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1

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 12:05am

Is it Kemper or is it just me? Seeking for ultimate help.

Hello

Got my Kemper last week. It looks beautiful :) so better than on youtube and web images. However when the package came I thought: "wow, is it that small...?"

Anyway - I started this thread to get some help from you guys, more experienced with KPA. To give you snapshot what kind of player I am...have musical ear, don't have a band, don't have youtube channel with awesome songs, I'm just room player noodling around - hard to say but haven't recorded single song (maybe one) because.......... because of tone.

Tone.

I had numerous effects: LINE6 POD 2.0, Vox ToneLab, Rocktron G100, ZOOM g9.2tt, Eleven Rack, some USB interfaces (EMU, TC Electronic, Focusrite) paired with VST modelers (Guitar Rig, Amplitube, some freewares + cab loaders). But I always was missing the right tone.

Tone.

Cleans were sometimes acceptable (Eleven Rack), effects not so bad, hi-gain presets... uhhmmm... just hi-gain, crunch tones? the ugliest from all. Never ever, heard the difference between crunch amps in my case. Just small difference, but not what I see on youtube, where Kemper's AC30 crunch is lovely, Marshall Plexi crunched is the only tone I would live for, etc etc.

To help you judge anything, this is my small rig in small room:



1) Ibanez PGM301 (basswood body, DiMarzio PAF Pro bridge position, DiMarzio FS-1 single coil, DiMarzio PAF Pro neck position) - with Paul Gilbert autograph on back side of body :)
2) Bullet cable and Monster Rock Cable
3) Kemper Profiling Amplifier
4) Tannoy Reveal 501 active near field monitors
5) Last chain of this rig is me :)

Is Kemper better than any previous devices that were sitting on my desk? YES. It is one huge step above. Like CD-Audio over tape. Like HD over VHS.

In Kemper (firmware upgraded to fresh 1.07):

- the gain knob reacts like gain should,
- picking strings harder gives more bite,
- turning volume pot on guitar cleans the dirt,
- strumming on crunch profiles allows to hear every single string.

So what is wrong? Maybe the factory presets are not the best - "Mr Nice Guy" was the one that make me noodling for 20 minutes. Most of them sound like in a paper box, or covered by thick blanket. Please could you send me some nice profiles and instruction how to upload it? If the best profiles with best cabs will not make much difference, I think I return KPA, however never thought this could happen, when I heard youtube and soundcloud samples.

Thanks in advance!
skoczy

BRUNO

Professional

Posts: 633

Location: Rekiri

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2

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 12:15am

Try these ..I can't promise you'll like them ..or that they are better than others..you'll see/hear

Bruno Rigs

3

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 12:35am

How do I upload them? Any manual?

BRUNO

Professional

Posts: 633

Location: Rekiri

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4

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 12:47am

How do I upload them? Any manual?


Put them on the stick you used for the FW update ..into the shared folder ..then plug the stick in the kemper and follow screen instructions (import etc)

RobT

Beginner

Posts: 21

Location: north florida

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5

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 12:50am

Have you downloaded both manuals from the Kemper website? Importing profiles into the Kemper is very easy via a USB stick (see page 36 of the Basic manual). Also search for tills cabs and download them into the same folder. The two manuals are pretty straight forward but I wish they had just given me one printed manual combining both sections.

Posts: 6,316

Location: Denzlingen, Germany

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6

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 12:56am

Don't just take the factory presets as they are. Editing the amp and cab settings, adding some light boost and eq, setting the input parameters right (very important) opens the windows on a she new world. Once you get that feel for what those things do for the sound then you're golden
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


7

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 1:53am

There are several factors at work here.

Firstly you may just be used to modellers and their sounds. Most modelers really hype up treble and bass and suck the mids, this gives you a very exciting and punchy tone, but it's also nothing like a real amp (without some studio magic). If that's the situation for you then your best bet is to slap a Studio EQ effect in the X slot of your profiles, then use this to boost your treble and bass and diall down the mids.

The next issue may be that your unit may need to be properly set up, first task on that way is to do a System Reset, this is dont simply by holding down the System button while you boot up until it tells you it's doing a System start. This sometimes clears settings on the output channels that may be affecting things.

After that you should look at your input and output settings. Unless you have beautiful studio monitors then chances are you will need to adjust the output EQ to counterbalance the natural tone curve of your output system, if your speakers are naturally muddy then you will need to reduce the mids and bass a little and possibly push the treble very so slightly. I don't know anything about your Tannoy speakers, but if they emulate an amp cab then you may even want to disable cabinets on the Kemper and let them do their job.

On the input side you're going to want to adjust that noise gate, probably all the way to off (my personal preference), and then adjust your Input Clean and Distortino Sens settings until the amps start to feel "right" and react as they should.

Next you may want to adjust your amps to be brighter if your guitar has particularly dark pickups. You can do this with the usual amp EQ settings, particularly the Presence control, but also in the cabinet settings and in the Amp itself by manipulating the Clarity and Definition controls. This is an area that's well worth exploring to begin with. Once you have somethigns et up how you want then just store the preset.

Finally different Cabinets may prove better for some folk. Many people seem to get a sound much closer to what they were personally after by changing out the cabs using Tills cabinets, they're not for everyone, but they might suit you down to the ground, so they're definitely worth checking out at the very least.

Bear in mind that the Mr Nice Guy patch is a very strongly effected patch which to me sounds much more like an old school sim, this may just be more what you're after. In which case your first port of call is going to be compression and after that some modulation and delay/verb. The kinds of amps you'll want to work with are Mesa's as they have a very smooth gain structure, and you should tryt hem out with one of Till's Recto cabs. Working with the KPA is more like working with real amps, warts and all.

8

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 11:38am

Very informative post by Per,i think he is right that people coming to the kemper from modellers could be a bit dissapointed at first by the slightly dull nature of untreated raw amp tones.

9

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 12:55pm

Come on you have to do a little work and search the profile database for what you want. You can't just judge this device on the factory presets. In fact I just cleaned my device and I think I deleted all the factory presets. This device is so easy that if it sounds muffled you just turn up the treble and presence. I like the raw amp sound, but I do see where you could get a "mastered" sound as well. Download the bogner xtacy profile or the marshall golub or the 5150 profiles. Get the tills cabinets etc etc. Do some due diligence!

10

Tuesday, April 3rd 2012, 4:26pm

I must admit I think the presets are extremely good, even without downloading any user presets there is so much tweak ability available it is hard not to make any of the factory presets sound great.

It is worth getting the cabs zip (do a search) and swapping cabs around, this can make a huge difference.