Should I buy a Kemper?

  • All,

    I play all types of guitar music from country, rock, metal, alternative, heavy metal, blues etc. I do not play in a band and I doubt I ever will. I currently own a fender mustang V head into a bugera 2x12 cab. Sometimes I just find the amp lacking when trying to dial in a tone and I’m tired of buying pedals left and right to get certain sounds so I’ve been trying to find a better solution. I was contemplating a katana artist but went to play one and while it was better than the mustang in some tones it was worse in others. Is the Kemper the solution for me? It is very very expensive but I could save up for one. Should I consider something else? Honestly I’m just trying to find a do all amp. Maybe not do all 100% as I doubt that’s possible but if it got me 90% of the tones I’d be happy. Thanks for you input!

  • If authentic ampsound is important to you, you won't find anything better.

    If complex effect sound structures are your desire, at least look at other things.

    The Profiler have enough effects with good quality for professional use.


    By the way, you will hardly find anyone here who advises you not to buy.;)

    I think you also know why you ask here:)

  • I run into both situations using my fender but I’d say more so the amps than the effects. I can get ok clean tones but metal tones definitely stink. What effects come on the Kemper? I’d be interested in reverb, delay, chorus, compressor, and wah (assuming you can hook an expression pedal up to control the wah). Is there a foot switch you can use with the Kemper to change from one profile to another And to turn on/off effects? thanks!

  • you have all the FX you want and more, in excellent quality, no need to buy anymore external gear

    theres a remote control were you can change rigs , turn fx on off and much much more

    buy it ??

    def. YES

  • The Kemper has 2 configurable connectors for switch or expression pedal.


    The greatest comfort for foot control is provided by the remote available from Kemper. (see Kemper homepage)


    You can also use Midi switchbars, because the Profiler has a well documented MIDI interface.

    I have the remote and can't tell much about the alternatives to the remote.

  • Thanks everyone. I also understand that I should not be using a guitar cab but I honestly can not afford a new speaker setup just yet. So from what I read the Kemper has a lot of watts and to make sure I keep settings low. Is that all I need to do? My cab is 150watts I believe. I understand the sound won’t be as good as the Kemper can be but I imagine it will still be better than the fender mustang.

  • Thanks everyone. I also understand that I should not be using a guitar cab but I honestly can not afford a new speaker setup just yet. So from what I read the Kemper has a lot of watts and to make sure I keep settings low. Is that all I need to do? My cab is 150watts I believe. I understand the sound won’t be as good as the Kemper can be but I imagine it will still be better than the fender mustang.

    If you buy the powered version you can of course connect any guitar box.

    I can't say if the price difference to the unpowered version you can buy an active box, where you will have different CAB simulations in the Kemper with a lot of cab sound.

    It depends very much on the personal taste and preferences and is almost a question of faith;)

    You can also use any linear amplifier between Kemper and your speaker. There are also very cheap ones.

  • Hmmm difficult one...


    On one hand, I am convinced a Kemper would give you what you need. It is a world away from something like a Katana ( different league in my mind).


    On the other hand you might get something that does 90% of what you need for a lot less. Sound is so subjective its difficult to advise what is good and what is not.


    My philosophy is to buy the best I can, so its really down to your budget and how much you can/want to invest in an amp. I gig regularly so making the investment was a no brainer....if I wasn't then not sure if I would have bought one..


    Are Kempers worth the money? Persoanlly I think so, especially when compared to a high end valve amp, limited to certain sounds...

  • ...effects wise, just everything and totally configurable. Flangers, pitch, wah, transpose etc..


    You should ideally get the powered version to run a regular cab ( or you can get a separate amp as mentioned or powered speaker). The remote is also excellent but more cost...


    You will be blown away with what it can do but make sure you budget for everything you might need...

  • Thanks everyone. I also understand that I should not be using a guitar cab but I honestly can not afford a new speaker setup just yet. So from what I read the Kemper has a lot of watts and to make sure I keep settings low. Is that all I need to do? My cab is 150watts I believe. I understand the sound won’t be as good as the Kemper can be but I imagine it will still be better than the fender mustang.

    Better than the Mustang by a country mile!:):thumbup:


    Welcome to the forum Big!

  • ...effects wise, just everything and totally configurable. Flangers, pitch, wah, transpose etc..


    You should ideally get the powered version to run a regular cab ( or you can get a separate amp as mentioned or powered speaker). The remote is also excellent but more cost...


    You will be blown away with what it can do but make sure you budget for everything you might need...

    Hmmm what else would I need right off the bat other than the Kemper itself?

  • Hmmm what else would I need right off the bat other than the Kemper itself?

    Only whats been mentioned:

    Power amp to drive a speaker

    A foot controller - any midi, controller, or the remote

    Any expression pedals

    Some new guitar picks and strings as you won't stop playing!

  • Buying a Kemper costs a decent chunk of money, so out of pocket cash, yeah, it's not cheap. However, there's another side to this.


    I bought some profile packs from one of the highly regarded commercial guys here. It was high gain amps, and cost me something like $35 bucks. In some other thread (I forget where), as a thought experiment I went out and got the price it would cost me to buy each of the heads I'd need to recreate that profile pack. It came out to around $18,000. Sure, you don't get every position of every knob like you do when you buy the amp, but I don't need all the positions. Just the ones that sound good to me.


    The way I looked at it for my own purchase was that the pain in my wallet would go away fairly quickly. The benefit of having $18,000 worth of sounds from high end and boutique amps lives on day after day. And that's just one profile pack. I have many others. I also didn't have to spend the $35 since there are 13,000 free profiles on Rig Exchange. So, in addition to the cost of the unit, you might consider total cost / benefits of ownership. From my perspective, it's an insane bang for the buck.


    There's another aspect that you should also consider. Modelers like Fractal Axe Fx and Line 6 Helix are a different type of creature than the Kemper. With the Kemper, a profile is a "snapshot" of a miked up amp, i.e. what you hear on the record. Someone a) gets a cool amp and cab, b) mikes it up properly, c) dials in a killer tone and then d) creates that profile. I'm not very good at dialing in tones, so that's a lot of critical work that someone with more talent does for me. With Fractal and Line 6 you can also get great sounds, but they're modelers, so you spend a lot of time in the software building the signal chain from the ground up.


    If you love spending hours and hours tweaking, modelers can be a good experience. I don't enjoy that at all, so I press a button to bring up a profile that already sounds great, and just play guitar. I don't see it as one's better than the other, they're two very different things.


    I bought the powered head so I can run into both active and passive speakers. Regarding speakers, I'll offer this. It sounds great in my studio reference monitors, so I bought an FRFR cab (DXR-10 in my case). However, before that, I was running (monitor cab off) into a Marshall 4x12 with V30s. Does that sound the same as the FRFR? Absolutely not. So how does it sound? Absolutely awesome. It's just a different shade of awesome.


    Those are some of the considerations that I went through in my purchase. I bought it over the holidays so I've only had it a couple of months. For what it's worth, after owning it one week I sold every amplifier in the studio.

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

  • Thanks everyone. I guess my last question is, will there be a Kemper version 2 soon? I’d hate to buy this crazy expensive Kemper only to find that Kemper version 2 is slated to come out in the next few months.