Think I'm off to the Dark Side...............

    Good call, Gary.


    Bilbo, I don't know what to say, mate. The Helix, whilst apparently-great, just won't have the organic, real-tube-circuit-mojo feel and sound of your Kemper... when it's having a good day. It just won't, mate, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself.


    I s'pose this is a heads-up warning that no amount of desperation on your part to regain a fluid, issue-free playing experience is gonna be able to mask the reality of what you'll hear. I'm betting that initially you'll be satisfied, but that in time the sameness / inorganic / static / slightly-lifeless / predictable nature of the models (I don't know how else to say it) will become ever-more apparent to your ears.


    Be warned, brother; it ain't no Kemper! Very good for a modeller, yeah, going by the clips I've heard, but no Kemper. All things considered, I do think it'd be in your best interests to contact support. I mean, put yourself in their shoes - imagine how passionately they'd hate for you to walk away thinking the product's a dud in any way.

    Quote from Gary_W

    Wasn't suggesting you were trying to dupe anyone :). It's just that, as you're going to be contacting them anyway if you're going to sell, you may as well do so now with the very real possibility of them making you a happy guy with no money being spent :)

    Sorry Gary, I know you wasn't implying anything untoward I was just nipping anything in the bud before the pitchfork brigade jumped onto my case ;)


    Thanks MM. I know that there is plenty of truth in what you are saying. It may just be that I keep the Kemper as I'm already getting depressed at the thought of a parting. Regarding the Helix, I really don't expect it to be anything like as good as the Kemper tone-wise. I just want a solid platform that I can depend on. I'll also be happy to have a little less spaghetti wire trailing across the bedroom floor. I will contact support at some point, probably when time isn't quite such a luxury :)

    It is a surprising problem if you have to do a reset every now and then. Haven't had that problem, and I can imagine how frustrating it must be.


    Are you sure it's not "all in your head"? Not to downplay your problem, but I used to have this problem with a lot of modellers I used - I'd tweak and settle on a tone and the next time I played it I was like 'Ugh'. Haven't had that problem with the Kemper, everything seems to work beautifully every time I put it on.


    As others suggested, contact support. I'm pretty sure if you can get it vetted by the good folks at Kemper, even if you sell, it won't be with a huge hit "because it has a problem".

    Quote from Michael_dk

    I'm wondering, did you order over the internet or buy it at a physical store?

    I purchased it online from Anderton's. My 12 months warranty are long up. I should have returned it before but you know how these things are. First time it happens, you just shrug it off thinking that, at the the end of the day, the Kemper is just a computer. And computers crash. By the time it's happened on a few more occasions you are a year down the line and it's too late.



    Quote from nightlight

    It is a surprising problem if you have to do a reset every now and then. Haven't had that problem, and I can imagine how frustrating it must be.


    Are you sure it's not "all in your head"? Not to downplay your problem, but I used to have this problem with a lot of modellers I used - I'd tweak and settle on a tone and the next time I played it I was like 'Ugh'. Haven't had that problem with the Kemper, everything seems to work beautifully every time I put it on.


    As others suggested, contact support. I'm pretty sure if you can get it vetted by the good folks at Kemper, even if you sell, it won't be with a huge hit "because it has a problem".

    I know what you are saying, but it's absolutely not in my head. I'm not talking about the tone sounding not quite as good as it did, but sounding terrible to the point of being unusable. And it's a global thing. One profile turns to crap overnight, and so do the other 800 or so. A factory reset and all is dandy again. And the wah thing......... It's not like the wah sounds are not to my taste, but they are unusable. Wah pedals come in all flavours, with many tonal varieties, I realise that, but there isn't a single user on here that would use the sounds I'm getting. They are just....... well, broken.

    Its crap to hear you've had problems. I had a few which made me question and you get to point where you feel you've invested enough time trying to solve it and just need to do something else.


    I suggest when you get some energy back, dfo contact support. It took some time to diagnose my problem but as suspected it was software ( well actually user error in my case :) ) and its been rock solid ever since.


    The other guitarist in our band has a helix and I have to say it sounds good and very easy to use so definately a great peice of kit. To me my Kemper sounds better but you never know the real capability as its al down to how they are set up.


    Anyway, good luck and hope you get back to making music :)

    Quote from Bilbosmeggins

    Because I don't fancy shipping it to Germany only for it to behave itself on the day, and be declared fit.

    Not sure where you are located, but they have a North American service center as well, and the guy in the US that runs it is excellent. They couldn't reproduce the crackling sounds that mine was making and sent me a brand new one very quickly.


    Kemper has some of the best customer support and ethics in the industry, in my experience. Right up there with Fractal Audio, Two Notes, and EB Musicman/Sterling.

    Thanks both. Regarding location, I'm in the UK so the USA is deffo out of the question. To be perfectly honest, if my little toaster blew up in a cloud of smoke while I'm typing this (please don't, toaster) I wouldn't feel cheated. It has provided me with the best musical experiences I've ever had over this last year or so. Every guitarist I know who has heard it has been wowed (not by my playing :( ). I would wholeheartedly recommend one to anyone. And, in the grand scheme of things, my KPA problems are hardly life-threatening. The good has definitely overshadowed the bad. But, this is a good opportunity to scratch the Helix itch. As I said before, I don't think it will quite match up, but I'm looking forward to a little hands-on :)

    Quote from Bilbosmeggins

    Thanks both. Regarding location, I'm in the UK so the USA is deffo out of the question. To be perfectly honest, if my little toaster blew up in a cloud of smoke while I'm typing this (please don't, toaster) I wouldn't feel cheated. It has provided me with the best musical experiences I've ever had over this last year or so. Every guitarist I know who has heard it has been wowed (not by my playing :( ). I would wholeheartedly recommend one to anyone. And, in the grand scheme of things, my KPA problems are hardly life-threatening. The good has definitely overshadowed the bad. But, this is a good opportunity to scratch the Helix itch. As I said before, I don't think it will quite match up, but I'm looking forward to a little hands-on :)

    Defo contact support, mate, and let them get you sorted to provide you with a flawless Profiler experience like you deserve.
    In the meantime check out the Helix.
    For fun. ;)

    Thanks Ingolf. You are very much one of the selfless people I alluded to in my opening post. It's folk like you that make this community so much better than all the others. I may have to keep my Kemper just to still be a part of it ;)

    Hey Bilbo,


    First off, no apology needed :)


    Second off - the Kemper comes with a 3 year warranty, not one year. Andertons are good guys and I'll bet they'll manage getting the Kemper over to Germany and back if it needs to. All they'll want is to know that Kemper actually want it back and that means a support ticket. But, providing it's under 3 years old, it shouldn't cost you anything - even if it does have to go back to the factory.


    Looking on the bright side.... if you contact them now they'll either be able to suggest a way for you to fix it by doing XYZ software-wise. If not, you can get it back via Andertons and play with you Helix till it's returned, then make the judgement call what you want to do :)

    Quote from Bilbosmeggins

    I purchased it online from Anderton's. My 12 months warranty are long up.

    As Gary said (beat me to it), you've technically got 3 years. Even then, from what I've seen, it's kinda a non-issue with Kemper 'cause the service is that good.


    Quote from Bilbosmeggins

    Thanks Ingolf. You are very much one of the selfless people I alluded to in my opening post. It's folk like you that make this community so much better than all the others. I may have to keep my Kemper just to still be a part of it

    Indeed. Go Ingy!


    You know, I've been posting a little sporadically lately, every 2nd and sometimes 3rd day, and during those days off I find myself thinking about you guys a whole lot. I hear or see something and think how I'd love to tell you about it, be it a song, a concept, joke or whatever. You all rock so damned hard!


    I've got both a Helix and a Kemper. My own thoughts, based on having them side by side for a long time, is that the Helix is absolutely capable of holding its own against the Kemper, but with the caveat that it takes more work to get there. Once you figure out its little quirks, though, the process isn't bad at all.

    I swapped my Power Rack for a Helix (it was just sitting in storage, as I use my toaster and Ambrosi ATM70 for everything these days) and regret it. The Helix is nothing compared to the Kemper. The only thing I like about it more than the KPA is the Univibe emulation. The 'new' snapshots mode in FW2.1 was buggy as hell, and as that is necessary for my usage, it's now out sitting in storage, lol


    I hope you get your troubles sorted, whether that's going with the Helix or with getting the KPA fixed.

    By the way, here's a live recording of my strat using Guido's XTC and using @DonPetersen 's whipple wah settings. Forgive the rusty intro and the singer forgetting the second verse; this was only the third time we'd played together since 2003 and we hadn't rehearsed at all, as the drummer was flying in from another tour in the US


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