How Easy is It to Set Up Kemper for Band Practice

  • I am an at home bedroom player, but I will occasionally play with my uncles band (they play mostly popular rock n roll from the 1950s and 1960s cover songs). The lead guitarist/singer is phenomenal on the guitar and when we trade solos between himself, me, and the other acoustic guitarist, he just rocks out and has an awesome tone coming out of his amp and I think the sound also gets picked up from the microphones/pa system in the room making it just sound really fat (some songs are clean tones just boosted a bit to have more sustain and volume, some songs he kicks in some overdrive/distortion/dirt), then when he points to me to take a solo, my amp sounds weak and thin always even though I used several good amps (victoria 45410, deluxe reverb reissue, and dr. z z-28....I haven't yet used my vox ac30hw2x)...however, I am never able to turn the volume up past 2 or 3 on these amps, which gives me a clean tone, but then I have to throw overdrive pedals in front of my amps such as the OCD or Paisley, and then I like to bring a delay pedal as well...However, its a pain in the ass to bring these things and still sound pretty shitty. My overdrive always sounds harsh and awkward for the music we are playing. He plays out of a $250 Crate Amp and a Korg Ax150g pedal with a Peavy Wolfgang guitar, and sounds so much better than my rigs that cost so much more money (I have brought American Made Strats, Telecasters, Les Paul, and a handmade Strat). Its always slightly embarrasing carrying all this stuff into the basement, hooking up all the cables, and not having a good tone (we don't really spend time trying to find me a good tone either, its really just plug everything and start playing).



    I am looking for something more easy to transport, hook up, and have a variety of tones immediately that sound good. I bought a KEMPER POWERHEAD and one ATOMIC CLR NEO Active Wedge, and I have only been playing them at home at low volumes. I haven't worked up the nerve to bring the kemper and neo wedge to play with them, because I am not so sure how easy it would be to find good tones at a good volume, and if it will sound good, so I just keep bringing my regular amps.



    What are you thoughts on this situation?...And do you have any profiles I could download and know that they would sound good for that kind of music at a volume high enough for a light drummer in a large finished basement type environment....I don't want to be tweaking knobs during songs....

  • You'll be obliged to adjust your Kemper in rehearsal even you ajdusted in your home studio with good monitoring speakers.


    You will need to know the Kemper Parameters.
    Make you on a paper, an abstract of what amp parameters do for more ease.


    For me it's relativily easy to adjust the main parameters in rehearsal cause i know them, but if you want an acurate setting you have to test some profiles and it's more difficult in rehearsal IMHO.


    For a cutting sound into a band, you have to increase the mid frequencies and high, maybe slighty cut the low freq.


    IMHO, there's no shame to take time to adjust your sound in rehearsal.
    Experience, i adujst my sound after and not during the song.
    But if you're in adjusting phase with your Kemper, you have to do like this.
    After each song, you adjust your sound, for the next time.
    And maybe the next time, it'll not be good yet.
    I will be done gradually until you get there.
    After this you will not need to ajdust during rehearsal.

  • Also, do you have something with meters at home? I get close on volumes by checking the meters on my mixer to see if they're close when switching rigs. Very helpful to get the switch from clean to distortion levels under control. Unless you get lucky, you'll probably end up dialing your rigs in so you fit in the mix, especially if you're using a lot of rigs.

    Learn to Swim

  • Will the Kemper and a Atomic CLR Active monitor be loud enough for a light handed drummer in a finished basement setting? Or do I need two CLRs or must I expect to use my 2x12 cabinet with a CL80 and a V30?

    With the music you are playing, it sounds like you could run the whole band through the CLR in a finished basement setting and STILL have headroom to spare ;)
    That was slightly tongue in cheek, but the CLR is LOUD LOUD LOUD. Even the DXR10 should be way more than you need (unless it's a 4000 sq ft basement)



    Incidentally, after initial tweaking of my rigs, I use the same ones for bedroom, rehearsal and gigging. Only I can hear the minor differences...everyone else thinks the KPA sounds great.
    Life is too short to tweak!

  • With the music you are playing, it sounds like you could run the whole band through the CLR in a finished basement setting and STILL have headroom to spare ;-)That was slightly tongue in cheek, but the CLR is LOUD LOUD LOUD. Even the DXR10 should be way more than you need (unless it's a 4000 sq ft basement)



    Incidentally, after initial tweaking of my rigs, I use the same ones for bedroom, rehearsal and gigging. Only I can hear the minor differences...everyone else thinks the KPA sounds great.
    Life is too short to tweak!

    @hendrix.stratman What @Gizmo says is true. Instead of tweaking all your life, rather (get someone else to) twerk... It´s much better for all... :D


    (I feel much better now ;) )

  • The only real advantage you'll get is that the tone you get from the kemper will be more "constant" in Live situations where you feed the outputs directly to FOH. I always found live miced cabs sound kind of dull between all the other noise which is acoustically made and leaking into the cabs mic. When your ever get the chance to mix a band which has 2 guitars, one on a real amp with a miced cab, and another on some kind of modeler, you will discover that there is no way the miced real cab will sonically compete with the modeller, the last one will sound much brighter and lively.


    So in short, yes, definitely try your kemper in rehearsal. Paired with the right cases you'll even be able to cary all your gear in one walk from the car to the rehearsal room ;) But don't bother too much for CLR's or other kinds of expensive FRFR stuff, which is an expensive term invented by guitarists to say they have bought a fullrange PA speaker or wedge to use under their modeler :D. You probably already have some kind of full range speakers and a mixer at hand in your rehearsal room to amplify the singer, maybe even keyboards? use that one. When playing live you'll get foldback from the monitor mix, or just drag one of those fullrange speakers from rehearsal to the stage ;)


    But off course, all starts with a good tone in the rehearsal room, and even with your kemper, you must find out why your tone sucks and work on this. That knowledge will serve you both with the real amp and with the kemper. There's na magic pill with buying gear, as you've said, your fellow guitar player manages to get good tone out of cheap gear...

  • I can't help but wonder the ability difference between the two of you. A cliché maybe but so much of tone is in the fingers...and all that gear? Relative to his? Seems odd to me.


    The Kemper and CLR should have zero issues but, in the first instance, try your regular cab. Then the CLR. Or vice versa. Some just prefer a real cab.

  • Funny thing with the Kemper , I have over 500 rigs to use and when I play I use maybe two and sometimes just one. I just manipulate my guitar volume and tone knobs.


    Even funnier I play at a friends place with his spare amp...Fender Mustang 1.
    After tweaking the Bassman model, I sounded just like I normally do. It turned out great.


    Times like that make me question why I bother spending thousands of dollars on gear. Lol