Long Winded WET/DRY FX Loop Question....(bumped with a straight to the point question)

  • I’ve recently been messing about with ambient style delays and reverbs and sounds with a lot of chorus (think Michael Landau/Dan Huff and the likes or like an LA session rack style clean sound from the 80’s that Mats Nermark did a tutorial on).
    We are talking a hyper chorus and vintage chorus/detune etc (to try and emulate the tri-chorus sound) running into the ping pong delay then into the reverb on the Kemper.


    Through my headphones or through studio monitors these sound outstanding to me. The issue I had come about when playing these tones back through my Marshall 1960A cab. Now I know I’m never going to recreate the crystal clear high fidelity ambience through a guitar cab when compared to a FRFR speaker or a PA, neither am I going to get the stereo effect through this one cab. This got me thinking about messing about with a WET/DRY/WET or WET/DRY setup.
    Whilst trying to keep in mind what equipment I can realistically take to gigs in across Europe dependant on the transport situation (we aren’t Metallica no promoter is going to pay to let me take three 4X12’s on a plane for instance haha) and also use at smaller gigs back home.


    I settled on the following WET/DRY setup: (See diagram attached)


    Guitar → Kemper Front Input
    Monitor Out (MOD MONO) → Right Side of Cab
    Main Out (DELAY/REV WET) → Power Amp
    Power Amp Output → Left Side of Cab
    Direct Out → Delay → Kemper Return


    The difference running my Marshall cab in stereo, one side taking the PRE, STACK and MOD via the MOD MONO setting and the other side taking just the wet DELAYS and REVERB is night and day compared to having it all come out all four speakers through the MONITOR OUT. Plus with the ability to dial in exactly how much wet signal I want depending on the venue.
    The clarity is improved tenfold. I’m getting much closer to how I hear the articulation on the delays and the “height” and brightness of the reverb that I hear through monitors or headphones. When I use the traditonal real cab setup using Monitor Out the delays and reverbs especially sound much more muffled in comparison this way, now that I have got used to hearing it through full range equipment.


    So far so good this does exactly what I need.


    Now the issue I have is I want to take it to the next level. I really want to buy a Strymon Timeline for the excellent ice and swell delays seeing that the Kemper doesn’t offer this in their delays currently or the much asked for second/stomp delay. I plan to put this in the loop and use either in conjunction with the Kemper delay or by itself feeding the Kemper reverb as the included delay does.
    The issue I have is I can’t seem to find a way with this setup to get the delay in the loop to the MAIN OUT running the DEL/REV WET. I can only get it to route to the MONITOR OUT that is running MOD MONO setting, which sort of defeats the point of WET/DRY.


    I know this is a very long winded post to get this this point so thank you for anyone who has stuck through reading it all haha! Does anyone have any suggestions regarding my setup on how I can make this work or is this impossible unless Kemper add in the firmware the ability to allow the DEL/REV WET output setting to include a loop.


    I know it might seem a strange way to do things but really it's no different to how a rack set up would work and I think being able to route an external delay pedal set 100% wet on the unit in the loop and send it to the Del/Rev Wet on the Main Out and have just the delays sound through the same as the built in delay works would be excellent. Not sure if there is a technical reason it couldn't be done with a firmware update so if people think this would work or should be available I'll open a post in the requested section.


    PS I know an easy option would by to buy a FRFR solution but at the moment I really love the direct profiles I use with a real cab behind me, combined with this method of splitting if I didn't want to add the delay in the loop it would be perfect for what I want to hear live on stage.

  • Bump..........with a much scaled down version of my question in case no one could be bothered to read right through all that haha.


    Say I'm using a powered head:

    • MAIN OUT on DELAY/REV WET setting to a power amp then to one side of a stereo cab
    • MONITOR OUT on MOD MONO to the other side of athe same stereo cab
    • I want to use something like a STRYMON TIMELINE in the LOOP in SLOT X or MOD and have it route through the same way the built in Kemper delay does to the Kemper Reverb.
    • The issue is that I can't (or it can't be done at the moment on the KEMPER) get the delay in the loop to come through the MAIN OUT set to DELAY/REV WET the way the built in Kemper delay does


    Does anyone know if there is a way for me to do this (to have a delay for instance to route out its wet signal to the MAIN OUT set to DELAY/REV WET?


    If not I imagine it would be a useful feature to be able to route third party reverbs and delays in the loop the del/reverb wet out setting

  • Just my 2 cents: You could use the Stereo Aux In to Main Out function instead of the loop return. Configure Direct Out for mod mono signal and feed the external effect from there without using any of the loop features. The strymon would be completely parallel to the KPA's Reverb and Delay, and there's no sacrificed FX slot for the loop anymore.

  • That sounds like a great idea. I'll give that a go. I'm debating buying a Friedman AMS-1 today so now this whole concept may be getting scrapped but I'll certainly give this a go. When I go FRFR all the issues I have are no longer relevant so I think that might be the best solution. With this setup and your idea plus the other ways I've been thinking about setting up I should have every possible scenario covered.


    If I understand right, I take cable from the main into the auxiliary in and run the delay in between?

  • No... the direct out goes to the external effect, and then the effect signal goes back to the Return and alternate input Jack. It must be stereo, due to the way Aux works by now.
    The cabling is basically the same as with the Loop, it's just the software configuration around it.
    Check the Output Section Menu of the KPA, there are 2 Aux Parameters, turn it up for Main Outs.
    BTW I haven't tried it yet, but in theory it should work this way.