Kemper Remote. How do you use yours for live performance?

    Hi all.


    This is my first post so Hello! I am a long time old school tube amp guy that decided to see whether the Kemper is the kind of tool that it is touted to be. I've been playing with mine for about three weeks now, and am having a blast with it. I'm still a total Newb with this complicated box, but I've come up with a bunch of new songs, leads, hooks and rhythms since I've got it. It has really inspired me to break out of the creative box I've been in. For that alone, it is brilliant! It also sounds good through my IEM's and I'm looking forward to seeing how it sits in a live mix.


    I'm getting ready to actually try it out live and play it in rehearsal and in performance. I am struggling a little bit with wanting to use it like I use my amps, which I like to set up near top volume and then roll my guitar volume back to get "cleanish". Drive is just a twist of the wrist away. I usually run my amps through an attenuator to be able to run them this hot. I've tweaked a couple profiles from MBritt and the The Amp Factory (JTM and HiWatt profiles) that sound really great to my ears, but I can't get the swing in gain, from clean to scream, that I'm used to. I can get from cleanish to crunch, but I cant seem to get from clean to lead. To get lead tones with the profiles I've been tweaking, I have needed to be able to switch on a boost or distortion on the Kemper. To do that live I think I'm going to need some sort of switcher. I've watched a bunch of YouTube vids about the Kemper remote and the idea of having multiple rigs for a single song, and having to set them up in advance, is a real turn off for me. I want to be able alter how my "amp" sounds by changing my pick attack and turning guitar volume and tone up or down. I want to be able switch on a delay or switch from a dotted eighth to a quarter note delay when I need it, or bend down and change the number of repeats or change tempo or maybe change how wet my reverb is.


    This is simplistic compared to how I am understanding the function of the Kemper remote. So, I guess my question is this, how do use your remote live, and can you use the Remote in a manner similar to what I described above? Does it make sense to use it in such a simplified fashion? If not, does it make sense to run a boost, delay, and reverb into the front of the Kemper or into the effects loop to allow switching, and whimsical changes on the fly? Also, how does morphing fit into this? I saw a couple of vids about morphing, but to honest did not completely understand them. :) Thanks in advance for input and insight.

    Quote from dmatthews

    Right now I have similar profiles tweaked for the guitar I want to use.

    So, one performance (or more) per guitar type.

    You must be psychic because this answers another question that I have but didn't ask in my long post above. My Les Paul with Humbuckers sounds different than my LP with p-90's which sounds different than my Tele, and I find that my profiles tweaked for the p-90's needs to be tweaked for the other guitars. From your post above, I take it this is normal.

    Quote from DeeBoughton

    You must be psychic because this answers another question that I have but didn't ask in my long post above. My Les Paul with Humbuckers sounds different than my LP with p-90's which sounds different than my Tele, and I find that my profiles tweaked for the p-90's needs to be tweaked for the other guitars. From your post above, I take it this is normal.

    I used to struggle trying to get certain profiles to sound great for all my guitar types (SSS, P90, Humbuck). Then my light bulb went on a while back.

    Oh, and I'm psycho nor psychic... almost the same, right?=O

    Quote from dmatthews

    I used to struggle trying to get certain profiles to sound great for all my guitar types (SSS, P90, Humbuck). Then my light bulb went on a while back.

    Oh, and I'm psycho nor psychic... almost the same, right?=O

    One of the things I definitely love about traditional amps is that I can plug any of my guitars in, move one or two pots a little, and bingo I've got what I'm looking for. I don't typically like to do a lot of tweaking with amps or effects, so it was a stretch for me to try out anything like the Kemper. That said, I have found that I enjoy looking for profiles that sound good to start with, and then I have been able to fairly quickly adjust them until they sound stellar to my ear. If I can catch on with how to use this thing live, I'm pretty sure it will be a keeper for me. It has really sparked a lot of creativity which is basically priceless.

    If all you want to do is have access to a boost for solos you don’t need anything as complicated as the remote. A simple £20 non latching footswitch will do just fine and let you run the KPA exactly like an old school cranked amp.


    However, you will be missing out on lots of other cool stuff the KPA can do. I’m very much like you. I was a Two Channel Mesa and no FX guy for decades. The KPA gives me access to a whole other world of sounds which are great fun to play with but i now have option paralysis so live I’m still really only using a few options. Ikve been going through a full cover set with nearly 90 songs in it and trying to set up specific sounds/performances for each part of each song but in the end I keep coming back to simple is best.

    The delay and reverb settings are accessible by the knobs on the front of the KPA but that being said, if you want to further tweak lots of effect settings on the fly, you may want to keep using your traditional pedalboard into the Kemper. You can sometimes get close but there are situations where the remote cannot replace the accessibility/flexibility of a full-on pedalboard.


    Edit - Personally, I don't go "by song" because I'm freelancing mostly (otherwise I'd do). I use performances tweaked for the different bands/artists I play with and find a way to integrate all the required sounds of each artist within 1 or 2 performances. I usually set 4 rigs with different flavors of gain and one patch for lead per performance. For cover music, I just have 2-3 performances with more generic amps sounds and effects I can use on everything. The latter are assigned more or less at the same respective position so I generally know what to expect when I turn something on.

    Quote from Wheresthedug

    If all you want to do is have access to a boost for solos you don’t need anything as complicated as the remote. A simple £20 non latching footswitch will do just fine and let you run the KPA exactly like an old school cranked amp.


    However, you will be missing out on lots of other cool stuff the KPA can do. I’m very much like you. I was a Two Channel Mesa and no FX guy for decades. The KPA gives me access to a whole other world of sounds which are great fun to play with but i now have option paralysis so live I’m still really only using a few options. Ikve been going through a full cover set with nearly 90 songs in it and trying to set up specific sounds/performances for each part of each song but in the end I keep coming back to simple is best.

    I can see how it would be easy to get "option paralysis". In fact, with all of the effects and features available, it can be almost overwhelming for a digital newb like myself. So far, I've tweaked about a half dozen really great sounding rigs based on Amp Factory profiles of Gilmour's DR103, a Trainwreck, and a Carol Ann amp, and also based on MBritt profiles of a JTM45, and a Little Walter 22. The rig I've tweaked from the Little Walter is stunning (at least to me) actually.


    I would like to be able to use these amp rigs as a base sounds and add and subtract effects as I would with my old amps. The more I watch and read, I'm thinking that it is possible to do ( and maybe not as hard as I first thought). I was just wanting to confirm that before dropping the $ for the remote.


    On a different note, I checked out your youtube channel, and you've got some serious chops mate. I loved your cover of the Highlander Boogie, seriously great playing. Cheers!

    Quote from JedMckenna

    The delay and reverb settings are accessible by the knobs on the front of the KPA but that being said, if you want to further tweak lots of effect settings on the fly, you may want to keep using your traditional pedalboard into the Kemper. You can sometimes get close but there are situations where the remote cannot replace the accessibility/flexibility of a full-on pedalboard.


    Edit - Personally, I don't go "by song" because I'm freelancing mostly (otherwise I'd do). I use performances tweaked for the different bands/artists I play with and find a way to integrate all the required sounds of each artist within 1 or 2 performances. I usually set 4 rigs with different flavors of gain and one patch for lead per performance. For cover music, I just have 2-3 performances with more generic amps sounds and effects I can use on everything. The latter are assigned more or less at the same respective position so I generally know what to expect when I turn something on.

    Thanks Jed. This is encouraging because it tells me that it is indeed possible to use a handful of base amp rigs and add or subtract effects to cover lots of ground. Some of the videos I was watching had people using entirely different amps for each individual section of a song. That just does not appeal to me because the amps sound very different and it feels kind of jarring to me. On the other hand, I'm happy kicking on a boost or a delay etc. for different parts in a song.

    This is what I do:


    I use performance mode that is set up with standard sounds - Clean, warm Rythmn, main heavy Rhythm and lead. I use different amps for each - I take the point about jarring but these are very different sounds, in the same way as James Hetfield will use a Jazz chorus for clean and Mesa rec for rhythm. So I use them when the song has such significant changes and what a band would do in the studio.


    I also back my volume off on my guitar to clean up my heavier sounds as well- the Kemper does respond pretty well to this, although to me this was always a compromise with a valve amp - if you had limited channles, this was how to shoft from a cleaner to heavier sounds, so the need is less so when you have the options the KPA offers.. I also use Morph ( look it up :) ) to boost volume and gain for riffs.


    I only use "stomp" effects for delay or something specific like chorus.


    I use 1 performance per band, although with one band ( Cult Tribute) I use a Les Paul and Gretsch which are vastly different so in that case I have 1 performance per guitar. Across 2 bands I use 3 performances...that's it!

    Obviously I use the remote to manage all these...