A Mark In Time
Mark Knopfler Discussion => Almost Straits => Topic started by: Rockdown Lockstar on June 02, 2020, 10:45:48 AM
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Hi everyone, Just wondering if any of the guitar players here are using Kemper and if there are any suggestions for MK style profiles?
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There may not be many Kemper users here, but surely there are many Kemper haters :lol
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Hi everyone, Just wondering if any of the guitar players here are using Kemper and if there are any suggestions for MK style profiles?
Don't have 1 personally but the quality is high, more or less like the fractal audio axefx 2-3 or ax8 or fm3, basically a 9/10 compared to a real 10/10 tube amp, but you have plenty of amps and effects and options into just 1 machine
Frankly the best advice is to work on it and adapt it to your ears
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Im surprised there isn't more Kemper lover here, especially with MK using them and personally I thought that was his best live sound since the Soldano days
I now use mine exclusively after years of using valve amps, including Soldano and cant see why I would ever go back.
Ah well, I assumed there may be a bank of MK type tones floating around here.
Big fan though so i'll be sticking around and may even share the odd cover if that's ok
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BTW if anyone is interested I bought this Money for nothing profile this morning, which claims to be the best available.
Im still waiting for it to be emailed but thought it sounded very close, the guy is a pro and can play it much better than I can but if it sounds the same i'll be happy ;D
https://www.mark-abrahams.com/money-for-nothing-kemper-profile
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Im surprised there isn't more Kemper lover here, especially with MK using them and personally I thought that was his best live sound since the Soldano days
I now use mine exclusively after years of using valve amps, including Soldano and cant see why I would ever go back.
Ah well, I assumed there may be a bank of MK type tones floating around here.
Big fan though so i'll be sticking around and may even share the odd cover if that's ok
I'd love to try Kemper amp, but the thing is I just can't afford one, as well as a decent guitar to go along with it, and I think this is the only reason there are not so many Kemper lovers here
Also, Mark is not exactly famous for his settings, for this Money For Nothing tone he got lucky with a seemingly "wrong" configuration of microphone placement and somebody suggested using a fixed WAH pedal in it. So it's trial and error, more so than for some other guitar players, whee you can dial in exactly THE sound. The exact delay duration for Hank Marvin, the exact pedal configuration for Gilmour, the exact phase/pickup configuration for B. May, you name it...
In Mark's sound, to me, the configuration is like this: play real good, use really good guitar and a really good amp, get a little bit close to the desired sound, but not too much.
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BTW if anyone is interested I bought this Money for nothing profile this morning, which claims to be the best available.
Im still waiting for it to be emailed but thought it sounded very close, the guy is a pro and can play it much better than I can but if it sounds the same i'll be happy ;D
https://www.mark-abrahams.com/money-for-nothing-kemper-profile
Seems an excellent MFN profile
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Im surprised there isn't more Kemper lover here, especially with MK using them and personally I thought that was his best live sound since the Soldano days
I now use mine exclusively after years of using valve amps, including Soldano and cant see why I would ever go back.
Ah well, I assumed there may be a bank of MK type tones floating around here.
Big fan though so i'll be sticking around and may even share the odd cover if that's ok
a Kemper is an excellent product if you are an amateur or a semi-pro
if you are a god like MK it's just ridiculous he is using it live, I have seen him live in all tours since 1992 included
and the last 2019 tour was by far the worst for his own guitar sound
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a Kemper is an excellent product if you are an amateur or a semi-pro
if you are a god like MK it's just ridiculous he is using it live, I have seen him live in all tours since 1992 included
and the last 2019 tour was by far the worst for his own guitar sound
I agree. It was a horrible mistake to take the Kemper on tour. I was on the market for one but still had doubts. Everyone I knew that had one, eventually came back to real amps. When I read MK used it on tour, I was excited and couldn't wait to hear it live. He is the gold standard for guitar tones. I wrote in my Amsterdam review as well; it sounded like shit. From the first minute, I could hear it didn't come close to a real amp.
It doesn't breathe; it does not have enough dynamics, and that 'DI-sound' really articulated he wasn't in shape for most of the first part of the tour. A real amp would have covered that a bit more.
I praise MK for being so progressive and always trying new things. Maybe I expected too much from it, and that's where MK shines, he uses it to create sounds he can't make with real amps, he uses it as a new tool rather than a replacement. Once you accept that, it makes listening to the soundboard records much easier.
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I didn't like any of the guitar sounds from last tour, too noisy for me.
There is nothing like a real thing, despite being close to it.
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I didn't attend any of the 2019 shows, but on all the recordings I heard I thought the guitar sound wasn't very good. There was a harshness to it.
The only practical reason I can see is that it ensures consistency. You'll get the same sound and tone every night. Tube amps can be a bit fickle and vary in sound from one day to the next. That said, Mark has always had great sound, and he has a full-time tech with him who makes sure everything is in working order. Why fix things if they ain't broken?
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I didn't attend any of the 2019 shows, but on all the recordings I heard I thought the guitar sound wasn't very good. There was a harshness to it.
The only practical reason I can see is that it ensures consistency. You'll get the same sound and tone every night. Tube amps can be a bit fickle and vary in sound from one day to the next. That said, Mark has always had great sound, and he has a full-time tech with him who makes sure everything is in working order. Why fix things if they ain't broken?
For the same reason they tour with a grand piano shell, but not with an actual grand piano I guess. Because it cost less than the number of people who can spot the difference, they even recorded that "fake" piano on live albums. Guy wanted or already switched to Hammond XK3 which is the digital version of Hammond B3 with a Leslie cabinet. And it sounds simply mind blowing! If it was Guy who insisted the Kemper transition, I pretty much with him on that bus.
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I mean the technology jumps faster and faster each year, I remember watching this vid and being absolutely amazed about it. And it was 10 years ago! The technology gets better and better, we've come a long way from shitty MIDI and synthesisers to the emulation which is so close to the real thing most of the people can't spot it at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsj26oEoBfo
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I mean the technology jumps faster and faster each year, I remember watching this vid and being absolutely amazed about it. And it was 10 years ago! The technology gets better and better, we've come a long way from shitty MIDI and synthesisers to the emulation which is so close to the real thing most of the people can't spot it at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsj26oEoBfo
Quite an evolution since the synclavier
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Too bad for Glenn who just had lost its job with the 96'rs ;D
Now Guy can do the same for half the price.
I mean the technology jumps faster and faster each year, I remember watching this vid and being absolutely amazed about it. And it was 10 years ago! The technology gets better and better, we've come a long way from shitty MIDI and synthesisers to the emulation which is so close to the real thing most of the people can't spot it at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsj26oEoBfo
Quite an evolution since the synclavier
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Too bad for Glenn who just had lost its job with the 96'rs ;D
Now Guy can do the same for half the price.
I mean the technology jumps faster and faster each year, I remember watching this vid and being absolutely amazed about it. And it was 10 years ago! The technology gets better and better, we've come a long way from shitty MIDI and synthesisers to the emulation which is so close to the real thing most of the people can't spot it at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsj26oEoBfo
Quite an evolution since the synclavier
Guy says frequently about the NHB record that despite he did the bass and drums with the synclavier and it sounded good, nothing sounds like the real thing...
Actually, if you check the recording diaries, specially the one from "KTGC", he recorded drums and bass himself but using the real instruments on the demos before the musicians come the studio.
There are some songs in MK records that have Guy's real bass as apparently Glenn said it was ok, "Redbud tree" is one of them, I think there are some others in Tracker that I can't remember.
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Too bad for Glenn who just had lost its job with the 96'rs ;D
Now Guy can do the same for half the price.
I mean the technology jumps faster and faster each year, I remember watching this vid and being absolutely amazed about it. And it was 10 years ago! The technology gets better and better, we've come a long way from shitty MIDI and synthesisers to the emulation which is so close to the real thing most of the people can't spot it at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsj26oEoBfo
Quite an evolution since the synclavier
Guy says frequently about the NHB record that despite he did the bass and drums with the synclavier and it sounded good, nothing sounds like the real thing...
Actually, if you check the recording diaries, specially the one from "KTGC", he recorded drums and bass himself but using the real instruments on the demos before the musicians come the studio.
There are some songs in MK records that have Guy's real bass as apparently Glenn said it was ok, "Redbud tree" is one of them, I think there are some others in Tracker that I can't remember.
It all depends on what you're working on, most drums and bass samples are so common and so easy to reproduce, that even "a fake" can easily slip through your personal "real thing filter", but when we talk about things like unique touch, unique sound, try to emulate that. Try to play "Money For Nothing" riff with samples, it will sound like a kid trying to learn the riff :lol
I think sampling and modelling is the future of music anyway because both usually not synthesised at all. The 10-year-old video I posted earlier showcases a double bass, sampled 21,000 times, it's the "real deal" recorded with hundreds of amplitudes, types of attacks, mutes, slides, legatos, pull-offs and whatnot. And recorded in a professional recording studio, like all real deals are. Modelling also often incorporates recorded samples and things, it's not all about 100% digitalization.
Speaking of which, my favourite argument when discussing digital vs. analog (all Kemper discussions lead to this I guess), is that if you take a photo shot on film and then transfer it into the computer, you can still feel the "magic" of it and you can still tell immediately that this picture was taken on film. I'm not going to tell that the whole "magic of film" is merely the process of preparing the film, so you sort of take a picture with an Instagram filter, if you know what I mean. So it's more about physics, which you can emulate. The same thing with transferring tape and vinyl into the digital domain, I think most of the qualities remain intact.
And it's like sunlight. Seems like nothing can replace the sun, right? But sunlight is still just light, take the right amount of right lamps and you'll replace THE SUN. So if you can replace even this, you can replace a buzzing and hissing amp.