Kemper Amps Forum

I sat the KPA (with FR monitor) down next to a tube combo yesterday and did some A/B'ing between the two. Much as I love the flexibility of FR, I wasn't finding any speaker cabs or EQ settings that felt the same as this little combo, or other (clean) tube amps I've played recently.

It finally occurred to me that the tube amps are producing a lot more energy at the front of the note, focused in the upper mids. So, I turned up the KPA amp section's "pick" parameter and boom, there it was. I also turned up the presence quite a bit to get back the airy highs you hear from, say, a clean Fender. (My monitor, an EV ELX, doesn't seem to breathe very freely up there.) By then things were getting just slightly harsh sounding, so I backed off on "definition" a bit... and that seems to be the cocktail. Much closer to Fender clean than I've heard from a FR setup before.

I still haven't wrapped my head around the "power sagging" parameter yet. The description in the manual makes it sound like "magical good sauce" that you'd just want maxed all the time. The reality is, with a lot of these profiles, I can't hear its effect at all. Is it more effective with specific types of amps, or at louder volumes, or what?

Sure thing, Zappledan. Your mileage may vary depending on your guitar, monitor, playing style, etc, but I'm happy to share my own experience. I wish I could remember which profile I was using... definitely a Fender, maybe one of the Princetons.

True - I should clarify that I don't necessarily think an amp sounds "better" when it sounds more like a real tube amp. I've been playing modeling amps so long that I'm not personally married to tube amp behavior. Sometimes that "bitey" or "jumpy" characteristic can be a bit off-putting. But before I consider selling off my last tube amp, I want to know that the Kemper/EV set up can get there if I want it to.

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Just hope the Kemper is exactly all you need, and then some!

The "and then some" is the part that keeps me coming back to modeling/profiling (semantics as far as I'm concerned) solutions. The Kemper can get within a hair's breadth of sounding like a Fender (or a clean Boogie), but that same Fender won't get anywhere near the KPA's Marshalls or (OMG) Framus or... well, this list would get quite long, obviously.

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I like the "power sagging" parameter for crunch sounds. The more I turn it up, the steeper is the curve at the sweet spot so that soft attacks stay cleaner and hard attacks get dirtier.

Thanks, fretboardminer; the manual does specifically mention "crunch". I'll have to get back to experimenting with this param with a broader selection of amp profiles - medium gain stuff in particular.