First gig with my KPA - a couple issues with the Remote, including serious issues with the wah.....

  • Hi All,

    I've had my Kemper now for a little over a week. I've dialed in a bunch of sounds & did my first gig with it tonight. All in all it was pretty good. After the first set my soundman told me my tones were a bit thin so I adjusted the 3 band EQ on the main output, problem solved. I'll go in and adjust my rigs after the weekend to account for this. Not a biggie - rigs dialed in using studio monitors are bound to need some tweaking in a live setting - definitely a user shortcoming, not a Kemper one.

    The big problem I had is with the wah. I Use the Mission EP1-KP with the toe switch, it is connected to two of the inputs on the Kemper Remote TRS cable for out 1 on the Mission and mono for output 2, the switch), using the toe switch to engage and disengage the wah effect. The problem I had was that it seems the wah effect is barely tracking the pedal. For instance, something as simple as 'scratching', rhythmic picking with the left hand mitung the strings, rocking the wah back and forth on quarter notes. Maybe 60% of the time, the wah effect isn't following the pedal motions. No 'whakka whakka' thing happening. Also, quite a few times I'd click the wah on for a quick sweep, then kick it off, most of the time doing this, the switch wouldn't turn it off. Really irritating to say the least.

    I've heard that expression pedals used for wah connected through the Remote don't work as well as when connected directly to the profiler but it can't be this bad, right?


    I'm wondering if I didn't complete the calibration process or something? I went into settings and pressed the calibrate soft button while sweeping the pedal - other than the small horizontal line moving with the pedal, I got no real feedback saying calibration complete - am I supposed to? I'm hoping this is a case of user error because as it is now, it's not at all usable and a waste of money.

    The second issue I had was that sometimes when I'd hit a button on the remote, it wouldn't immediately respond - a button assigned to chorus, or delay for example. Kinda like when working on an old computer and you click on an icon on your desktop to launch an app & it responds like 6 seconds later...


    I never experienced this when playing it at home so I'm kind of at a loss here as to what that could be. I know the KPA is just a big computer but hopefully it isn't like an old Windows computer bogging down.....


    I'm hoping all this can be chalked up to me being a newb and green with the KPA. Thank you in advance for your help!

  • Wah tracking via the Remote is something that bugs me, too. I’ve learned to live with it by anticipating the lag and adjusting my wah foot movements accordingly, but it’s a pain for those fast movements. If you can get hold of a TRS cable that’s long enough, I really recommend using the input on the KPA instead. As for the toe switch, that’s a Mission thing. Mine needed a good few rehearsals and shows before the rubber washers had just the right amount of give in them to reliably be able to switch when needed, yet not switching by accident with the wah fully open.

    I often have trouble engaging/disengaging the I-IIII switches, but that’s because I have very large feet. For me, I’d pay good money for Kemper to make me a Remote XL. I bought some Barefoot Buttons to help make I and IIII (the effect switches I mostly use) taller than the other switches, so I’m not hitting anything else accidentally and yet have enough confidence to fully depress the switch (fear of hitting another switch simultaneously was sometimes making me too gentle in my stomping, meaning nothing got switched!). It helped, but it’s still not comfortable and ideal.

  • So after doing a little digging, it appears the issue of switches 1-4 sometimes taking a while to engage is, in fact, bonehead user error. I purchased a different ethernet cable for use with the remote, one with a more 'mic cable-like' sleeve instead of the typical plastic sleeve that bunches up and is a a PIA to work with. The problem is I didn't RTFM before ordering the cable - the manual clearly states no more than 22 feet in length with AWG 24 - I purchased a 30 foot cable.


    Because that gauge apparently won't support data transmission over that length it would make sense that it would affect the expression pedal's operation as well. I'm gonna go with the cable that came with the KPA Remote at tomorrow's gig and see if that makes a difference.

    That said, though, I've had some issues with the wah effect doing this here at home when using the Kemper-supplied cable. I'll go through wah settings after the weekend's gigs (the rig is in the band's gear truck for now) and see if there's something in there that may be effecting the tracking....

  • Wah tracking via the Remote is something that bugs me, too. I’ve learned to live with it by anticipating the lag and adjusting my wah foot movements accordingly, but it’s a pain for those fast movements. If you can get hold of a TRS cable that’s long enough, I really recommend using the input on the KPA instead. As for the toe switch, that’s a Mission thing. Mine needed a good few rehearsals and shows before the rubber washers had just the right amount of give in them to reliably be able to switch when needed, yet not switching by accident with the wah fully open.

    I often have trouble engaging/disengaging the I-IIII switches, but that’s because I have very large feet. For me, I’d pay good money for Kemper to make me a Remote XL. I bought some Barefoot Buttons to help make I and IIII (the effect switches I mostly use) taller than the other switches, so I’m not hitting anything else accidentally and yet have enough confidence to fully depress the switch (fear of hitting another switch simultaneously was sometimes making me too gentle in my stomping, meaning nothing got switched!). It helped, but it’s still not comfortable and ideal.

    The issue I've been having isn't so much of it lagging behind me, it's that simply isn't registering more than half of what I do. I said 60% in the original post but thinking back to last night, it's more like 75% or 80% of my foot movements (wah sweeps) weren't being registered. I'm really hoping it's the length of that ethernet cable that caused it. I'll know in a few hours...

  • Tonight I used the cable that shipped with the KPA & the wah worked about 98% better. I did notice a touch of latency and there were a few sweeps that seem to not have registered but I noticed at home the other night that sometimes when I'm scratching and sweeping the wah in quarter note increments, but not playing notes, the wah seems to miss that and not sweep, but if I'm playing actual notes while sweeping the pedal it's pretty much catching everything...

    Did a little twaeking before the show, tones sounded 100% better!

  • So after living with the KPS for another week and another gig I've decided I'm just gonna go with a regular wah pedal out front. The latency I'm getting with the expression pedal as well as its toe switch turning it on and off isn't acceptable. For my use it needs to be dead on like a real mechanical switch. At last night's gig I again experienced more pedal sweeps not being registered & it kinda killed the whole vibe of what I was going for.

    I've heard that if the pedal is connected directly to the KPA that performance improves greatly but this defeats the purpose - if I have to run cables out front I might as well have a real wah instead of an emulation. If I mount my wireless receiver on my pedalboard then I only have to have one signal cable running back to the amp. I can look that with the data cable and power cable easy peasy. This would also allow me to run my Dynacomp and alleviate the issues I've been having with the compressor stomp in the Kemper.

    Best of both worlds - some old school, some new...

  • Ive calibrated several times, unless I’m doing it wrong. I go to the appropriate page in system, and sweep the pedal. There’s no final step after sweeping is there?

    No, you did it correctly. All I want to say is perhaps 'something' is wrong with your personal pedal since both Dunlop and Mission pedals get recommended a lot.

    Can you go to a store and try another Mission with your Profiler?

  • No, you did it correctly. All I want to say is perhaps 'something' is wrong with your personal pedal since both Dunlop and Mission pedals get recommended a lot.

    Can you go to a store and try another Mission with your Profiler?

    Ok, gotta hold up my hand and confess user-error. When Calibrating my expression pedal I wasn't pressing the soft button, I just went to the screen and, because the little line gauge showed the movement, thought I was calibrating the pedal. Last night after my gig I was googling Kemper Wah Lag and found a thread where someone mentioned holding the button. So I set up my Kemper and tried it."

    Duh.

    Once doing this tracking got a lot better. The latency with the toe switch is still bad though. When I press it, it takes several milliseconds to enggae or disengage. For much of how I use a wah this isn't workable as I need to strike a chord directly after the final sweep of a phrase - when the wah doesn't disengage that chord becomes a trebly icepick LOL! That said, however, changing the wah to turn off when I stop movement is a little better, especially if I remember to quickly go to heel position to rest.

    The only bummer, now, with this is it seems I have to calibrate the pedal every time I turn on the KPA. If not I'm back in the same boat. Anyone experiencing this?

  • Wah tracking via the Remote is something that bugs me, too. I’ve learned to live with it by anticipating the lag and adjusting my wah foot movements accordingly, but it’s a pain for those fast movements. If you can get hold of a TRS cable that’s long enough, I really recommend using the input on the KPA instead. As for the toe switch, that’s a Mission thing. Mine needed a good few rehearsals and shows before the rubber washers had just the right amount of give in them to reliably be able to switch when needed, yet not switching by accident with the wah fully open.

    I often have trouble engaging/disengaging the I-IIII switches, but that’s because I have very large feet. For me, I’d pay good money for Kemper to make me a Remote XL. I bought some Barefoot Buttons to help make I and IIII (the effect switches I mostly use) taller than the other switches, so I’m not hitting anything else accidentally and yet have enough confidence to fully depress the switch (fear of hitting another switch simultaneously was sometimes making me too gentle in my stomping, meaning nothing got switched!). It helped, but it’s still not comfortable and ideal.

    Its kinda hard to tell from the angle of the photo - do the barefoot buttons obscure the view of the indicator lights on either row of switches?

  • Its kinda hard to tell from the angle of the photo - do the barefoot buttons obscure the view of the indicator lights on either row of switches?

    No, they don’t. By the way, I believe Mooer do some switch caps that are a lot cheaper and more readily available. I haven’t used those, though.