Sweet Fancy Moses!! New Kemper Power Rack has achieved "First Light" (reference for any Astronomy buffs)

Content Warning -- May contain effusive praise, consistent with "Honeymoon" syndrome.

Hello fellow Kemperites! I can finally say that, now.

I was able to power-up my KPA for the first time, this afternoon, even though it arrived this past Friday.

Allow me to cut to the chase, because I know you are all busy people..................WOW!!!!!

After a few initial start-up hiccups (my fault), mainly in getting myself accustomed to the UI, I entered the Browse mode and searched out a Marshall Super Lead setting to get me started. I have a XiTone passive 1x12 Cab on order, but in the meanwhile, I am using the Monitor Out (with Power Amp turned off) into a Tech 21 Power Engine 60. The factory installed "TAF- Mars SL Mod" rig includes a 4x12 Greenback cab as part of the profile. At first, it sounded a bit muddy through the Tech 21 PE, so I turned off the Cab section. BAM!! Immediately, I had a fantastic basic tone that jumped out of the PE60. It was clear, present, and had a bell like mid-range that I prefer for technical solo / lead style. I dialed down a bit on the profile's amp gain, and added the Green Scream stomp in front, which is exactly how I would set up a tube-based amp rig.

I prefer to have an amp set for just a bit of natural break up (light crunch), and then push it over the edge using a good OD stompbox. Sure enough, the KPA responded exactly as I would expect from an equivalent boosted OD ==> Plexi set-up.

Next, I added a slap-back analog delay, and a bit of hall reverb. KABOOM!! The KPA was singing. Mind you, I haven't spent any time yet, auditioning various profiles. I knew what base tone I wanted to start my KPA experience with, and went straight to it. Furthermore, this was my absolute virgin attempt at tweaking a pre-existing profile.
Bottom line, after only few minutes with the KPA, I had a killer tone that was so inspiring...I lost 4+ hours of time jamming away, before I even realized it had passed. Yes, I am a very happy guitarist at the moment. Can't wait to do some real profile surfing, tomorrow.

Everyone have a great night.

Cheers,
John

EDIT -- Woops, I mean't to post this in the "Profiler Related Discussions" sub-forum. If any Moderator/Administrator happens to see this, and can move this thread over to the appropriate sub-forum, that would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for cluttering up this section.

Thanks everyone for the welcome and well wishes.

I just went through a protracted struggle in trying to get a brand spanking new Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash drive (16 GB) to work with the KPA and my Windows 7 PC. I have previously read through quite a few threads (here, and elsewhere on the Web) in which similar USB flash drive problems have been described. So, I was hoping I would dodge this bullet, and everything would go smoothly with formatting the new drive, in order to back-up and install 3.02 firmware.

Unfortunately...this bullet was not dodged, and instead hit me right in the ass.

At first, I thought it was the KPA. I was careful to follow instructions to the letter. The new drive literally went straight from it's packaging, into the USB of the KPA. However, the Kemper's display screen did not indicate or give me any prompt that the drive was recognized, or that formatting had occurred. I repeated multiple times, including re-booting the KPA...nothing.

So, I took out the USB Flash drive, and put it into my Windows 7 laptop. I couldn't get the computer to recognize the drive. Went to Device Manager, and it was showing up under "Other Devices"...not as it should have, under "Disc Drives". I must have spent an hour trying different methods to force my Win 7 laptop to successfully recognize the Flash drive. I know my way around a computer. Nothing worked. I was now thinking it was a bad/faulty Flash drive. So, just to double-check, I dusted off an older Win XP laptop I had lying around, tried the Flash drive with it. To my surprise, not only was the drive recognized, it contained the three folders that the KPA generated. So, the KPA did in fact successfully recognize and format the drive...it just didn't give me any indication it had.

So, back I go to my main (Win 7) laptop, and waste another couple of hours trying to trouble-shoot and get the drive working on it. Again, no success. Now I am pissed, because I don't want to use the older Win XP laptop, as it is slow as hell and has a hard drive that is about to give up the ghost. Then, I remembered I had an older 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash drive stashed away somewhere. After turning my place inside out, I finally found it. I plugged it into the Win 7 laptop, and it was recognized immediately. So, I erased everything on the drive, reformatted it just to be certain...and plugged it into the KPA. LED on the Flash drive was flashing (good), but still no acknowledgment or prompt on the KPA display that anything momentous had happened, LOL. However, I did see that the main menu/display now had Soft Button options, one of which was for "External Drive".

So, in a flash of utter brilliance on my part <sarcasm>, I hit that sucker, and sure enough I get a new menu giving me the option to Format the drive. Boom. Done Deal.

So, long story short...I now have a good USB Flash drive that has been formatted by the KPA, and can be read and opened on my Win 7 laptop. Whew! <wipes sweat from brow>. Feeling mighty pleased with myself, I promptly made a backup of the KPA, and installed the file on my laptop. Now, feeling completely exhausted, I am going to wait to actually upgrade the firmware until tomorrow.

P.S. -- I am still frustrated that I bought a brand new SanDisk Flash drive that works fine on an older, legacy Win XP laptop, but refuses to play nicely with my main Win 7 laptop. Which means, for my purposes, it makes for a rather expensive paper-weight...and it doesn't even hold down paper all that well.

Just wanted to offer some further thoughts and impressions after a week and a half of bonding with my new Power Rack.

Firstly, every day I learn something new, or dive deeper into features which invariably make me sit back in appreciation and a dare I say, awe.

Case in point...

After constructing five personalized "Rigs" which I have saved as favorites, I started diving deeper into the Amp menu parameters. It is one thing to read the description of the settings and parameter adjustments in the Basic and Reference Manuals...it is quite another to actually tweak them and hear just how much affect they have on your tone. The ability to take a decent profile, and completely sculpt it into a personalized amp tone that just sings with your particular guitar/pickup combination is, for me, completely unprecedented.

My previous experience with a very "tweakable" digital modeler would be the Digitech GSP1101. On the GSP1101, you can modify the basic, core tone of any given amp model by adjusting EQs, and what not. However, the actual dynamics and interaction between the player ==> guitar ==> amp, remained pretty much unchanged. This is the not the case with the KPA. What I have come to deeply appreciate, is amazing power to change the dynamic behavior of the amp response (not just the tone), using the Amp parameters such as "Clarity", "Definition", "Amp compression", "Power Sagging", and "Tube Character" and "Tube Bias".

Make no mistake, this powerful ability to radically adjust the dynamics, interaction/feedback and response has been quite a revelation for me. For you more seasoned Kemper owners, you may have begun to take these features for granted...but for a new owner, it is an eye-opening experience.

I used to have to engage a compressor in the front of my GSP1101 signal chain, to improve the sustain from my Fender YJM Strats, which have very low output pickups. However, this is completely unnecessary with the KPA. Simply tweaking Amp menu parameters such as "Clarity", "Power Sagging", and "Amp compression" (which is entirely different than a stompbox or rack compressor) had my YJM Strats sustaining like it was nobody's business. The best part is the fact that the KPA amp profile, which in this case was a Marshall Super Lead, acts like the real, reference amp which is cranked into power-tube distortion...even when I am playing at low volumes.

Bottom line...I use to think my Digitech GSP1101 was a pretty great sounding piece of kit. Now, in comparison...well, there just is no comparison.

My only regret is that I didn't purchase my KPA sooner.

Cheers all,