Tell me about the Kemper

[redrol]

answering a few q's:

Kemper is far better for amp models, AXE FX is better for effects, for practicing and home recording Kemper wins easily for ease of use. For live use depends on what you like, AxeFX for using tube power amps/cabs. Kemper for direct into PA or full freq flat speakers.

The kemper as of right now cannot use a tube power amp and a cab and properly reproduce the amp profiles. This is because the cab itself imparts something like 60-70% of the amp tone. Cristopher Kemper said he is coming up with a solution for this but it will take time.

I use mine with studio monitors and a subwoofer and it kicks ass majorly. Sounds exactly like a real amp and cab.

The feel is dead on for me..

I do practice a lot more with the Kemper because its much easier to just plop down and hit record on my DAW.

So it doesn't sound good thru a tube power amp and cabs?

The exact issue is that the Kemper takes the sum of the amp, cab, mic, and micpre. It is hard to extrapolate just the amp's preamp from that signal chain however CK said he was trying to figure out a good solution. So it isnt a matter of it sounding good or bad, its a matter of the profile including the poweramp and cab sim. Then you play that back through another cab and power amp/mic and you get who knows what given that the sound is being colored massively.

 

[Audioholic]

How massive is it being colored? Because it sounds great to swap out cabs inside Kemper. But yeah one would have to get just preamp profiles which are available. Just not as many.

 

[peterc52]

Maybe one day you will be able to profile a recording from an album!?



And what about monitor? I will need a pair in a price range around 300-400 dollars.

 

[aftec]

Tried one yesterday, dunno the software revision but it had some issues. The pickups overloaded the front end and it had a massive bass boost, no matter how we tried to alter the input gain. The only way we were able to get decent tones was turning the guitar volume down. The pickups were Bare Knuckle Holy Diver, EVH Axis and Bare Knuckle Crawler in different guitars.

 

[Audioholic]

Tried one yesterday, dunno the software revision but it had some issues. The pickups overloaded the front end and it had a massive bass boost, no matter how we tried to alter the input gain. The only way we were able to get decent tones was turning the guitar volume down. The pickups were Bare Knuckle Holy Diver, EVH Axis and Bare Knuckle Crawler in different guitars.

Turn down the input clean sense. I have very hot pickups and need to turn down input

 

[redrol]

Tried one yesterday, dunno the software revision but it had some issues. The pickups overloaded the front end and it had a massive bass boost, no matter how we tried to alter the input gain. The only way we were able to get decent tones was turning the guitar volume down. The pickups were Bare Knuckle Holy Diver, EVH Axis and Bare Knuckle Crawler in different guitars.

Turn the clean sense down is how you fix that one. There is no way a pickup has more output than my TC Electronic booster/line driver, AND it does not clip my input..

 

[shred-o-holic]

Which clip do you think demonstrates the Kemper best in higher gain to medium gain setting?

oh I don't know, I haven't kept track of all the kemper clips, there are some on their website.

here are my personal videos using all kemper

keep in mind that youtube compresses the audio, and these sound better in non compressed form

Sounds great man.

 

[BYTOR]

Hey Audioholic, record 10 of the best profiles from the Kemper, and make them available in high quality wav format so that they can be Tone Matched by the Axe-II once 6.0 drops this week!!

 

[Audioholic]

Oh 6.0 is going this week huh. ;-). The Internet truly may blow up. Ha

 

[Webb]

Hey Audioholic, record 10 of the best profiles from the Kemper, and make them available in high quality wav format so that they can be Tone Matched by the Axe-II once 6.0 drops this week!!

Where did you hear that 6.0 is coming out this week?

 

[Shark Diver]

answering a few q's:

Kemper is far better for amp models, AXE FX is better for effects, for practicing and home recording Kemper wins easily for ease of use. For live use depends on what you like, AxeFX for using tube power amps/cabs. Kemper for direct into PA or full freq flat speakers.

The kemper as of right now cannot use a tube power amp and a cab and properly reproduce the amp profiles. This is because the cab itself imparts something like 60-70% of the amp tone. Cristopher Kemper said he is coming up with a solution for this but it will take time.

I use mine with studio monitors and a subwoofer and it kicks ass majorly. Sounds exactly like a real amp and cab.

The feel is dead on for me..

I do practice a lot more with the Kemper because its much easier to just plop down and hit record on my DAW.

So it doesn't sound good thru a tube power amp and cabs?

The exact issue is that the Kemper takes the sum of the amp, cab, mic, and micpre. It is hard to extrapolate just the amp's preamp from that signal chain however CK said he was trying to figure out a good solution. So it isnt a matter of it sounding good or bad, its a matter of the profile including the poweramp and cab sim. Then you play that back through another cab and power amp/mic and you get who knows what given that the sound is being colored massively.

maybe using a more neutral speaker like an EVM12l would help?

 

[crankyrayhanky]

The kemper as of right now cannot use a tube power amp and a cab and properly reproduce the amp profiles. This is because the cab itself imparts something like 60-70% of the amp tone. Cristopher Kemper said he is coming up with a solution for this but it will take time.

On the site they advertise separation:

Can I disable the cabinet simulation and use the Profiler with a poweramp and cabinet?
Yes - and even better, you can have it both ways at the same time: use the stereo XLR outs to send your signal to the front of house (FOH), and use the dedicated monitor out to feed your power amp and cabinet with a signal that bypasses the cabinet simulation.

 

[Audioholic]

The kemper as of right now cannot use a tube power amp and a cab and properly reproduce the amp profiles. This is because the cab itself imparts something like 60-70% of the amp tone. Cristopher Kemper said he is coming up with a solution for this but it will take time.

On the site they advertise separation:

Can I disable the cabinet simulation and use the Profiler with a poweramp and cabinet?
Yes - and even better, you can have it both ways at the same time: use the stereo XLR outs to send your signal to the front of house (FOH), and use the dedicated monitor out to feed your power amp and cabinet with a signal that bypasses the cabinet simulation.

you can most definetally remove the cab or send out the non cab compensated out while using direct out as well. I haven't tried it. While disabling cab you can def hear that non compensated sound. I think the issue lies in that for most profiles taken with a mic, the kemper is BEST at duplicating the amp, mic and cab sound, and somehow it tries to remove that portion, and some have said that there is still traces of it. The kempers approach is superior for getting real amp like tones in my opinion. But the approach is not superior then say like an axe fx that models all aspects and truly can separate them. With the kemper in order to get the most pure representation of the preamp sound ONLY, you will have to profile the amp from the preamp section alone, most amps allow this, and there are profiles floating around with just that. you can then later attach a cab inside the kemper. I have tried just that and feel that for direct, I preffered the whole setup, mic, cab and mic over pairing just my preamp sound with a cab later, but both work great.

 

[crankyrayhanky]

I wonder how my beloved MTS modules would work, such as RM4 preamp >Kempler power amp/cab/mic
Most cab sims do not include a power amp option, but if KemPler could do that, WoW!
But I wonder if I started profiling my modules & amps, would it be so authentic that I could sell off my excess amps? Hmmm

 

[Audioholic]

I wonder how my beloved MTS modules would work, such as RM4 preamp >Kempler power amp/cab/mic
Most cab sims do not include a power amp option, but if KemPler could do that, WoW!
But I wonder if I started profiling my modules & amps, would it be so authentic that I could sell off my excess amps? Hmmm

There is an mts profile up by one o our very own here. Lance a not I believe. It kills! I bought my 5153 to use strictly for recording. Since getting the Kemper I have profiled it ad honestly have no desire or dire need to fire it up again to record. I am very happy with my profiles. And since I was listening back through studio monitors anyway I don't miss not having it on. In fact I feel as if I have improved on the micd sound since I only have one can here, and in the Kemper I can try it with different cabs etc.

Sometimes the Kemper doesn't capture some of the more complex rhi gs that really can only happen in the analog world, but it is the closest yet to duplicating an actual micd up amp. I think it's always smart having at least one amp around but I think you would feel better about offloading a few once you profile if done correctly.

I didn't test to run my Pre only profile bak into my amp, just don't have that much time to experiment but someone else did and said it sounds just like the amp. So that's promising.

There are some amps that while the eq and sonic signature woUld be pretty much identical, the real amp will still have more depth and dynamics But for most amps the Kemper does a bang up job of recreating most if not all what the mics would hear of an amp

 

[Shark Diver]

In discussing the Kempler with someone who had one he said an issue he had was that the control knobs after the fact did not behave like his amp. So, he couldn't really make adjustments at a gig on the fly because it did not behave as his amp. I can see where, say, I wanted 5 different settings from my SLO rig and I would profile them and I could use those at a gig. Even profile different cabs with it. Something I couldn't do with the amp without constant adjustment. So, that would be a benefit. But the downside of the Kempler would be using other people's profiles. If it won't adjust like the amp, then there is a good chance using other's profiles wouldn't work for me as I would have to have very similar gear and like exactly what they like as adjustments would not be true.

 

[Audioholic]

I think the eq controls work and sound very good in the kemper. Very pleasing to my ear. With the gain I think it responds similar to the amp a few clicks either way But too far and it won't act just like the real amp. I have a clip demonstrating how the gain sounds and reacts andi honestly think people are crazy if they don't find the gain working on profiles with distortion. What you won't fine is the ability to make a clean profile suddenly go into sweet overdrive cause well the real clean wont do that anyway, its not amoddeler allowing one to do unrealistic things. Gain works great on distorted profiles. Not so great on clean. Which is why it's good to have a few different profiles. This really is no different then setting up different patches in a modeler. I will post my clip adjusting the gain soon

 

[andwhatnot]

Check out Ola Englund's videos on YouTube, he has some great ones on this, as well as Keith Merrow (also on YouTube, usernames fearedse and diobolic5150 respectively). Kemper might be better if you want an easier time for recording, but Axe-FX II is very dependable for gigs, because you have to own the amp you want to use with the Kemper, or download a profile, I believe. I may not be correct on that, though. Price difference may push me if I had to choose for the Kemper, but if price is no issue, Axe-FX II would be my choice, but that's because I would use it live very frequently, and it's that tube stuff I love from that thing, and I need it for re-amping. You can use the Kemper for live through a cab, but you have to use the power section of another amp, or other means of power(say, a power amp?). Plus the effects on the Axe-FX are killlllller. Depends on how frequently you would be gigging. Infrequently, Kemper. Frequently, Axe-FX II.

 

[Audioholic]

You don't have to own any amp to take advantage of all the profiles. In fact there ate more unique amps available to the Kemper then te axe by far right now.

 

[Shark Diver]

I think the eq controls work and sound very good in the kemper. Very pleasing to my ear. With the gain I think it responds similar to the amp a few clicks either way But too far and it won't act just like the real amp. I have a clip demonstrating how the gain sounds and reacts andi honestly think people are crazy if they don't find the gain working on profiles with distortion. What you won't fine is the ability to make a clean profile suddenly go into sweet overdrive cause well the real clean wont do that anyway, its not amoddeler allowing one to do unrealistic things. Gain works great on distorted profiles. Not so great on clean. Which is why it's good to have a few different profiles. This really is no different then setting up different patches in a modeler. I will post my clip adjusting the gain soon

No worries. I personally haven't tried it, so I was just relaying an opinion. But my Hiwatt and SLO can get dirty if on clean and the gain or power section are turned up. So if the Kempler wouldn't then it isn't working like the amp. I understand why, and am not saying anything negative about it other than I would think that would make "live" on the fly adjustments not as good and make a lot of profiles I would get else where unusable for my application.