Kempers Effects Good Enough for You?

  • since i updated to 4.0.5 beta, i can stack the delays and that was big for me. i play in a praise and worship team at my church and these effects do it all for me. from ambient to edge u-2ish delays. i find the Kemper's effects to be great!

  • I find them to be less lush and sparkly and less high-density-sounding than other high-end boxes - especially the reverbs, chorus and phaser need improvement IMO.
    Though I'm really happy with the compressor and upcoming delays!

  • Very interesting to read all this. For me, there's another side effect due to the overall quality of the KPA:


    With other modelers, to get a decent sound, I had to use all these little shaping tools, add chorus, detune the second signal a bit, compression... you name it. While it's still good to have these little helpers at hand, I personally find myself not in the need of other FX than reverb & delay. (I don't like dry scratchy guitar sounds and I always need a feel for the distance to a sound source.)


    So eventually, though with other tools I always entered deep editing modes (and got a thrill out of this), the KPA makes me play. This has been mentioned here a 1000 times before of course, but for me this results in not really knowing the stomps actually :/ . But then again I think this a good thing :rolleyes: .


    On topic: I feel the reverb is not on par with the profiles, just like some others here obviously do.
    Butt: They are by far good enough to wait for the K-Team to improve them instead of getting external FX and destroy the wonderful idea of an all in one unit :D (imho).

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

  • Effects and pedals are very personal things.


    I like the KPA effects - and love to have all in one box - never use anything in addition to the KPA (when I use the KPA)....


    ... but love as well my other stomp boxes and real tube amps.


    I don't think any digital device (incl. the Kemper) can ever replace ALL other guitar gear.


    And I am happy for that - because it's so much fun not only to learn new stuff on the guitar itself but also find new soundoptions.


    So IMHO are the effects in the KPA fine - and we were promised to get some great updates for the delays and reverbs in the future.

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    Great Profiles --> soundside.de

  • with the 5.0 will this have finally reverse delays?

    I don't think anything has been stated officially about what kinds of delays will be a part of FW 5.0. There was a video from NAMM that appeared to show some kind of 'crystal'-type delay, where repeats are pitch-shifted up an octave repeatedly. Fingers crossed that it will be a thorough overhaul and that we'll all be satisfied. I'd put money on it, looking at Kemper's past record of innovative updates.

  • Hey all
    my 2 cents: I haven't tried much of them but so far I'm pleased with ODs, wahs and EQs. However I'm not happy with reverbs, none have pleased me much so far. I'm not a big fan of reverbs though.
    if I could make fx requests I'd ask for a Klon centaur and a spring reverb.
    cheers

  • I would agree with others that the drive stomps don't seem to have the same "shazam" as the real thing; however, I have found for my purposes (live gigging), the verbs and delay's sound as good as anything I have used.


    I think the delay's are currently too limited, but this is in the process of being corrected.


    I primarily use:

    • Reverb
    • Delay
    • Pure boost
    • Green Screamer
    • Noise gate
    • Chorus
    • Studio eq

    I don't know about you guys, but to me, the capability of the eq has always been the biggest contributor to good tone. If you get the raw guitar tone down and have the tone equalized well, effects of decent quality will sound good enough to get you through the night live.


    The KPA has better than "decent" quality efx to my ear.

  • No. Together with the missing Editor and better reliability. That's why other manufacturers are still on the market, otherwise the quality of profiles/guitar tones is the best IMO.
    I would pay an extra to have the Strymon algorhythms on board and some good overdrive stomps.

  • The FX on the Kemper are great, no doubt about it.


    Are they the best in class though? Not yet.


    That said, if you need to play a gig with them, you could definitely do this without the audience figuring out that you didn't use a Strymon or whatever.


    Keep in mind that the FX will *definitely* be improved in future updates.


    Whether these will be as good as dedicated pedals is of course subject to speculation. But I would point toward existing FX such as the pitch shifter to highlight the quality the Kemper is capable of.

  • I am curious about the quality of the up-coming verbs. Unlike many efx, verbs are scrutinized pretty heavily and nuances are critical to our perception of "good sounding".


    When you have virtually unlimited resources (like you would in a stand alone unit), you can get away with doing quite a bit of heavy lifting.


    When you need to work with more limited memory and processing resources, it takes quite a bit of clever design to achieve the same results.


    I am hopeful ;)


    Wouldn't it be a great day for all Kemper users when the efx engine(s) are as good as their industry standard "stand alone" competition?


    Personally, I am not complaining. I can get crazy good tone from my Kemper with the firmware I already have. I routinely raise the eyebrows of tube amp purists when they listen to my rig side-by-side with their venerable tube amps and pedal borads (along with my trusty DSR112).

  • As I said before: I like the KPA's FX very much.


    Others seem to wait for this magical update and then there will be the best of the industry FX right in the Kemper.


    I dont think tjhis is very probable. Christoph is surely among the top notch audio programmers currently on that planet. So, this is not the problem. But for decades now I am following discussions like:


    * This amp is great, but the cabs are shi**y, you have to go for this and then the combination is great
    * This multi FX has excellent reverbs, but forget about the choruses
    * This mixing desk has fantastic EQs, but the faders are not acceptable
    * This guitar has the best tone and sustain ever, but the neck pickup MUST be replaced


    ...and so on, so on, so on...


    I think thats just human and not always objective. Its more about brands. And its a kindof trap. Moneywise ;) I often went into this trap - but finally discovered a super weapon against it, namely: A/B-ing! Record a track with what you call best FX in the world (it must be, was fu**ing expensive!) and then do it again with the inferior one, finetuned as close as possible to match the other.


    Now for the funny part: as long as YOU will switch between those tracks and KNOWING which is which, you will clearly hear that BIG difference. If somebody else will randomly switch between A and B (blind A/B-ing) you will get lost more often than you liked to. Things are getting even worse when some decent audio engineer will do some EQ-ing on both tracks to fit a song better or to match them better.


    I am a guitarist too. And I also want that big, fat, impressive, room-fllling killer sound when I play alone with my amp. But my vocalist or the other guitarist and definetly the sound engineer / producer will hate it. There are special exceptions like EVH and Jimi. But there were no second guitar player or keyboard and Jimi even sung his own stuff - and while singing he played MUCH less. In general: and many cases: less is more - in the context of a song or band. And the FX which are really needed are already there - with excellent SNR, dynamics and tone! Again: I am aware of the super heroe exceptions and special sound searchers, say Robert Frip. I am just talking about us OK-players and song- or band-servants...


    Listen to mixdown videos of your favourite songs, if available. I did this for some Steely Dan songs, i.e. Many of the instruments sound incredibley whimpy - when soloed! Most guitars in most mixes got robbed of all their big, fat, air-moving low-end. There is a reason why Zappa shouted so many times: turn down that bass in your instrument...


    (Now I am glad that there is no hate- or dislike-button on that forum! :D )

    Ne travaillez jamais.

  • I think thats just human and not always objective. Its more about brands. And its a kindof trap. Moneywise I often went into this trap - but finally discovered a super weapon against it, namely: A/B-ing! Record a track with what you call best FX in the world (it must be, was fu**ing expensive!) and then do it again with the inferior one, finetuned as close as possible to match the other.


    Now for the funny part: as long as YOU will switch between those tracks and KNOWING which is which, you will clearly hear that BIG difference. If somebody else will randomly switch between A and B (blind A/B-ing) you will get lost more often than you liked to. Things are getting even worse when some decent audio engineer will do some EQ-ing on both tracks to fit a song better or to match them better.


    This in IMHO one of the most important things, not only concerning effects, concerning everything. i always make markers in cubase for my wife so that she can play my
    recorded profiles when i look to the other wall.


    Still, i think the felt quality of the strymon effects are much much better and stand each and every Blindfold test. If KOS 5.x gets us nearer, i'd be a happy kemperite.

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.


  • The question was "kemper fx are good enough for you?"
    if the answer is yes, you don't need to spend your many words trying to convince who isn't completely happy with the Kemper fx, and explaining what is a music production. Don't feel offended if many people don't agree with your idea, have respect for others opinion.

  • I don't think that anyone expects the extreme quality of expensive stand alone effects.



    Now for the funny part: as long as YOU will switch between those tracks and KNOWING which is which, you will clearly hear that BIG difference. If somebody else will randomly switch between A and B (blind A/B-ing) you will get lost more often than you liked to. Things are getting even worse when some decent audio engineer will do some EQ-ing on both tracks to fit a song better or to match them better.


    That is not the point. The point is that many of the effects are just very limited. Take the tremolo. It sounds good for what is does but it's editing abilities are almost non existent. Due to it's very soft wave form it is only usable for some subtle vintage stuff and fails utterly when trying to create (modern) rhythmic stuff (think Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"). Same goes for the other modulation effects, reverbs and delays. They sound great for what they do but if you want something special then you are going to hit a brick wall very soon and have to use external gear of some kind.


    The problem is that many effects are still on a level that work very well in an analog synth emulation and that is ok as this is where Kemper is coming from. It was a wise decision to focus on the profiling side first and just reuse the effects they've already got.


    But Kemper is already addressing this. The guitar specific effects like distortions, pitch and wah are already very good and at a state where most issues just boil down to a matter of taste, not overall quality. The reverbs and delays are in the works and what we've heard so far sounds very promising. I'm pretty sure that on the long run the modulation effects will get an overhaul as well (hopefully before V6.0).

  • Don't feel offended if many people don't agree with your idea, have respect for others opinion.


    No problem at all here. Where is a sign of me being offended? ;)


    Rome gave a very constructive explanation for why I am not hitting his (and maybe many others) point. I got his message.

    Ne travaillez jamais.

  • There's a difference between being "in the ballpark" and being "on the money". I am not one of those "super musicians" (probably why I like the Kemper effects just fine!), but I find that there is no rule written down that says "non-super musicians" and "good effects" shall never meet. Coming up with a cool effect for your song is definitely a positive that could grab listeners' ears and if you have to go "out of the box", then you should be able to do so.


    Also, think about guys in cover bands, for one example. Can you imagine covering some bands without a spring reverb, for example? Or something like an auto swell? Granted, these are not there in the Kemper, but that kind of underlines the point that looking to external FX can cop a sound that a Kemper cannot.

  • Oh I quite like the Kemper reverb, it has the ability to sit in the mix, like a spring reverb would. The secret is the Damping parameter, make sure to set that to around 6 or so. When used subtly, around 10% Mix, the reverb almost becomes part of the guitar sound, it gets an acoustic quality, and I love that when playing.


    When recording though I record a dry feed, as everybody else would, and apply studio quality verb in post, to get the right amount for the mix.