Future Software...

    As an owner/user of both, it would seem that both Kemper and Fractal are at a bit of a 'holding stage' as far as future releases go... As always, I look forward to the next levels of modeling and accuracy, but sometimes the progress is a bit slower than preferred, no?

    All modelers known to man 8o

    Competition drives the market, the KPA caused a lot of updates to happen with the Axe that lets face it wouldn't have otherwise (or at least would have happened over a much longer timescale), so now we have to wait for the next big thing to come along that will sort out the distant mic'd room ambient sound included right in the box along with models on a level with the KPA. Until then there's little financial impetus for those already in the market to innovate further.

    CK could have released the KPA four years ago, and then spent the next four years updating/improving the software to improve the accuracy of the Profiling process.
    Instead, he spent four years perfecting the Profiling process/algorithm and then released the KPA.
    If some of the worlds top sound engineers can't hear or feel a difference then how do you improve on that?...unless you don't want a Profile of a particular amp to actually sound like the particular amp.

    Quote from Per

    so now we have to wait for the next big thing to come along that will sort out the distant mic'd room ambient sound included right in the box along with models on a level with the KPA.

    I bet you any competent sound engineer will fool you 10 out of 10 times by adding reverb to an existing Profile that mimics the "distant mic'd room ambient sound".
    If the engineer told you it's actually the natural ambience of the room coming from the micing process do you think you'd know the difference?

    Its true that Axe is 4-5 (?) years older than KPA , and thus has some kind of the advantage , regarding time spent on the market.


    But do not forget Kemper's Virus Synthesizer which is 16 years on the market- with constant upgrade and improvements .


    So, it seems KPA is ready to run a marathon , not just 10 seconds race on 100 meters .


    Maybe we, customers ,should prepare our selves to that marathon as well , and think with marathon brain, not with 10sec /100m brain 8) :P :D







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    Isn't Fractal about to release firmware 10? And Kemper just released 1.6? I'm not sure what you mean by "holding", Rad.


    Kemper still has performance mode and undo/redo to finish...which you'd think would already have been finished. Not really holding me up from using the unit though. Anything else they add after that is gravy.

    From an amp tone perspective, I'm not entirely sure where the KPA can be improved significantly. I will state that the profiling process isn't absolutely perfect, there are subtle differences between a profile and an amp which the Kemper team could potentially improve to close the gap, but we're in an area of subtlety here. Perhaps they could create an advanced profiling process in which users set up amps at different setting and the profiling process stitched them together to try and create single profiles which cover more of an amp's tonal ground more precisely. Don't know. First time ever with a modeler where I don't feel compromised in some way...

    Quote from DocLine6forum

    No offense, but these kind of threads seem to emerge every few days now in one or the other form...
    I don't get it obviously...
    :?:


    I don't get it either. I've never been happier with my sound, and have pretty much zero interest in even looking at other amps. Yeah, I want the KFC and Performance Mode, but I know those are coming. As for other enhancements, I can wait. When they do hit, as I know they will, I'll consider them dividends on a great investment. :thumbup:

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer

    Quote from Guitartone

    I bet you any competent sound engineer will fool you 10 out of 10 times by adding reverb to an existing Profile that mimics the "distant mic'd room ambient sound".
    If the engineer told you it's actually the natural ambience of the room coming from the micing process do you think you'd know the difference?


    Absolutely, although there are two other components to room sound, ambient noise and sympathetic noise, primarily though I want a good room reverb in the Kemper and the ability to profile a rooms reverb. The thing is though that the Kemper doesn't offer that. And it likely wont until someone else comes onto the market and offers it and then Christoph or Cliff (or both) will suddenly be rushing to add this feature and modelers will take the next major step in quality and accuracy. Till then we're stuck with having to do that outside of the Kemper, which for most guitarists isn't really viable.

    Quote from Per


    Absolutely, although there are two other components to room sound, ambient noise and sympathetic noise, primarily though I want a good room reverb in the Kemper and the ability to profile a rooms reverb. The thing is though that the Kemper doesn't offer that. And it likely wont until someone else comes onto the market and offers it and then Christoph or Cliff (or both) will suddenly be rushing to add this feature and modelers will take the next major step in quality and accuracy. Till then we're stuck with having to do that outside of the Kemper, which for most guitarists isn't really viable.


    Convolution processing in the KPA? That would be absolutely incredible, but not sure how I'd use it. In a live environment reverb typically gets masked unless you are using it full up like an effect. Even in a bedroom, a subtle reverb into a room wouldn't really add much. In a recording scenario, I never print reverb when I track as I like to see how things are fitting together after the fact and gererally use one reverb on everything to add some cohesion. Would make headphone practice that much more sweet though. From my understanding though, convolution processing is still very intensive and as such you'd have to plan the hardware out from the start to support it.

    I use the Altiverb convolution plug-in with my KPA, and the realism that is possible is stunning... I highly recommend it. You can create space and air around a virtual amp (or any sound for that matter) that isn't possible with typical digital reverbs. It's fairly processor-intensive, and I would guess that such an effect would not likely be possible in the current KPA, but would be the ultimate effect for a future KPA.

    Quote from miles

    I use the Altiverb convolution plug-in with my KPA, and the realism that is possible is stunning... I highly recommend it. You can create space and air around a virtual amp (or any sound for that matter) that isn't possible with typical digital reverbs. It's fairly processor-intensive, and I would guess that such an effect would not likely be possible in the current KPA, but would be the ultimate effect for a future KPA.


    Altiverb is indeed great, I've recently updated my interface to an Apollo so I have a few UAD options open to me that I can place inline and thus not take up any processing power from the DAW itself and which sound okish with a lot of tweaking.


    But I still maintain it would be great for guitarists (and convenient for engineers) to be able to profile our own spaces directly as a part of a guitar processor and completely nail the exact sound of the setup in a single automated pass rather than right now capturing a totally dry amp sound without that sense of space (that might be quite important if you happen to have a nice space), and then having to go and either capture an IR for another convolution verb or go tweak crazy to try and get the sound you're after.


    I mean the point of the Kemper is to avoid that tweakfest for the amp sim when trying to nail an amps sound, so to me it's a logical extension to also do that for room verb (and maybe even ambient noise for the really picky, some folk do miss it when the KPA drops the loop of noise that you get during the profiling process once you store the profile) and when that happens it will be the next big thing or step in the evolution of the guitar processor/amp sim as far as feel and quality of the results.

    Edited once, last by Per ().

    I don´t get these requests.
    I consider myself very picky with guitar tones, but I cannot see enough situations to justify internal convolution technique or other ambient effects to be added to the KPA effects.
    For playing live I use reverb as an effect or it´s off.
    In the studio I´m after dry tones, with all options left to place them in the right room/space of the song.
    And for headphone playing I´m pretty happy with a dose of reverb already available in the KPA.


    And I like to add that I´m happy about every dose of noise the KPA loses in the profiling process. There may be some folks who like buzzing, humming and hissing - I don´t know any, and I myself hate it ;)


    just my 2 cents


    8)

    I don't know amp-wise how Kemper can get "better" at sounding like an amp. I think Kemper rigs are only limited by the profiler's ability to profile (or equipment used).


    I was playing one of Andy's 1955 Gibson rigs from his Vintage collection and I can hear that it is a PAPER cone breaking up! Flapping about. OMG. On my MR8's and my Headphones, O..M..G...


    Unless the Kemper can somehow physically change your Polypropylene Cones (Butyl Rubber Rims) into ACTUAL Paper Cones, how can the ABILITY to sound as if it already IS a Paper Cone be "improved"?!? It can't.


    If a digital creation can mimic a 1955 Gibson amplifier where you can tell it's a cone made of paper breaking up, where you can identify the material of the cone by sound, STOP RIGHT THERE! It's f$#@ perfect. If it cannot do that, it's not in the Kemper's ball park.



    Ha! I was playing around with the same profile last night and had a similar experience. I had initially discounted Andy's Vintage Pack as not having the "wow" factor of his other stuff, but I just hadn't spent enough time with them.

    Yeah I find different guitars (and pickups) plus different things I play bring out a different opinion of certain profiles.


    It's hard to keep all profiles, so I have to draw a line somewhere, but I routinely do pick up another guitar and make a run through them to hear new things or add some to my Favorites folder (shouldn't that be "Favourites" folder for Andy's profiles? ;) Some sound better for my Bass. Some for Acoustic.


    I'm learning not to be as dismissive and open to retrying rigs I previously deleted to make room.


    When I read someone saying "I tried the Kemper and didn't like any of the presets" I immediately think "what kind of guitar did they use?" or "did they spend 2k and then use bad headphones?!?"