Kemper Profiling Amp Thread

[Mr_Marty]

Meh. Kemper once again does nothing more than repackage their old technology. Same crappy LCD, no scribble strips, nothing new. Meanwhile everyone else is pushing the envelope adding new technology and ideas.

Don't try to say this on their forum though. The fanboys will crucify you.

 

[LeviathanKiller]

Don't try to say this on their forum though. The fanboys will crucify you.

No, you'd more likely be banned before the fanboys ever had a chance. lol

 

[Crundles]

Eh... Fractal are releasing a cut-down version of the AxeFX 3, Line6 are maintaining their Helix ecosystem, but there hasn't been an innovative release since the first Helix Floor, Atomic are doing pretty much the same, but on a baby's first company scale, Yamaha/Boss... I'm not sure what the GT 1000's adoption rate is. I can't find anything online. There are several general report on guitar amp companies' market shares, but they all cost ~4k USD, lol. The katana is obviously killing it, but that's not really comparable to a high-end modeller.

I'd say Kemper made a pretty good move, releasing a new form factor of their existing technology. To my knowledge it's sold out everywhere, so there's obvious demand. Would I have liked a new, updated hardware? Sure... probably? Depending on what they can actually improve - I've read a lot of opinions, presumably informed, that IRs and monitoring are the biggest bottlenecks in amp modelling right now. I haven't seen anything suggesting the Kemper is held back by its hardware, despite its competitors releasing several generations of new models. People still claim the Kemper is best-in-class when it comes to "core tones" and "feel", whatever the heck that means.

Now I'm really interested in guitar amp market shares tho

 

[StewRacing]

I ordered my Profiler Stage today. I will have it Friday. It will be my first modeler and or real amp. I always had practice amps and nice pedals. I believe that it is the best core amp tones you can buy in modeler / profiler format, short of a real tube amp. Fractal and Helix have there selling points but Amp tone should come first unless effects dominate your sound.

 

[Mr_Marty]

I ordered my Profiler Stage today. I will have it Friday. It will be my first modeler and or real amp. I always had practice amps and nice pedals. I believe that it is the best core amp tones you can buy in modeler / profiler format, short of a real tube amp. Fractal and Helix have there selling points but Amp tone should come first unless effects dominate your sound.

Kemper has very good core amp tones. Fractal's are better. I say this because I own all three.

 

[Crundles]

For roughly twice the money in Europe, they damn better be.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Kemper has very good core amp tones. Fractal's are better. I say this because I own all three.

I think it's more subjective.

I have both as well (just bought Helix Native, but haven't had time to mess with it), and two JCM800s and all four sound and feel fairly different.

 

[benvigil]

Kemper has very good core amp tones. Fractal's are better. I say this because I own all three.

Having owned both, my take is that the Kemper is clearly better at most tones, but the FAS beats it for others. If you only play one type of music, I can see one or the other seeming better.

 

[jmill00]

I've had my Kemper for only two weeks. Two glorious weeks. I used Positive Grid's Bias FX software for years and wish I had bought the Kemper sooner.

 

[mikernaut]

I just want the Kemper remote price to go down more now

 

[klinic]

Hey guys, looking to grab a Kemper rack in the next couple of days. Selling the Ax8 today and WAS originally going to sell my Sherlock Fathead and get the power rack, but chickened out last night after jamming through a mates Powered Kemper into my cab and then cranking my tube head to compare.

So I'm currently looking at getting the unpowered rack, using it through my effects return for my next gig (just for onstage monitoring, I'll send a stereo signal to FoH) and then adding either a Martix GT1000fx or a Seymour Duncan Powerstage in a month or so once money is better. I've searched and not found that much great info about how these compare to the built in power amp on the power rack. Am I going to regret not just waiting and getting the built in solution? I like the idea of having a split system in case something goes wrong (don't have to send both off), and also having the option of having stereo cabs if I need it in future. Even the EQ on the Seymour Duncan sounds like some great flexibility, I'm just nervous as they're not SPECIFICALLY designed for the Kemper.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Hey guys, looking to grab a Kemper rack in the next couple of days. Selling the Ax8 today and WAS originally going to sell my Sherlock Fathead and get the power rack, but chickened out last night after jamming through a mates Powered Kemper into my cab and then cranking my tube head to compare.

So I'm currently looking at getting the unpowered rack, using it through my effects return for my next gig (just for onstage monitoring, I'll send a stereo signal to FoH) and then adding either a Martix GT1000fx or a Seymour Duncan Powerstage in a month or so once money is better. I've searched and not found that much great info about how these compare to the built in power amp on the power rack. Am I going to regret not just waiting and getting the built in solution? I like the idea of having a split system in case something goes wrong (don't have to send both off), and also having the option of having stereo cabs if I need it in future. Even the EQ on the Seymour Duncan sounds like some great flexibility, I'm just nervous as they're not SPECIFICALLY designed for the Kemper.

The power amp in the powered Kemper units is absolutely nothing special. Not saying it's bad, it works great, but playing a powered lunchbox (a friend's) next to my un-powered through a similar FRFR setup and then real cabs and Carvin power amp didn't yield a "better" result.

 

[klinic]

The power amp in the powered Kemper units is absolutely nothing special. Not saying it's bad, it works great, but playing a powered lunchbox (a friend's) next to my un-powered through a similar FRFR setup and then real cabs and Carvin power amp didn't yield a "better" result.

That's certainly comforting to hear. Plus I can customise and fine tune by trying different power amplifiers, so I'm definitely feeling more confident about going this route.

Completely unrelated, I don't think I've ever asked a question on this forum that you haven't swiftly given an extremely helpful answer to. I've been here about 9 years (very on and off) and you are consistently such an amazingly helpful person and the one name I always recognise. Thank you so much!

 

[MaxOfMetal]

That's certainly comforting to hear. Plus I can customise and fine tune by trying different power amplifiers, so I'm definitely feeling more confident about going this route.

Completely unrelated, I don't think I've ever asked a question on this forum that you haven't swiftly given an extremely helpful answer to. I've been here about 9 years (very on and off) and you are consistently such an amazingly helpful person and the one name I always recognise. Thank you so much!

Yeah, I contemplated going with the powered unit, specifically the rack, but I scored a pretty good deal on the un-powered lunchbox.

Good power amps are a dime a dozen, and if you want to do some interesting stereo rigs there is a plethora of options available, some more expensive than others.

Luckily, I already had a couple old Carvin and Peavey power amps and a couple powered speakers I use for other gear. The Kemper seems fairly "power amp agnostic" as long as is sufficiently powerful for whatever your use case is.

I'm happy I can help, dude.

 

[klinic]

Kemper Stack

• klinic
• Aug 1, 2019

Went all in on the transition to Kemper

Well, decided to go all in on the Kemper, loving it so far, but itching to get into some Profile Packs.

Hearing mixed things about the STL packs. My mates got the Northlane pack which I briefly played through and the VH4 tone convinced me to do the switch. Big fan of some of bands Putneys produced for so his pack looks really appealing as well. All the recommendations on the Kemper forums seem to be for vintage stuff though! Any recommendations here?

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Kemper Stack

• klinic
• Aug 1, 2019

Went all in on the transition to Kemper

Well, decided to go all in on the Kemper, loving it so far, but itching to get into some Profile Packs.

Hearing mixed things about the STL packs. My mates got the Northlane pack which I briefly played through and the VH4 tone convinced me to do the switch. Big fan of some of bands Putneys produced for so his pack looks really appealing as well. All the recommendations on the Kemper forums seem to be for vintage stuff though! Any recommendations here?

I was unimpressed with the northlane packs. pete turley, sinmix, black stymphalian, liveready those guys all offer high quality high gain profiles ( but you have to pay for them). I'd recommend searching the user submitted stuff first since there's also a lot of really good free profiles out there.

 

[klinic]

I was unimpressed with the northlane packs. pete turley, sinmix, black stymphalian, liveready those guys all offer high quality high gain profiles ( but you have to pay for them). I'd recommend searching the user submitted stuff first since there's also a lot of really good free profiles out there.

Really? What about it in particular turned you off? Going through the rigs on rig exchange I've only found a handful of profiles that I like, most of them are too bright and/or bassy. The sample Northlane tone sounds like it's going to sit really nicely in the mix and like it's already had most of the nasty frequencies notched out of it.

Maybe pickups play a big role, I'm using the Nazgül and Sentient, which might be similar to the pickups used to setup the STL profiles.

Any free profiles you'd recommend? I'm definitely going to check out the premium options you mentioned!

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Really? What about it in particular turned you off? Going through the rigs on rig exchange I've only found a handful of profiles that I like, most of them are too bright and/or bassy. The sample Northlane tone sounds like it's going to sit really nicely in the mix and like it's already had most of the nasty frequencies notched out of it.

Maybe pickups play a big role, I'm using the Nazgül and Sentient, which might be similar to the pickups used to setup the STL profiles.

Any free profiles you'd recommend? I'm definitely going to check out the premium options you mentioned!

They all felt bland/muddy to me and required a lot of tweaking to get a decent live sound imo. especially when comparing profiles of the same amps that other companies/people have uploaded. If you like them then more power to you. I got them and felt like they weren't worth the money.
Check out the free stuff from Sinmix/Reampzone/Cililab/WarmChordMusic/Thumas/PeteTurley

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Seconding Reamp Zone.

 

[LeviathanKiller]

ReampZone, Double Impact Productions, Josh Middleton (of Sylosis and Architects)
Those were some of my favorites