Monitoring MP3 and other Sound Sources with the Kemper

  • Good Evening. I am a new Kemper owner. I have successfully updated my Kemper, installed Rig Manger and the free M Britt profiles. I have been noodling around with different profiles for a couple of days and had a great time, but am now ready to get serious and practice some tunes. I also have a noise sensitive wife - so I play through headphones (particularly at night). How do I run the sound of mp3 and other music I'd like to play along with through the Kemper? Ideally, I'd run music through my laptop. I have a focusrite itrack solo audio interface, but it doesn't have an s/pdif connection. Can you run sound from the computer through the Kemper USB ports or some sort of XLR converter to the alternative input? Is it an option to buy a mixer (which I need anyways) and run the Kemper and computer through the mixer, then use the headphone output to listen to music while I play through the kemper. Do I simply need to buy an audio interface with s/pdif connections to run through the kemper s/pdif connections. So close to having the perfect set up! Any assistance or experience with other similar solutions would be most appreciated.

  • To address your points, you cannot currently use the kemper usb inputs in the way you described, and to use the s/pdif output on the kemper you would need to buy an audio interface that supports it. I also haves an audio interface (focusrite saffire 6) without an s/pdif. I just plug the kemper's two main outs and my headphones into the focusrite. I know it's supposed to loose something in the extra digital-analog conversion but it sounds good enough to me.