Kemper: New Kemper Profiler Player with MMGT

S

scratch17

Active Member
I originally bought my MMGT 10 to use with my Kemper Profiling Amp non-powered Rack. I could have bought a Kemper Remote instead but I spent the extra money to get a more versatile MIDI switcher. Which is one of the things I love about the MMGT.

Then the Axe FX3 came out, and it seems that the KPA updates that added more capabilities to the Kemper were not incorporated or updated into the Kemper preset for the MMGT. I can understand that the Axe FX3 is a hot product. But I am somewhat disappointed that it feels like it gets all the love from RJM when it comes to adding new control features.

I remember that a lot of issues occurred when the KPA looper was implemented with Kemper Remote. Apparently, the proprietary nature of the way the looper was implemented, stymied updates to the Kemper preset with that feature. I can understand why updates to the KPA preset were abandoned at the time.

Now there is a new pedalboard friendly sized Kemper Profile Player which has a smaller physical size than the Stage. It has much of the full size (Rack, Toaster and Stage) capabilities for profile playing. But due to its size, it has fewer control buttons.

According to Burkhard (Kemper Forum moderator), the Profiler Player has been tested with the FCB 1010 with Uno4Kemper upgrade with respect to on/off switching of effect via MIDI CC#. Since according to Kemper, the hardware and much of the software of the Profiler Player is the same as the full size units, I am hoping that the original MMGT preset for the KPA will have at least some utility on the Profile Player.

I am hopeful that RJM will consider the Profile Player's introduction into the marketplace as a reason to consider updating the Kemper preset for MMGT.

Thanks, Steven Kastner.
 
It is true that I haven't looked much at the Kemper, since they chose not to allow MIDI control of their looper. Are there specific features that they now have that we should support? (That are able to be controlled by MIDI) Up until now, no one's asked for any Kemper updates, so I haven't been aware of any changes.

Probably the biggest obstacle for Profiler Player support is that it has no MIDI ports. It does support MIDI over USB, but that's not going to help us much. There are a few companies that make USB MIDI host adapters, and maybe one of those would work as the missing piece in between, but that would require some testing.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I haven't bothered asking for this update in the last few years due to some neuropathy issues in my hands that stopped me from playing guitar. However, I have recently had some situations that required me to use fine motor control with my hands. And to my surprise, I have been able to do much more than I thought I could do with little to no feeling in my fingers. So I am starting to play guitar again. Yahoo!

It will take some time to go over specific new features to ensure that there is MIDI control available in the current KPA MIDI implementation.

Having said that, I have just Googled the MIDI control capabilities and found tons of videos from YouTube as well as KPA Forum posts that demo controlling the KPA full size units via MIDI. Some use foot controllers from your competitors, and some show control via DAWs.

I also found that the basic looper functions can be controlled via NRPN commands. There is a KPA Forum post that provides the two NRPN commands to do basic looper control.

Many of these posts were from users, not experts like your competitors' engineering staffs. So if the MMGT can send NRPN and you do some digging, it might be possible to control the full functions of the looper as well.

As for new features, just off the top of my head, here are a few examples of what I could see wanting to control with the MMGT.

Kemper has a new hardware cabinet available that operates as both a FRFR as well as having a proprietary feature that they call 'tone imprints'. The cabs can be bought as powered and non-powered versions with a single 12" driver. Raw drivers available for those who want to build their own cabs. Having control over turning on and off and switching the imprints would be mighty useful.

Kemper has also implemented what it calls morphing. Morphing allows an effect's parameters to be controlled via a MIDI CC pedal between two states. It does not apply to morphing between two Tone Stacks. (That would require two Kempers). Being able to control morphing via a pedal input on my MMGT would be an excellent feature to have.

Note that morphing is only available on the Rack, Toaster and Stage. It is not currently available on the Profile Player model. I'll provide more info on that model below.

The third item I'd like to see is control over a new modeling technology that can be added to a profile Kemper calls Liquid Profiling. Liquid Profiling is very new. It essentially models the behavior of the tone controls on specific amps. These tone control models can then be added to a profile even after it was created. The idea is that Liquid Profiling takes the tone stack controls and provides a more accurate representation of an actual amp's controls' behavior. Being able to turn Liquid Profiling on and off via the MMGT would be nice to have.

The concept of Liquid Profiling sounds confusing but it has been received very well in the Kemper user community. In fact, Axe FX's developer has threatened to sue for patent infringement when Liquid Profiling was first revealed in mid 2023. AFAIK, that never happened, but it obviously worked well enough to provoke that reaction.

As far as other features I'd like to see in an update, I have to do some research. I will let you know what I believe to be items that I want and should be implementable via MIDI control.

So now Kemper has released the Kemper Profile Player (KPP). It is brand new, and there are lots of misconceptions about what it does, what it can't do, and what features it has in common with its big brothers. I don't own one yet but I plan on buying one at some point in 2024.

I won't go into all of the differences here, as it is somewhat off topic. But I will say that as of now it cannot create profiles. It just plays them. The effects slots are limited to two before and two after the tone stack. Currently, not every one of the effects from the big Kempers are available on the Player as of now. And as stated above, there is no morphing function on the Player.

Now I have to mention the foot switch buttons on the KPP. There are 3. But you can combine two button presses to create an additional two foot controllable functions. AFAIK, the Kemper Remote won't connect to the KPP (at least as of now). So there is definitely an untapped market for external MIDI foot control for the KPP.

According to Kristoph Kemper on the KPA Forum, the internal hardware in the KPP is the same as its big brothers. He says that there will be one or maybe two paid upgrades, (no price or ETA yet), that will be coming to the KPP that will add some and possibly all of the features of its full size models. He is not saying that there won't be free upgrades to KPP as well and considering Kemper's history, I expect there to be some free upgrades, too. He even mentioned that the KPP might be able to be able to create profiles if they can figure out how to implement that function through the more limited I/O on the small unit.

I mention this information because I think the KPP as is will be a really big hit. I also mention it because if you (RJM) can do an update for the big KPA it will very likely be very easy to implement most or all of it when Kemper adds the paid upgrade(s) assuming the price is fair. So potentially, I can see many new users for the KPP and MMGT and the other controllers you sell. Furthermore, with the current limit of four effects slots, many users will use other pedals before and after the KPP. That could help you sell more MEGs, PBC- 6s and -10s.

As for your question about MIDI I/O through USB on the KPP, I fully expect that a good USB MIDI host adapter will work fine with your gear. Sure, it would need to be tested. But there really is reason to expect that it will work with your gear. I even expect that you might use wireless MIDI to USB adapter as in this video:


Sorry for the long reply, but I really want to nudge you into looking at this as an opportunity for RJM, so the many Kemper users can take advantage of your excellent line of products.

Now at the risk of being way over the top, I'd like to ask you to consider doing a MMGT preset for the GFI Duophony pedal. I saw that you've already covered some of their pedals. I want to use it as a hub to do a WDW system between my KPA Rack and the KPP. That would allow me to mix / morph between tone stacks.
 
Ok, we don't specifically support NRPNs, but you could make them happen just by stacking CCs. (an NRPN is just 4 CCs in a row). I will try to find some time to test this.

Morphing support has been available in the Mastermind for a couple of years, the CC is in the database with all the others.

Regarding switching imprints, turning liquid profiling on and off, etc. If Kemper chooses to add CCs that control those features, then it would be easy to add them to our database. If they don't add MIDI support for those things, then we can't control them no matter what we do.

If the new product uses basically the same firmware as the original Profiler, that's good news, because then it should just work with the Mastermind series using the existing Profiler support. (Assuming that you can find a MIDI host adapter that works).

I will look into the Duophony pedal - this is the first I've heard of it.
 
Here is a quote from Burkhard (Administrator on the Kemper Forum) in response to a question about Profile Player and MMGT.

"The Master Mind's Presets are just convenient starting points. The unit can be adapted to your needs leveraging all Player MIDI capabilities.
No, the Remote cannot be used with the Player. If you have the space and budget for a Player plus Remote, consider a PROFILER Stage."

Interesting statement, isn't it? I'd have thought that Kemper would have ensured that a Kemper Remote could expand live control features for the Profiler Player.

The good news from my personal perspective is that MMGT can potentially do what I need in the studio with the Profiler Player via MIDI commands. I re-read the MIDI section of the latest Profiler Manual. It is pretty extensive, but reads a lot like a MIDI spec sheet. Since I am just slightly more capable than a MIDIOT, I leave you to read and hopefully implement some of the newer features of the Rack/Toaster/Stage model with the MMGT.

I did look at the Profiler Player's manual, and it seems that potentially the MMGT preset for it might require some tweaking of the full Kemper preset to work as expected. That might be because as of now the Profiler Player is a subset of the full size Kempers.

Now, I guess I hijacking my own thread, but...

As far as the Duophony pedal is concerned, you can think of it basically as an automated mixing board with a touch screen controlling the mix between each side instead of faders. It also has a plethora of added features. I think that GFI started with the concept of creating a MIDI controlled stereo or mono WDW system. But probably as it was developed they realized it could be far more than that.

There are a two detailed videos on use cases for it from Mark Johnson (Secret Weapons on YouTube). One of his videos describes using a Duophony to blend two modeling pedals, a UA Dream and Ruby, to get a specific amp sound. He also shows some of the other features of the WDW rig with some time based pedals as well. There is also Vertex Effects videos that describe the Duophony with use cases.

I'd start there to get a feel for what Duophony is meant to accomplish, then look at how to implement control of the pedal with MMGT. My understanding is that just as with the other GFI pedals, the MIDI implementation and control is extensive on Duophony.

As far as how I plan to use Duophony, my use case involves stereo starting on my guitar. I am having my guitars rewired so that the bridge and neck pickups have separate outputs. I want the Duophony to manage the guitar rigs with two amp modelers in it. Each pickup will be able to feed its own rig based on the modeler in it. Since I use this gear only in my studio, I want to use the MMGT to make it super simple for a client to be able to instantly access preset rigs I have set up for them.

I am also thinking of adding a MEGx looper to the Duophony. Considering the flexibility of a MEGx's routing, I can see all sorts of ways to set up rigs with just about any kind of pedal.
 
So I decided to try and see if I could get the Kemper Looper running with the 4 CCs in a row.
And I had some success but there it doesn't function as intended, the main issue is it starts recording when the button is released.
So when I step on the button it does nothing but when I release it starts recording, this is the same with stop and erase.
For some reason I could get the trigger button to work properly but I used the cycle method for that button. (which didn't work for the other 3)
Another issue is that you need to hit the stop button once you are done recording, if you hit the record button again without pushing the stop button first then the looper gets stuck in an overdub loop.
It is somewhat usable though so here is the settings if someone wants to give it a try

Record/ Play/ Overdub
Momentary ON
CC Toggle 99 off 0 on 125
CC Toggle 98 off 0 on 88
CC Toggle 6 off 0 on 0
CC Toggle 38 off 1 on 0

Stop
Momentary ON
CC Toggle 99 off 0 on 125
CC Toggle 98 off 0 on 89
CC Toggle 6 off 0 on 0
CC Momentary 38 off 0 on 1

Erase
Momentary ON
CC Toggle 99 off 0 on 125
CC Toggle 98 off 0 on 94
CC Toggle 6 off 0 on 0
CC Momentary 38 off 0 on 1

Trigger
Cycle
CC Toggle 99 off 0 on 125
CC Toggle 98 off 0 on 90
CC Momentary 6 off 0 on 0
CC Momentary 38 off 0 on 1
System/Step
CC Toggle 99 off 0 on 125
CC Toggle 98 off 0 on 90
CC Momentary 6 off 0 on 0
CC Momentary 38 off 0 on 1
 
I suspect that your buttons are set up as momentary - they'll send CC messages with the On values when the button is pressed and they'll send CC messages with Off Values when the button is released. You might want to try setting all of the Off values to None so that it only sends messages when the buttons are pressed.
 
I think I tried that but it seems like it needs the off value for the Kemper to respond. I will try again and see if it works.
thanks
 
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