I’m not satisfied with my Kemper at all? It makes no sense!

  • Hi Jason


    As you have 5 high end tube amps, a couple of Suhr guitars and are doing a recording course at school you have all the tools you need to get EXACTLY the tone you want out of the KPA.


    Set up your amp(s) the way you like it. Stick a mic in front and make a profile. It isn’t rocket science so you should be able to get great results in no time. I know you said you don’t like reading dictionary thick manuals but you should definitely download the the detailed reference manaul and the short profiling manual before starting.


    You don’t need to go into the studio to make the profiles. The actual profiling phase where it sounds like a space ship landing in your room only lasts less than a minute.


    Although it probably sounds counter intuitive to someone doing a recording course, but the room you profile in seems to make minimal difference to the profile itself. I’m no expert on this but I think the profiling algorithm disregards time based information which is what the room would add. Maybe someone with more knowledge and experience can confirm/explain this better.


    Anyway, I whipped out my old Mesa Studio .22 yesterday and made some quick profiles (both studio and direct versions) to do some A/B comparisons. I have a pair of Mesa EVM12L Thiele Cabs so I plugged a DIrect version of the profile into one and the real Boogie into the other. I carefully level matched them with a DB meter and switched back and forth between them. There was virtually no difference at all. Any difference there was may actually just have been down to the slightly different positions of the cab relative to the room walls. In fact, if I had to pick one I would say the Kemper profile was very slightly better than the real the thing but that could just be a placebo effect / confirmation bias trick.

  • I listened to the clips and it sounds like a level issue somewhere. There is no dynamic to the sound at all. I hated my KPA the first couple weeks until I figured out what I was doing wrong. I found out the guitar I was using had a problem with the pickup. i also discovered the space and pure cab parameters and can adjust those to taste. To me the Kemper sounds best through a real guitar cab. I run it through the return of my Marshal stack and it sounds godly at whatever volume I run it at.

  • What is your input level looking like? Are you getting a solid green light, sometimes tripping into amber?


    Your sound clips sound ok but not great so it does sound like a setting somewhere.


    I don;t think this is the case for but...


    When I first had my Kemper I diodn't like the sound. I was convinced it was too digital. Lots of people were skeptical that it would sound any good and gave me doubts.


    A fair proportion of this was my own ears - I couldn't believe a digital amp could sound any good, even thought I wanted it to...it wasn't until I got a lot of compliments about my sound that I got comfortable...


    As I said probably not applicable here but just be aware there is a psychological effect as well, hence why get someone else to play it....my gear always sounds better when someone else plays it ha!

  • I had the same issue when I bought mine. Could not get awesome sounds so I bought a SM57 and mic'd up my ENGL powerball II with my EVH 5150 III cab then I bought an eVH 5150 1x12 cab...problem solved and have my engl in a box . I made some profiles that are lead/rhythm live, lead/rhythm studio and both with a delay added. The difference is the studio patch simply bypasses the power head and uses a cab sim. I found you should profile and record your reference amp exactly the way you want without its reverb if the amp has reverb because the kemper reverb works amazingly well. I dont profile my amp flat aka all knobs at 12o'clock. Also the guitars and pickups make a difference IMO so I recorded different profiles some with higher mids and gains for my parker guitars vs my active emg guitars. I have a few of my profiles on rig exchange. Feel free to give them a shot. My sound is remarkably close to my full engl setup. Hopefully this is helpful!


    I’ll check them out, thanks!



    Well the Kemper is what it is. The only reason I can respond to your post is because it took me years and years to finally come around to modelers, and only recently after much trial and error, did I become willing to spend the big bucks for them. When I plug into my BE-100, Diezel, or any other tube amp, it's obviously a leveled-up experience from both my Kemper and AX8. I don't have any unrealistic expectations though. When it comes to practice and just improvising and coming up with riffs, it's so much easier to use my Kemper or AX8 than to fiddle with my tube amps. I wonder, have you let your teacher and classmates play through your Kemper? If so, did you still think it sounded bad when they were playing? To be honest, the Kemper nor the Axe FX/AX8 sound convincing enough between amp models/profiles through a speaker, but recorded tone is almost impossible to distinguish.


    Yeah I bought it because sometimes I don’t really need to use amps. I still prefer to use amp and cab for serious recording, but sometimes I just need a plug n play amp for practice.

  • Well we tried Kemper today at school with PA and then cab, didnt tried it through fx loop.


    We though that it sounded ok and fine. If someone passes by the room, he would probably think we're using an amp.


    Some profiles sounded bad, some ok and some good. We didn’t profile an amp then compare, We only tried some from rig exchange and rig packs. I’d say Kemper doesn’t sound good or bad, it’s more about profiles.


    We just believe there’s something “magical” about tube amps, and we still prefer to play tune amps for gigs or recording, if it’s a good one. If someone’s playing a good profile, I don’t think I would say “oh he’s definitely playing kemper, not amp”, there are differences but it’s still a guitar sound.

  • Personally, i think its a rig problem :) , i think you need to try out some decent studio rigs of the Marshall, both vintage like you said the Metropulos and a modern like the Friedman amp.


    What sort of style just high gain or mid gains and cleans or all?
    Also did you use the powered head into a cab?


    Ash

    Have a beer and don't sneer. -CJ. Two non powered Kempers -Two mission stereo FRFR Cabs - Ditto X4 -TC electronic Mimiq.

  • Man, I've gone through the same experience for the first 7 months. My Solution was to find a few profiles that sounded the best (even if the best still didn't feel good) and work with those...


    Secondly, You gotta run it through a guitar cab to get that authentic amp feel man. I picked up a yamaha DXR10 powered speaker too after tons of reviews and it's also great but... still the guitar cab is the 'real guitar amp' sound.


    If you haven't figured it out by now on this thread here's my best tips from experience.


    1. use a guitar cab, or a good passive cab like the DXR10
    2. make sure the noise gate isn't too high or on at all if there's no noise..
    3. for gain profiles put a graphic eq in the x slot and set the low cut between 80-100hz and the high cut between 5000-1000hz depending on how bright the profile already is.
    4. Look up the Tone Junkie "Transparent Overdrive" preset on there website. The EQ on they have in D slot on that works great for Gain profiles.
    5. Take it out to a rehearsal or jam and play with it. Living room tones hardly equate to stage outcome in my experience. Take notes on what you need to tweak and change it back at home. I also found, jamming along with backing tracks cranked through speakers can replicate that experience of jamming a bit and hep you gauge your results in house before taking it out.
    6. If you have the remote, use the looper in "Pre" mode, record yourself soloing along to a backing track and set your guitar down while the loop repeats licks and you can focus on tweaking the the playback against the backing track.
    7. Buy one of MBritts first 3 Profile packs. He really does the job right.




    Lastly.... Don't forget to practice. Tweaking for hours and not practicing isn't going to help.


  • Good points, but the DXR10 is an active cab.

  • Hi, not having Kemper just now but:

    best way to enjoy its sound was just put it through tube-poweramp to guitar cabinet.

    I used it that way and was modelling all my preamp- stuff before selling them away after that..

  • Hi guys,


    I’ve had my Kemper for about 2 years but I’m still having trouble finding good tones. Though I didn’t buy anything from other profile makers, I’ve tried nearly all of the stock profiles including those from rig packs, so nearly 1000 profiles.

    Bolded is the key.


    If you don't have a good profile, you don't have a good sound. The Kemper doesn't create a transfer function like other modellers, it "merely" recreates what it profiles. Weak profile = weak sound; solid profile = fantastic sound.


    I got a loaner toaster from a friend a few weeks ago, and after spending days going through the free stuff, I only found one rig that I find usable. I went out to MBritt and TopJimi and immediately found a few that sound GREAT! [Not slagging on any of the other profile sellers - these two were just the first I found that really hit the mark.]


    If you want to really get the most out of the Kemper, either build your own profiles or spend the few $$$ to get the good ones from the guys who know what they're doing.