The ethics of Kemper profiling amps

[MultiScaleMale]

Kemper needs to build in something that allows people who create libraries to be able to license them to users. i.e. protect the IP of the proiles so that library creators can make some money. And they won't get ripped off by people copying and putting them on the webs.

But If Kemper does do some kind of licensing scheme for profiles, then some other modeling/profiling maker is just going to come out with something that does allow it. Library creators are going to shoot down any technology that doesn't control the licensing of libs.

I agree in theory, but there is no legal reason for them to license a sound or a tone. They would be foolish from a legal standpoint to agree to a licensing scheme when they are not required to do so. That would essentially allow the amp manufacturers to dictate what you do with your models and put you at a disadvantage competitively against your rivals who are not doing the same. In general, we need an IP law overhaul to catch up with at least the late 20th century.

 

[twistd]

One last thought
In the scheme of things bringing a $4K Marshall or Tweed out on tour + a spare is really not big money if that’s how you make your living.
I don’t know a carpenter, car mechanic, etc. that can get by without at least $10K in tools.
Obviously, old amps can be repaired easily and no amp is beyond theft.

To me, the I-Pod analogy is a huge factor.
Does the Kemper represent the qualities of say a 16K processor or a 48K?
I find the previous attempts by folks like Line 6 for guitar amps were clever little recreations, but were not close enough in quality to the real deal for even semi-pro use.
.02

Lots of pros use them now. Look here:
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And here:
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[ThePresident777]

Didn't the big box stores put the little guys out of business? Aren't they the reason why I can't seem to find anything but the same poopie everywhere I go?

Maybe they should go back to the old ways when people had to actually go to a store and try things out there to see if they actually liked it?

 

[osv]

For those who spent the time to watch the first video, Henning has uploaded two more with further thoughts on the subject. This is in response to the doodie storm that has erupted in his comment section.

 

[FourBanger]

What is worse? An amp with a brain that can copy a sound or the guys with brains forty or fifty years ago and more recently that copied Fender and Marshall schematics and now are full fledged brands in their own right and that nobody ever complains about the ethics of their first products?

 

[BbbyBld]

Some random thoughts...

I have played around a little with a Kemper and I would call it a "scenario modeler". For example, I built a guitar amp head. I put my amp in an isolated sound booth on top of a certain 412 guitar cab with a certain mike in front (the scenario). The mike went to the Kemper, which then went to a mixer, and then on to studio monitors. I used the Kemper to profile the setup. The Kemper has an A/B switch that can be used to switch back and forth between the real guitar rig and the profile, and that switch is also used to enhance the profile. After the profile was enhanced, I could switch back and forth and not tell the difference. The Kemper is not really profiling the amp, but it does an excellent job of profiling a scenario. Obviously, buying and returning used merchandise is unethical, but it's not like someone can just profile amps with a Kemper the way a lot of people would think. I guess you could theoretically profile with a dummy load setup, but I doubt that's done a whole lot, and then a lot of the character of the amp would be lost because of no interaction with a speaker.

While this is true for guitar amps, it's especially true for bass amps...there's no such thing as power amp character modeling. Sure, you could model tonality, but you can't (practically) model the power, presence, balls, etc that certain amps are known for. Some power amps respond a certain way because they are unstable. You can't really judge how a bass amp will play based on a recording, just like you couldn't judge whether you would actually like or dislike a particular amp based on hearing a profile.

There are A LOT more tonal inconsistencies in guitar amps and cabs than people would think or would like to think. As someone who has participated in the creation of modeling amps and software apps, it can be a crap shoot when it comes to choosing amp/cab specimens to use as gold standards. Some famous artists are known for playing certain gear, but if you ever have the opportunity to look inside their prized amps, many of them are unicorns because they have problems due to manufacturing errors, and of course many of them are modified. You have to be careful if you do repairs for artists because you never know if they like certain things broken! How many times have you heard someone talk about THEIR amp X that sounds better than any other amp X they've ever played? This is where I see the real value in profiling.

 

[CGremlin]

I have played around a little with a Kemper and I would call it a "scenario modeler".

This is how I've always thought of them, and would expect that you'd have to use it with a full-range cabinet that's going to color the tone as little as possible since the sound of the cabinet is already going to be rolled into the profile. Probably would work really well with a fEARful, not so much with an Ampeg fridge.

 

[Whippet]

I am thinking of getting a Kemper and this thread has me thinking............



All along I was told and was thinking like: TONE IS IN THE FINGERTIPS.


I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet! Sorry had to add that. LOL



All things considered, Kemper looks really good. I am so tempted to get this.

 

[EMoneySC2]

I am thinking of getting a Kemper and this thread has me thinking............



All along I was told and was thinking like: TONE IS IN THE FINGERTIPS.


I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet! Sorry had to add that. LOL



All things considered, Kemper looks really good. I am so tempted to get this.

Just as a curiosity, why a Kemper and not an AxeFx?

 

[JimmyM]

I think ANYONE who buys something from a store with the intention of returning it when they're done with it needs their ethics checked.

As for tone being in the fingers, I fully believe that, but on the other hand, some gear does make it easier than others, so get what YOU think will make it easiest for you, and never base your decisions on your perception of what the audience thinks. Musicians love to grossly underestimate the intelligence of their audiences, but I've seen enough bands get a lackluster reception and/or get booed off the stage to know that they're much smarter than some of us think.

 

[Jim C]

I just ran into an old friend who is a monster player and reader.
He has done well as a “pit” player although many performances now have the band in a separate part of the theater with video communication.
Like most good players, he has made a sizable investment in gear.

He has found the latest craze is for the producer / arranger is to have the guitarist use a modeling amp with the pre-sets already set.
The idea is that the tone will be the same from city to city regardless of who is in the seat.
Apparently the player (or guitar) are not the key ingredients to tone in some folks eyes.

 

[Bob_Ross]

People buy the Kemper. They then buy another, usually boutique amp online. They profile the sound into the Kemper, and then return the boutique amp to the online store.
They have, just virtually stolen an amp.

Thsi is mostly a semantic quibble, but I think it gets to the heart of the matter and why I don't agree if Hennings is asserting that profiling amps are "unethical":

In the above scenario you haven't just virtually stolen an amp. Rather, you've just stolen a virtual amp.

You've also ripped off the vendor of the boutique amp, which I agree is unethical. Vince Klortho nailed it when he wrote

I have no problem with the ethics of Kemper profiling, in and of itself. I have a very large problem with the ethics of ordering an amp, using it for this purpose, and then returning it.

...

somebody called up our store a while back wanting to "record" some of our guitar amps with his kemper; the answer was some variation of "ha ha, no."

Reminds me of something that happened to me ~30 years ago, shortly after MIDI and affordable sampling keyboards became widespread. I had gone to a large studio complex in NYC to play bass on a jingle session. As I was leaving the studio some guy from one of the other studios in the building saw me and asked "Is that a Steinberger bass?" I nodded. He asked "Are you available for a recording session right now?" Checked my watch; I think it said June so I was like, "sure, I've got a hole in my schedule."

He set me up in a small recording room with a Countryman DI and an Electro-Voice RE20 on an old Ampeg fliptop. We get a sound, he gives me a thumbs-up from the control room, and I say "So what's the tune?"

He says "There's no tune, I just need you to play some open strings and a few short- and long-notes. I want to add a Steinberger bass to my sample library on the Roland S-50."









I wish I could tell you that 30 years ago I had the pride, integrity, and (mostly) wherewithal to say some variation of "ha ha, no", unplug my bass and walk out the door. But a hundred bucks was a lot of money for 15 minutes' work back then...

 

[JimmyM]

Reminds me of something that happened to me ~30 years ago, shortly after MIDI and affordable sampling keyboards became widespread. I had gone to a large studio complex in NYC to play bass on a jingle session. As I was leaving the studio some guy from one of the other studios in the building saw me and asked "Is that a Steinberger bass?" I nodded. He asked "Are you available for a recording session right now?" Checked my watch; I think it said June so I was like, "sure, I've got a hole in my schedule."

He set me up in a small recording room with a Countryman DI and an Electro-Voice RE20 on an old Ampeg fliptop. We get a sound, he gives me a thumbs-up from the control room, and I say "So what's the tune?"

He says "There's no tune, I just need you to play some open strings and a few short- and long-notes. I want to add a Steinberger bass to my sample library on the Roland S-50."

I wish I could tell you that 30 years ago I had the pride, integrity, and (mostly) wherewithal to say some variation of "ha ha, no", unplug my bass and walk out the door. But a hundred bucks was a lot of money for 15 minutes' work back then...

You got the last laugh. Samplers back then sucked, and nobody in their right mind would ever use those samples now

 

[Passinwind]

You got the last laugh. Samplers back then sucked, and nobody in their right mind would ever use those samples now

Sure, but the studio deWd probably got a bunch of hookers 'n blow outta the deal. If you call that a win...Link Removed

 

[Whippet]

Just as a curiosity, why a Kemper and not an AxeFx?

They rarely carry the AxeFx and believe it or not, it's more expensive by about 20% in Japan.

 

[Selta]

They rarely carry the AxeFx and believe it or not, it's more expensive by about 20% in Japan.

That's unfortunate. Having tried the Kemper, Helix and my trust Axe-Fx II side by side, the Axe-Fx won hands down across the board. Second (quite a ways back) for me was actually the Helix, then the Kemper.

I'm hoping that more manufacturers jump in on the modeler/profiling side of things. Sure, push out the products a lot of people want with traditional heads and cabs, but then take time to model/profile them as well and sell them to the guys who don't want to schelp all of that gear.

 

[CGremlin]

You got the last laugh. Samplers back then sucked, and nobody in their right mind would ever use those samples now

Ugh, especially the S-50. I sold exactly *one* of those things back then. It was cool that it had a video out jack, but it was expensive, the sound quality wasn't anything to write home about, and the sample memory wasn't enough to even do justice to the open strings on the OP's Steinie.

 

[Whippet]

That's unfortunate. Having tried the Kemper, Helix and my trust Axe-Fx II side by side, the Axe-Fx won hands down across the board. Second (quite a ways back) for me was actually the Helix, then the Kemper.

I'm hoping that more manufacturers jump in on the modeler/profiling side of things. Sure, push out the products a lot of people want with traditional heads and cabs, but then take time to model/profile them as well and sell them to the guys who don't want to schelp all of that gear.

I am just starting to do my research but why Axe FxII over the Kemper? Just a simple explanation would be fine, since I am sure you could find a million reasons. The Axe FX2 is just about 3.5 grands. With the pedal, it's about 4.5 grands in Japan. Kemper is about 3 grands for the one with the amp buit in. The pedal is about 780 bucks. Obviously I could get all of these from the States, but getting it fixed would be a problem since they'll most likely replace the circuit board if anything goes wrong, and there is no way a parallel import is going to get any kind of service in Japan.

Also I know the Kemper has a voltage switch. AxeFX2+ seems to have a seamless voltage adaptor built in. This is crucial since I travel between crap hole Ukraine, Japan, and most likely Brazil in the very future. Not having to carry a lot of gear is great. Just the other week I carried my not so heavy tube amp @ 30 lbs as carry on and it was a pain carrying that thing and my guitar on the way to the airport. Not to mention every ounce of weight means more money I might have to pay if I have extra gear.

Anyway input from what you know would be great.

 

[Selta]

For me it boils down to ability, flexibility and configurability. The Axe-Fx can do a lot more than the Kemper, and at the same time to my ears, do it better. This is especially important since I don't just use it for bass - it needs to sound good for other instruments as well.
Example: The Kemper can only hold 4 effects... that's not nearly enough. The available selection of amps and cabs is not as extensive as what comes with the Axe-Fx (and, Fractal Audio adds new ones pretty frequently, for free).

 

[Whippet]

For me it boils down to ability, flexibility and configurability. The Axe-Fx can do a lot more than the Kemper, and at the same time to my ears, do it better. This is especially important since I don't just use it for bass - it needs to sound good for other instruments as well.
Example: The Kemper can only hold 4 effects... that's not nearly enough. The available selection of amps and cabs is not as extensive as what comes with the Axe-Fx (and, Fractal Audio adds new ones pretty frequently, for free).

Thanks for the quick reply. I was told about the limitation of the effects myself and it put off a lot of people. Anyway thank you for the input. I will have to do some more research on this topic.