Backing track in stereo without using effects return

  • So I currently have a y cable going from my headphone out on my laptop into the effects loop return and alternative input on the Kemper. This gives me stereo for backing tracks through the headphone out on the Kemper along with the Kemper output, which is awesome. I want to be able to use my effects loop though, just to use my boss rc3 Looper. Right now in order to do that, I have to unplug the y cable and hook up the effects loop. Not the end of the world but I'm a lazy man who would rather leave it all hooked up if possible. Any ideas on how to hook this up to where I could get stereo backing track into the Kemper aux in, and at the same time have my external Looper hooked up? I'm open to buying additional cords or other stuff if needed. I tried running the Looper in front of the Kemper but it really didn't work well at all.


    Thanks!

  • If you want to keep everything hooked up and not have to switch connections from time to time, I don't think you can achieve that with your current set up. I'm a big fan of adding a mixer to the set up, which is what I use, and I run a looper as well (Ditto x4). This allows me to keep everything connected always, including having backing tracks in stereo and headphone monitoring, plus outs to studio monitors, and even have my PC/DAW through the same set up.


    The key piece is a small, low-cost, 4-channel mixer. In my case a mackie 402VLZ4, which I find has a really good headphone preamp and does not colour the Kemper's tone in any way.


    So set up is kemper main outs into the Ditto looper (which is stereo) using standard guitar cords. Then Ditto looper outs into mixer channel 1 and channel 2 (1 panned left, 2 panned right, for true stereo effect), gain and eq on mixer set flat so as not to add any colour or boost to the kemper profile's inherent tone.


    Backing tracks can be from iPhone/iPad/etc via channel 3 and 4 on mixer (so it's stereo as you want), or from PC which goes into aux in on mixer. Every input has it's own level control, plus there's a master level control.


    Then outs on mixer into studio monitor or just use the mixer's headphone out (since your main requirement was to use headphones).


    One caveat since my looper is AFTER the kemper, it gets the full stack including all Fx, which is exactly how I want it, but might not be how you want it since you run yours in the fx loop right now.


    Hope that all makes sense!