“Oh, a Kemper!”

Sure as hell beats, "WTF is that?", eh Paul?

Usually, when my wife complains "my husband is spending to much time with his Kemper", people react like:
"That's cool! We wanted one forever! You'll have niiice holidays, so be happy!"

She: " What?!? Really? I don't think so. I'll don't get him away from his beloved 'Toaster' - certainly not in the holidays !"

They: "O.K. - your husband IS strange! Don't get the toaster thing. But can I have a look at the CAMPER. Where is it?"

Shown to them: "Oh, a ... Kemper! "

That right Kemper always sound great

Several months ago we had a master class with Doyle Dykes at our church, and I had the somewhat frightening privilege of having to play while he was in the audience. He and I talked later, and commented me on my playing and tone. We then discussed the Kemper at length; apparently he said many of the big studios he works in also has a Kemper set up along with the vintage amps.

We know what we have in that little green box. Puts a smile on Pauls face as he says to himself, "what took ya so long!". It definitely is a very nice piece of gear that is contagious as the updates continue to amaze us.

As cool as I think it is to have our little green magic box all to ourselves, I also think it's fantastic that it's catching on with so many people and professionals alike. It's well deserved, that's a fact.

A harp player friend of mine came up to jam with us at a gig on Saturday.

He pointed to my Toaster and said...

"Oh, you have one of those. My band just cut an album at a Toronto Studio with Nick Blagona, and he had one that we used. Sounded GREAT"

Nick Blagona engineered albums for Chicago, Rainbow, The BeeGees, The Police, Deep Purple and many other big names.

If it's good enough for Nick, it's sure good enough for me!

Here is Niko Tsonev playing a kemper, great new album Moonparticle

here is another one , who isn't using Kemper
Rivers of Nihil - "A Home" Playthrough

I just got back from the dead of winter festival in Brisbane Australia, i went up to the mixing desk and asked the engineer what he thought about kempers...okay that was after i bragged i had two ... this a direct quote..

"you cannot imagine how much easier they make my life, all metal guitarist have their amp too loud for the desk on stage and it takes shit loads of tweaking"
A kemper is every engineers dream". I should of got that in writing

[Blocked Image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/96uhpw3bz8rktlb/festival.JPG?dl=1]

@808illest
Short vid of the festival..this is probably what it sounds like at shawns house on a Monday morning
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tuqr…hzu/The%20hammar.MOV?dl=0

Ash

You know it brother... started at 9am this morning! Oh wait, it's Wednesday!! Bwahaha

Quote from ashtweth

"you cannot imagine how much easier they make my life, all metal guitarist have their amp too loud for the desk on stage and it takes shit loads of tweaking"
A kemper is every engineers dream".

Totally, every FOH guy I talk to says the same thing!

So far I had two gigs with my Kemper (which also were my first and second ever gigs, was awesome). Quite a pleasure to be honest to see all the other guys hauling their stuff in (I helped, of course), while I essentially only had my Kemper to carry. So far, so good. At the first gig, it was the good ol' "oh, a Kemper!" as in "nice!"
Second gig, along with one band and another some 80's-00's rock n metal cover band, that one guy... You know, mid 40's, making off-taste vulgar comments about girls walking by that could easily be his daughter, very rude in general, walks up to me while I set up my Kemper and goes like "a Kemper? You telling me you're playing Rock n Roll and then you use a Kemper?" honestly didn't quite know what to say except for "yeah so what?"
So that was my first encounter with 'Kemper-shaming'! Luckily, the only one so far. Everyone else who commented on it was much more encouraging and positive and shared the excitement. Which is nice.

Interesting that he had nothing of substance to offer, only an implication that if you were serious you wouldn't use one.

Quote from Symec24

You telling me you're playing Rock n Roll and then you use a Kemper?" honestly didn't quite know what to say except for "yeah so what?"

Yeah and surely you were the one who was getting compliments on your sound after the show, not him lol!

Ive been, lucky, not really had any "digital" snobbery.

But had loads of:
1) Oh a Kemper, they are great
2) That's a great sound, what is it?

But best of all, sound engineer says can you give me a signal, 10 seconds in " yep that's great".... My rig takes literally 10 minutes to set up, only 3 cables....just love it.

Our other guitarist plays a Helix and that also does sound very good but I think I've had a few more compliments than he has..

Had one engineer that refuses anything direct because he had a bad experience with a pod but otherwise they all love 'em!

Now if I can just play better....

Quote from Symec24

So far I had two gigs with my Kemper (which also were my first and second ever gigs, was awesome). Quite a pleasure to be honest to see all the other guys hauling their stuff in (I helped, of course), while I essentially only had my Kemper to carry. So far, so good. At the first gig, it was the good ol' "oh, a Kemper!" as in "nice!"
Second gig, along with one band and another some 80's-00's rock n metal cover band, that one guy... You know, mid 40's, making off-taste vulgar comments about girls walking by that could easily be his daughter, very rude in general, walks up to me while I set up my Kemper and goes like "a Kemper? You telling me you're playing Rock n Roll and then you use a Kemper?" honestly didn't quite know what to say except for "yeah so what?"
So that was my first encounter with 'Kemper-shaming'! Luckily, the only one so far. Everyone else who commented on it was much more encouraging and positive and shared the excitement. Which is nice.

I get those once in while. From experience, I see it as a defensive mechanism. Ageism aside (being almost that age myself), these comments never comes from actual sound engineers but rather from a certain archetype of other guitarists/musicians.

I read in some self-improvement book that the best role models for your career might not be the idols of your past but rather contemporary successful people in the same age group. When I look at my colleagues, most use digital modelling nowadays (at least live but also in the studio), whether it is because of convenience, consistency, or quality of tone. So when I get comments like this, it says more about someone's ignorance/stubborness than about gear itself. At this point, those complaining not being able to get satisfactory tones out of this new technology either don't want or haven't spent enough time trying.

I'm nearly 50 so its not an age thing, it comes mainly from ignorance:). Don't rise to it, I've heard worse stuff....most people have been well impressed, particularly as they cost a reasonable amount so they know its not from the older generation of digital stuff.

I remember the same comments about digital photography.....who uses film now? Very few people...

It was less about the age itself to me, I wouldn't dare to judge a person by parameters like that, just to give you guys an image for the mind's eye.

I just had a laugh of two about this guy and that's it. Just kind of funny to be confronted with this highly substantial content. I think @V8guitars example with digital photography was pretty much on point here too.

Quote from V8guitar

I'm nearly 50 so its not an age thing, it comes mainly from ignorance:). Don't rise to it, I've heard worse stuff....most people have been well impressed, particularly as they cost a reasonable amount so they know its not from the older generation of digital stuff.

I remember the same comments about digital photography.....who uses film now? Very few people...

I was a defender of analogue cameras only till digital got really good, even better than analogue in some areas like image sharpness (compared with 35 mm, not larger formats), besides the conveniences of immediate checking of rhe results and easier storing. I still love the slides and cibachrome copies of those analogue days. And digital prints can be great too though they lack that gorgeous shine. But the truth is digital photography or recordings are here to stay. I suppose tube amps and digital devices will coexist way longer than analogue and digital cameras have done. After all, it is difficult for a digital amp to sound better than what it profiles or emulates. But rhe Kemper sounds to me way close and has advantages over the real tube amps. There will always be purists saying analogue is better. And also people that believe a picture taken with their phone is as good as one taken with a good camera, or that a mp3 file and a 24 bit wav file sound so similar that larger files are not worth it. I do hope SLR cameras and tube amps keep on being made and that they do not become so exclusive that only a few pros will buy them.