New Here with New Kemper

  • Thanks for the welcome everyone!


    After a few days, I like what I am hearing and how it feels through one of my smaller guitar cabinets. I tried it through my studio monitors and was less than impressed though. It just sounded to cold and sterile. However, there is still a lot of tweaking to be done and I have yet to profile my own amps so the jury is still out. I just finished assembling a few performances and plan on taking the unit with me to practice tomorrow night. If it sounds good in a live setting, I will be sold.

  • Thanks for the welcome everyone!


    After a few days, I like what I am hearing and how it feels through one of my smaller guitar cabinets. I tried it through my studio monitors and was less than impressed though. It just sounded to cold and sterile. However, there is still a lot of tweaking to be done and I have yet to profile my own amps so the jury is still out. I just finished assembling a few performances and plan on taking the unit with me to practice tomorrow night. If it sounds good in a live setting, I will be sold.

    Hopefully you are tweaking the tone of your performances while listening at gig volume for tomorrow night, otherwise you may be less than impressed. Good luck!!

  • Hopefully you are tweaking the tone of your performances while listening at gig volume for tomorrow night, otherwise you may be less than impressed. Good luck!!

    Thanks for the well wishes and of course I test everything at gig levels, exactly as I have been doing in analog world for the past several years. 8)

  • Good luck Scott!
    It took me a couple of practices to get comfy with the rig/FRFR. Placement of my DXR10 was a thing, but your cab should be normal.
    Pretty much settled in now, but I had to work at it.

  • Thanks D. I have been beating on the unit the past few days at gig levels through my favorite small guitar cab and I am pretty impressed with how it sounds so far. The cab I have it dialed in for now is a small pine cabinet the size of a Fender Deluxe extension cab loaded with an EVM 12S. The EVM is a pretty neutral sounding speaker so it doesn't color the profiles as much as a more assertive (i.e. Vintage 30) speaker would. Also the open pine box adds a natural reverb and airiness to the sound that I love. Plus, it is extremely light weight, even with the EVM, so my entire rig is now smaller, lighter and even more portable :thumbup: . Once I finish dialing in the cabinet sounds, I will work on the output EQ to try and warm up the mains feed.


    I am expecting it to take a few live outings to fine tune everything and lock it in but, I can already tell this isn't going to be the shrinking violet on stage that my AmpliFire was.

  • Sounds like you're well on your way Scott. I'm loving the portability as well. I want to find a stand that can take my KPA head and also the DXR10.
    If I can find one I'll name it "Twiggy the Guitar Riggy" :D

  • I can officially take the plastic off the screens now! The Kemper passed the live test brilliantly. It sounded and felt right to me and my bandmates liked it. Aside from a few tweaks to the bass and gain settings, everything sounded as I expected and reacted as I hoped it would. I am used to tweaking my guitar controls and ride the volume and tone knobs all night for different tones. I was curious to see if the Kemper would react well to those adjustments and it did just fine. As for any setting changes I made, it was very easy to store them in the performance. I am also glad I went with the toaster and its LED rings around controls. Those LEDs made adjustments VERY easy to see and dial in without having to squint reading tiny print on a screen.


    Now that I have been assimilated into the "hive", time to check out the other sections here. 8)

  • Welcome on board! :thumbup:


    You are prolly one of the few, who owns the sought-after-amps and sounds.
    Last time I played a real AC30 or a Twin was in the early 80s... :S:D:D:D

    Thanks D!


    It was primarily my old Vox and Tweeds that turned me to the Kemper. Those tones in my Kemper sound and feel right to me. I tried those models in my AmpliFire and they were nothing recognizable to my ears. Then I started digging into some presets for AmpliFire and other modelers to see if they could really cop the vibe of those old amps and I kept seeing blocks of compressors and parametric EQs added to the signal chain to try and recreate what those old amps are about (assuming they were actually modeling a real JMI Vox or Fender Tweed). The only device my vintage amps need to sound right is a cord from the guitar. If you have to add all that electronic duct tape to your amp models, I think your models may need some more work.

  • If there is one thing I'd suggest it's definitely profiling you own set ups. It's the ultimate test for kemper. And while doing that, it's a must to use fine monitoring. If monitoring is not optimal 1) refining may not be done the right way 2) it's hard to make any real judgement about how well kemper does its job.

  • Ben, the Carol-Ann is pretty unique. It is not Dumble and it's not Marshall. It has the sustain and low-mid warmth of a Dumble but it has enough of that upper mid bite and reacts much like an old Marshall. My current gig does not really do any of the tunes I did with my old act so, I don't feel a need to have the CA profiled yet. I will get to it after the holidays when my travel schedule slows down.


    For now, Michael Britt's Dumble profile gets me in the ballpark with some tweaking.