Well... Wish me luck. First Kemper Gig coming up in about a week.

    We had a rehearsal last night, first with the Kemper. We track EVERYTHING and listening to the playback tonight I gotta say it sounds pretty good. I'm not done messing with the patches yet, but I'm close.


    My Kemper Remote is still stuck in mail strike hell... but I was fortunate to find a FC1010 here in Canada- one province over - and it arrived today. (Hey, merci beaucoup, Marc. You're saving my ass here). Got it all programmed with a UNO rom (it came with a 1.1 Eureka and the UNO rom. Having tried both I preferred the UNO) - so I have performance, slot, tuner and tap tempo access. (with one button left over for boost, but I don't think I'll use it at the gig).

    So- Kemprans - have any tips for 'first gig kemper noob' here? What - if you could turn the clock back - did you wish to know before you hit the stage for the first time with yours? What nuggets of wisdom, experience and knowledge would you pass back to yourself if you could?


    School Me


    :)


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.

    First gig I did when th mine I literally just used one MBritt Fender tweed profile all night. Controlled all my clean to chrunch sounds just from the guitar volume and used a clean boost for solos. Just like an old skool valve amp. Job done! I did have other profiles set up in a performance and had the remote ready but honestly only used the remote for the boost pedal which I could have done with just a simple momentary footswitch.


    Make friends with the sond guy and talk through what you want early so they don’t get any surprises.

    How are you running it? Direct into the PA or cab and Mike?


    If direct, make sure you've tried that set up in rehearsal.


    Totally talk to the sound guy, ask to sound check your guitar early as its a new set up, check all output volumes ( cleans, solo's etc) so relative volumes are definitely sorted.


    Have a back up plan - e.g if going direct and you get issues, be prepared to mike up..


    FCB1010 - personally the only issue I found was if you accidentally hit 2 switches at once it can get confused. Its not major but just be aware of this and you just need to re-stab the switch you wanted!


    To be honest I've had no issues at my first gig or since, just refined my sounds etc over time. To some degree its just an amp, so you shouldn;t get many/any surprises.


    Hope it goes well!

    As V8 says - have a backup plan. The first gig I did I wanted to go direct. The sound guy was stressed and we got off on a bad foot so that didn't happen. Fortunately, I had brought a Mesa 112 cab as a back up just in case. I plugged that into my powered toaster and he insisted on putting a mike in front instead of taking a direct signal (I had the outputs already set to mono to make everything easy for him). At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how I get the sound to FOH so I just went with it but without having the speaker in the car just in case we would have had a difficult situation.

    Quote from Wheresthedug

    The first gig I did I wanted to go direct. The sound guy was stressed and we got off on a bad foot so that didn't happen.

    He must stress easily. It's less hassle to plug two XLR cables into the snake / board and set the level than it is to fool around with getting the right mic position, worry about bleed, etc.


    I would think that the sound guys would buy you a beer for making their lives easier. But then again, I still believe in the Easter bunny, too.

    Kemper remote -> Powered toaster -> Yamaha DXR-10

    Like 1

    Gotcha. Yes, we're going full direct - silent stage save for the drums actually. We ran rehearsal to our rehearsal PA the other night. (I'm coming from an atomic amplifire and haven't run a separate amp in YEARS. The catch here is that we're *probably* not going to run our full rig (IEMs etc) so that's how we rehearsed- open air. Tracking the rehearsal was a good idea- but there were no issues except for... well me. (ha ha)

    The FCB1010 is the variable here, I've practiced with it myself, but not with the band. It arrived after rehearsal. Back up for that is my 2-button footswitch.

    If it's the venue's regular sound guy (pretty sure it is) he's *good* - I've seen him work. A pro. The band I saw a couple of weekends back at that venue had the guitar player using a macbook as his amp - so we're okay there. Any soundman we've worked with before has had NO issues with running direct. Most prefer it, actually. I get 'teased' for the amount of automation in the full show, but we're just doing a walk-on set for charity.


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.

    lol. no kidding. But- with all of the patches automated, a click in my ears, lights triggered and on full wireless, I can play guitar, sing, and connect with the "crowd" (thanks for coming out- both of you!) and I love it. :)


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.

    Like 3
    Quote from mollydyer

    lol. no kidding. But- with all of the patches automated, a click in my ears, lights triggered and on full wireless, I can play guitar, sing, and connect with the "crowd" (thanks for coming out- both of you!) and I love it. :)

    [Applause]

    Thanks, Mom!


    I think I played that room. :)


    I'm currently shopping for a basic bar band while simultaneously working on something a bit more ambitious. You just described my setup almost completely, except the drummer will be on the click. Like you I'm the singer / front man, which means if we suck I'm the best target for tequila bottles if it's that kind of a bar. I love what the tech does for me, allowing me to concentrate on playing guitar and singing instead of tap dancing and wondering if the lighting guy is too busy hitting on my girlfriend to hit his cues.


    I've been working my way through all the studio environment setup / tests / etc. to get the Kemper integrated. Just got through testing tracking with IEMs, which is awesome on many fronts. The guitar sounds excellent in my ears and all I had to do was patch the mains into the pres. No more screwing around with mic placement, etc. Just press record and play. Plus, I no longer need to record anything but the DI. As long as I track with a profile that has the same basic gain / feel, I can reamp, play with profiles to my heart's content and then just print the one I like. Had a couple of ground loop issues which were simple to solve because they give you ground lifts on freakin' everything.


    I've been waiting a long time for tech to get to this point. It's nice when it finally comes together.

    Kemper remote -> Powered toaster -> Yamaha DXR-10

    Chris Duncan


    We're all on the click- drummer too. It's more important for Mark (drums) to be on the click than anyone else - but from the audiences perspective - we all start at the same time, no count in. It's like we're psychic. Or Magic.

    There's so much going on here- I'm planning on doing a rig walkthrough. Things like automated patch changes on the Kemper, the bass rig, the sample pad... how about this: It also automatically starts multitrack recording at the top of each set, and stops at the end? We're also going to be driving the lights when I get around to setting the movers back up in the rehearsal space.


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.

    Like 1
    Quote from mollydyer

    Chris Duncan


    We're all on the click- drummer too. It's more important for Mark (drums) to be on the click than anyone else - but from the audiences perspective - we all start at the same time, no count in. It's like we're psychic. Or Magic.

    There's so much going on here- I'm planning on doing a rig walkthrough. Things like automated patch changes on the Kemper, the bass rig, the sample pad... how about this: It also automatically starts multitrack recording at the top of each set, and stops at the end? We're also going to be driving the lights when I get around to setting the movers back up in the rehearsal space.

    The machines are taking over!!! Only joking, that is really cool!


    Don't worry about the FCB1010, its perfectly useable, just I found that small glitch under "excited" use and therefore not to worry about it.