Pickup and Guitar variations with the KPA

  • Does anyone else find that if you change guitars whilst only using one profile, the sound dramatically changes?


    I know it should change normally, but i never found when using a conventional amp that my sound changed much when swapping guitars and not touching my EQ.


    I've found this so much so, that i have divided things on my KPA into guitars and i sift through them by author.


    I have a Spector 5 string bass, a 6 string caparison dellinger, a 6 string BlackMachine copy and a Caparison Dellinger 7, so i have my files divided into


    Wesly 5 for bass profiles
    Wesly 6
    for the dellinger
    Wesly 6
    BM for the black machine copy
    Wesly 7
    for the dellinger 7


    for the guitar ones i use a Hesu profile normally but tweaked for every guitar. Does anyone else find their sound changes drastically from guitar to guitar?

    Kemper rack mount. Mesa Boogie 50/50. Zilla Fatboy 2x12.
    Caparison Dellinger II FX-WM. Caparison Dellinger 7 FX-WM. Spector Q5 Pro.

  • different guitars sound different on tubeamps too! Its not the same output from a LP and a strat! i Have two Tom Anderson strats with nearly same spec, but different pickups..they sound different on my tubeamp and on my Kemper.. thats the way it is. I have also noticed that its some different frequiensis in some pickupconfigurations, compared to using a tube amp. Difficult to explain but, kind of more even sounds on a tube amp, but more sonic differences on the Kemper. I could have written a very long story about pickups and switching, but one thing is for sure. Different guitars and different pickups have different sounds and sonic characters!


    Good luck!

  • Does anyone else find that if you change guitars whilst only using one profile, the sound dramatically changes?


    I find that the KPA mostly react to different guitars and their varying characteristics like my collection of tubes do. This is in fact one of the reasons why the KPA is the first "emulation-device" that I've considered a decent alternative to real amps. If I dial in a sound I like on any of my old amps and create a profile of that I get about the same result on both the real amp and the KPA regardless of which guitar I plug in.


    What the Kemper doesn't acurately emulate is the behaviour of the amp controls. I rarely use the same amp-settings for very different guitars. With the KPA that means creating a profile of each setting, but in a live environment it is much faster and more accurate to switch between profiles than to dial in an amp every time I swap guitars.

    Edited 2 times, last by heldal ().

  • The only time I've found problems with different guitars is when a profile hasn't been refined properly, or has been refined with a guitar that has very specific frewuency clipping on its pickups. In which case the solution would be to refine with a couple of guitars to make sure all frequencies are covered.

  • Most guys say - "All guitars with EMG will sound the same, the guitar losts his soul"
    I can tell you - all my EMG guitars sound different with the same Profile and they even have the same wood :)


    But thats they great part of the Kemper, it brings out all details and is very dynamic
    Not like with Amp sims ;)

  • All 3 of my PRS's sound different through the same profile. Each one has different pickups and wood. The Kemper I find reacts just like a real amp would with these guitars. My Navarro PRS is very hot and sounds a little compressed compared to my custom 22 which is more Gibson like sounding with a smooth sound and my standard 22 has the dragon 1 pickups fitted and this sounds thinner more like an ibanez. The KPA shows all these qualities off in each guitar

  • My guitars all sound very different but I consider that a bonus.


    I didn't start playing until I was 26 and at that point I bought a hybrid amp - one of the first generation Marshall Valvestates. Whilst the later Valvestates were better, the first ones were really not voiced very nicely (IMO!) but I didn't know what I was doing..... I then went digital and went through Boss, Line 6, Vox, computer stuff. Throughout that entire period, the tonal differences between guitars were minimal and, apart from 'feel', scale length etc, I didn't really see the point of different guitars. It wasn't until I picked up a 7w valve amp on eBay that I suddenly heard the voices of my guitars for the first time. Queue a second valve amp and then the Kemper which fortunately does exactly what the real amps did in this regard except it gives me back the amp variety that the old digital units gave with no real downside.


    I'm glad it does this. The only downside when I'm playing at home is there is now a point to getting up and grabbing a different guitar when you stumble across a profile and think 'I bet this would sound awesome with a Strat....' ;)