Kemper’s Profiler now functions as a USB audio interface – and it’s about damn time

Last month, Kemper announced a host of new features in its industry-leading profiling amp, including its (genuinely exciting) Liquid Profiling tech, alongside the arrival of USB audio interface functionality.

Now Kemper is ready to roll out the USB update as a public beta, via Profiler OS 9.0, meaning your Profiler hardware will now become a handy recording aid, compatible with your DAW of choice. 

The firm promises “pristine AD conversion” with an impressive 127dB guitar input signal-to-noise ratio (the difference between the signal and the noise floor of the unit). 

As such, the Profiler and floor-based Profiler Stage can now function as a high quality input for your usual DAW, plugins and amp modeling software. 

What’s more, hooking it up as an audio interface also offers the prospect of re-amping signals from your DAW through the Kemper and making use of the unit’s built-in effects modules. You can also record a dry signal alongside the tone from your favorite amp profiles and rig presets. 

In addition, the update also sees the roll out of Kemper’s Rig Marketplace – essentially a storefront enabling users to purchase different pre-made rig profiles from specialist vendors. 

Finally, there’s another small tweak to the Rig Manager software in the form of remote profiling, which allows you to control the profiling functions remotely. 

This, the firm notes, should prove particularly useful when you’re creating multiple profiles in quick succession.

For instance, let’s say befriend a guitar store or studio owner (it can happen) and want to capture a bunch of nice amps in one sitting.  Now you can start profiling, quickly label and organise your new captures all within the software, as opposed to diving into hardware menus. 

All of the above will certainly prove welcome updates among the Kemper faithful and bring some extra flexibility and functionality to Profiler range. 

However, the USB update feels more than a little overdue. The Profiler launched over a decade ago, meaning Kemper users have faced a long wait for a function that, in 2023, is considered a standard feature on your basic amp modeler or multi-FX pedal. 

As such, we suspect player reactions will be split into two camps: the firm’s existing userbase / digital tone junkies, who will likely be thinking “at last”, and the average guitarist on the street, who will be thinking, “Wait, it didn’t do that already?”

Head to Kemper to download the Profiler OS 9.0 public beta.