Revisiting the Kemper

    So, I tried out the Kemper about six months ago.. It had it's moments but it seemed to lack so I sent it back. After many discussions and talks about it and a nice tax refund I'm looking at going back to one. Because as a package it seems to good to miss out on.


    So, in the points below what can I do to improve on what happened before?


    1). Tried around 50+ different profiles, all of them sounded like a 22 KHZ recording of the amp. Why was this?
    2) I had a fair few issues with input gain on my stronger guitars, it hit red alot and when I turned the guitars down. The tone just wasn't there..
    3) Is there any specific downsides to get around, does it sound better through a cab with a poweramp? I always went direct.
    4) Any third party packs to really give it a real kick into the real amp realm?

    Quote from shadowamd

    So, I tried out the Kemper about six months ago.. It had it's moments but it seemed to lack so I sent it back. After many discussions and talks about it and a nice tax refund I'm looking at going back to one. Because as a package it seems to good to miss out on.


    So, in the points below what can I do to improve on what happened before?


    1). Tried around 50+ different profiles, all of them sounded like a 22 KHZ recording of the amp. Why was this?
    2) I had a fair few issues with input gain on my stronger guitars, it hit red alot and when I turned the guitars down. The tone just wasn't there..
    3) Is there any specific downsides to get around, does it sound better through a cab with a poweramp? I always went direct.
    4) Any third party packs to really give it a real kick into the real amp realm?

    1- What does a 22khz recording of an amp sound like? can you give examples of this sound on-line anywhere?


    2- If you couldn't get that right before it will be the same for you again as im not sure if anything has changed in that area.
    3- It sounds Great through a cab and through a pa. My personal preference is a power amp and 4x12 cab
    4- Some are very good yes. There are many very good profiles on rig exchange too though it may take a long time to audition them all as there's so many.
    I honestly think if it didn't work for you before then nothing has really changed amp sound wise so i don't think it will work for you this time either. Then again as you only tried around 50 profiles first time around maybe you didnt give it long enough to know for sure if its for you or not. :)

    What is your "regular amp" point of reference? Do you use stomp boxes, multi-effects? What style(s) of music?


    1) There are plenty of Youtube and Soundcloud clips to demonstrate it doesn't have the high end sheared off, or sound like a low sample rate. Direct monitoring requires studio-quality monitors or headphones. What kind of guitar/pickups, into what kind of amp profiles? A Les Paul with Super Distortion pickups will sound useless in a Fender Twin profile, just like it would into a Fender Twin. See #2 for another reason it may have sounded too dark.


    2) If you are putting too much signal into the Kemper, the low mids can get out of control, because hot pickups tend to have a lot of those. This is especially noticeable with clean sounds. The manual, WIKI, and this forum both have details about setting the Input parameters for guitars with high output pickups. With the right settings, you can have the guitar wide open into the Kemper without going into the red.


    3) It was originally designed for full range cabinets at volume, and sounds like a real amp does, if you are listening to a real amp in a studio control room. Some users prefer using the Monitor out, with the cab sims turned, off into a power amp/guitar cab, for more of a "guitar amp right next to me" feel.


    4) Unless you are used to monitoring through Studio Monitors, real amp feel (dynamics) may require a similar volume level to a real amp. It isn't necessary to use third party sounds to get that feel, but there are thousands of great sounds (both free and for sale) in addition to the stock ones (and the three additional Kemper packs that have been added in the past several months).

    Quote from dhodgson

    A 22kHz digital recording can only reproduce frequencies up to half that, i.e., 11kHz. I think he means it sounded dull. ;)


    -djh

    Yeah not far from, when a converter samples at a lower sample rate all sorts of sound quality issues can occur. The Kemper I had sounded of lesser quality than an Axe FX, VST or Real recording. Although on the other hand it also sounded more convincing.

    Well on number one, I have Focals and Event Opels as a reference.. Along with some Sennheiser HD650's, so I am certainly not lacking in studio quality equipment. I know how to EQ and compress to get what I need, it wasn't necessarily frequency shearing as such. As I tend to LPF Guitars down to around 11K or less anyway.. It sounded like a lower quality version of what the amp was actually playing, now whether this was down to the kemper or the profiles has yet to be seen. Youtube has also yet to show me otherwise..


    I use a mix of guitars, I normally use some sort of Seymour Duncan JB or Bare knuckle selection.. I have a selection of amps e.g. an Engl savage 60, Peavey 6505+, 5150, Freyette, Framus etc. etc.


    I should of tried it really through a cab, although that kind of made the product slightly mute as I have several heads to choose from.

    Thanks for the info on your listening gear, and perspective on your experience - no issues there :)


    JBs and Bareknuckles may help explain what you experienced - I have several guitars with hot pickups, too, including JBs. Without adjusting the Input Section of the Kemper, my hot pickups can drive some of the stock profiles into the red, too. This can happen especially if you have the pickups physically close to the strings. Many (most? all?) of the stock profiles were done with traditional output pickups in mind. JBs have almost twice the resistance of pickups like traditional humbuckers, and approaching three times as much as vintage strat pickups.


    Before I started to account for the pickup differences, any profile with "crunch" in the title was a distortion sound for me, and the clean sounds were just dark. Fortunately, the Kemper is designed to let those of us with hotter pickups (and those with quieter pickups than whoever designed a profile) to adjust the input settings of the amp. It is possible to save multiple input settings presets, and individually name them.


    If you experiment with with the Clean Sense and Distortion Sense settings, you can globally tune the input of the amp to your preferred pickup style. Even after doing that, some of the individual profiles may benefit by turning the gain down a little, when using hot pickups.


    Since the Kemper profiles include the microphone response curve, they won't sound exactly the same as the source amp would in the profiling room. Unless the mic EQ is part of a quintessential guitar sound, I tend to like the profiles with relatively uncolored mic effect, too. You may get better results from concentrating on the profiles that used flatter microphones, and avoid the ones colored by dynamic mics. There are also cabinet profiles that can be downloaded (or loaded from other profiles) to change the EQ flavor of a profile. The amp parameters and cabinet parameters (these are in addition to the EQ settings) can also be used fine tune sound of the profile, and to tailor the dynamic response to compliment individual playing style.


    As an aside to all this - unless using the Kemper with a guitar cab is your highest priority, it seems to me like trying to set it up for your main intended purpose is the way to know if it work for you this time, or not. Like you said, you have some great sounding amps, as it is.









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    Hi Shadowamd,


    None of your topics have been improved or modified since the advent of the Profiler.


    A guitar amp does not produce much energy above 10 kHz.
    So you are right, all Profiles sound a bit like a 22 kHz recording, as every guitar amp recording sound like in the last 50 years.
    Still there were a number of users that had to get used to the relatively bright sound of our profiles. :)

    Quote from ckemper

    Hi Shadowamd,


    None of your topics have been improved or modified since the advent of the Profiler.


    A guitar amp does not produce much energy above 10 kHz.
    So you are right, all Profiles sound a bit like a 22 kHz recording, as every guitar amp recording sound like in the last 50 years.
    Still there were a number of users that had to get used to the relatively bright sound of our profiles. :)

    Sorry I think there is some confusion as to what I meant by a 22khz recording, it sounded like how an A/D converter would react with a poor Anti-aliasing filter in accordance to the Nyquist band limit. In essence it sounded like a sloppier version with less fidelity compared to the actual devices it tried to re-create... As I mentioned above I LPF anywhere from 9 - 11KHZ anyway so it wouldn't make a difference to me..


    Now I'm not saying this couldn't be an issue on my end, I might of had a defective unit and / or there were something I was doing wrong. Like someone else suggested I did lower the amount of input gain to nearly bare minimum, the profiles I used could of been a bad recording although I did try many.


    I never encountered these issues with the Fractal Axe FX, although I preferred the overall tonality and ease of use with the Kemper.


    So it would be ideal to go back to it.. I just need to make sure it's the right decision.

    This "poor Anti-aliasing" is a known problem of the Kemper - your ears are right.


    According to CK should this be fixed in one of the next firmware versions - I can't wait for it too - this is the biggest downside of the KPA for me too.

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    Quote from Armin

    This "poor Anti-aliasing" is a known problem of the Kemper - your ears are right.


    According to CK should this be fixed in one of the next firmware versions - I can't wait for it too - this is the biggest downside of the KPA for me too.


    If you believe the Kemper aliasing issue is due to a bad anti aliasing filter...I'm pretty sure that filter has to come before digital conversion which means it likely can't be fixed with a firmware update. CK had hinted it had to do with something else.

    Quote from Will_Chen

    If you believe the Kemper aliasing issue is due to a bad anti aliasing filter...I'm pretty sure that filter has to come before digital conversion which means it likely can't be fixed with a firmware update. CK had hinted it had to do with something else.

    Well whatever is causing it, when it's fixed I will jump on it having chance to already own a Kemper, POD, Axe FX and real amps.. The Kemper can become the best product on the market with the best cost reflective price..


    This isn't in any way to put down the Kemper, these are my findings and what I require for it to work for me and potentially others.

    Quote from Will_Chen

    If you believe the Kemper aliasing issue is due to a bad anti aliasing filter...I'm pretty sure that filter has to come before digital conversion which means it likely can't be fixed with a firmware update. CK had hinted it had to do with something else.


    How can you be pretty sure about this? Any info?

    Quote from Armin

    This "poor Anti-aliasing" is a known problem of the Kemper - your ears are right.


    According to CK should this be fixed in one of the next firmware versions - I can't wait for it too - this is the biggest downside of the KPA for me too.


    Armin,


    For sure he is not talking about aliasing, since it does not yield to an impression of a 22 kHz recording.


    Shadowamd, if you are that technically skilled, you should have identified your Profiler as a faulty unit, or sent us some test recordings for evaluation.

    Edited once, last by ckemper ().

    Quote from ckemper

    Armin,


    For sure he is not talking about aliasing, since it does not yield to an impression of a 22 kHz recording.


    Shadowamd, if you are that technically skilled, you should have identified your Profiler as a faulty unit, or sent us some test recordings for evaluation.

    You are right and I apologise for not doing so, it was on a 30 day policy from Thomman so I decided to give it back for a full refund.


    I really like the Kemper and I think what you have done with it is fantastic, I may still have some recordings from somewhere and would be happy to work with you. I used to design audio interfaces if it accounts for anything..