Andy Sneap talks about the Kemper Profiling Amp

I remember when I listened to dark roots the first time, there was one song that the guitars sounded a little different from the rest of the album to me, maybe im hearing things too haha
 
Dammit, I once thought this as well, dunno if it was during Thrones of Thorns or on another song, but then I just attributed it to my paranoia :D
 
Melb_shredder said:
.... So I've been listening to Dark Roots Of The Earth non-stop lately... And if any of you have the album, please do me a favor??
Listen through a few songs, then go to track 8 - Throne Of Thorns... The guitar tones continues to hit me as different to the rest of the album... And maybe, maybe I'm just hearing things, but it seems to have something stiff about it that I usually attribute to digital amps.

My gut says that song was rhythms throug Kemper. I wonder if Andy would be willing to shed some light here :/
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"The only song recorded with an actual amp is track 8 - Throne Of Thorns"

I have no idea of course, but it would've been awesome. ;)
 
Scottxx said:
I hear little sound differences on all Kemper vs. Real amps tests.
Click to expand...

There certainly is a difference in the tone and it can be easily scientifically proven by simply looking at the waveforms and basic spectrum meters.

I don't mean to bash the master here but the tweaked version of Andy Sneap's profile had less 80hz, more 200hz, less 400hz, more 850hz but after that the profile was spot on spectrum-wise. No I couldn't tell the diffence in a mix. :D

The Kemper doesn't capture an amps tube dynamics. It has tube-like dynamics, but it doesn't capture the exact tube dynamics of your amp. The difference might not be like night and day maybe but more like "is my microphone slightly off?". I've been getting crap from Kemper users ever since I made my review where I was unhappy with the profiling accuracy.

What I noticed in the long run was that Kemper has problems capturing 125hz. On some profiles there was too little of it and on some profiles there was too much of it. The higher presence area has some clear aliasing going on also. It sounds like a compressed mp3 quality in certain aspects to me at least.

My whole point is that I think Kemper is overpriced. "Wow it steals your amp's sound" wasn't a big factor for me since I've done it for years with Ozone that only costs 200€. The only difference is 1) I have to find the amp drive level manually and 2) when Ozone is complete, I don't have to do ANYTHING to make it sound unnoticably similar in a mix. I can give you guys a clip if you want it.... hell.. I'll give you my guitar stems and I bet no one can tell where it's the real amp and when it's Ozone:

This is an old raw mix of the song:

Guitar stem:

I'll hammer my Axe-Fx Ultra to tiny pieces if someone can point out the two parts in that song that are not the real amp.

This is not about who you should trust: Andy Sneap; a professional audio engineer or Clark Kent; the 25 year old guitar geek. That's not what this is about and I don't get why that's the way people see it. Both Andy and I have said that the profile was not 100% there. Andy is able to live with it and tweak it to where he's happy with it. I'm not willing to tweak it since I know I can get there easier with different techniques and therefore am not able to live with it.
 
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I think you'll find the differences to be more apparent when you're actually judging based on good tones. Not to mention you're judging exact frequency changes based on a fucking youtube video? Get real.
 
JeffTD said:
I think you'll find the differences to be more apparent when you're actually judging based on good tones. Not to mention you're judging exact frequency changes based on a fucking youtube video? Get real.
Click to expand...

I measured the ripped audio of that video in high quality and compared them to each other. Both clips got the same YouTube treatment so they can be compared to each other.
 
Clark Kent said:
This is not about who you should trust: Andy Sneap; a professional audio engineer or Clark Kent; the 25 year old guitar geek. That's not what this is about and I don't get why that's the way people see it. Both Andy and I have said that the profile was not 100% there. Andy is able to live with it and tweak it to where he's happy with it. I'm not willing to tweak it since I know I can get there easier with different techniques and therefore am not able to live with it.
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are you putting yourself on the same level as andy? :err: you talk like youre some kind of pro or something
 
Habsburgs said:
are you putting yourself on the same level as andy? :err: you talk like youre some kind of pro or something
Click to expand...

No I'm not. I'm not a professional. I just have an opinion of my own that I based on the fact that I had the Kemper for three weeks and did not like it. That is way stronger than taking someone's word for it. My advice is that it's not for everyone so try one first before you buy one. Just because a professional likes it will not make me like the Kemper. That's hype just like Axe-Fx was all hype back when I was telling people not to sell their tube amps. The Kemper is a cool unit but I have an extremely strong feeling that it'll fade into history in a few years.
 
Melb_shredder said:
.... So I've been listening to Dark Roots Of The Earth non-stop lately... And if any of you have the album, please do me a favor??
Listen through a few songs, then go to track 8 - Throne Of Thorns... The guitar tones continues to hit me as different to the rest of the album... And maybe, maybe I'm just hearing things, but it seems to have something stiff about it that I usually attribute to digital amps.

My gut says that song was rhythms throug Kemper. I wonder if Andy would be willing to shed some light here :/
Click to expand...

Nope
 
Andy, I legitimately can't tell the difference but would like a Kemper anyway, can you please send me yours just for asking nicely.

Love,

- Owen
 
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