Kemper Profiling Amp

[Genius Gone Insane]

I would easily pay $2,000 a to be able to do the following:

1. Find a good guitar tone with my 5150/Krank/etc mic’d up at full volume into my DAW
2. Sample this tone
3. Reamp through a profiling amp with an identical tone, thus saving my neighbors many hours of loud reamping.

Can the Kemper Profiling Amp do this? I am still not clear on how good it is. I suppose I’ll have to just try one out first.
$2,000 would be a small price to pay to be able to reamp an entire album late at night.

 

[FIXXXER]

it's supposed to do exactly what you described, not sure about about how accurate it really is.
i've heard some great examples but i also heard tons of crap tones...yeah, you have to try it for yourself

 

[Trevoire520]

Listen to the new Testament album and try and find the Kempered parts in the mix. If you can't then I say it's good enough to record with!

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

^Not to second guess Master Sneap, but I would like to get some more opinions here. Based on the thread in the main forum, it seems like there are a bunch of guys who are not sold on the Kemper. I am looking for someone else to say "Yes, it works perfectly" or "yes it works but you need to do some tweeking", or "Fuck me, I tried everything and still it does not match the tone coming out of my amp."

I don't trust myself to drop $2k on this puppy and then be able to turn around and say, "it's good, but not what I was hoping for, so I'm going to return it." More likely I will get excited by all the lights and keep it and watch it collect dust.

 

[MatrixClaw]

Absolutely LOVE mine.

I've never gotten a better "digital" tone in my life, and I've owned them all from the POD XT/Vetta II to the Axe-FX II. The lowend responds much more realistically than any other modeler I've owned, and the mid range sounds natural and real. I've heard a lot of criticism about the Kemper, which really had me hesitant about getting one, but now that I have it, I'm extremely satisfied. It might not get the tone exactly 100%, but in a mix, you will never hear the difference. If you're getting varying results, you're doing something wrong.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

^Perfect, thank you. Anyone else?

 

[MatrixClaw]

Also, the thing about the Kemper is it profiles the signal, sans the guitar. The Axe-FX can do profiling, but you're also profiling the sound of the reference track to the Axe-FX amp AND your guitar and pickup. That's fine, if you plan on using the same guitar all the time, but the tone can vary hugely once you switch guitars, since the EQ curve it creates is specifically for that setup. Thus, sharing profile patches on the Axe is pretty much worthless, while doing so with a Kemper works much better.

Neither is BAD in a sense, but if you plan on recording with the profile through different setups, the Kemper reacts much more similarly to a real amp IMO.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

One more thing I'm not clear on...I am seeing that this cannot model a tube screamer as well. So can I go guitar->TS->Kemper? Will that produce the same sound as guitar->TS->real amp?

 

[ArthurD]

yes it works but you need to do some LITTLE tweeking.
Also, there is a propper way to refine the profile, witch you can find on kemper forum.
The best part is that you can reamp through spdif, So no coloration from Reamp box.

 

[drawnacrol]

I have one and didn't really like the stock or user profiles much but after trying out the commercial Amp Factory profiles I would put it miles ahead of every digital product I've tried. Its pretty much plug-in and play, sounds huge and the palm mutes actually work properly. There is an even response all across the guitar on every string/fret which is something I've struggled to find when using a 7 string guitar. Its hard to describe but if you compare it side by side to other products you can really hear the difference.

Bare in mind I've no amps to profile which is the main point of the Kemper but for me its worth the price alone for being able to quickly select a profile, do some small tweaks and then sit back happily and play for 1-2 hours without turning another parameter/setting.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Are you using a screamer in front?

 

[drawnacrol]

I use the digital stomps in front, I'd like to try a physical screamer pedal in front to see if there is much of a difference with the stock stomps.

 

[MatrixClaw]

I have one and didn't really like the stock or user profiles much but after trying out the commercial Amp Factory profiles I would put it miles ahead of every digital product I've tried. Its pretty much plug-in and play, sounds huge and the palm mutes actually work properly. There is an even response all across the guitar on every string/fret which is something I've struggled to find when using a 7 string guitar. Its hard to describe but if you compare it side by side to other products you can really hear the difference.

+1 to this. The stock ones it comes with (at least high gain) are junk, but there's some great ones out there to be had, and even better if you can profile your own stuff!

That being said, I haven't used my own boosts through it, I've meant to, but just really haven't gotten around to it, the software version sounds fine to me

You could always just profile your amp with a TS in front of it, then without it and switch between the two if you need both flavors.

 

[JeffTD]

The latest JFAC and Whitechapel albums were both done with one.

I'm currently in the process of selling my 5150/Mesa rig to buy one.

 

[Clark Kent]

I'd say you should definitely try one out before purchase. Some love it and some don't. The profiling is not 100% accurate and I'm pretty sure no ones surprised about that. I had problems capturing 125hz area and getting the specific real amp dynamics into the Kemper. F.ex. my Rockerverb works wonders on weird chords and it really let's every note ring out in a unique way. That was something the Kemper could not capture. Also the "oomph" that is audible when palm muting wasn't captured.

EDIT: Still most of what was not captured had to do with the play feel of the unit... If you're mainly using it for reamping then I think you'll be fine.

 

[hsnyder]

Well there's sounding "100% accurate to this specific rig" and then there's sounding "f*ckin great", depends which is more important to you. Another thing to check out if you already have some amps is the two notes torpedo stuff. I never feel totally right as a player when 100% of my rig is digital. Silly maybe, but nevertheless its present, and psychology affects one's playing.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

I'm still not sold on the Tube Screamer part. The manual explicitly says the TS cannot be modeled. Can I plug my TS in front of it or is there an impedance issue or something that prevents it?

 

[SimonSez]

I saw Accept the other night and Wolf Hofmann was using a Kemper and Wizard amplifiers on stage. The tone was awesome, just like the Blood of Nations tone.

 

[drawnacrol]

I'm still not sold on the Tube Screamer part. The manual explicitly says the TS cannot be modeled. Can I plug my TS in front of it or is there an impedance issue or something that prevents it?

Here is what it says on the site:

The Hi-Z input makes sure every nuance of your playing comes through, and that your volume and tone pot settings work just as you would expect. This is also why your trusty old stompboxes work so well in front of the KPA.

This is a Mesa profile with an physical tubescreamer before the Kemper Input:

 

[loktide]

if you're absolutely anal about the profile being completely indistinguishable from the original, then you will be dissapointed.

if your main concern is to get a good tone that's stupidly close to the original, even so that it might be indistinguishable in a mix, then you'll love it.

once i was able to get past the fact that the profile will MOSTLY not be a full 100% match (depends on the amp+setup), but still sound excellent and behave like a real amp, i learned to really appreciate what this unit does. definitely digging it a LOT more than my previous axefx.

for the most part, the converters on the kemper seem to add a specific midrange coloration as well as some 'air' missing in the >12kHz region when ABing it to the real amp directly into the interface.
so far, i'm always able to tell the kemper profile from the real deal when playing with headphones. if i were to compare two different unknown amps (one kemper profile and another real amp), i'd be hard pressed to tell which one is real and which one is the kemper.