Hey all. Last night was my first cover band gig with the KPA and I just wanted to share my experience with you.
Just some background... As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, my band covers rock from the 60's through 90's. We are a simple four piece: vocals, bass, guitar, and drums. Needless to say I have to cover a lot of ground sonically throughout the night. Also since play small to mid-size rooms and we have limited gear, the only thing going through FOH is vocals; instrumentation relies on stage volume, which does tend to create certain challenges.
Anyway, the Kemper was an enormous success last night. 
Here are some highlights:
- The KPA sounded better than any rig I've ever owned. Period. And I wasn't the only one who thought so. I received compliments on my tone all night long, from both fellow musicians and non musicians alike.
- I have finally achieved a balance in volume between my clean and overdriven tones! This problem has been plaguing me for years and the Kemper solved it out of the box.
- The KPA feels so good to play I actually find myself using less gain on my overdrive tones. Not only does this help me cut through the mix better, but my tones are much more expressive. Not to mention this rig is super quiet.
- From a technical perspective, Kemper has thought of everything. Having the option to EQ the Main and Monitor outputs separately is pure genius. The built in tuner on the Remote is a life saver. The ability to set up multiple rigs with stomp box simplicity is also a really nice touch. The stomp box tap dance is over.
- The KPA > DXR10 combination absolutely kills. I set up the DXR10 behind me as a monitor pointing up to my ears. Not only was the volume ample enough for me to hear myself really well, but the sound really filled the room quite nicely. During sound check I walked the entire room (thank you, G30 wireless) and everywhere I went I heard crisp, clear, big sound from my rig. The DXR10 definitely has a wider sound dispersion field than typical guitar cabinets. For the first time that I can remember, people on the bass player's side of the room could hear me. Bonus points!
Tone wise, I lived on the M. Britt profiles most of the night, specifically the Suhr Hedgehog, Victoria Double Deluxe, Vox AC30, Dirty Shirley and Ceriatone ODS profiles. Most of these were stock profiles with some mild tweaking in the effects department to meet my needs. Throughout the night I was stunned with the quality of tone I was achieving and my playing definitely benefitted from the awesomeness. I had a great night.
Cute story: Between sets I was approached by two guitar players asking where my amp was set up as they wanted to check it out. I pointed at my KPA rack and DXR and said, "right there, bros." They apparently were not familiar with the Kemper, so I explained my rig to them. Both of these guys were completely shocked that I was not using a tube amp. They were sure I had a mic'ed up and cranked Marshall stack set up backstage. I found that kind of funny since we were playing a small bar and there was nowhere to stow a stack of guitar cabinets. 
