Rick, great to see you give the Kemper some love! About two months ago I dove in headfirst. Sold my Mesa Roadster and pedal board and bought a Kemper. Being a tube amp snob as I was for years, it was a big step but I continually kept seeing my favorite bands using them and I watched every youtube video possible. I absolutely love it. My live rig now consists of a Fender Twin, a Colonial, two Friedman BE's, an Engl.....about 8-10G worth of amps at the push of a button. This is the real deal folks.
Please Please PLEASE, ask Tim Pierce, to make a full profile kit for Kemper...we know this man has the ultimate ear on tone and so many beautiful profiled original amps in his collection! ... keep on rolling with the awesome videos!
That's Crazy. I just got off the phone and brought a kemper. Then I look in my feed and my main man Rick has a new kemper video up! It's a glorious day!
@@Kilovolver keep in mind the Kemper is also capturing the sound of the Shure SM57 and the Sennheiser MD421, into multiple Neve pres all mixed to taste. There's also the various cabinets, the room treatments and geometry, the mics placement, etc. Its not JUST a Marshall sound. Would you also say that the Kemper infringes upon Shure and Sennheiser, Neve and Celestion too?
@@zac3392 no I actually bought it online I was calling the shop to tell them not to deliver it to my house as I can swing by and grab it after work. Thanks champ
I really dig the fact that Rick is such a stickler for perfection. It makes me envious. At the same time, recognizing that fact has given me an understanding for what I am good at, improv.
pretty amazing, honestly. when i was producing music i had tons of amps. digital was just never right to my ears...but damn have they got it so close now. were i to start a studio again, i'd definitely have a kemper and a bunch of pedals for weird sounds. so much easier, quicker, and more effective to use these digital amps for recording. never thought i'd say that...but the future is here. these are amazing times.
And not even sure you would need additional pedals. I have a kemper rack mount and there are so many effects built in you wouldn't believe it. So many variations of delay, chorus, phaser, type effects it's unreal.
Iv only recently got into effects and recording… I kinda got the feeling technology would catch up for profiling different sounds but it’s definitely reassuring to hear someone thinks the same thing the first time I plugged into a tube amp I was blown away, but these Kemper profiles seem game changing
as soon as you started saying you have profiles I started smiling like an idiot and my girlfriend came into the room looked at me and said "that beato guy released something you want didn't he?"
Took until the scene swap at 8:08 for me to realize what that was...it's the auto focus on his camera. Probably using a shotgun mic on top, and it was picking up the adjustments.
The great thing is that Kemper keeps adding new effects and functionality in free updates. So many amazing free profiles are available. I can't imagine ever getting bored, I'm constantly surprised by the Kemper after 12 years of ownership. I also have an original Mesa Mark IIC+ that I still love, but doesn't get a ton of play time.
Bought a kemper years ago and ever looked back. Keep in mind the profiled tones are 99% there. You *can* tweak them afterwards using EQ and other features such as clarity, pick, compression, etc. in the amp section and there are many more tweaks in the cab section.
So glad you like it Richard! we are going to be releasing a pack this weekend based on the Mahalo KT-66 amp, which is not well known but honestly one of our favs at the studio so definitely check that one out. (This is Ken BTW)
Brilliant idea to take a professionally selected and seasoned amp collection and create a profile collection from the cream-of-the-crop! - These should be extremely popular.
01:20 'these aren't all the amps we have in the studio, just the ones that would fit in the picture, we also have....' ...oh lord. I'll try to fit the Blackstar Fly and Vox Pathfinder in the picture from over here :)
Awsome rick. Imagine how much popular artist would make if they profiled their amps and sold the profiles. Like slash being in public eye right now. Hed make a killing.
@@MrTubularBalls wouldnt suprise me if someone figured out how to do that. A way to add an artists idiosyncrasies to a track that you recorded. Lol. Recently I watched a video where a guy was talking about being at Mic Mars' house and he bought the amp Mic used to record shout at the devil, dr. Feelgood and other albums. It would be cool to have a profile of amps like that.
+Bryan Keith You're talking about profiles of a guitar sound off a studio album? Yes, I think that's technically possible, if you don't have access to original amps / instruments it could be possible to extract IRs or something similar from the stems. All you need is access to the master. That could also be quite revealing, because artists often didn't use the equipment they mention in interviews. They mention some brand and pose with its new product line only as part of an endorsement deal. They may not even know what was used exactly, since producer & engineer record DI from the guitar, then re-amp, use outboard effects, plugins etc. Btw how often were tracks laid down by a session guy instead of the original artist? Happened a lot in the olden days, I've been told it still happens with producer's projects.
@@MrTubularBalls what I meant for example, if a player has a specific quirk when they bend. If you were to record a track then run it through a progam. The program would add that little quirk to any bend in the track. And so on. I guess more like modeling an artist finger movment habits.
I love my Kemper. It took a few tries but it really profiled my Matamp’s well. Whatever differences there might be are far less than I little eq on console or my amp on a cold vs hot day. If your amp can get the sound you want then so can the Kemper. The ducking effect in the loop is also awesome and something no tube amp can do plus I love stereo effects like my Eventide H9’s in the loop.
It kinda does, but not the way you think. Mostly just the way it’s dialed in you’ll have to tweak it a little, like if someone used active pickups to profile and you used passives you’d have to change a few things to make it fit your guitar more. It’s pretty easy to get it dialed into your guitar once you figure out all the tone controls on the kemper
Thanks you for this! I approached a few studios about doing a profile for my favorite boutique amp. None of them were interested until one guy got it. Studios can charge people to make really high quality profiles of client amps. But I just wanted a profile of my amp as like an insurance policy should something happen to it. I think this is a brilliant way to capture the amps that come and go thru our lives. I know ever piece of gear I’ve sold I eventually wish I had again for something random.
Hey Rick, great video and it's nice to know that you, as a high skilled and experienced guitar player, are not against Kemper. A lot of guitarists out there are simply against any new tech that simulates amps or pedals and their opinion is that only amp and pedals can give you proper sound. It would be cool if you can make some videos about creating guitar sound for particular music style. In my case, i am a big funk guitar fan, and would be very interested to know how to get that sound. For example the sound that Neil Rodgers or James Brown guitarists or Vulfpeck guitarists have, from guitar, over amp setup to which pedals to pick and how to set them up, and of course how important is the way you play. I believe that there are more people here that would be interested in that too, or in some other guitar style, like hard rock or jazz etc. I hope that you will read this comment and think about it. Thanks for sharing all these great things! :)
I used to ha e that attitude. I have a Helix LT and I am never going back. I get great sound and no one hates it. Tone snobs say somethings missing but my audience does not seek to think so.
I hate people saying that the kemper doesn't really get there. While I agree that there is a tiny difference in sound, finding the difference in a mix would almost be impossible. Same goes for live-shows. If that thing goes through a PA, you'd hear no difference at all. There's a reason why so many touring artists go digital with axeFX, Kempers or even a helix. The advantage for real amps, at least in my book, is that the inspire you to write in a certain way. Using a real amp gives you limitations because you don't have every sound imaginable available with a few clicks.
This is also my biggest pet peeve about today's music technology. It's great but it also gives too many options, which results in less time being spend on one sound. I like having a simple amp where I can't do everything and I've had a Boss GT8 pedal to add everything I wanted (albeit sounding a ton shittier than this thing) but I ended up selling it because it's so easy to drown in the amount of options. For someone emulating someone's tone it's great, but for me it's too many options to choose from.
Depends on what kind of music you're playing. If you use a lot of clean tones the differences are much more noticeable in my experience. Good luck getting a Fender blackface with spring reverb for example.
@@syncdog "I like my amps but you can't tell the difference. You think you can but you can't. If I did 30 profiles, You would get 15 or so right." That's a direct response from Rick to a comment under this video.
@@LosTroopos Well, he is half the way there. We'll see if he sells half of his amps any time soon. Until then I'm not riding the gimmick train and will use my amps as both heaters and sonic bliss. :-) Respectfully
After playing for 55 years. I thought this would happen I guess I can sale my boxes of tubes. Great video. Now I am using a redplate astro dust 50 and a voodoo modified old dual rectifier. Are you familiar with these amps they are pretty nice Thanks again for the great videos
My hubbie got one and he is obsessed! Cool machine! (He had created something similar for himself back in the early 80s on a much smaller scale of course)
The modern high power amps are quite easy to profile, but I have some vintage low watt amps from the 50ies, like a fender de luxe tweed and princeton tweed from '53, which I don't dare to profile like I do with the more modern marshalls etc. Especially when you are using the old original weber speakers that just can't take all of the wideband signals that your kemper sends through them without getting destroyed or at least have their character changed permanently. I was in touch with the guys at Kemper about this and they acknowledge that these are very difficult amps to profile. I didn't find a viable solution for this yet
I come from 20 years of mostly vintage analogue synthesizers, including digital synthesizers made by the same guy who does the Kemper. As a member of the Analogue Master Race, I was speculative of this thing, but the guitarist for one of my bands has one and I cannot tell the difference with a real cabinet. Have not tried it yet for bass, but it does a fantastic job in recording, especially with SPDIF.
Darm0k it’s a tool for studio musicians or touring musicians who need to cover a lot of ground (years of albums etc) not particularly practical for most musicians but one of the most groundbreaking pieces of equipment for the aforementioned purposes. Since I got one I never have to worry about flying, backline or random sessions I can’t bring my stuff but when I can I just use my Tele and tweed bassman
I agree. I have a nice tube head I use a lot and a kemper and it's so many options you have to stay focused and not wander off onto the other 400 amp heads and profiles.
Unfortunately no. It doesn’t work like that. The kemper, when profiling, is using its test signals to see how the amp reacts and affects them. That’s why you need it hooked to the actual amp
Old tube amps are great because they introduce distortion like an emotion, in real time depending on how each phrase is played, going from fat clean, to occasional hints of angst, onto an emotional breakdown (or peak moment) that ends in a full-on primal scream. That's Hendrix, Frampton, Santana, Clapton. I'd like to see/hear a profile of a small vintage Fender to see if the Kemper can capture the real time subtleties purely using the guitar controls and pick dynamics. I use several UAD amp plug-ins on my Apollo, and they're great, but they still don't capture the feel of playing on the edge of that clean/distorted border.
Agree 100%! Those who say there is no or not a noticable difference, don't know what it is to play over a real good tube amp with all it's nuances. To me it is very strange Rick himself , who has such great ears and experience, does not seem to hear the difference. And i am not saying that you can't create nice guitar sound's with the Kemper or Axe Fx etc... But it still is no match for a real good tube amp, it just can't be because there far to much variables going on in a tube amp to catch in a singel profile.
@@Andreorsel It's not strange at all when you realise all these quite popular producers have kemper packs they are trying to sell. It's all about making money.
I was hoping this video would answer three simple questions that I have about amp profiling: 1) What is amp profiling? 2) How does it work? 3) Why would I use it, what are the advantages of using it? After 13 minutes of blathering, I only had a slightly better understanding. I am still a fan of this channel, but some clear and simple answers would be helpful.
Blathering? Piss off bro. I’m not a damn gear demo channel. Use your ears! I normally ban a-holes like you after a rude comment but maybe you can’t speak or write English well. Asked someone to translate it for you next time.
Kemper is bassier. Having analysed with ozone and matched eq the kemper to the real, amp, the eq curve confirm it. on the kemper there is 9db boost around 70hz followed by a cut of 5db at 126db. It clearly could be eq after, but doesn't sound the same.
New Kemper owner as of 3 weeks ago due to a move in 2021 even though it's been out like over 10 years now. Iv'e made one profile just using a Shure SM-58 on the cab and plugged straight in to the Kemper just to kind of get a feel for the process . Did'nt expect to like the result so much.
Rick, here is a question for you. When did studios start reamping guitar tracks ? It seems they could have done it back in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Couldnt they just record tracks to tape and replay them back through amps just as they do now ?
Just got the Marshall pack and I like it ... thumbs up. Very usable sonic palette to adjust guitars on a mix. I was tempted also by the Orange pack but there's no demo of its sounds so I decided to put this aside for the time being. I think you should do some videos on the profiles you offer especially for modded amps just to get a rough idea of what they're alike so to easily find out whether they might fit or not in a particular soundcontest. I guess today we've more guitar painters around than tone tweakers so like traditional painters we need to find the right colour for each detail for our wannabe-masterpiece in the quickest way possible.
It reminds me a lot when I had the first iPod,and started stuffing it with all the favorite CDs in mp3,yeah, it's like photo albums of your ex girlfriends when they were beautiful.
So, if I understand this correctly, method wise you guys are getting the sound you like, using a DAW to check the mix of the microphones to make sure that sound is being recorded correctly and then getting the Kemper to match that tone.
The Marshall sounded much better, even over iPad speakers. Rick, would you choose the Kemper over the Marshall if you were recording? In other words does the difference between the two make any difference in the context of a recording thick with other instruments? Thanks again for your service to us musicians.
I think it sounds better although the sounds of both are so similar it's nothing that a little EQ couldn't take care of either way. I think the Kemper sounded a little creamier or darker than the Marshall did. I think they both sound awesome.
Hey! I literally just bought a rackmount Kemper today so I was looking for quality profiles. I also use a Warm Audio preamp. Although mine is the WA273EQ.
Have you played an acoustic guitar through an AER? Different sounds are required and desired for different musical styles as you show so well in this clip, thank you both. For me, my AER is the best for getting an exact replication of the tone of my acoustic instruments. I'm not the Lone Ranger on this. Many international artists touring with acoustic instruments play through an AER.
Great video, but why mix the cabinet mics in ProTools thereby adding an A/D and D/A conversion? Sounds great, but you're really profiling a system here not just an amplifier.
I thought the Kemper model sounded a liiiiiiiiiiiittle darker than the Marshall. Other than that, a solid emulation. I would challenge anyone to tell the difference in a mix.
paulthegeek There's a nice Andertons video where they do a blindfold test between Kemper and tube amps. Even solo, these profiles are uncannily close. I noticed that Tony Levin is using one on the latest Crimson tour.
I think the kemper comes pretty damn much close to the Marshall. Still, imho, the downsides are: to me, all the modeling units (kemper, helix, headrush etc) sound too "good". They are lacking this badass Rock'n Roll ecstasy-vibe, this slight breakout in the upper mids. In this example, I can hear it again. The Kemper sounds too tamed. As an asthetic rule: prettiness needs small mistakes. Perfecness is boring. Like I would always prefer the pretty girl with the slighlty curved teeth over the photoshopped model version. The other thing is: It may do a good job in the studio on larger venues, where you only hear the PA. But on smaller venues, where the pure backline-sound adds a lot to the 3-dimensionality of the total sound, I think it sounds too flat, if you just play it through the PA. Sure you could use a FrFr System, but then I'd prefer my vox ac 30 and my engl squeeze big time. And the most important thing is: Does it make your music better? I think: No. On the contrary. Creativity needs Iimitation. If you have all possibilities, things get harder. Plus i get a lot more Inspiration of twisting the knobs of my vinrtage amps and pedals, then twisting those of a kemper.
I love to play with my big pedal board and switching between 60 real analog pedals I have in my wardrobe yes - but sometimes just have mood go for something totally different like change car sometimes or food - enjoy both ways - its funny jump in between so far different sounds in one pedal - and generally if you have good ears for sure you can play with Kemper and find some founds which you can enjoy but same time hard to make them with just with few pedals in analog pedalboard - I like its funny sometimes for special situation need it - the same way I know all point you talk about
In the amp section of the Kemper are you able to combine or mix 2 amplifiers together or can I get 2 amps I love and then profile both amps as 1? Just mic 2 different amps and mix it.
Here is my question. Are we looking at the napster for amps? If you have a friend at a music store and theres a 5000$ dollar amp. You invest in the 1,799 for the Kemper. Profile the boutique amp. BAM! 5000 dollar amp out the door. (Im mostly being silly here, curious. )
Its impressing technology, ive heard many comparisons here on youtube and its usually virtually impossible to tell which is the original amp and the Kemper profile.
it depends on the configuration, ive been researching and deciding between kemper and fractal. For me I can tell which is digital and which is not based on mids. When it comes to effects and tweaking it seems that fractal wins but when it comes to imitating/productivity then kemper is the winner.