Posts by OneEng1

Quote from Ruefus

Using Christoph’s own words….profiling *is* modeling:

No, it is not. That isn't what his statement meant at all.

The various algorithms and routing needed to cover every amp with modeling was considered too difficult and clunky. As a result, Kemper decided to do something different (Profiling). This is fundamentally different than modeling.

Now, my belief as an engineer is that CK actually does have a generic model that he uses to tweak the capture/profile; however, that doesn't change the fact that the KPA fundamentally operates different than a modeler.

Note: ToneX and QC are also capture and model tools vs. pure modeling.

All of this is basically crap anyway. Who cares? How does it sound, and how well does the workflow match your needs? These are the important questions. Who cares how it manages to do it?

Quote from jfischer518

I don't think that is the audience it is after. The pedal itself does not really process effects, other then reverb and compressor and that is minimal. From my prospective the ToneX is only meant to be the amp and cab for a pedalboard with your analog effects. Set up like that it really works exceptionally well.

I guess I hadn't thought about it like that before. I once had an ADA rack mount preamp, but quickly scratched the idea as the pedalboard plus preamp combo was the same complexity and a tube head and efx board.

When I decided to simplify my rig, all-in-one was all I looked at.

Now, I would like to have a mini rig with most of the capabilities as my kpa rack and fc.

I am watching the player mature, but also watching FM3 and Line6. ToneX just doesn't tick enough boxes in my case.

I think that before ToneX can be considered a competitor to Kemper Player, it will need to greatly up its game in efx processing.

The Kemper Stage, Rack and Toaster (with FC), are definitely in a different league of a gig rig than either the Kemper Player or the QC (or any floor processor having few buttons, or buttons placed close together).

I find that the Kemper Rack with FC is the height of gigging bliss. All the power you could ever ask for and a single cable that powers and connects the FC to the Kemper Rack to keep the cable clutter out from your feet.

I was baffled by the QC introduction. Surely they handed this thing out to beta testers that actually GIG for a living? A little simple competitive analysis should also have warned them that there really is a minimum distance between foot switches needed for ergonomics when gigging. A shame really. It is a really nice unit in most other regards.

I have been in engineering for around 40 years now. It is my experience that ALL engineering departments are "resource constrained". It's like saying "fish swim".

Engineers are expensive. Embedded engineers (especially good ones) are very expensive. No one has a bunch of them sitting around waiting for something to do. They are ALWAYS busy .... as are most engineers be they firmware coders, hardware designers, server or client applications.

When a new product is rolled out, first, the engineers are pressed for release. Then release has issues that are now ALL emergencies requiring nights and weekends, then post release the rash of crap you somehow didn't catch in validation needs emergency attention.

This is not abnormal IME. In this product release phase, engineering doesn't have nearly the bandwidth they do when simply adding features or fixing bugs in scheduled maintenance release .... and as a result, new features and scheduled bug releases slow for a bit while the engineering staff gets a well deserved break from the crappy high stress 12-16 hour days they have been doing.

It is also my experience that one "aww crap" erases 100 ad-a-boy's. Customers memories are short indeed.

So from one engineer "OneEng1" to the others in Kemper, hope things settle down for you soon so you can resume a normal(ish) life again :). I for one appreciate all you do and the very hard work you put in to bring these amazing products to us. @CK, let the engineering staff and project management that there are those of us out here that know how much blood, sweat, tears, late nights and weekends went into this new product and that it is appreciated!

Quote from Ruefus

The current plan for Kemper is to unify the OS. Meaning - one file to update any Profiler. They've said as much and their versioning of the kaos.bin file supports this.

I don't think the Player is nearly as different as some believe.

Possibly so. It is actually more different than I would have chosen to make it (ie, no screen, only 4 slots); however, it seems that the ENGINE is the same making it mostly an easy lift to create a unified ROM image.

The fact remains that it is a Kemper at its core, just no built in screen and 4 fewer EFX slots. I believe that the paid upgrade will fill in the missing features. This should make it an ideal throw-and-go Kemper solution as well as the perfect backup for its bigger brothers.

Note: Once they do get "one ROM to rule them all", the overall team effort will go down from where it is now; however, each release will be incrementally more work than it was before. I suspect this will be easily manageable within the existing Kemper team. Then we can get back to our regularly scheduled slow, but impressive release schedule

They need to make new revenue. I have no issue with them getting the player out and dusted. It's what I would do if I were part of the management team at Kemper.

I find it difficult to complain about not getting any more new features that I haven't paid for ;).

... but to answer the thread question, I suspect they are stretched thin after the launch of the player. If it were me, I would focus on stabilizing that product as my number 1 concern. My #2 concern would be getting the firmware update out for the player that I could also charge for.

I am just spoiled (as are the rest of you) with all the free updates Kemper has provided over the years. If this were Fractal, they would already have released 2 new hardware platforms and announced the end of support for the older ones.

But even the Fractal model is better than what we used to have. I never got an update on my tube amp or any of my pedals. If I wanted new tones ...... more money ;).

I am sure (based on past company behavior) CK will continue to provide updates for the current flagship product line (Toaster, Rack, and Stage). I suspect there will be a lull in the rate of updates as CK didn't likely hire a completely new team just for the Player (that would be silly). We should all just cool our jets and relax .... and play our super cool KPA while CK gets things settled down.

After all, we all want Kemper to continue to be profitable and support our KPA's far into the future!

I use the new reverbs and delays almost exclusively in my Rack. While I can likely get by with 4 efx slots, I can't live without the new verbs and delays.

I am warming up to the idea of using a phone app as my screen. After all, I do operate an X32 Rack with a tablet and it has way more going on than a guitar processor.

I might have to buy a player once the efx package is updated as it would then make a very nice "throw and go" solution as well as a great backup to my main rig. I'll likely never give up my Rack and FC as this combo is just a fantastic gig rig and keeps the cable clutter away from my feet unlike a dedicated floor board solution.

As others have said, get your FOH sound in the context of the full band playing good FIRST. What the audience hears is the most important part by a long shot.

After that, work on your stage monitoring tone. Most digital mixers have the ability to eq the aux sends so that your monitor mix can be adjusted to sound good to you. If you don't have a digital mixer, then you can use an eq pedal prior to the input of the monitor speaker that you can use to eq your own monitor mix.

As others have said, lots of times (most of the time) what sounds good in head phones while you are practicing by yourself, disappears in the mix OR just sounds bad in the mix.

I also agree with others that my KPA out-front sound is light years better than it ever was with a boutique tube amp and a microphone. One tool I have used to achieve this is the use of a digital mixer (X32 Rack) and a virtual sound check. A virtual sound check records your band in multiple tracks while playing live, then sends those signals back after the fact into the mixer. This lets you sit out front and tweak your individual guitar sound in context of the entire band through the mixer.

Another path to the same thing should be possible by using something called re-amping in the KPA. In this case, you would be using the recording of your raw guitar sound to send it back through the KPA while you adjust the KPA tone until it sounds best in the mix. Note, you would have to use virtual sound check on a digital mixer to get the rest of the band in context, or get the rest of the band to play along with your re-amped sound.

Hope this helps!

There is no magic pixey dust that creates "feel". It is all science. In electrical engineering the input to output function is called the transfer function. The KPA attempts to capture the transfer function and reproduce it. If it does this well, and the speaker can reproduce the output well, the result will not be distinguishable from the original because it IS the original.

Guitar tube amps had several big design items that are difficult to reproduce:

1) The distortion pattern of the original signal (I think that Kemper has done a very good job of capturing this even across different input levels)

2) The damping and powering of the output drive section

3) The speaker in the cab was grossly non-linear and often created distortion of its own at different volumes.

To me, the biggest difference in the "amp in the room" is that the "amp in the room" is way louder than most FRFR speakers. IMO, no guitar player has any business (on most stages) operating at this volume level. It is therefore only important when you are alone with your amp (and your wife isn't at home) and you can crank it up and get that "amp in the room" feel

Quote from Wheresthedug

Most of the power in that 5kw PA would be soaked up by kick drum, bass guitar and the bottom end of keyboards. Guitar frequencies are much easier to hear per watt of power.

TRUE!

In my DSR112 top speakers, there are 2 transducers. A HF tweeter, and a 12" woofer. It is clear that 75W of tweeter can blow away 1000W of woofer any day.

Guitar amps aren't quite this bad, but still, a guitar amp doesn't need to pump out huge bottom end so it can spend all its energy pushing out tons of volume in the mid range ....... right where our ears are most sensitive!

This is exactly WHY a 100W tube amp can blow the mix on a 5K (or pick a number, it really doesn't matter) FOH system.

I just spent the afternoon with my drummer going over the last practice virtual sound check multi-track through the PA. The guitars were glorious in the mix, and the mix sounded great through the PA. I don't have a monitor for my guitar on-stage, and the other guitar player has very low output that is mic'ed (and we have vDrums). The KPA sounds SOOOO nice in the mix.

We all use IEM's (Shure PSM300) so we have no loud wedges on stage. I have been playing in a band setup like this since the late 90's. The loud and loose bands I used to play in when in my 20's and 30's seem like Kindergarten compared to what I do now.

I do wonder though if the younger generation growing up with world class modelers and profilers/capture devices for guitar will not bring about a change to the "amp-in-the-room" expectation since these kids will never get used to the idea that band practice ends with your ears ringing

I also think that IEM's will start becoming much more affordable in the next few years (like digital mixers did) as they become the norm for bar bands (has been my norm for quite some time).

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

I think (just a theory) that much of what many guitar players call "amp in the room" sound is about volume.

A decent tube amp and a 4x12 (even a 2x12) can put out a crazy amount of sound (way more than the stage should be subjected to IMO .... which is another discussion entirely).

I have had a single 100W tube head overwhelm a 5000W PA system.

Some guitar players that need to "feel" the palm mute on-stage. Certainly all of us love the feel of a guitar in a room with such high speaker feedback that the strings are so alive they just sing themselves right off the fretboard :).

This is just my theory though. YMMV.

Quote from V8guitar

Its fair to say that permanently connecting a computer has caused issues. As a standalone unit however, freezing remote is not common. Any connectivity issues to the remote is rarely an issue with a shitty cable but the weak ports, especially on the profiler side as the alloy is relatively weak.

There have been issues over the years, slowness not really consistently one of them. I have been on this forum for about 8 years so I think I have a pretty good grasp of the tone of concerns and main issues.

Well done for guessing there would be a smaller unit, as did so many other people, however its not really done for the reasons you suggest ( as a more disposable unit for live) so only half right. I've never really understood this argument because:

1) The remote is even cheaper

2) Many other competitor units don't seem concerned - Quad, Helix etc,

3) Most none digital pedal boards are expensive anyway - pop a couple of Strymon's on and boom...

I suspect the Player fills a gap in the market for a lower entry point for customers to the sound of Kemper, a more compact offering as a fly rig for either live and/or rehearsals.

You mention a Kemper 2 so I suppose you will take credit for that when it inevitably comes out....

If my response comes across as snarky, its because your post comes across as smug and derogatory which tends to illicit a similar response. I'm really not clear what point you are trying to make...

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I have had the same experience. Only issues with leaving my KPA hooked up to the computer over night (I don't think it likes it when the computer hibernates and wakes back up).

The Player does allow a lower entry point for people that want to experience the Kemper but don't have the money for a full size unit. It is also much more compact as you stated.

I personally feel like it missed a number of points that would have made it more universally appealing, but of course, everyone has their opinions on a new product :).

Quote from drog

Hmmm, this works perfectly fine as a backup to my main KP Rack. I still can use my same Rigs just fewer , less effects, morphing but it will certainly get me by in a time of need. If you need more than that, a second KP Rack is really what you need for redundancy. IMO

Fair enough.

I would have liked a backup in the form of a 3 button small rig Kemper Player. It could then operate as a throw and go rig for when carrying a rack and FC is just too much.

If I were to buy .... just a backup for my primary gigging, you are correct. I would just get another used Rack (which you can get for <1K today).

Would have liked to have a backup that also acted as a simple (I can put it in my luggage) portable solution. Hard to argue with the Kemper tone though. Just would really need the full premium efx in order to not have to have a special work effort to get my backup solution acceptable for a gig.

I still might end up getting it some day. Hard to give up that Kemper tone ;). I'll wait out the premium verbs and delays though.

Quote from Ruefus

I'm guessing here....but I think the WHAT vs HOW MUCH comparison has to do with modelers being more resource-intensive. In comparison, the Profiler is obviously light on it's processors. Using the *exact* same hardware since 2011 (Head/Rack)?!?!?!

There's zero doubt the Player is basically a Sleeper. Way more power than we can currently see. Are the limitations artificial? Almost certainly.

For *half* the cost, I can't blame them.

Certainly.

I am just suggesting that the average consumer wont know or care about why things are the way they are, only that one company offers this set of features, and Kemper offers another.

As for the idea of cannibalizing their higher end products, my opinion is that the limitations of only 3 buttons, no FC integration, and only 4 efx slots are more than sufficient to give product differentiation (just my opinion. YMMV).

I am not upset about it, just a little disappointed. Would have liked a backup companion to my Rack. This product just isn't it though. Maybe it will be with a few updates (here's crossing my fingers ).

Quote from Ruefus

Had the Player come first, or very early on…..none of these questions/criticisms/complaints would exist.

Asking the Player to do what the bigger units do is like asking an HX Stomp equal a Helix, or insisting an FM3 do what an AxeFX III does.

They serve different purposes. Just ‘cause it doesn’t fit *your* expectations means nothing.

Both the HX Stomp and FM3 have limited their abilities from their "big brother" in a way that doesn't remove WHAT the unit can do, but rather HOW MUCH.

Every effect is supported, only the total processing is different (granted, the FM3 is 1/4th the processing of the full AxeFX III).

I think the combination of removing WHAT can be done in addition to removing HOW MUCH can be done has made the unit unfit for many use cases OR has made the product less competitive in its market space.

I am not saying no one will buy it or anything silly like that (it's a Kemper after all), just that it would likely have been a home-run product with a few different product decisions. As it is, it will still likely sell a ton more than all their other products combined. This is simply because it is a Kemper and it is priced at half of what you pay for its nearest sibling.

I will agree that many who are upset are just venting and being anti-social in their posts..... particularly those who accuse Kemper of not caring about their customers (that is blatantly silly).

Quote from V8guitar

No because for me, I just found all profiles just took on the character of the cab and despite much tweaking ( which ruined the FOH sound) I got a fairly bland sound even with top quality speakers.

4x12's also do not have the spread and project people think they do. Stand slightly to one side and the sound drops and alters significantly.

In my choices for monitoring, its the last one I would use - assuming its only for on stage monitoring. If you are trying to play off the backline, that is even more problematic.

If you are really keen to use one ( and I've no idea why people do these days) then I would suggest merged profiles.

But that's just me....

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This was exactly my experience.

Quote from KrisMil

The Kemper effects are enviable. The unit is heavily compromised by not including them. A tiny screen naming the rig (and even for tuning) would have been more than useful. I'm not even sure, but is 50 rig slots the limit? It's ok. It would have been mind blowing 5 years ago. But it isn't where the market is right now.

I believe you will not be the only one that thinks this.

I understand the player is NOT just a smaller stage. I also think that many will infer that it is despite what the documentation states.

The difference between "profile", rig and performance are details that are easily missed by non KPA advanced owners.

This will continue to be a problem IMO because the market has been conditioned to think this way by other competing products.

Maybe we could start a thread asking for a "Kemper Player Plus" 😁

I think there is a very good case for adding in:

1. All premium efx missing
2. Morphing
3. All missing amp adjustment parameters

I don't know if it is possible to add in 4 more efx slots as I don't know what DSP power is available to the Player.

Fractal has an interesting method of regulating its FM3 to differentiate it from its FM9 and full powered Axe FX III. The entire line has a CPU throttle. If you run out of processing power, you simply can't add another block. The FM3 has about 1/4th the power of the full Axe and about half that of the FM9..... but all units can utilize the same parameters and efx blocks .... just not as many or as powerful. A really nice verb might cost you 1/3rd of your processing on the FM3 as an example.

Fractal's approach still doesn't allow you to take any rig from the Axe FX III and play it on the FM3; however if you keep your setups simple, they will work on both.

I would like to see the Kemper Player be able to be used live for any simple setup supported on the bigger units. I fail to see how this will effect sales of the bigger units.

I for one would never give up my Kemper FC and Rack rig for a Player. The Player form factor is simply not nearly as effective at gigging (and that is all I use mine for).

I might buy one for a mobile throw and go solution if it supported all my efx (I have replaced nearly all my legacy reverbs and legacy delays with better ones). For people that use Morph all the time, that would also be needed for this purpose.

There is some wiggle room for a paid upgrade here. The FM3 is a 1K device. Arguably, with its color LCD it is a bit more premium than a Player, but sound wise, I think a Kemper player with full efx capabilities would be close to on-par with the gigability of an FM3 and certainly better than the $700 Line 6 Helix Stomp which reportedly has issues with switching time between patches ( a deal killer for a live application).

Quote from pippopluto

Mhhh... I think this is not the point tho. Having expectations is one thing, as well as being frustrated when you discover specs don't fit your needs. But blaming Kemper because you did not even bother reading the specs or, even worse, blabbering about "jokes" is a totally different thing. As if Kemper team did not lost their sleep for months over trying and finding the best compromises, design and price point for the new unit (were hundreds of thousands Euro are invested). As any other small manufacturer, I mean...

I agree that there is no excuse for having bad manners because your expectations were not met. Voicing your disappointment can be done while maintaining good demeanor.

FWIW, I run groups of engineers that design hardware for a living. I suspect that the cost for development of the Kemper Player was likely 1 million or more (I have easily dumped 2-4Million in a hardware program involving hardware, firmware, apps, and integration with server resources). The Player isn't as big a program as some of these, but I would bet it is 1M plus. So your point is valid. They have to get a return on their investment.

Quote from pippopluto

Mhhh... This is another tricky point IMO. Chances are the Player was never meant as a backup, except for those who only use 2-4 fx per rig and have very simple requirements in terms of versatility (I've read of many who were happy about the Player just because their needs were totally covered, and with the legendary Kemper tone).
Another very typical application would be - from what I've been reading around - adding the Player to a stomp pedalboard (there are many impressive examples already).
So basically it all boils down IMO to expectations and evaluations. Silly to become aggressive because you chose the wrong unit for your needs, no?

If it is true that the Player was never meant as a backup, then it was certainly a Product Management oversight as this was some pretty low hanging fruit in the market, but your point is well taken. It could well be that this was not a target market (even if we all wanted it to be).

I would contend that most people who use a full sized KPA rarely use more than 2 pre and 2 post efx .... or that they could certainly make due with 2 pre and 2 post in a pinch. Certainly, no one would expect Kemper to create a 3 button KPA that was a full KPA with the limitation of it having only 3 buttons as no competitor does this either. If performances were able to be shared with the full KPA's, I think that the lack of efx slots could be worked around in nearly all situations except the most extreme rigs.

As a player as a stomp box in a pedal board, you are looking at competition with the $400.00 Tone X pedal. In a pedal board, you are likely going to see dedicated delay, chorus, and reverb units. Personally, I personally don't understand these kinds of rigs at all. Very expensive, not that flexible, and lots of things that can go wrong in a gig (one of the reasons I bought a Kemper in the first place!). Not to mention the dreaded tap dance routine needed to switch from one sound to another! No thanks :).

Again, I agree that there is no need to get aggressive about this subject.

Quote from crivat

had no less than 4 AXEFXs, one of the first KPAs sold by thomann (sent it back based on lag-related issues,) currently entering my 10th year of playing KPA on tour, owning 3 KPAs, 2 players and 2 remotes. fucking flawless. just sent a hx stomp xl back to muziker because of un-usability caused by lag between patches. and no, snapshots don't cut it for me

I agree. Snap-shots in Helix (Quad Cortex does the same thing I believe .... for the same reason) are really just giving you one set of parameters for a rig and giving you 2 more parameter sets within that rig. You can't actually change the rig to another rig. When I want a clean, I usually don't use the same amp, routing and efx as I do for a drive, let alone a heavy rig.

Quote from Steve5478

I wanted to talk about a new kemper's player owner. It means, he catches a rig on rig exchange and put it in his Player but he can't set those absent parameters anyway!?

The Kemper Player doesn't offer as many ways to customize a rig as the full KPA. There will be some people who had expected that the Player would have the same editing capabilities of a rig as the bigger brothers (the competition does). Not saying it is necessarily a deal killer, just that people might have this expectation based on other competing product lines.

The fact remains that at $700.00 USD, the Kemper Player might still be the most effective small form factor all-in-one guitar processor that a gigging musician can buy (even without a screen)

Even though it is an imperfect FULL KPA backup device, it is still BY FAR the most effective small format backup device / throw-and-go rig out there for a full KPA user.