New Kemper Owner- Not too impressed, useable

Hi all,

Having read through this entire thread, I feel the need to chime in here. With absolutely NO agenda. Hope thats ok?

A little background first…

Presently, I play in lucrative tribute bands as well as writing and recording my own material. As a fifty year old guitarist, singer, songwriter, I’ve been in this game for about 30 years. I’ve played the Hamersmith Odeon, The Royal Albert Hall, pretty much every theatre in the UK. I’ve played stadiums in Europe, small clubs in the UK.

I’ve used pretty much every amp one can think of during that time, every digital and/or analog combination of prdals/rack gear etc…

The one major constant however, was that I was always using my wireless to enable me to go to the FOH so that I could hear what the audience would hear…

It wasn’t remotely the same and it was a big shock… I’d run back back to my amp, tweak a few things, run back to the FOH, listen, ask the engineer to tweak a few frequencies…

Eventually I learned that there is a massive difference between on stage and FOH perception of sound.

As a new user (6 months) I’ve used the KPA on stage and in the studio and the results have been awesome, to my ears.

Yes, there is a massive learning curve involved, some of my pedals and plugins work better with certain profiles etc.. But isn’t this the same with any new technology?

I can say for sure that my FOH engineer is happy!

Best to all,

Jeff

Thank you for your comments Christoph! You Sir, are a genius.
I have Diezel amplifiers, 3 Bogner Ecst amplifiers, many old late 60s, early 70s Marshall amplifiers, and I have never, ever trusted any digital piece of gear made to 'resemble' a guitar tone…
I have had my new powered Kemper for less than two weeks and I must say, I have profiled all of these amplifiers in different scenarios, gain levels, channels, cleans etc and I have found every single profile to be spot on… both in tone and feel…
Now, I am listening to the amplifiers (reference amplifiers and Kemper) through a few old Marshall cabinets and Bogner cabinets because my Kemper is powered…
Every single profile I have done has been bang on… A couple I refined two or three times... PERFECT! And, yes... I have good ears, i've been doing this for 30+ years now…
To have all of my heavy, expensive amplifiers DNA in one little machine makes me grin from ear to ear… I was a sceptic until I profiled the very first sound… And then I just sat there with my jaw on the floor…
This machine is an amazing masterpiece, I am looking forward to using it this weekend at my gigs!

Hey Jeff,

I agree with your assessment. It seems that guitar players more than most get hung up on how the stage sound is FOR THEM and less on what the FOH sound is for everyone else.

I used to use a VHT rig which had incredible tone on-stage, but it never sounded as good out front as I wanted. Without the PA, only a small portion of the bar got good guitar tone (the ones directly in front of the speaker). With the PA, it didn't sound the same.

The KPA always sounds good out front .... every gig .... hot or cold, night or day. I just plug it in and play .... and it sounds great out front (also pretty darned good in my IEM's ).

Still, for many the "amp in the room" is what they need to be "inspired" to play well. Feeling the palm mute on stage for me generally means that every vocal mic is picking up your guitar to a point that you are going to have mush in the FOH. YMMV.

Fantastic endorsements, SQUAREHEAD and Jeff; thank you, guys!

Pity the OP isn't so "easily-impressed".

Quote from OneEng1

Hey Jeff,

I agree with your assessment. It seems that guitar players more than most get hung up on how the stage sound is FOR THEM and less on what the FOH sound is for everyone else.

I used to use a VHT rig which had incredible tone on-stage, but it never sounded as good out front as I wanted. Without the PA, only a small portion of the bar got good guitar tone (the ones directly in front of the speaker). With the PA, it didn't sound the same.

The KPA always sounds good out front .... every gig .... hot or cold, night or day. I just plug it in and play .... and it sounds great out front (also pretty darned good in my IEM's ).

Still, for many the "amp in the room" is what they need to be "inspired" to play well. Feeling the palm mute on stage for me generally means that every vocal mic is picking up your guitar to a point that you are going to have mush in the FOH. YMMV.

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Relatively easy to have a cab on stage with powered Kemper, works really well if you really need 4x12 next to you. As far as feeling goes, as much as I like that kick ion the stomach a good palm mute at proper volume gives, I totally agree.. it will also screw your hearing in a long term. The alternative is to have a bass player kick your butt randomly while playing heavy riffs

Other than that - many people are very obviously not familiar/used to sound of naked, miced amp (aka "congested mids" which in most cases is just mic type/p[placement/room or even pre-amp, btw I've never heard this term before this forum), then they put headphones on (which should be forbidden for guitar monitoring ;)) and it's only amplified.
Anyway, I wonder if there is a chance to profile multiple stage distortion (if there ever is demand for it)..

Quote from Bommel

I mean i use the kemper for a long time and for many reasons but if you look into the corners of sludge, doom, and stoner metal ther it is normal to have a fuzz or overdrive that hits a non mastervolume amp hard on the preamp ... and overdrives sound best when used with a slightly overdriven amp... it sure has a muddy feel that has no place in many music genres but yeah i mean it has its purpose

so that's a different thing than preamp and power amp distortion. For that we offer modeled distortion pedals.

Quote from vjau75

The Laney GH50R allow to dial the amout of poweramp distortion desired, probably because some people find that interesting ?

Every tube amp can control the amount of poweramp distortion as a natural fact, just like the Laney. But that does not mean that combining heavy preamp and power amp distortion will lead to a good an sought-after sound. The Profiler can actually capture a distorting preamp and a slightly compressing power amp.

Quote from ckemper

Every tube amp can control the amount of poweramp distortion as a natural fact, just like the Laney

Yes, by increasing the volume. But not "just like the laney", which feature is, AFAIK, pretty unique (actually i think some Suhr amp does that too).

Quote from Tritium

Hello Christoph,

I am pretty sure the legendary Tannoy Dual Concentric would cordially disagree your statement (bolded, for emphasis).

http://www.musictech.net/2014/06/studio-icons-tannoy/

You are right.
My point was that Coax never became mainstream in studios and hifi, even though Tannoy is promoting this concept in both domains seince decades.

i really don't feel understood at all at this point ... it is honestly pretty frustrating by now ...

i think i just have to get the two notes torpedo (which has the poweramp sim in it) and compare the sounds ...
maybe that sais more then a 1000 words

Quote from Bommel

i really don't feel understood at all at this point ... it is honestly pretty frustrating by now ...

i think i just have to get the two notes torpedo (which has the poweramp sim in it) and compare the sounds ...
maybe that sais more then a 1000 words

Torpedo has its limitation also. The power amp simulation doesn't factor the amp-speaker interaction when you change the impulse response.

My understanding is that the Power amp distortion is where the fizz or the hair on the distortion sound come from, but on its own to fully crank the volume on the amp to get power amp distortion doesn't generally give good results except for few low wattage amps.

My guess is that's the reason, Hendrix used Fuzz and almost all guitar players who had master volume only amps, always used either pedals or some pre-amps or treble boosts.or other crazy type of boosts.

Examples: Richie Blackmore from Deep Purple used a tape recorder for boost, here's what he said to Guitar Player Magazine in 1978
Straight from the horses mouth - Guitar Player September 1978 Notice what he did to get a fuzzy sound.

"I like a little bit of distortion which is controlled through my tape recorder. I built my own tape recorder. Well, I didn't build it, but I modified it from a regular tape recorder to an echo unit. It also preamps and boosts the signal going to the amp. If I want a fuzzy effect, I just run up the output stage of the tape recorder."

David Gilmour used a Alembic F-2B preamp and the list goes on and on.

Quote from Bommel

i really don't feel understood at all at this point ... it is honestly pretty frustrating by now ...

i think i just have to get the two notes torpedo (which has the poweramp sim in it) and compare the sounds ...
maybe that sais more then a 1000 words

You can try the Torpedo plugin without spending a lot of money. I use the Torpedo in combination with a tube preamp.

thanks for the advice guys... i mean i still use my tube amps too and when my pedals sound weak i turn up the master and the sound gets smoother and fuller ... this is all a want as a button i use all the knobs of the kemper in the amp section all the time and while i'm almost there it doesn't reach the source when it comes to creamyness and so on ...

i get to the sound i want by adding different real pedals and so on (i described that already -> real overdrive, tc bodyrez in front of the kemper and i have the soundfiles in soundcloud that compare how well this works)

but all of the friends of mine that sold the kemper did not want to buy extra stuff and had the same problem ... i get along well i just
try do get this improved overall the sometimes too much subbass and cleaner mids and a bit harder attack ... and i know a good stauration would smooth that out because i use in post sometimes a saturation plugin to do exactly this ...

and the other thing is the cab, like i said it is also mentionned before ...

yeah this thread i still about that guy who bought the kemper and was not impressed ... i just try to let my subjective opinion flow in to make the overall experience better ... i'm out

Quote from Bommel

thanks for the advice guys... i mean i still use my tube amps too and when my pedals sound weak i turn up the master and the sound gets smoother and fuller ... this is all a want as a button i use all the knobs of the kemper in the amp section all the time and while i'm almost there it doesn't reach the source when it comes to creamyness and so on ...

i get to the sound i want by adding different real pedals and so on (i described that already -> real overdrive, tc bodyrez in front of the kemper and i have the soundfiles in soundcloud that compare how well this works)

but all of the friends of mine that sold the kemper did not want to buy extra stuff and had the same problem ... i get along well i just
try do get this improved overall the sometimes too much subbass and cleaner mids and a bit harder attack ... and i know a good stauration would smooth that out because i use in post sometimes a saturation plugin to do exactly this ...

and the other thing is the cab, like i said it is also mentionned before ...

yeah this thread i still about that guy who bought the kemper and was not impressed ... i just try to let my subjective opinion flow in to make the overall experience better ... i'm out

Hi Bommel, I heard your sound clip of the tone that you are after… If you don't mind me asking, with that tone, what kind of music do you play?
Keith

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@SQUAREHEAD what sound clip do you mean exactly? this one?

... well this is my sound in the example so i pretty much archived my sound already that is just a help for other users that look for the same characteristics
Well i have 4 Bands and 2 studio projects ... mainly i play this kind of sound with the set of Michael Ammon, he did urban pop and ballads before but now we got very much into the rock territory ... we finished 3 videos that will be released every month now ... there i used this sound ... and in these covers

Yep.... ok, that's the one, thank you…
Keith

yes i still have it. got some of the bugs worked out. sounding better all the time just had to get to know how it works....still learning thou. will try that too. thanks!

Just chiming in as well. I'm a professional session player (mostly live though) but recently have started recording almost exclusively with the KPA in studio because I can get killer tones so much more easily than I ever had otherwise and also because I can actually carry the thing. I am in the beginning of that stage of my career so reading this thread makes me feel a bit insecure about my new favored method since I've been recording for some big pop stars recently and might be inexperienced with those proper old school techniques compared to some of you engineers and gear heads. I follow my own recipe and it's almost too easy now and I feel like cheating. So far, in general, engineers are very happy when they see me come in with the Kemper so I think it has a great rep in the circle.

The point I am trying to make is that in my situation, the tone disparities I could be experiencing versus the real things (if noticeable) are completely irrelevant in comparison to what/how I actually play when the engineer press "record", how prepared, focused and solid I am at the session and just having the "studio attitude" in general. Much more important for my re-employment to spend my days working on my guitar parts and come in and record them smoothly and quickly with a killer tone (to me) than wasting these hours trying to chase the end of the tone rainbow by investing in more redundant pieces of gear or even debating about it. There are so many other things to think about when recording as far as having my shit together that going through old-school methods and variables would probably freak me out enough to affect the session in a bad way. Of course others opinion will differ but from someone who's day-in-day out in the trenches of busy freelance work, the KPA totally changed my life (and saved it a couple of times when I had strange requests of weird effects I could magically summon within minutes.) I still make many tone "mistakes" but it's all due to my judgment and inexperience more than this machine.

Sooooo i made the test if the cascading gain thing can be an issue ...
i made profiles of only a tube poweramp (the one in the sample was at maximum volume)
then i added a pedal in front and listened how the sound changed when i activated the amp section and deactivated it (so i could hear only the pedal with a cab (so one distortion for itself)

Poweramp on - Poweramp off - Poweramp on - Poweramp off + EQ

each sample is one version, first mono then stereo ... there is another one with drums
and read the description...

i personally feel that this is what i am missing sometimes ... that is why i recommend using a real overdrive or booster in front of the kemper because it makes the sound more 3D and lively ... but i am not so happy with the built in overdrives sadly ...