Kemper - what's the point?

[Swampy]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

I’d like to try one. I think they’re cool. But I could never see one becoming legendary, like ....”This is the Kemper that so-and-so used on such-and-such album....”. In a way, that’s kind of a bummer.
Just my .02

[justFred]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

we passed the legendary sign at least twenty years ago...
in another 10 years R&R will be considered quaint...a hobby like going antiquing...

[Aceman]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

See - that's part of the ting Swampy. I think between artists not being tone hounds, engineers doing whatever it takes, and general mysteriousness and assorted BS, there already ARE a bunch of rounds that are a Kemper, a Pod, or a Death Metal pedal through Pignose or whatever.

And I think they were there long before Kemper showed up. But I haven't heard "I wish I had a Kemper for THAT tone..." as you said.

[beaubrummels]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

The only thing that would keep a Kemper from becoming legendary/sought after is that the Kemper itself doesn’t have a sound.

[chadd]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

But I haven't heard "I wish I had a Kemper for THAT tone..." as you said.

Of course you haven't heard that, they have no signature tone of their own. However, they give you the chance to carry hundreds of copies of those tones in a lunch box. A Kemper is just about the only way most people will be able to have Fender, Vox, Marshall, Mesa, Bogner, and Friedman tones all available to them. Some of the amps can each cost more than a Kemper. It's a tool, nothing more, nothing less. Accept it for what it is, a way to expand your tonal palate in a relatively affordable way that is also easy to transport. It's not going to create anything new, that isn't the point.

[Mincer]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

It would be cool to have a friend with some amazing amps, or an uncle who owns a studio with tons of vintage amps that you could then clone with your Kemper.

[Aceman]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

But Dave - did you read the list of Kemper models???? It is a who's who of the meat and potatoes to the obscure.

How does that thing clone anyway? I find that suspicious. Any Youtube vids?

[GuitarStv]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

But Dave - did you read the list of Kemper models???? It is a who's who of the meat and potatoes to the obscure.

How does that thing clone anyway? I find that suspicious. Any Youtube vids?

They're not likely to make that information available, because once known it should be pretty easy to replicate for less money.

I'd start out by:
- Take a frequency sweep to get a decent understanding of the EQ curve of the amp being modeled. Perform this at multiple EQ settings on the amp to determine how the EQ circuit impacts the final frequencies leaving the amp
- Do some various level (and frequency) volume pinging to get an understanding of what areas the amp being modeled compresses, and which areas are most dynamic
- Do some wave form analysis to determine how the sound waves get clipped during distortion

With that information you should be able to build up a pretty close copy of the sound of any amplifier.

[Jacew]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

we passed the legendary sign at least twenty years ago...
in another 10 years R&R will be considered quaint...a hobby like going antiquing...

I don't think so.

Technology has dropped production costs considerably, and music business has realized there's huge array of niche markets to tap just by letting artist do what what they do. Listening to new stuff I don't think rock music has fared as well as it does now for a past 30 years...

[Aceman]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

I get they are going to tell me the "secret"

Still, I find it hard to believe the thing can legitimately ape the sound of an amp and its total response across the eq spectrum, the gain levels, and all those interactions at a given input level (or many) without spending a whole lot of time taking readings to "clone" something.

[Demanic]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

Maybe they do spend a whole lot of time cloning things. But once it's done and saved, then it's not going anywhere. In the end, it's just data that can be manipulated.

Sent from my Alcatel_5044C using Tapatalk

[LLL]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

in another 10 years R&R will be considered quaint...a hobby like going antiquing...

Quite possible, sadly.

Also possible R&R's only hope at a comeback is the hipsters and their fondness for quaintness...

[justFred]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

I get they are going to tell me the "secret"

Still, I find it hard to believe the thing can legitimately ape the sound of an amp and its total response across the eq spectrum, the gain levels, and all those interactions at a given input level (or many) without spending a whole lot of time taking readings to "clone" something.

you stated the secret...taking time is the secret to success in most everything...the comments on Knopfler going Kemper for his latest tour were all about his tech taking the time to capture his tone...seriously doubt an artist/perfectionist like Knopfler would lower his standards if Kemper wasn't the real deal...

[Mincer]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

You can profile your own amps with a Kemper. You can profile any amp you want. There are tons of forums out there sharing profiled amps so you are not limited to what it ships with. From a Premier Guitar review:

While the Profiling Amplifier looks like it would be at home on a very advanced alien spacecraft, the profiling process itself is surprisingly simple. To set up a profile, you warm up a tube amp (solid-state amps work, too), plug a guitar into the Kemper’s front input jack, and run an XLR cable from the Kemper’s rear-mounted XLR jack to a microphone set up to mic the source amp’s speaker. Then, you complete a loop by running a patch cable from the amplifier’s input jack to the Kemper’s 1/4" direct output/send jack. Through this loop, the Kemper captures the tone DNA of the tube amp. It’s sci-fi stuff, but it works.

The process is also surprisingly fast. You set the 5-way rotary chicken-head knob on the left side to the profiler setting, and the LCD screen gives you easy-to-follow instructions. You play through the amp you’re profiling and, using a pair of headphones, listen to how it sounds through the mic. Once you have an accurate sound picture of the amp, you start the profiling process. The Kemper sends out three pieces of garbled noise to the amp’s input that represent high-, middle- and low-frequency ranges. It sounds a little like a fax modem running through a Big Muff, but don’t worry—these signals are designed to evaluate how the amp’s circuitry and cabinet react to the input. The mic picks up the signals as they come out the other end of the amp circuits and cabinet, and then sends them back into the Kemper for processing—the end result, as strange as it seems, is a super-accurate profile of the amp’s unique dynamics and response to different frequencies and signals.

Once you create a basic profile of your amp, you can fine-tune it in the amplifier portion of the stack section (top middle of control panel). Here you can alter power amp sag, dial in vintage or modern response qualities, adjust the level of compression, and even how much pick attack comes through. The cabinet’s voicing and size can be changed, too.

[Diego]

Re: Kemper - what's the point?

I’d like to try one. I think they’re cool. But I could never see one becoming legendary, like ....”This is the Kemper that so-and-so used on such-and-such album....”. In a way, that’s kind of a bummer.
Just my .02

They're not very heroic, I'll give you that.
It's just a thing that does it's thing in a very unexciting manner, even if it's damn good at it.

I remember Guthrie Govan, a long time Kemper user, explaining that even if the Kemper does sound impossibly close to his BadCat or whatever amp he's comparing it to, it's more inspiring to him to play through an actual amp because he knows he's doing so. Can't discount that.