When was the last time that someone tried to sell you an all-in-one amplifier? Was it at the start of the modeling craze in the early 2000s, or was it at the height of the solid-state amp boom when everybody was saying tubes were on their way out? Few would blame you if you tuned out the hype entirely at this point.
Kemper Amplification, however, has taken a very different approach to the challenge of delivering a multitude of amp tones in a single unit. Instead of designing a modeler that is loaded with preprogrammed emulations of the classics, the Kemper Profiling Amplifier lets you create your own models from real amps—the ones that best suit your own playing style.
Profilin’ and Stylin’
While the Profiling Amplifier looks like
it would be at home on a very advanced
alien spacecraft, the profiling process itself
is surprisingly simple. To set up a profile,
you warm up a tube amp (solid-state amps
work, too), plug a guitar into the Kemper’s
front input jack, and run an XLR cable
from the Kemper’s rear-mounted XLR jack
to a microphone set up to mic the source
amp’s speaker. Then, you complete a loop
by running a patch cable from the amplifier’s
input jack to the Kemper’s 1/4" direct
output/send jack. Through this loop, the
Kemper captures the tone DNA of the tube
amp. It’s sci-fi stuff, but it works.
The process is also surprisingly fast. You set the 5-way rotary chicken-head knob on the left side to the profiler setting, and the LCD screen gives you easy-to-follow instructions. You play through the amp you’re profiling and, using a pair of headphones, listen to how it sounds through the mic. Once you have an accurate sound picture of the amp, you start the profiling process. The Kemper sends out three pieces of garbled noise to the amp’s input that represent high-, middle- and low-frequency ranges. It sounds a little like a fax modem running through a Big Muff, but don’t worry—these signals are designed to evaluate how the amp’s circuitry and cabinet react to the input. The mic picks up the signals as they come out the other end of the amp circuits and cabinet, and then sends them back into the Kemper for processing—the end result, as strange as it seems, is a super-accurate profile of the amp’s unique dynamics and response to different frequencies and signals.
Once you create a basic profile of your amp, you can fine-tune it in the amplifier portion of the stack section (top middle of control panel). Here you can alter power amp sag, dial in vintage or modern response qualities, adjust the level of compression, and even how much pick attack comes through. The cabinet’s voicing and size can be changed, too.
You can also apply several fully adjustable effects, including distortion, phasing, EQ, and delay from the Kemper’s model banks, and place them in any order you desire. When you want to save the rig you’ve assembled, you simply press the store button, name the preset, and save it to the Kemper’s storage banks. When you want to call the profile back up, you flip the rotary switch to browse and scroll through the patches until you find what you’re looking for. Conveniently, Kemper ships the device with a ton of fully editable factory patches.
Since the Kemper is essentially a preamp, the device has a couple of options for amplification. For live use, you can run out of two XLR or two 1/4" outs to a PA mixer, or to a separate power amp running into a speaker cabinet (the amp’s cabinet emulation can be disabled for these situations). A dedicated monitor output and S/PDIF input and output jacks round out the audio connections, and a set of MIDI and 1/4" jacks for footswitching offer a wide range of control options. The back panel also sports an RJ-45 jack for network interfacing, along with two USB jacks for updating the firmware and uploading custom rigs from other Kemper Profiling Amp users.
Sadly, one of the amp’s coolest features, the perform function (which essentially allows you to compile up to five saved rigs in one patch, and switch between them either via MIDI or a footswitch when playing live) was not a working feature in the software at the time of this review. Kemper promises that the feature will be available as a firmware update in the future.
Hearing is Believing
The Kemper’s ability to quickly and painlessly
capture the essence and quality of
every amp that I threw at it never failed
to amaze. If the unit has a flaw, it’s that
a given amp profile relies on the quality
of the signal that you capture with the
microphone—which means you need
some audio engineering instincts and a
decent microphone. If you have nice condenser
mics, you’ll need phantom power
that the Kemper’s XLR jack doesn’t offer,
but in such a case you likely have nice
preamps providing power anyway.
Remarkably, such limitations have little effect on the quality of the Kemper’s ability to capture an amp’s essence. I rounded up a pretty diverse collection of amps for the Kemper to clone—an Xits Sadie combo, Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier, Verellen Meatsmoke, Fender ’65 Twin Reverb reissue, and a Vox AC30 combo.
With the Dual Rectifier running into an Emperor 4x12 loaded with Weber C1265 speakers, and a Les Paul Custom in hand, I used a Sennheiser e609 microphone to find the cab’s sweet spot and initiated the profiling process.
When I was finished, I was floored at how precisely the Kemper captured the Mesa’s complex tonality. The profile loosened and tightened in response to pick attack in the same manner as the actual amp, and cleaned up in a frighteningly similar fashion when I rolled down the guitar’s volume control. Even the Kemper’s onboard, 3-band EQ, presence, and gain controls affected the model in much the same way as the real Boogie would—especially with respect to how the gain control tends to tighten and soften the amp’s response.
Each of the remaining amps generated similarly accurate patches. The AC30 as captured by the Kemper delivered a big, robust midrange that bloomed as I opened up the gain, and displayed a knack for refined high end after I switched to a 2010 Fender American Strat.
Ratings
Pros:
Astonishing ability to create near dead-on reproductions
of tube amps. Excellent array of effects. Lightweight and
affordable.
Cons:
No phantom power. demands a good ear for proper
mic placement.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$1,850
Kemper
kemper-amps.com
The sparkle and clarity of the Twin Reverb was captured flawlessly, and I was ecstatic that I was able to add a little something to the Twin formula that I’ve wanted for a while—a little power section sag at crisper settings. I felt as if I was effectively building my own custom amplifier at this point—pulling back the amp’s pick attack level and adding in a little more vintage response to warm things up a bit. Since I profiled the amp dry, I threw on a little reverb and a slight delay, which made the tone even more expansive. And the Kemper’s stompbox models also offered some very smooth-sounding reproductions of famous boost pedals—like the Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer—that juiced the front end nicely.
One amp that the Kemper had a tougher time nailing was the Xits Sadie, which has a unique clarity to it that I’ve rarely heard in an amp before.—it’s very, very pristine and honest. The Kemper did an admirable job of getting a good picture of the amp’s tone and response qualities, but fell a bit short on really attaining its glassiest highs.
Kemper didn’t really design the Profiling Amp to handle bass amps, but it’s definitely capable of doing this, and according to the company, bass profiling is completely safe. Even though the Kemper didn’t capture the huge subs that the Verellen Meatsmoke is capable of generating, it did get the tonality and response down eerily well, with plenty of low end for most types of bass work.
The Verdict
The Kemper Profiling Amp is one of those
pieces of gear that you have to check out,
regardless of how you feel about modeling,
digital circuitry, or anything else that dares
challenge the supremacy of the classics.
True, you need to profile a great amp to
get great tone. And there is a bit too much
room for human variables in the tone-capturing
process to guarantee the results.
On the other hand, this isn’t simply another modeler that makes promises that it really can’t keep. It’s capable of truly awe-inspiring results and it’s actually quite affordable for what it does—which is much, much more than what we can cover in this review. Perhaps the only real drawback will be the response you get from friends when you come over to profile their own classics—making you a new guitar-playing version of the guy that comes by to drink all your beer and rip all your CDs. But if you need tone by any means necessary, the Kemper Profiling Amplifier holds the key.
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Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
