June 15, 2022. The day the Kemper Profiler patent expires.

I just don't like the profiling concept.
When I first heard about the Kemper I thought it was great. But why create a profile of a single sound from an amp, when you can model the whole thing with all controls? Also I don't want to rely on buying extra profiles from amps, which I don't own. And it seems that a lot of them aren't just that good (not saying here that the Kemper can't sound good).
A lot of people are happy with that concept and that's good.

But I'm also sceptical about all that 'but my Marshall sounds sooo special and I can only recreate it with a profile/capture' stuff ... does it? Really? My guess is in 99% of the time that's just some emotional stuff. If your amp isn't available as a model that's something different.
 
USMC_Trev said:
It's not bitterness. You're incorrectly assigning that emotion to Fractal-centric people on the Fractal forum. We Fractalites prefer the sound of FAS stuff to what we accept as inferior modeling approaches. That's all.
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That is bizarre. I am a very happy Fractal owner, and absolutely love my FM3. I also own a Kemper Power Rack and think it is an equally brilliant device, which achieves sonically and dynamically authentic replications of guitar amplifiers, cabinets, etc., albeit using a different paradigm.

I guess I prefer being a serious user of the Fractal system, in order to create, enjoy and perform music. The same applies with my Kemper.

In reading your fanatical posts, here, on this topic…, I shall consider myself most fortunate indeed, not to be part of your “Fractalite” cult.
Fractal is an amazing tool and musical solution. Kemper is amazing tool and musical solution.
 
symphx said:
its weak because you have no proof even a slight minority of these players, pro players, who can play what they want, who are guitarists who care about their sound, and who depend a lot more on their sound than $1800 bucks to survive and make a living. Prove to me someone would rather sound like crap and go out and promote something that would destroy their career.
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Amen !
This argument that you see them playing with this gear, cause they have it free, is very weak .

If you gave me a QC or whatever for free, I won’t play with it if it suck … Do some guys things that musicians got no tastes ? We are not all prostitutes
 
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My name is mud said:
Amen !
This argument that you see them playing with this gear, cause they have it free, is very weak .

If you gave me a QC or whatever for free, I won’t play with it if it suck … Do some guys things that musicians got no tastes ? We are not all prostitutes
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You'll play it if you're contractually obligated to do so.
 
USMC_Trev said:
You'll play it if you're contractually obligated to do so.
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Sure ! But it’s the musician choice too . As the previous forum member said, you don’t want to sound bad because a company gives you something free . Or I am different don’t know .
When I saw muse, rammstein, even punk bands like bad religion, exploited … I saw this kemper everywhere 🤦🤔. I owned 2 myself . The product it’s ok , but I prefer more the axe sound wise, and I still don’t understand why the bands don’t use it more . Just because that’s not free for them ? Or maybe too complicated ? Muse cannot spend 2000 for an axe ? Can’t believe it .
Don’t know .
But I think that the profiling in the kemper is not perfect, it’s sound too much digital and I believe that fractal can do this function better .
I understand that having the whole amp modeled is even more complex and cool, but pushing a button to catch your amp is something cool too. If the concept wasn’t good, they won’t stay with it for 10 years . They sold tons of green box .

But I know some guys cannot live without being sponsored by 30 brands .

In the days I was more interested by sponsors, I was looking to be sponsored by the brands I use, nothing else .
I refused a partnership with Hughes and kettner, peavey uk, hotone … maybe I m stupid .
In the end I had a boogie partnership and was happy as I am a forever boogie user .
It’s nice to say you are partner 1 week, 2 weeks … and then ? You are just doing commercials for them so … now I m free with all these things
 
My name is mud said:
Sure ! But it’s the musician choice too . As the previous forum member said, you don’t want to sound bad because a company gives you something free . Or I am different don’t know .
When I saw muse, rammstein, even punk bands like bad religion, exploited … I saw this kemper everywhere 🤦🤔. I owned 2 myself . The product it’s ok , but I prefer more the axe sound wise, and I still don’t understand why the bands don’t use it more . Just because that’s not free for them ? Or maybe too complicated ? Muse cannot spend 2000 for an axe ? Can’t believe it .
Don’t know .
But I think that the profiling in the kemper is not perfect, it’s sound too much digital and I believe that fractal can do this function better .
I understand that having the whole amp modeled is even more complex and cool, but pushing a button to catch your amp is something cool too. If the concept wasn’t good, they won’t stay with it for 10 years . They sold tons of green box .

But I know some guys cannot live without being sponsored by 30 brands .

In the days I was more interested by sponsors, I was looking to be sponsored by the brands I use, nothing else .
I refused a partnership with Hughes and kettner, peavey uk, hotone … maybe I m stupid .
In the end I had a boogie partnership and was happy as I am a forever boogie user .
It’s nice to say you are partner 1 week, 2 weeks … and then ? You are just doing commercials for them so … now I m free with all these things
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My guitar hoarder friend's mindset kind of epitomizes the thinking when I talk to touring musicians that embrace their Kemper.

"Within a few minutes with profiling, I have my favorite amp settings frozen in time. I don't need to worry about re-dialing things in after a FW update or spinning knobs a couple menus deep to get the dynamics of my amp dialed in. Also, my exact amp isn't in the Fractal, so I don't have to guess which modeled amp is closest to my amp. With the Kemper, 'my amp' is just there and consistent."

I love my Fractal Audio units, but I could see the allure of the Kemper for certain people who have such a point of view and where the profiling algorithm auto guessing works with their amp tones.
 
I was trawling to see if any news of a "new" kemper was coming and stumbled onto this thread.... apologies for stirring up this thread but as the kids say, yolo.

If you can admit to yourself that in the best possible scenario it is possible to have your "perfect" tone from either a fractal unit or something like a kemper unit then we can move onto why someone would want to own one or the other. I'm trying to stay completely objective but if you legitimately think that a kemper unit "just can't" produce a persons idealised tone then I'd say you're wrong. I say "idealised" because any digital tone creator is idealised, it's an emulation. Nothing is 100.00% the same as running through an analog amp.

If you look at how to go about building a tone I'll cherry pick a "modern hardcore" 5150 tone. Ok input --> drive --> noise gate --> amp --> cab --> output. It's obviously not going to sound perfect to my ears off the bat so I'll choose a cab, dial in the "ideal" amp eq, mess with the drive pedal, amp drive... might even go into the daunting advanced parameters and mess with some sag or bias and I'll have a great time knowing that the emulations are super super high level. I'll do whatever I can to try and get the tone I want and with some educated moves I'll hopefully land on the tone that I'm looking for. Might take 1-2 mins, might spend 20 mins.

Compare this to a kemper unit where someone has bought a ghost inside kemper tone pack, they fire it up, scroll through a couple presets and now they have something that's 96% what they were looking for. They don't have the fractal level of control but the end result is achieved in 2 minutes and with no advanced knowledge needed. That exact rig they were looking for has been "profiled", and frankly sounds good to the ears, and equally feels good to play. For a diehard fractal fanboy to say "yeah but it sucks cause its not as good as fractal" its a bit like... you are arguing that this tone sounds bad just for the sake of defending fractal audio... a kemper sounding good takes nothing away from fractal... fractal has much much MUCH superior technology imo, but the kemper is rock solid as well.

If we also look at another use case where a band has a couple of setups they use. Lets say they grab a kemper, profile things and it sounds good, what has that process looked like? They ran a signal through their rig and the kemper did the work, done. What does that process look like in a fractal unit? They have to build things from the ground up and spend ages tweaking to get things to match, it's an objectively more painful process. I can see why bigger bands and/or guitar techs from bigger bands would choose a kemper to slimline their analog rigs down to digital, it's not a shill conspiracy.

For me personally, I prefer the fractal gear as it gives me way more flexibility. I am willing to put the time in to get the tones I want and have never really ever been left "wanting more" out of a guitar unit. But I can also see why different people have different use cases. There are pros and cons to both approaches but the attitude that using a kemper is dumb, is just laughable..
 
FenixIA said:
Compare this to a kemper unit where someone has bought a ghost inside kemper tone pack, they fire it up, scroll through a couple presets and now they have something that's 96% what they were looking for. They don't have the fractal level of control but the end result is achieved in 2 minutes and with no advanced knowledge needed.
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Ok, hold up right there. I'm also not going to defend one vs. the other, but...

Before I bought my Axe III, I had only used real tube amps. I fired up the unit, scrolled through a handful of factory presets, found one I liked, read enough of the manual to learn how to navigate to the blocks I wanted to change, then figured out how to adjust parameters, and within a short period of time, had a sound I loved, and proceeded to lose myself for the next 3 hours.

If it was a Kemper, how would I have known where to find this "ghost inside kemper tone pack"? And how would I have known to choose this one? How much time would all that take?

I'm honestly asking, because I've never used one, but from all I've read, and learned from talking to guys who have owned both, it's a real search to find good sources for good quality profiles. Whether that's totally accurate or not, "end result in 2 minutes with no advanced knowledge"? How is that possible? What am I missing?
 
TSJMajesty said:
Ok, hold up right there. I'm also not going to defend one vs. the other, but...

Before I bought my Axe III, I had only used real tube amps. I fired up the unit, scrolled through a handful of factory presets, found one I liked, read enough of the manual to learn how to navigate to the blocks I wanted to change, then figured out how to adjust parameters, and within a short period of time, had a sound I loved, and proceeded to lose myself for the next 3 hours.

If it was a Kemper, how would I have known where to find this "ghost inside kemper tone pack"? And how would I have known to choose this one? How much time would all that take?

I'm honestly asking, because I've never used one, but from all I've read, and learned from talking to guys who have owned both, it's a real search to find good sources for good quality profiles. Whether that's totally accurate or not, "end result in 2 minutes with no advanced knowledge"? How is that possible? What am I missing?
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The scenario I mentioned would have been someone wanting a specific tone and purchasing a specific Kemper pack, tons of people sell them. Basically like selling a preset except it's not a preset, it's their profiled rigs (in a preset, lol). I mainly mentioned this because more entry level people are drawn to the artist released kemper packs from STL and other companies... but yeah it's just one scenario that I've seen IRL so I mentioned it.

I actually didn't know what the kempers come loaded with out of the box, but I stumbled onto this just now. It's highly possible that there's a fantastic 5150 clone preset ready to go
https://www.kemper-amps.com/factoryrigs

You would think every person to ever sit down in front of a fractal would have had your experience but people can tone hunt and get themselves up against a wall to the point where they're lost and everything starts to sound digital / the same. The reality is generally they don't know what they're doing and smashing parameters in the wrong direction and the tone sounds nothing like what's in their head. Yes it's a complete user error... but that same user can hit a preset on the kemper and think they've found tone mecca and voila, they're sold on the kemper.

I must say that the cygnus presets are mostly godly. I remember the presets even in ares not sounding anywhere near as good to me. I dunno if cygnus just translates to different guitars better or if the people making the cygnus presets just did an exceptionally amazing job, but either way the cygnus presets really are astounding so its no surprise someone in your shoes can take to it like a duck on water.... but not everyone has the same mileage.
 
FenixIA said:
You would think every person to ever sit down in front of a fractal would have had your experience but people can tone hunt and get themselves up against a wall to the point where they're lost and everything starts to sound digital / the same. The reality is generally they don't know what they're doing and smashing parameters in the wrong direction and the tone sounds nothing like what's in their head.
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Well I certainly don't get that. Maybe that's because I don't try to create a "tone that's in my head," but instead, I find presets I like, and tweak to taste. And sometimes I do that tweaking via making substitutions, without turning any knobs. Here's what I was just doing:

I like the "Ma the Meatloaf..." preset. So I'm on S5, which has a nice delay and the Enhancer fills it out nicely, but it's a little too gain-ey, with a 5153 and a Drive block engaged. So I turned off the Drive and decided to switch the Amp to the Mk IV. Well, the 5153 begins with numbers, and the Mk IV is way near the end (USA__), so I start going down the line, trying each amp. I did skip ahead a bit, past the Fenders and Class A's and a bunch of Marshalls, and started with the Dizzy models.

I swear 75% of them sounded freaking awesome, just.the.way.they.are! Some were a little thin, so I hit the Drive block, and again, pure tone magic (like the Hot Kitty, for example.) I never made it to the USA models. I made it to the JMP amps, and played one for about an hour. And I didn't touch a single parameter!

I can't imagine it being any easier, but then again I don't really care. I'm still loving the Axe Fx III as much as when I got it a year ago!
 
TSJMajesty said:
Well I certainly don't get that. Maybe that's because I don't try to create a "tone that's in my head," but instead, I find presets I like, and tweak to taste. And sometimes I do that tweaking via making substitutions, without turning any knobs. Here's what I was just doing:

I like the "Ma the Meatloaf..." preset. So I'm on S5, which has a nice delay and the Enhancer fills it out nicely, but it's a little too gain-ey, with a 5153 and a Drive block engaged. So I turned off the Drive and decided to switch the Amp to the Mk IV. Well, the 5153 begins with numbers, and the Mk IV is way near the end (USA__), so I start going down the line, trying each amp. I did skip ahead a bit, past the Fenders and Class A's and a bunch of Marshalls, and started with the Dizzy models.

I swear 75% of them sounded freaking awesome, just.the.way.they.are! Some were a little thin, so I hit the Drive block, and again, pure tone magic (like the Hot Kitty, for example.) I never made it to the USA models. I made it to the JMP amps, and played one for about an hour. And I didn't touch a single parameter!

I can't imagine it being any easier, but then again I don't really care. I'm still loving the Axe Fx III as much as when I got it a year ago!
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I mean I agree with you, I love checking out the cygnus presets, creating my own and messing around with all fractal has to offer.

But if you can envision someone firing up a kemper, scrolling through presets and having the same experience of awesome tone then they'd be in the same boat. "Why would I want a modeller with a million options when I just load up a preset and it's all done". It's almost like analysis paralysis for some people. Ontop of that some people have the desire to either profile their own (or friends) rigs... and other people have the desire to use other peoples profiled rigs.

I have none of those desires so the FM3 is the winner for me. But the main take away is that a profiler does suit other peoples needs and it will work for them better than a fractal unit, and that's totally ok.
 
TSJMajesty said:
Ok, hold up right there. I'm also not going to defend one vs. the other, but...

Before I bought my Axe III, I had only used real tube amps. I fired up the unit, scrolled through a handful of factory presets, found one I liked, read enough of the manual to learn how to navigate to the blocks I wanted to change, then figured out how to adjust parameters, and within a short period of time, had a sound I loved, and proceeded to lose myself for the next 3 hours.

If it was a Kemper, how would I have known where to find this "ghost inside kemper tone pack"? And how would I have known to choose this one? How much time would all that take?

I'm honestly asking, because I've never used one, but from all I've read, and learned from talking to guys who have owned both, it's a real search to find good sources for good quality profiles. Whether that's totally accurate or not, "end result in 2 minutes with no advanced knowledge"? How is that possible? What am I missing?
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The "search for profiles" is one of the most overblown things about the Kemper. There are freebies all over the place that kick major butt as well the option for you to create your own. Now there is a profile rabbit hole for sure. Much like the IR rabbit hole you find in other platforms. But that comes down to your own preferences and self control. I prefer the Fractal stuff these days but Kemper is no slouch.
 
fcs101 said:
That's where I am on profiling/capturing. Full disclosure: I haven't used one to this point so my opinion is strictly based off of input from others.

I see profiling as most useful to someone who actually has access to the gear. Take my favorite amp model, Tucana 3, I'd much rather be able to fully manipulate an excellent algorithm than use someone else's capture and only be able to adjust very limited settings.
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"... adjust very limited settings" is a fairy tale. Of course that does not mean that you can achieve exactly what you like with the available options.
 
klassiker said:
"... adjust very limited settings" is a fairy tale. Of course that does not mean that you can achieve exactly what you like with the available options.
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I'm not sure what you're saying? Are you saying a profile is better than having the option to manipulate an excellent algorithmic model?

If so, then see this thread:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/kemper-user-here-who-just-got-an-fm3-blown-away.169739/

Also, @Greg Ferguson came out with an excellent analogy of profiling vs modeling. I can't seem to find it at the moment, but it related to photography. Maybe he can chime in with a brief recap of that?
 
TSJMajesty said:
Ok, hold up right there. I'm also not going to defend one vs. the other, but...

Before I bought my Axe III, I had only used real tube amps. I fired up the unit, scrolled through a handful of factory presets, found one I liked, read enough of the manual to learn how to navigate to the blocks I wanted to change, then figured out how to adjust parameters, and within a short period of time, had a sound I loved, and proceeded to lose myself for the next 3 hours.
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Same thing can happen with a Kemper. I had a Kemper a while back....fired it up, connected to their preset exchange....searched for amps I liked. Couple of clicks - amazing tone and I get lost playing for an hour. One thing that is fun about the Kemper (I don't have it any more) is that there are always new amps being profiled. And there are enough free ones that if you can't find the tone you want....then you don't know what you want.

Same can be said for the Axe - there are more than enough amps to satisfy anyone. If you can't find a good tone, it's likely pilot error. Both are 'quick enough' to find a great tone that you'll get lost in.
 
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