Kempers Effects Good Enough for You?

  • very good discussion here,,but,, is there any official word when 5 is coming? 4 is unsuitable for me because of the switching delay, lag time, still on 3,
    Thanks all for all the great info here,,lovin my kemper,,


    The display lag seems to be on purpose. I doubt this will change with firmware 5 unless the Kemper team wants it to change.

  • The FX are fine in general.


    I like the Green Scream and the Phaser the best. The Trem is fine but not the best I've heard. The Univibe is ok...not going to win any awards. But I think a Univibe sound is pretty tricky in the digital domain...even the one on my Möbius leaves much to be desired.


    The fuzz stomps don't really do it for me. But I've never heard a digital fuzz that comes close to the real thing. If I want a fuzzy sound, I'll use a profile of a cranked vintage amp to start.


    the Delay and Reverb are usable and I get by just fine with them, but honestly they could use a serious update. I'm a freak for vintage delay and reverb sounds, and in my opinion the Kemper doesn't deliver in this area. The delay modulation is rather sterile sounding to my ears.


    All that being said I still use the Kemper and nothing else for one of my bands and it's great. But it's just not quite there yet for the other bands.



  • We all have our reasons for our preferences. I don't play live. My rig never leaves my house.
    I am always tweaking now and finding new sounds. Which is what I enjoy. My creation level has gone through the roof since I got these pedals.
    I can change things on the fly. Waaaay faster than the menu diving. I dont have to look for anything.
    I have had the KPA for a couple years I guess, or close to it and I never modified the effects. No joke.


    The looper is fantastic too on the timeline. That is what I got the Strymon foot pedal for. If I create one I like and want to keep, I just save it to my JamMan.
    As you can see the way I made my rig, tweaking is very easy and fast.


    I was always in the camp wanting an all in one box with the Kemper but I realized no matter how much they crammed into the KPA through updates, I wouldn't have used them.
    So I broke down and bought these. Been very happy since.
    Of course my rig wouldn't work for many but it is perfect for me.


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  • Playing live they get the job done. The delays are a bit too basic at the moment to get me really excited, but they work. I'll take the slightly less exotic effects sounds for less gear and cables everytime. Through a PA, you never know what the audience is going to get after the sound man and the room has had its way with it.


    When recording, i never use the KPA effects as plug-ins just give more options when mixing, and they often just sound better, imo.

  • I found the effects in the KPA to be brilliant. Why I say brilliant, because they remain musical at extreme settings, and it's hard to make them sound bad. I initially didn't like the Drives but the 4.0 significantly improved drives. The other stomps are from my experience the most musical and practical.


    The clean boost, the shaper stomps are really amazing and can bring so much life into any profile. You can turn an average profile into something magical simply by engaging Recti shaper at low setting, beautiful clean sounds. The more you try the effects, the more you'll realize that there are many unique effects that aren't available anywhere else. Pure tuning for pitch effects is brilliant. Transpose works quite well and I don't find latency to be an issue as I'm used to guitar synths.


    There are a lot of gems that people don't try because they are looking for the same usual suspects. The Micro pitch will give you some of the best Chorus sounds period and the list goes on and on. If you take more time, you might realize how really well thought out and terrific sounding the KPA effects can be, but if you compare to what you're used to without giving them a chance, you'd be missing out.

    Edited once, last by Dean_R ().

  • I'm not on FW 4 yet as waiting for a stable release. I use my Kemper at home and live and mainly use wah, compressor, reverb and occasionally green scream or booster. So not loads of effects. I find them great for live work. I do have an H9 I use at home and love for its more ambient sounds;)

  • Dean_R, IMHO perfectly true what you wrote!


    I'd like to add the following: There are many FX in the Kemper that seem (also) to be made for the sound engineer. Those are the "less is more" things. Things that pure guitar players might overlook or ignore. In example delay and reverb settings that are dialed in so carefully and economically that they are not obvious, but still effective. In example delay times around 45 ms without Modulation and Feedback are changing the sound to pleasant and fat without sending ever like a delay. Same with tiny little reverbs. I guess its called comb filtering in English. This is more sound shaping then Uber-FX.

    Ne travaillez jamais.

  • Just want to piggyback a quick question in here as I'm not sure it warrants it's own thread.


    I have ordered a Kemper but haven't received it yet so I haven't actually read the manual yet. I have a couple of TC Electronic effects pedals that I love, and I know I can use them with the Kemper. I am wondering if it is possible to reamp through the pedals via the Kemper? Like say I record a section and then decide I want to use the TC pedals on it, can I send either the dry or processed signal back to the Kemper via SPDIF and then capture purely the sound of these effects?

  • I like the Kemper effects, I use them live and they are easily as good as what was on offer in the GT100 which I used before. When I'm recording it's usually for others so they use their effects of choice

    A brace of Suhrs, a Charvel, a toaster, an Apollo twin, a Mac, and a DXR10

  • In general I think the effects are pretty good/decent, great modulations, and pitch effects(really good imo).


    There are 3 areas I think it should improve.


    The dirt pedals are the weakest link in my opinion, the Ts pedal and clean boost are good but other than that I think the rest is pretty mediocre.


    Delays are being improved(so pretty soon they will be out of this equation), and reverbs are missing spring, plates,shimmer and other types(modulated reverb would be cool).

  • I found the effects in the KPA to be brilliant. Why I say brilliant, because they remain musical at extreme settings, and it's hard to make them sound bad. I initially didn't like the Drives but the 4.0 significantly improved drives. The other stomps are from my experience the most musical and practical.


    The clean boost, the shaper stomps are really amazing and can bring so much life into any profile. You can turn an average profile into something magical simply by engaging Recti shaper at low setting, beautiful clean sounds. The more you try the effects, the more you'll realize that there are many unique effects that aren't available anywhere else. Pure tuning for pitch effects is brilliant. Transpose works quite well and I don't find latency to be an issue as I'm used to guitar synths.


    There are a lot of gems that people don't try because they are looking for the same usual suspects. The Micro pitch will give you some of the best Chorus sounds period and the list goes on and on. If you take more time, you might realize how really well thought out and terrific sounding the KPA effects can be, but if you compare to what you're used to without giving them a chance, you'd be missing out.


    This post quite sums it up for me. ;)

  • I like the fx of the kpa and i think the new upcomming delays will be good as an eventide H9 or whatever because i think CK is a perfectionist. I wont buy a stomp effect like this, i will wait for the new delays. They would be awesome.......and it saves my money.
    With fw 4 we can put several delays in different stomps. Thats also a big step forward. I like it.
    Here is an example with 3 delays in a row.


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    Cheers
    Frank


  • Not even a drop in the bucket close.


    Hope you've got a hat, ITTO, 'cause you're gonna have to eat it, mate.


    Actually, I'd go the humble pie; it's the easy route through the in and the out... get it? :D


    Anyway, I get that it doesn't matter to you 'cause you like the instant tweakability of your pedals.

  • I still think it depends on how much the effects are part of your sound ( I know someone will disagree with this as well, I am talking generically).


    I will never buy a strymon timeline because a don't often use delay and £400 is a lot of money. However, if delays are a key part of your sound and you create complex sound scapes, then I can understand why someone would want a dedicated specialist pedal. I never have the need to fiddle with pedals during a gig and actually I like the fact that I don't, or that during transportation a knob has moved ( no knob jokes please!).


    I strongly disagree that the delays, reverbs, Chorus/modulation effects are poor or unusable though. They are better than many boss pedals for example!


    With a conventional amp, I never felt the need for an overdrive or tube screamer and I feel less of a need with the KPA.


    I tend to use as few as possible because in a 2 guitar band things turn to mush very quickly. My board has and will always be free from rogue pedals and I was glad to get rid of my whammy, Wah, chorus, tuner and delay.


    Plus, it will only get better!

  • My knob has been known to move during transport. Odd though, only when nearing a tunnel.


    Seriously though, knobs moving on modern electronics especially higher end ones isn't so much a problem because they are potentionals.