Profiler Stage Floorboard Amp Profiler Review

Just FYI..

I have been recording and gigging with a Line 6 Helix Floor since early 2016 and love it. I just wanted any prospective Kemper shopper know that my wife and I toured the Grand Ole Opry recently and the house band area, main stage, was full of Kemper units and a few mic'd tube amps (mostly small Fenders) with analog pedal boards. Knowing they can have anything they want, that speaks… read more volumes for Kemper.

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Amazing.

Being a guitar player with lots of hats, I need versatility in my rig.... I also am not someone who can afford to have the three amps (Fender Deluxe, Marshall SL, Mesa Dual Rec) I'd need to make sounds in the best quality possible. That is easily $5000+ in amps alone. I also am someone who is in an apartment environment where even having the smallest of tube amps mic'd up, is just… read more not really an option as my work schedule makes me a night owl, so more often than not my neighbors are sleeping during my rehearsal and recording times, as I have built up a small home studio for my needs. All that said, I was until yesterday using a Blackstar HT Club 40, which got it all done for me pretty reasonably, even offering a direct out to rehearse silently at home. Add my massive pedal board and I was a pretty happy guy... Last night I brought home the Kemper Stage, after about 3 days of deep careful research and a ton of very nervous thoughts about losing my beautiful tube sound (call me crazy but I traded in my only actual amp to help afford a Kemper) and immediately it surpasses every sound I ever tried to make on any of my amps. It also takes my entire pedalboard VERY VERY well. Down to my noise-gate and everything else. (I'll even be able to drop a couple pedals as I no longer need EQ, or a tuner). The only real question for me at this point will become, when it comes time to purchase a cabinet (I will buy the Powered Kabinet that they make) will that be enough to give me the feel of a guitar amp in the room for the band I play in? At this point I'm very used to not hearing my actual amp when rehearsing at home, or recording even, so that sort of thing is really not a big deal, but I am very very used to hearing my Amp behind me (mic'd up so it's still not overkill loud antway) when rehearsing in a band. As long as the Kabinet sounds just enough to give me the volume that I can hear an "amp" behind me, combined with monitor and PA mix, if that sounds reasonable enough, or just going to jam with our bass player on weekends, then I'll be absolutely astonished, and I may become one of the few that only runs a Kemper... And I'd be ok with that... The unit is also incredibly intuitive and simple to use especially if you've ever used old modeling amps, I used to use a first generation Peavey Vypyr years ago before diving into tube, and learning how to operate that flawlessly really made jumping into the Kemper fairly simple for me. Connecting to PC, updating, adding new rigs, and setting things up there as well is incredibly handy, nice, and again, very easy to learn and do. To me this unit is so beyond perfect for someone in my situation that can't really even operate a tube amp adequately at least at home. And believe me, I am very much the old school tube amp type. This thing is completely consistent, completely perfect for all my needs, and I could not be more happy with this thing. Forget the hate, it may not be for everyone, and it may not be for you, but I've never been happier with my sound. And I've only owned it for 24 hours at this point. Try before you buy is the best advice here.

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Sounds great

I have been a fractal user for years, I had some time ago a Fractal FM3, and I had my doubts if Kemper was going to sound better, if it does, it sounds better to my ears, better dynamics and great tone , besides, You have many more button options. If it is in you budget just buy it, you won't get dissatisfied

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Amazing!

Great stuff, amazing support coverage, really glad to have it in my home now.

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Yes, it's that good!

I was pretty optimistic when I ordered the Kemper Stage, and I’m happy to say it exceeds my expectations! Brand X modeling amps have been very popular, and I’ve heard a ton of them, recorded several, played through a couple, and never liked a single one. They just don’t sound right to my ears. The Kemper might seem at first like another digital re-creation all-in-one package… read more that’s too good to be true, but it’s completely different from those modelers. The amp profiling system Kemper has developed is genius, and sounds much better than modeling. If a great modeling amp gets you 80 percent of the sound of the real amp, the Kemper is more like 95 percent. If you feel like a good modeler gets you 95 percent there, then the Kemper is more like 99.9 percent. Some have written that the Kemper profiles do a better job with distorted amp sounds than with clean sounds, but all the amp profiles I’ve heard are fantastic, and right now my favorite rig that I’ve created in my Kemper is based around a clean Fender Super Reverb profile. Some have written that the amp profiles are great, but the other effects are just ok. The effects are excellent sounding, they’re just not always convincing re-creations of classic effects. The reverbs, delays, chorus, flangers, and phasers are all top-notch. They can tend to be on the cool side, although the chorus is very rich and lush and completely satisfying to me as a more convenient alternative to my AnalogMan Small Clone chorus. The delays are just as good sounding and way more flexible than the popular green pedal everyone has. The wah and filter effects seem to require a good amount of tweaking to bring them to life, but I’ve gotten some great results after a bit of work. The distortion and fuzz effects sounded a little off to me at first, but after doing a software upgrade they sounded much better. They’re not perfect imitations of classic stomps, but they do a great job, and with so many wonderful overdriven amp profiles that you can switch to instantly, you really only need the distortion effects if you want their sound. Aside from the fabulous sound in a small and powerful package, the Kemper Stage sports some surprising, refreshing, and highly professional details. The layout is clean and easy to understand and use. Browsing through profiles, rigs, and presets is a bit clunky in some ways, but the controls and display work together to make it very workable, if a bit slow sometimes. Mapping effect slots to bypass switches is easy and even fun, and you can map it so one switch turns on one effect while turning off another, or toggles two effects together. All the hardware is solid as a rock, the lights and display are bright and clear without being blinding. The built-in tuner is a super-precise virtual strobe tuner, which is a real surprise in an all-in-one. The input-output labels are helpfully located both on the back AND the top, so it’s easy to find the right place to plug something in - I wish everyone did that. One of my favorite details is that you have to hold down the power button for four seconds to turn it off - no accidental shutdowns in the middle of set! The handling of external foot controllers is also easy and effective. I had a volume and wah pedal both working almost instantly, and I was able to tweak them to my liking with only a cursory glance at the relevant manual pages. The output configurations possible are amazing and well thought out, with the ability to use a guitar cabinet on stage for monitoring while sending the sound with profiled cabinet to the PA or recording input, plus ground lifts on every output, very powerful volume control options, and so many more details I just don’t have the time to list them all. There are a few areas that could be improved. First, while the unit itself isn’t hard to figure out, the manual is not super clear in all places. It’s far from the worst manual I’ve ever read, it’s just that for a device with so much thought and care in it, I feel like the manual is not up to the same level. One thing I feel is very lacking is you can’t put any effects into the effect loop of an amp profile. I’d really like them to upgrade the entire profiling system to allow separation of the preamp, power amp, and speaker cabinet, as opposed to just amp head and speaker cabinet. The SPDIF IO is a bit confusing and I didn’t get it working on my first try. And there’s a lack of flexibility in assigning external foot switches that is disappointing. One big possible improvement they could make is adding DSP to make it possible to run two amp profiles, or to make mini-profiles of distortion pedals and use those instead of the included distortion effect. Being able to run two amp profiles in parallel would be HUGE, but I can see it as also requiring a much more expensive unit. My advice: Get one of these. Get 1 - 4 of the Mission Engineering pedals to go along with it. Upgrade the firmware to the latest version. Install the Rig Manager software, connect the profiler to your computer and browse the online rig library and just go through profiles. You’ll be amazed at the quality and selection of the amps. Load your favorites into your profile, spend a couple hours making a clean rig, a broken up rig, and a highly distorted rig, and then start enjoying yourself. If you’re in a small apartment, like me, the ability to have silent practice, small footprint, everything in one box, and excellent sound will make you smile and play for hours without realizing it. Oh, one last thing: It’s great for bass!! Again, no time to go into all the ways that you can use this for bass, but there are plenty of great bass amp profiles available along with some surprising DI profiles, plus you get all the flexible effects and options to use a cabinet profile or go direct. Bass players should definitely check it out.

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