Will Chen
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So it came in yesterday and I put about 2 hours on it last night by headphones just trying to get a feel for the unit and how it works. This is part 2 of the "Pulled the Trigger" thread.
First up, the unit is certainly odd looking, moreso than the photos seem to convey. Its about the size of a lunch box style tube head but just has an odd shape to it and is shallower than it appears in pictures. There's also a ton of lights of different colors going on. From that perspective, it kinda reminds me of the Peavey Vypyr line. I historically haven't been a fan of such flashy interfaces, but it kinda works in a quirky, kitschy way. Honestly, it almost looks as if they tried to envision what a modeler might look like from a 50's sci-fi B movie perspective.
I spent the majority of the first hour auditioning a bunch of the stock profiles and learning how the amp controls work. If the Kemper was limited to these profiles, I would have packed it up and sent it back immediately. Its not that the unit sounds bad with the stock profiles, but IMHO there's nothing there that justifies the premium over more affordable models especially given the limited effects palette (more on this later). Fortunately, a few Kemper owners reached out and pointed me towards some choice profiles to check out. Sorting through some of these I found 2 which were very, very impressive. A cranked Deluxe and a clean Super (guess I was in a Fender-ish mood last night). The Deluxe profile's reaction to volume knob control of gain, just delightful. Clean to mean with little volume loss. While I can get pretty similar tonal results on lower priced modelers using a combination of an amp model, dirt box, and compressor none of them offer the level of control of this Kemper profile. I could easily do a gig with that single profile and a few effects. The Super was equally impressive in a different way. It served up a glassy snap without any harshness or ice pick frequencies which for me has been extremely hard to get on the more affordable units without generous use of compression and surgical EQ usage. I didn't have any time to get into any user generated Marshall/Vox/Mesa/etc profiles last night, but honestly the 2 profiles mentioned would really serve for maybe 90% of the traditional tones I go for. Kemper provides something akin to the HD500 deep editing parameters to allow control of sag, bias, pick attack and a few other parameters which can really morph the character of a profile. The cab section also offers something similar to the old Digitech GNX3000 with a high and low shift controls to tune the cab response. Again, you can completely morph the characteristic signature of a cab into something else with these controls. Very, very cool.
From an effects standpoint, honestly the Kemper is a little disappointing. Now again, I don't mean that the effects sound bad, they generally sound good. Simply that in this price range I think the consumer deserves more. The sparse mostly generic selection reminds me of the earlier days of Digitech without all the "bling". I realize the product is being continually refined and this is just a first impression, likely additional features will be added. But I would never recommend anyone buy a unit in hopes that a future upgrade will offer a desired feature. If you are the type of player who makes liberal use of effects and are on any kind of a budget, it won't work as an all in one for you at this point. Fortunately, I've got a few things to fill in the gaps.
So the million dollar question...is it that much better than the more affordable competition. I must admit I'm impressed by the potential...but not dumbfounded. Again, this is just a first impression with only 2 hours on the unit. I don't feel like I really know it at all yet and that's probably going to take upwards of a week. If one is expecting a totally knock-your-socks off unboxing experience, well it didn't happen with me. But maybe I'm a bit tonally jaded. I mean, nothing really floors me these days gearwise and I'm not the type of player which cares about having 1,000s of amps at my fingertips. If you are that type of player, I would imagine it would be infinitely fun to audition a plethora amps including rare stuff many will never even see in person (I'll admit to likely given in to some of that at some point as well). But, if it would endure much financial hardship at all to afford a Kemper over something in the $500 range I'd recommend taking a long, hard look at why something like the Kemper interests you. Is it to make up for some identified short coming of your current device? Is it simply because others proclaim it better? Is it curiosity or maybe pure G.A.S? IMHO, though take into consideration my limited time on the device, the leap in quality does not match the leap in price. This is an area of diminished returns and a gap which more than likely will be met in the near term. Your largely paying a premium to be among the first. The most obvious areas where the Kemper shines thus far is in volume knob interactivity (currently unmatched when compared to more affordable units) and allowing the high end to be glassy and snappy without having to do tricks to dial out harshness. But in the end, I'm totally surprised that my biggest revelation so far has been a recognition of how good the more affordable devices really are...
Next up...auditioning via FRFR, 1X12 cab, and profiling (not necessarily in that order).
First up, the unit is certainly odd looking, moreso than the photos seem to convey. Its about the size of a lunch box style tube head but just has an odd shape to it and is shallower than it appears in pictures. There's also a ton of lights of different colors going on. From that perspective, it kinda reminds me of the Peavey Vypyr line. I historically haven't been a fan of such flashy interfaces, but it kinda works in a quirky, kitschy way. Honestly, it almost looks as if they tried to envision what a modeler might look like from a 50's sci-fi B movie perspective.
I spent the majority of the first hour auditioning a bunch of the stock profiles and learning how the amp controls work. If the Kemper was limited to these profiles, I would have packed it up and sent it back immediately. Its not that the unit sounds bad with the stock profiles, but IMHO there's nothing there that justifies the premium over more affordable models especially given the limited effects palette (more on this later). Fortunately, a few Kemper owners reached out and pointed me towards some choice profiles to check out. Sorting through some of these I found 2 which were very, very impressive. A cranked Deluxe and a clean Super (guess I was in a Fender-ish mood last night). The Deluxe profile's reaction to volume knob control of gain, just delightful. Clean to mean with little volume loss. While I can get pretty similar tonal results on lower priced modelers using a combination of an amp model, dirt box, and compressor none of them offer the level of control of this Kemper profile. I could easily do a gig with that single profile and a few effects. The Super was equally impressive in a different way. It served up a glassy snap without any harshness or ice pick frequencies which for me has been extremely hard to get on the more affordable units without generous use of compression and surgical EQ usage. I didn't have any time to get into any user generated Marshall/Vox/Mesa/etc profiles last night, but honestly the 2 profiles mentioned would really serve for maybe 90% of the traditional tones I go for. Kemper provides something akin to the HD500 deep editing parameters to allow control of sag, bias, pick attack and a few other parameters which can really morph the character of a profile. The cab section also offers something similar to the old Digitech GNX3000 with a high and low shift controls to tune the cab response. Again, you can completely morph the characteristic signature of a cab into something else with these controls. Very, very cool.
From an effects standpoint, honestly the Kemper is a little disappointing. Now again, I don't mean that the effects sound bad, they generally sound good. Simply that in this price range I think the consumer deserves more. The sparse mostly generic selection reminds me of the earlier days of Digitech without all the "bling". I realize the product is being continually refined and this is just a first impression, likely additional features will be added. But I would never recommend anyone buy a unit in hopes that a future upgrade will offer a desired feature. If you are the type of player who makes liberal use of effects and are on any kind of a budget, it won't work as an all in one for you at this point. Fortunately, I've got a few things to fill in the gaps.
So the million dollar question...is it that much better than the more affordable competition. I must admit I'm impressed by the potential...but not dumbfounded. Again, this is just a first impression with only 2 hours on the unit. I don't feel like I really know it at all yet and that's probably going to take upwards of a week. If one is expecting a totally knock-your-socks off unboxing experience, well it didn't happen with me. But maybe I'm a bit tonally jaded. I mean, nothing really floors me these days gearwise and I'm not the type of player which cares about having 1,000s of amps at my fingertips. If you are that type of player, I would imagine it would be infinitely fun to audition a plethora amps including rare stuff many will never even see in person (I'll admit to likely given in to some of that at some point as well). But, if it would endure much financial hardship at all to afford a Kemper over something in the $500 range I'd recommend taking a long, hard look at why something like the Kemper interests you. Is it to make up for some identified short coming of your current device? Is it simply because others proclaim it better? Is it curiosity or maybe pure G.A.S? IMHO, though take into consideration my limited time on the device, the leap in quality does not match the leap in price. This is an area of diminished returns and a gap which more than likely will be met in the near term. Your largely paying a premium to be among the first. The most obvious areas where the Kemper shines thus far is in volume knob interactivity (currently unmatched when compared to more affordable units) and allowing the high end to be glassy and snappy without having to do tricks to dial out harshness. But in the end, I'm totally surprised that my biggest revelation so far has been a recognition of how good the more affordable devices really are...
Next up...auditioning via FRFR, 1X12 cab, and profiling (not necessarily in that order).
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I kid, I kid...
