Posts by lightbox

  • New Kemper Rack bug

    Format your USB stick with FAT32 and then create the following folder structure and exact folder names:


    • Backups
    • OS Update
    • Shared

      • Rigs



    Rigs is inside of Shared!
    Copy the kaos.bin to the folder "OS Update".
    That should do the trick.

  • Musikmesse - New Products

    Quote from Ingolf

    I think building dedicated controllers for computer software is a logical thing.


    Well, don't get me wrong. It's great to have nice controllers on the market and there are certainly some I would love to own and use .... but sometimes it's just boring to sit in front of a computer screen, imho. Look at these old drum machines like the Boss DR-880 (2004), Zoom RT-223 (2005), Akai MPC 500 (2006), Alesis SR18 (2008 ). They are getting old, technology has much improved in all these years. They are still being sold and I'm sure there still is a market for these devices. Newly designed devices could easily serve as all-in-one mobile drum & bass machines AND controllers. Maybe I just missed the point where these kind of devices died in favour of smartphone apps?


    Quitty:
    We're talking about drum machines / rythm sequencers with built-in sound generation vs. all these weird and dumb USB controllers which can't make any sound without a computer. :)

  • Musikmesse - New Products

    Something that really bothers me a lot since a couple of years:
    The ongoing trend to only develop fancy "controllers" instead of full fledged hardware devices. It was so nice to sit in the garden or in a train or somewhere at the airport waiting for your connecting flight, without computer/laptop and just program a few rythm and bass patterns with one of these battery powered MPCs and a set of headphones.
    What do you guys think about this "controller" hype from Akai to Native Instruments to Korg ...

  • Musikmesse - New Products

    I was really curious what kind of new gear will be announced at Musikmesse. And today Roland/Boss anounced their ground breaking, earth shaking, breath taking new products. Man, I'm totally psyched! They announced 2 brand new and super high tech ...

























    accordions :whistling:
    Can it get worse than that?

  • Development of Librarian Software?

    Some more food for thought regarding the librarian software development/design. :)


    1. What do we need now, what could we need in the future?
    That's an important question when a company has to plan new features or general enhancements. When it comes to the core of librarian software, first task is to define all possible requirements for now AND the future, because future redesign of software is way more difficult than good initial planning. So let's jump in for a moment. What could be important for a KPA user? For example which guitars a specific rig is good for. One rig can be perfectly fine for more than one guitar. So it's not enough to have one guitar tag field with one possible value only. Multiple values would be very helpful, which immediately makes sorting, categorizing, searching inside the Kemper a more complex task for the OS. Also, if Kemper realizes how important metadata is to organize content, then it's a pretty obvious task to make this metadata model as flexible as possible for future extension. You simply can't afford to create a completely new metadata model every year, right? Flexibility is key and this needs thorough planning ahead of implementation.


    2. What do we need on the Kemper, what on our computer/laptop/device?
    That's also an important question to answer. There might be lots of possible information that only matters in a librarian software while it's not needed on the KPA. Examples? How about images and/or audio examples available for each amp rig in your librarian software? How about lots of different tags (even custom tags) to categorize your rigs by gain, age, preferred music style, commercial vs. free profile, etc.
    I think you'll notice immediately that not all of this information makes much sense on the KPA itself while it would be a GREAT help inside your librarian software. So there's potentially some reason to split rig files into those used on the KPA and those stored in the librarian's rig database. Of course you could always export to the KPA required format, stripping all the unnecessary data.


    3. Edit your rigs until you drop dead!
    I mean, even if you buy your rigs from Andy or Armin, you will most likely edit them to your taste / requirements. And it's good and important that you actually can. But still it might be problematic if you need to keep track of the rig's origin in some way. So it would be nice to keep the original rig data inside the librarian, like in a second (original) metadata layer, while you edit and tweak as hell in your user metadata layer. The original metadata layer wouldn't even be important on your KPA if you already entered your own metadata. But you would still be able to always get information about the original creator.


    4. How does a user find the rigs he's looking for?
    Wow, that's something very important as well. Basically that's why we're asking for a librarian. So we need all the means to filter our rig archive. "I have a rig archive of 4,000 rigs but now I need a Fender with a tube screamer and delay for my ES-335." ... You don't want to do this search by file name, you need custom search filters. And wouldn't it be great if you could save these search filters for quick re-use? Many things possible, even if it's to much for a first version of a librarian software. But the foundation for these things has to be there, so it can be implemented whenever it seems necessary.


    I know this is to much thought for some who just want to use their KPA and play guitar. But that doesn't mean that these things shouldn't be discussed and considered (at least internally at Kemper). And these thoughts are one of the reasons why I won't try to create a small tag editor like the one that has been created before. It just lacks the flexibility and the multimedial features to really nicely handle (find, rate, select, sort) your rigs on a computer.


    Cheers,
    Martin

  • Using 2 profiles at once

    The impression that Kemper don't care about their customers can easily build up in a product forum, if there are communication flaws. Especially when pressure through user comments remains without proper feedback. Examples:


    There has been quite a bit of discussion regarding combination of 2 profiles/rigs in the KPA. That's obviously something a couple of users would like to have. This can lead to some aggressive behaviour if it stays unanswered for to long. Now CK has answered that it's not possible with the current hardware because of computing power constraints. Interestingly this has stopped the pressing in a relative early stage, which is good. Just a short comment, which shows that they are aware of the request but can't do it for technical reason. Everything fine, even if the wish is still there.


    There's another request regarding 48kHz / Slave capabilities for the S/PDIF connection. No comment from Kemper so far, nobody knows what to think about that. For some this would be important to know. What are the implications of either disclosing information or keeping it undisclosed? My personal take on this is, that if kemper discloses information (positive or negative) this would have no negative effect on business and competition. This is not about new invention, this is not about spectacular new feature. It's just a technical improvement request that is pretty obvious ... and some interested competitor would have noticed this issue anyway.
    So, imho, this is yet another topic that could be easily calmed if Kemper disclosed their plans ... no matter if positive or negative.


    Of course there can be requests that can potentially be a competition problem if Kemper's plans are disclosed to early. This could be completely new devices like the KFC and its complete feature list ... or individual new effect types like a feedback simulation, etc.
    I don't mean to say it's easy to balance and decide what to disclose or not. But there's no reason to have a strict non-disclosure policy in place for everything. Sometimes it's just good for the product's environment to have a more open communication in certain topics. Don't forget that community talk is the most powerful marketing tool as long as you don't have the budget and time for massive marketing through advertisement and similar company driven means.

  • Power consumption specs for KPA?

    Ok, date of departure is coming closer. Everything solved apart from the KPA power supply during power cuts in Nepal.
    Now I'm thinking about buying a medium sized 12V car battery and a charger in Kathmandu. To get the necessary 220V AC,
    I would bring an AC inverter from Germany:
    [Blocked Image: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SHnk97hpL.jpg]


    I think, a charged 60Ah 12V battery should be ok for 10 hours.


    Any thoughts or better ideas how to defeat Nepal's wish to force me away from my KPA? :D

  • In Search of the Holy Grail, Part II (Smokin' Joe B.)

    You're getting closer, of course. :)
    Your recording still sounds a bit muddy, even the left channel (Bonamassa). So I'm not sure if it's a recording issue. Try to squeeze a little bit more brilliance out of your dual amp tone. I know it's difficult because you can't tweak while playing the combined profiles. My wild guess is: just a little bit more gain and just a micro-dose more treble for the Carol Ann, a bit less gain and more presence for the Marshall.


    Not sure if this will work out for you, but that's what I hear from your mp3. But it's already much better than before. :)

  • Development of Librarian Software?

    Hey gang, I just wanted to follow up on a comment, Kempermaniac posted in another thread. Since I don't want to further derail the thread, I decided to start a new one. :)


    Quote from Kempermaniac

    What do we know about the problems of developing e.g. a librarian? Nothing do we know about it, that's the simple truth. And if somebody of us knows, why don't you create it?


    You're right, we don't know. But my take on this is that maybe we should know. :)
    In other environments, metadata is well documented. Think about ID3 tags in MP3 audio files. Or think about EXIF or even XMP metadata in image files. It's relatively easy for those with some programming experience to come up with software to edit, analyze, handle these kinds of metadata. If there's a clear distinction between the metadata block and the actual profile/rig data, there's no need to publish the structure of the core data. Just the metadata structure could be documented and published and thus made accessible to all kinds of developers.


    Of course I'm not in the position to know or judge on Kemper's internal business plans. If they decide to keep exclusive control over every aspect of their product, that's probably fine .... although I tend to believe this would be a mistake regarding the metadata. There are so many smart people here that could potentially extend the Kemper universe with some amazing tools, from web applications to smartphone apps to computer software that facilitates rig management. Often these kinds of 3rd party tools even provide the respective mothership with great ideas, for free.


    We've seen CK's comment on swarm intelligence ... I won't totally nail him on the wall for this. But still I think he underestimates the potential creative power of a highly convinced and motivated swarm.


    One last comment on this topic for now:
    I think it would be pretty easy to reverse engineer the metadata structure and come up with some tools. Afair, there had been one project already. But I won't jump on this boat unless Kemper decides to officially open up this specific path.


    Hope I could at least correct some of your comment, Kempermaniac. :)


    Cheers,
    Martin

  • TheAmpFactory: LazyJ amps

    Quote from BuckeyeBrown

    If you compared to other full profiles I would think you'll hear noise on them too. If this one is more than average ...


    That's exactly what I try to demo. The second tone is the Vibrolux Full and it generates much less noise in the sustain/decay. Of course, laptop speakers aren't the perfect means to listen to these things, hehe. The Noise Gate is something I adjust globally for my guitar(s), not on a "per rig" basis. What kind of solved the issue for me is to reduce Gain in the LazyJ's Full rigs down to 5.0 - 5.5. Much better now, but still the noise in decay bothers me a bit. Not the existance of it, but the "electronic", artificial sound of it. A more general problem with the Kemper I guess, not with Andy's amp profiles.

  • Using 2 profiles at once

    Wow, there seems to be an individual who should really go outside barefoot and try to improve his soccer penalty shooting technique on a concrete wall to get over the aggressive behaviour here on the forums. :thumbup:

  • Fender Runaway Feedback Pedal?

    I wonder if someone from the US already got the Fender Runaway Feedback Pedal that had been announced in October 2012 and can share some thoughts and impressions? Maybe someone tried it with the KPA already? Sadly this pedal hasn't arrived in Europe yet but I'm really curious to know if this is a piece of gear that works well with the Kemper.


    Cheers,
    Martin


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