out that I feel (from personal experience) that the DI capturing process needs work. The extreme examples showcased in various threads are just another symptom.
As far as I understand, you alluded to inaccuracies (maybe meant something different?) in third party, commercial (direct) profiles you tried out. Considering this, my point was that these profiles, at least most such profiles -- unless someone published one that's way off, where something went very wrong -- are unlikely to suffer from inaccuracies that are exclusive to direct profiling. If something's way off, and something goes wrong, for whatever reason, people typically don't publish such profiles to sell.
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After “giving up”, I decided to look for some DI profiles from some reputable profile makers and to be honest.... I didn’t find any that I could play a gig with. This tells me that even the amps that will allow you to capture a DI profile only do so kicking & screaming. They must require a lot of manipulation after the fact. You can only do so much before things start getting lost.
Or maybe people dial in the amps differently to what you would maybe prefer -- and PU/guitar/purpose requires different settings? I've made direct profiles of oranges, laneys, marshalls, suhrs, all direct, all more or less similarly accurate. Studio profiles of these amps have also been very, very similar in regards to accuracy. That is assuming direct profiling worked ok. I have had cases where the result was totally off.
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If so, could be a recording proves helpful. A/B.
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I don't want to profile the drive pedals because that's not how my Vox see my signal chain. My my delays and reverbs need to have the overdrives in front of them too.
OK. But have you compared kemper profile vs amp all with the same monitoring, plus your effects?
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Have you tried profiling the original tone, pedals included? It's common that kemper gets confused if you're adding one distorting stage over another, in my experience, but it may still be worth trying.
Also, how are you comparing the source tone vs the profile? You may profile the source tone, then while in A/B kemper mode, kick in the pedals. Does the profile respond close enough to the pedals compared to the source tone in this scenario?
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If my tone sounds odd / weird or like complete dog shit. Thats on me and not soundcloud. I will never get better making excuses. This is why it bothers me, as I would not post a disclaimer like this.
Was referring to the "tone" of the edited text (in case not clear). Audio sounded pretty good. And yes surely soundcloud wouldn't have changed guitar tone as much anyway.
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I have been getting some such pops after updating to the beta too, but assumed it was some audio interface issue. Will try installing the earlier os.
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You thought I wrote it correct? Thats the problem, there should be no confusion as to who wrote it on my posts.
Yea, the tone was weird -- like something a mod wrote, but still not clear enough for me to realize it was some mod edit. So I assumed it was you "warning" people about soudcloud or something, considering discussion in the other blind test thread. Surely it could have been made clearer what this edit was, at least to my perception of things.
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Any others?
Sample B I think is the real amp, but can be wrong.
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It's probably good policy to start putting up files imo along with tests, at least seems to me. And possibly this was a quick way to let users know about it, downside being forum software not knowing the difference between one "kind" of soundcloud audio vs another (say kemper vs amp vs other cases).
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Ah ok. I actually saw that on the sevenfold tone thread but assumed it was your text, even if tone was a bit weird, contextually speaking.
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Sorry, man, did not understand -- the problem is ?
