Posts by Nightmare Circus

Quote from Alfahdj

I dont know why I dont feel the same quality as the plini plug-in, that one sounds really full and musical.

The models aren't made by the same people who made the plugins, it's a completely different team. That's according to Dan over at NDSP. I always wondered why basically every youtuber put all their focus into the capture feature and almost none into the amp models or effects: it's because IMO they aren't really that great but who knows what updates will bring. I never buy a piece of gear based on "future promises" though, my only experience with one has been a few hours messing with it at a buddies studio and messing with peoples "comparisons" they've been posting.

As far as the captures it's less effort for basically the same result to me. Kemper profiles don't come out the gate screaming "look how close I am" you have to do tweaking after the fact to get it there but if you just take the extra few minutes to do that you end up at the same result. It's one of those things where with a good ear you can tell there is a slight difference between a capture and a well made kemper profile of the same thing if it's just a solo guitar in mono but once you double track and throw it in a mix you're just taking wild guesses at that point which is which. The QC is really good for someone who doesn't already own something high end like a Axe-FX or a Kemper but I wouldn't rush off selling either of those units for a QC just yet.

Quote from drew_fx

Your perspective is that in a mix no-one would be able to hear a difference. That isn't my perspective and isn't really related to my fundamental position - the QC gets closer to the real amp than the Kemper.

I don't need to EQ the QC. I don't need to mess around with a set of refinement stages that may or may not push the tone in the wrong direction.

"In a mix" is where 99.9% of listeners are going to hear your guitars. That's why I've always put a big emphasis on dialing in tones within a mix or at the very least double tracking (which in itself makes the guitars tonally different) and not to sound good completely isolated on their own. As I've stated if the argument is a raw QC capture is more accurate than a raw Kemper one I don't think you'll get any argument out of me or anyone else. That doesn't mean the Kemper can't be just as accurate to the real thing as the QC once you make a few adjustments, that's exactly why all the options to do so are there on the Kemper. It also doesn't mean that a capture or profile even has to be 100% accurate to sound good and honestly that's a situation that doesn't effect very man people.

I hate to make over-arching statements based on anecdotal evidence but in my experience the majority of the people who use a Kemper and probably QC users as well do not and will not make their own profiles. They use the ones provided or buy packs from 3rd parties and at that point there's is no way to tell how accurate it is to the source because you weren't there. Sure you could make the argument you could just go based on the reputation of the algorithm but there's no way to be 100% sure. For those people the process is ultimately irrelevant because they turn the browse knob and get the sound they want.

Quote from drew_fx

I don't understand why you would say I should EQ on the Kemper when making the profile - isn't the whole point behind any kind of profiling technique, that we want to get as close as possible to the reference sound??

Would you not EQ your guitars in a mix or live? The real question is why wouldn't you that's exactly what the tools are for. It's kind of like having all the ingredients to make your favorite meal but leaving a few of them out because why should you have to add them? The meal should just taste good without them right? Maybe not the best example but hopefully one that's easy to follow. To me this is illogical, you want it to be as close as possible to the reference sound but don't want to take the appropriate steps to make it happen? You're ultimately ending up at the same place with either unit it's just one is requiring less work than the other.

Quote from ckemper

This exactly what I have noticed too.

The incorrect volume matching is a new aspect of the dual comparison clips.

It does not happen when you do an A/B comparison in the Profiling Mode.

The Profile is spot on with the exception of the bass response, mainly revealed by playing palm mutes.

I have mentioned earlier in this thread that such deviations can usually be polished in a few seconds by refining that same palm mutes. Should be intuitive.

drew_fx : We have no message from you that you have tried to refine that way.

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It's one of the main reasons I never buy something based on a youtube video or review. There's just too many subtle ways to "fool" people even if by complete accident.

If the argument is the raw QC capture is closer to the original than a raw Kemper profile right out the gate I mean I agree 100% at least based on my tests. I would imagine the QC process is automating a lot of what a Profile maker would typically do post capture on their Kemper and baking it into the capture so you don't even see it. There are pros and cons to this of course, people who don't like tweaking or want instant gratification will obviously go for the piece of gear that gives them that. I'm guilty of this, it's one of the main reasons I dislike fractal: all the tweaking.

I just think the point should be made that with a little tweaking you can get the Kemper just as close as a QC profile granted they will still have their own flavor. That's true in even real tube amps and cabs though, you can line up 10 5150s into Mesa OS 4x12s with the same settings and mic placement and they all will sound slightly different. Heck even just take 10 SM57s and they all sound slightly different its just the nature of electronic components. A lot of things effect sound even some things most people don't even consider like: room temperature. In this example I used a simple post EQ and in a lot of professional profiles I've bought I've noticed that quite often there is an EQ in the FX block somewhere that often has a very subtle move just like the one I made. Nothing massive just maybe a 1-2 db cut or boost to a specific frequency. Probably to achieve the same thing: to get it as close to the original as possible. You're taking a different route to the same destination.

In the context of a mix I honestly believe I couldn't pass a blind test between the two with 100% accuracy. I did a ~2 db cut on 200hz on the refined kemper and even that might have been a hair too much but a lot of that whomp will be removed in post anyway through the use of a high pass filter and multiband compression to tame palm mutes.

Quote from DeadLazy

It really is a curiosity, why this thread is so active? Kemper dropped a bomb on both the digital world, and world of tubes (that many like me, love) when it released. For a decade it sat totally unchallenged. Now, there is direct competition.

I lost all interest in the QC. Someone mentioned tone only being part of why you choose one or there and I agree. The promotional stuff and conduct of the QC community, thus far, has made me lose any interest.

I really appreciate Kemper as a company and not just a product. And there it is, my first post after being a Kemper player for over a year and a half. Inspired by QC, ironically.

It's really quite obvious if you think about it. The Kemper has been around for a long time and everything worth saying about it has already been said multiple times. It's also never really had any type of competition so this is really the only "new" thing to talk about when it comes to the Kemper.

I just don't think you can honestly go wrong with anything made in the past decade or so. Everyone has their personal tastes of course and as an example I am not a big fan of fractal products or Bias FX. The difference is I don't walk up to everyone with an Axe-FX and say "that thing is trash you should sell it and buy this other thing" because the fact I don't like it didn't stop hundreds if not thousands of people from getting stellar tones out of them. Heck I've heard some pretty incredible things out of Pod Farm of all things and know some engineers who still use it... they're all tools and a tool is only as good as the person using it.

One thing I've always found to be true in general is that most professional guitar players aren't really that picky anyway. If you take someone like Santana, EVH, or MJR and plug him into almost anything (that's decent ok I'm not talking about a 9v battery clip on practice amp) it's going to sound like them. The argument to me is really no different than someone trying to argue that a Mesa amplifer is better or worse than an 5150. I mean they're both good in their own way and they both have tons of commercial success. It's just a different flavor of ice cream.

I've always told people that if you own something "high end" and can't get the sound you want out of it buying a new piece of gear probably isn't going to solve that issue for you and far too many people put way too much focus in their isolated solo mono track guitar sound than how it sounds in a full band setting. If you took a track that has your favorite guitar tone of all time and muted everything but one guitar and panned it center it's a good chance you wouldn't even like it anymore.

Context in a full band matters.

Again I'm not trying to mean or anything part of the fun of being an engineer for me is the wide variety of tones and playing styles you deal with. If everyone recorded with the same thing it would be boring. Every tone is unique and has its own set of challenges to make it work. Got a SLO-100 full stack? Cool lets do it. Kemper? Cool lets do it. Fractal unit? Cool lets do it. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received in school was: "A bad song mixed well is still bad; A good song mixed bad is still good"

Quote from Ibot39

So you are talking from a hobby perspective maybe?

Think of a studio engineer, who wants to capture his (signature) signal chain to simplify studio life and workflow. Of course he wants results as accurate as possible. Good tone is, what he has already dialed in at the source! That's exactly what he wants to preserve.

The whole concept of Kemper and also QC is based around accuracy - what else?

Or how many will buy gear with this slogan: "Our unit makes random captures that can sound very good and often pretty similar to the source in your studio. A random good tone does not need more accuracy." ?

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An engineer knows that guitar tone has much to do with the other instruments in the mix and how they interact/mask each other in full band context as it does the guitar itself. The guitars on professional recordings do not sound exactly like the source by the very nature of mixing and I would argue the whole concept of the Kemper and QC in a studio setting is based primarily on saving time and as a stop gate for something going wrong (tube blows, intern bumps the mic, ect). Even something as simple as a HPF can significantly alter the sound of the source tone.

Then again most studios I've worked at or recorded at don't profile amps on site they use profiles already on the unit. Its easy to just sit there and go through profiles while the artist is playing to find a tone that works for their style. In most cases though if the artist has a specific amp they use/like you're going to use that and not a hardware unit. While you'll see plenty of these in bedroom setups and some studios their main application is for live use, at least in my opinion, and that's a whole other can of worms. Sound reinforcement and studio engineering are two very different beasts and often you're at the mercy of the room.

I honestly don't understand the obsession with profiles/captures having to be "100% accurate". IMO neither of them are but they're pretty close. To me all I care about is that it sounds good, when I buy a reamp zone or tone junkie profile the first thing that pops into my head isn't "I wonder if this sounds exactly like the source amp" it's "damn that sounds really good let me favorite that and turn the knob here... eh don't like that one too much delete.... oh this ones nice going to favorite that". Tone is subjective anyway what I like isn't what other people will like and vice versa if you find the piece of gear that gives you a tone you love there's no reason to go chasing another 1%.

I did listen to Drews comparison though and immediately one thing stood out to me (and I'm not saying this was intentional so please don't get angry): The KPA files were quieter. The human ear perceives louder as better and its one of the oldest tricks in the book. I loaded the QC and refined up in reaper, hard panned them and volume matched and took a tiny dip out of 200hz and honestly I can't tell a difference between them. Yes that means I had to EQ to Kemper file but that should have been done when making the profile.

Is a raw capture more accurate out the gate? Eh probably but having to make one less move during the process isn't worth 2 grand to me. I'll just circle back to the point where I don't see why the heck it even matters. If it sounds good: it sounds good, both the kemper and QC add their own flavor to their profiles so are you a vanilla or a chocolate kind of guy?

EDIT: For anyone interested heres my results with Drews Files. Throw some drums/bass over the volume matched one and honestly good luck trying to figure out what is what

https://drive.google.com/drive…vnQw9Z1DPZa1g?usp=sharing

These are the only two guitars I've ever owned, had the one on the right for around 15 years or so and grabbed the other one a few years ago just to have a "fishman" guitar even though I never play it. I've never felt the need to play anything other than the LTD it's just amazing for me

Quote from drew_fx

So I spent a chunk of today making a video to try to demonstrate the issue I run into time and time again with the Profiler. Link is here:

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Thanks for the free profile and nice video, honestly I would use any of those tones I heard in the video.... assuming they work well in a mix anyway

Been watching this here and on the gear page, mostly for the giggles, and honestly I don't see why this is such a big deal? No one here knows if their favorite Sinmix, Tone Junkies, MBrit, or whoevers profile is 100% exact to the real amp they profiled but yet it's still their favorite.

If you don't like your Kemper then sell it? It's just a piece of gear and with the way digital stuff has been going the next new shiny thing is only a few years away.... find the piece of gear you never have to sell and that's the gear for you. There are probably thousands of videos online showing "the Kemper is indistinguishable from the real amp in a mix" and people like Rabea saying the "feel is indistinguishable" 3 year ago and now all the sudden they have a change of heart? Either the technology is that amazing or they're being paid to say that (I vote the latter), either way if someone likes their axe-fx, helix, kemper, ect I doubt they're just going to toss it because some youtuber said the QC is better.

Plenty of great records have been made with all 3 units and all 3 units see representation in the touring artist community. These days nothing is better or worse than anything, it's all amazing. Pick your poison. I just don't see the point in getting so upset about it when it ultimately doesn't effect you at all.

Quote from guitarguy316

Damn, this forum is becoming as toxic as Neural DSP forums arguing which is a better tool.

The reality is competition is good for everyone involved. In the meantime, carry on defending whichever unit you have and/or want

I'll be owning both.

A tool is only as good as the person using it. Ultimately which is "better" will be a personal opinion and opinions change constantly. Just look at Rabea, 3 years ago the "feel and response" of the kemper was "exactly the same"(quoting his 5150 vs Kemper video) and now all the sudden it isn't according to the video he took down? Even if he didn't "refine" the profile once you throw it in a mix with a high pass filter I bet hardly anyone could tell which is which anyway.

I agree though that competition is good, Kemper hasn't had to really do anything for the past 10 years because they had zero competition and even though i'll personally never replace mine because it gives me tones I want I guess trying to go from 99% there to 100% there is a good thing? If you don't own anything like a Kemper or an Axe-FX already then the QC is probably the best value but do I think everyone is going to sell their kempers and buy a QC based on a few paid promos by youtube influencers? Probably not. The other reality is if you couldn't get a "good tone" out of stuff like an Axe-FX, Kemper, Helix, ect already then I doubt the QC is going to magically fix that.

I know mix ready anything is a myth but I really struggle to get a decent bass sound in my demos. The bass is an ESP LTD DF- 404 with two EMG 35P4 pickups (basically active P style pickups). The DI tone sounds great but it doesn't matter if I run it through a darkglass, sansamp, split bass technique it, or run it through various kemper profiles I can never get it to not sound like trash in the mix. Starting to feel like I'm just going to "And justice for all" the bass in everything.

Here are some examples

Pandemic (Original)

KSE My Curse Intro Test (Very Low Bass Volume)

Quote from Ruefus

Maybe this?

From the manual:

Yeah I read the manual. Currently using sort by favorites mode and giving them custom names to try and keep them in order. Also tried using performance scenes but they only hold 5 rigs

Trying to figure out the best way to keep my rigs organized in the kemper. I have set the main ones i use to Favorite and renamed them all with some prefix for example "KW - EVH Mesa 4x12" "KW - EVH Mesa 4x12 Boosted" ect. They won't reorder based on this though and I have to remove all profiles and reload them in the order I want them to appear. Am I missing something?

I'm a recent Kemper owner and I have to say I don't see how anyone could complain about this thing. 5 minutes after taking it out of the box I already had my idea of a perfect tone for recording and about an hour later I had 2 screens worth of favorites that all sound pretty incredible and to me sound exactly like the amp is in the other room blasting into a mic (most of them coming from the Lars Luettege free pack, killer work). I've owned or demo'd just about every software and hardware sim you can think of and the thing I hated about pretty much all of them was the immense amount of tweaking you had to do, especially on the AxFX-II and Bias Amp/FX, to get something decent. With the KPA i just turn it on and flip through a few profiles and done. Little to no tweaking involved and I've never had to do anything other than adjust the gain/EQ.

After having it for about 2 weeks now I admit a lot of the profiles on the Rig Exchange and even by "big names" like SinMix are not my cup of tea, it's hard to say they sound "bad" because to someone else they may sound incredible as guitar tone is highly subjective. I'm too afraid to buy any more profile packs because i always hate to spend money on something I can't test and having to rely on highly polished Youtube demos. My only really complaints are how misleading the EQ knobs are because a simple 0.5 move is either direction is pretty extreme on the sound, the gain on most of the stock profiles is way too high as well but these are simple 30 second fixes, and even with the recent OS update and Rig Manager my KPA will stop communicating with the Rig Manager if i cycle through profiles too fast.

Here is my favorite, the EVH Red Channel through a "Hi Sue" cab (Hesu 4x12?)

KPA Test Riff

Quote from Locrain

I actually think a Kemper might be the way to go then. I'll put it this way: The Putney suite is the best amp sim I've used (for heavy rock/metal), and I have almost everything except Neural (come on, black friday). And the Putney suite is better (to me yes, but many other I know) than his KPA pack. But does not measure up to so many more tones that I from my Kemer, it's just incredible.

The fact that you mention the meth-like tweaking required to dial in a Fractal makes me think the Kemper is about perfect. Cause that's the whole point. I don't trust my ear after about 20 min of tweaking, I hated playing with an Axe FX because it didn't sound good by itself, I had to get it there. And there are just other thing I'd rather do, like pick a killer profile and play, haha. The Kemper excels at out-of-the-box tones, that's what it does (this does, to a point, depends on where you get your profiles, but the point is the same). And, even worst case: Do you like tweaking endless parameters until you finally find your tone, or scrolling through rigs until one grabs you? I vastly prefer B.

I haven't played through your TSE with your guitar the way you have everything set up. That said...there is not a single doubt in my mind that you will find so many profiles that you prefer to the TSE that it will start to become annoying when you don't know which to pick.

Seriously though, I am certain of that. Tell you what, send me your DIs and I'll reamp a few for you. I have an embarrassingly large amount of profiles, whatever you'd like, I am very certain there's something you'll like...provided I don't f**k up the reamp...!

Edit: I would like to add that I 100% agree with lightbox to his point: The Kemper really does feel, behave, sound, etc, more "like a real amp" than anything else I have listened to. That's hard to get across with reamps. When I got my KPA, I had a Voz AC15TV 50th annv, and switched back and forth. That was a pretty incredible experience, I have to say. The Vox was up on Reverb the next morning.

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Alright thank you I would upload some short DI samples of tracks im working on into a google drive when I get home. I actually downloaded the demo of the Putney suite and found I can get TSE at flat EQ to sound exactly like "Amp 1" flat EQ by engaging the MK II Mod and basically turning the resonance all the way up and turning down the the presence basically all the way down while running the bias a little colder. Very monstrous low end (which isn't a good thing to me) but I ran them both through the same impulse response for comparison purposes, which apparently they didn't even bother to include an IR loader with Putney which is insane for a $150 plugin IMO. Ill also include a few reamps of my own in the folder so you can get an idea of what i'm working with both through the TSE and reamps I did with an actual rig.

Quote from Locrain

I love my Kemper...but if I was only concerned about ITB recording and I was short on cash...amp sims have gotten really good in a shockingly short amount of time. The STL Putney suite is far better than his KPA pack...imo of course...

Regarding the DI, I think I know a commercial profiler that would probably run one through for you. I can ask...

That said, if you can't get a good tone out of neural or fractal, I don't know that you'll have much more success here, all devices/plugins mentioned are more than capable of delivering phenomenal tones, especially low-tuned/high-gain stuff. I know some really good producers that are just using plugins now...it's just so easy to reamp, and they are getting damn good.

Not trying to scare you off a KPA, it's still the only gear purchase I have never regretted, the variety and quality of tones you have access to, free or otherwise is pretty amazing. For what it's worth, I hated the tones I got with a fractal. But...I am inclined to chalk that up to user error/workflow preference, as many others have proven me wrong many times over.

I've been using the TSE 50x V2 with ownhammer IRs for quite awhile, prior to that I was using the Kazrog Psycho A again with ownhammers. I think the tone I get with this set-up is quite good and the TSE feels like the real amp to me but these are not really something I can use live or bring to another studio with me. I spent hours with an Axe-FX II XL+ and I just couldn't get anything decent out of the thing with the stock stuff but of course you could probably tweak the 8000 parameters for a few months and dial in that perfect tone, I'm ultimately just too lazy for that. I could also just load some 3rd party IRs on it but paying $2k+ for an IR loader seems pretty unreasonable to me. The axe-fx (and bias fx) also seem to really hate high frequencies because pretty much everything sounds like its LPF'd at like 5k.

For me the Kemper needs to have a profile that blows the TSE 50x V2 away to my ears for me to consider it and without me having to buy a ton of kemper profile packs to find it. Which i understand can be hard since you technically can't even adjust the settings on the amp.

Alright thanks for the responses, guess I will have to hold off until one of these people let me try theirs out.

Hello,

I have been doing a lot of research on the Kemper such as reading reviews and watching videos but I'm sure we all know how that goes... you hear how great it is and hear excellent stuff on youtube then you get said nueral DSP plugin or axe-fx and bam: not even close. There are a lot of people selling these units on my local classifieds (already concerning me honestly) but I still haven't found someone willing to let me swing by and play through it for a bit (even more concerning) to test it out for myself so would anyone be willing to reamp some of my DI's through their Kemper? I see the actual kemper website offers a 45 day return policy but retailers like Sweetwater don't seem to mention this.