So I figured we've got a thunderously giant Axe FX II thread, might as well attempt to do one for the Kemper. As some of you know, I've had a Kemper for a while now. Actually purchased from HollowAxis on September 12th. So it'll be a month on Sunday.
I'm really enjoying it. It's very immediate to record with. Rather than throwing blocks into place, tweaking resonance parameters, and getting down into the nitty gritty of transformers, tubes, and bias values... you just load a profile. If it sounds shit, you move on. If it's close, but needs more gain, turn the gain knob... if it's not bright enough, bring up the treble and presence. Works splendidly. The EQ is quite sensitive, you can definitely hear the effect of even a 0.5 difference. Ultimately you don't spend as much time tweaking as with some other units, and you instinctively know that if a profile doesn't sound promising right off the bat, it's pointless trying to carve it into something it is not. This aspect of the unit really appeals to me, because it encourages you to throw things away and not fall into the trap of constantly second guessing yourself and going "what if".
I've profiled a Laney VH100R and Diezel D-Moll so far. I've only profiled with the latest beta, but reportedly it is more accurate in the low-end. Some users feel the mids have changed, but I don't have a problem with what I'm hearing. Those old reports of aliasing in the high-end are gone, the bug was fixed, and to me it's all sounding very "real". Certainly as real as the Axe FX gives you; slightly more so in a lot of cases, because of the preamp+poweramp+speaker interaction that you get from a profile.
I've done preamp only profiles of my D-Moll as well, which means I can put the Kemper into the D-Moll's effects loop and use it's poweramp. In the practice room when a/b'ing between the preamp of the D-Moll and the profiles, none of us could tell the difference every single time; was too close to call, and became a game of chance.
Disabling the cabinet section is not - and in my opinion will never be - 100% transparent. You still retain some of the poweramp+cab+microphone characteristics. So if you are thinking (or hoping) that you'll be able to download a bunch of free profiles, turn off the cabs, and go out and do gigs with a poweramp and a set of freebie profiles... probably isn't going to happen. You're much better off rolling your own in this situation.
However *changing* cabinets does seem to work well - with the proviso that I've only tried Kemper-profiled cabs... not impulse responses - and my unit had Tills Schleicher's cabs already on it, and there are some of those that I really like. You can pull amps and cabs from other profiles, save them as mini presets, and go fully modular with it. It's quite dependent on the profiles, but generally speaking works well. I don't know for certain, but I suspect if someone profiled their setup too loudly, and you changed the cab, you'd lose a lot of bottom end and pure grunt to it, because a lot of that would come from the original cab. Just guessing here.
I'm really impressed with it for recording bass as well. I've never gotten this good bass guitar tones from a digital solution before. Amplitube sucks, as do all the other VST modellers, and even the Axe FX I really struggled with. There are some great Microtubes B7K profiles out there which I am really digging, and a bunch of real world Ampeg SVT stuff too.
I do not rate most of the freebies you get from the commercial guys - Soundside, The Amp Factory, and Petes Profiles. Their microphone techniques are not to my taste, and the way they dial the amps in originally seem to be quite treble heavy. In my honest opinion, there are much better freebie profiles on the Rig Exchange. So you can either roll your own, go and download every Dual Recto profile and sift through them (I did this two nights ago!) and delete the crap ones, or a combination of both.
I don't think there is as much leverage in the profiles as people say. For instance, you cannot convincingly turn a high-gain profile into a clean amp. I mean, you can... but I'm noticing that time and time again a dedicated profile of an amp set clean tends to sound better. Likewise, a dedicated profile of an amp set on the edge, or crunchy breakup, or balls to the walls metal tones... they sound better than trying to make a profile fit that mould. But again... you just move on and find a profile that does work for you.
People have painted the whole rig thing as being a limitation - like you're working with someone elses sound. I like that limitation, it's quite freeing. Analogous to going into the studio with a producer or an engineer who know their craft... you get to just be a musician. Again, I think that's worth repeating...
you get to just be a musician. You don't have to put your engineer hat on, you don't have to put your sonic-designer-producer-mixer hat on. Just be a guitarist.
You don't have to do a whole lot of left brain right brain contextual switching, which to me is one of the chief causes of procrastination. This is really the biggest benefit over other units imho.
So would I use it live? Hmmmmm... good question. I think through a poweramp and a 4x12, with direct profiles, I probably would. I cannot see myself ever being happy with FRFR for live performance. So much of what makes a performance a "performance" is the interaction of your guitar with a huge resonating box behind you, which you can turn around and face at different angles and get different pitches of feedback and all that good stuff.
The switching of rigs in performance mode - on my unit at least - is a little slow... but in browser mode, it's really quick, almost instant. I'm still doing some investigation on this end, because people have told me that performance mode should be very quick with the latest public beta. I can't quite go along with that just yet.
Anyway, some stuff below. I'll add to this thread as time permits. Curious about tips and tricks from other users as well, so feel free to chime in!
An assortment of clips:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j0zq5is6oua7eqf/AACMOgttYAxqZCfGoxmr0g49a?dl=0Bass clips:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jmbpte748yair82/AACcl0OD-tWXrv6XuN2ZAemja?dl=0For owners, an assortment of profiles:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/aoednpffj6k3bwa/AAACzresH_EOUX45ul6C9EEUa?dl=0
Comments
It is interesting looking at Kemper profile prices.
It is a lot of work when you think about it. Or at least it has the potential to be a lot of work. Some of the TAF packs are 200+ profiles, I'm guessing it took them a while to create them.
Speaking of which, one thing annoys me about the Kemper profilers - they always give their profiles stupid names. Instead of 'Blackstar' they go 'Darkstar' ... I understand they're squicky about trademark infringement, but it's really bothersome to me.
Have you tried the Lasse Lammert pack yet?
By and large the quality is high. They sound very amp-in-the-room like, so I can understand why all the Kemper owners rave about them. Haven't gone through the bulk of what I bought, but so far I really like:
Pack 9 - Bonegner XYC – 16 Profiles £4.99
Pack 2 - Bakedman BrownEyes – 9 Profiles - £4.99
Pack 5 - MyStar Roadstar – 11 Profiles £4.99
Pack 2 - EVH Five one – 9 Profiles £4.99
I love Diezels. But surprisingly wasn't so keen on his Diezel ones. Bit too dark and not as OOMPFT as they should be imho.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v3v8ulbwhicg8m8/InterestingBassRiff.mp3?dl=0
I grabbed some Ampeg profiles from Sinmix here:
http://www.brickwall.pl/store/index.php?id_product=7&controller=product
This uses with SinMix SVT13#HM2 profile with the gain backed off a fair amount to make it more crunchy rather than outright overdriven.
Just done two gigs at the weekend with the Kemper direct to PA. Profiled my own setup (Carr Slant 6V with Suhr Riot for OD). Used this and another clean profile of my amp + FX from the Kemper. Controlled with Line 6 XT Live. The XT did patch changes, delay on/off and volume but can't get it to turn fx on and off as the CC message numbers don't match the Kemper.
A mate who knows my sound really well said it was the best sound he'd heard me have. It 'felt' good as long as I had plenty coming back through the monitor at me. Responded well to the guitar volume as usual. Haven't tried the monitor output without speaker sim to an amp yet but I think that kind of defeats the whole objective anyway.
Overall the best direct solution yet, and I've tried most of them.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/icpdwwa6l3i3kcd/AACDdTmth2hOng66-Sw2aONYa?dl=0