Newbie Questions for Live Use

Mbritt profiles are pretty much setup for live use

Expression pedal will work fine

With the Remote you can set up morphing to set up effects and boosts for soloes

In my experience, the clean and distorted amps are well balanced for level I use performance mode for live and have the usual clean, Fender crunch, Marshall crunch and lead with the boost on the lead tone coming from turning up the output volume on the stack section.

Quote from mtmartin71

Hey folks,

I'm a long time Axe FX II XL rack unit user. I decided to put that up for sale and pick up an AX8, but I also decided to grab a used Kemper un-powered toaster! I had one briefly about 3 or so years ago but felt it didn't lend itself that well to live. I'm mostly playing live vs. recording and even then, maybe 12+ times a year tops.

My first impression is I REALLY like the MBritt profiles and they just work with really no tweaking required. I picked up the 1969 Plexi and the JCM800 pack. Right in my wheelhouse. With the Axe, I love the tones in that too but I have to mess a lot with speaker page settings and EQing to get the disparate cabs and amp models together. I use Ownhammer stuff on that. Not an effects junkie so the lack of effects vs. the AX8 will not be an issue. Some questions though to help me approach on my Axe FX to the Kemper:

• Lead boosts - I was recently using the Wrecker or Comet models as a scene to get a thick lead tones and then used a passive Graphic EQ to boost that in the right frequencies. What I'm thinking will work best on the Kemper to keep it even simpler. I'm going to put a Graphic EQ in the "X" slot and lock it there. What I was a little confused on was the GEQ has the cuts by band and then it has a PEQ approach with Hi/Lo cut ranges. Any good GEQ settings that work for you guys in terms of cutting highs and lows for solos while getting a little more cut?
• MBritt Profile EQ - anyone know if those are already EQ shaped for live use or are they set up with the expectation that FOH is going to cut at around 120 and 6000-7000 in terms of low end and high end?
• Patch/Rig Leveling - one of my least favorite ventures on the AxeFX but made a little easier through VU meters. For the Kemper, is the best way to level at the Channel Volume portion? On the Axe FX, I always felt the relative volumes varied quite a bit. The cleans and distorted are different, which was expected, but there is a lot of variability on the distorted amps too.
• KPA Remote vs. other small MIDI controllers - to use it live, I could probably get by without the remote and just step back and press buttons on the fly, but I'd like to keep it on my feet for control. Seems like the Kemper remotes are hard to find in the US. I have a MFC-101 right now for my Axe II but it's not a have to have. I used a Liquid Foot Jr in the past and wouldn't mind going back to that size
• Expression pedal compatibility - I have a Mission Engineering expression pedal that works with the Fractal polarity. If I picked up the KPA Remote, my hope was to have my existing expression pedal work with either platform. Anyone know if that will be the case?

Thanks for any help or guidance you might be able to provide. I'm looking to use the Kemper for direct gigs and the AX8 to a Matrix 1600FX and Amp/Cab for gigs...or the AX8 direct as a change of pace. Who knows, I may determine I can live with just one but we'll see how it goes.

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Here are my thoughts/suggestions, but they are in no way the only approach:

1. lead boosts - The "pure booster" stomp with about a 2db boost works great for me and if you want it to be a volume jump as opposed to just hitting the front of the amp harder, try it in the X slot. That's what I've been doing lately. You can also use EQ's for that too, depending on what profiles you're using the boosts are usually in the midrange area with slight cuts to the low end, similar to what a tube screamer does to the tone. I've also been using the morphing feature for lead boosts where I'll hit the preset button on the Remote to go to the morphed state of that rig and I'll program that state to slightly boost amp gain, and turn up the mix to 50-60% on a Screamer stomp in slot C (activated but mix at 0 in normal un-morphed state) and turn the rig volume up a little bit.

2. live EQ - There is a bit of variety between my profiles, but in general, I don't do a lot of EQ'ing for live playing. For most profiles, it's usually just a matter of tweaking the mids, highs, or presence up an led light or so. That's probably because I got them close to what I like to hear when profiling, so others might need more drastic EQ shifts to get the tone they want to hear. I always start at the amp section's Definition parameter to set the balance of the tone, especially the high end. If it's really harsh and shrill, turn the Definition down. If it's muddy, turn the Definition up to see if that clears things up. Then I move to the amp EQ section for minor adjustments.

3. rig leveling - You can use the rig volume on the front right, but I like to level the rigs with each other using the volume parameter on page 3 of the Amp edit section. I usually use the rig volume for slight volume boosts for certain parts in songs, especially useful with the morphing feature.

4. midi controllers - I'm not familiar with the MFC101, but most midi controllers work well with the Kemper. I used both an RJM Mastermind (small one) and a Ground Control GCX. For midi, I prefer running the Kemper in Browse mode as it's easier for me to assign the midi map in browse mode in the system menu. Most of the functions (volume, wah, etc) are available as CC#'s so with just about any expression pedal you can control those things if you're savvy on assigning CC#'s to the midi pedals' presets. The Remote is nice and small and has some great features (doesn't require separate power, has a tuner, can use presets buttons for morph function, large LCD display for performance names). It works best in Performance mode, I think. I used the Ground Control for most shows and RJM Mastermind for fly dates for almost 2 years and both worked great.

5. exp pedals - I used the Mission for Kemper pedals, but I've known other guys that have other exp pedals that work. It comes down to the pot value and sweep so you'd just have to try to see how compatible it is with the Kemper system. There are two exp pedal "types" in the system menu so try both if you're having any trouble getting the sweep right. I'm using the Dunlop Volume(X) now and it feels great.

hope this helps. There are plenty of helpful folks on here who will have more insight than me as well.

And just in case you didn't catch it, @lonestargtr is MBritt

I believe our foh soundman keeps my eq flat. Every now and then he will make a cut here or there, but that's usually because of the p.a., not what I'm giving him. There may be a hpf around 120hz just to keep our ear monitors from getting too muddy, but that's about it.