Brand New Kemper owner

  • Greetings all.

    I am brand new to Kemper. In the 90s i used amps, both tube and solid state for metal, but in the late 90s i got into line6. I did waste some time tweaking Line6 products like the POD XT and HD500 but after a while, you realized that was as good as it would get and went on with making music. I knew that the feel and tone suffered though. Then came the AXE FX and i saw bands like MESHUGGAH were having great success with it. I got an Axe when the II came out. I spent months learning the unit and tried my best to make good sounding patches. I did succeed to an extent. I made some really good sounds, but they did not sound nor feel real to me. They were never as good as MESHUGGAH, PERIPHERY, or any of the other bands that were using AXE FX. I would get lost in the menus, I would waste lots of money buying cabinet packs thinking that would get me to a happy place. It never did. I used to make 2 albums per year. years ago. After purchasing my first axe 2 then an axe 3, for the past 9 years, i have only made 3 albums. That's because i was never happy with the sound. I would plan to record all weekend, but as soon as i plug into the axe, i would start tweaking, always thinking I could get it to sound better. Before I kneew it, Monday had arrived and I had gotten no recording done. Almost always after spending hours, our ears get tired and we start adding way to much presence and high end, when we hear the patch the next day, it sounds horrible and washed out.

    I just wanted to get back to making music. No More TWEAKING HELL!!!. A friend told me about the KEMPER, said it sounds and feels like a real tube amp. I took a chance and made the plunge. Last night i plugged it in for the first time. The software was glitchy, I tried upgrading the firmware and that seemes to have helped but its for sure i have no idea what im doing with this new kit. I need help just learning how to download profiles and load them. Organize them on the KEMPER. My software did not show "my kemper" folder anywhere in the rig manager. but after upgrading the software it did. I need to learn the basics. My head is powered but for now its in the home studio, so i wanted to shut off the power amp. I see no way to do that. I followed a vid telling how to do it but my screen has different choices. no choice to turn it off. maybe this changed with newer firmware.


    I used to chase a tone on the Axe which was a Dual Rec with a drive. Classic metal tone. But on the axe i had to tweak for years and was never happy. Last night i turned the knob on the KEMPER to a Dual Rec profile. Strummed and "HOLY S$%T. It sounded like a RECTIFIER right off the bat. even felt like one. I know i have made the right choice. last night i did no tweaking at all. i just played that dual rec for about 7 hours straight. I just need to learn how to use this new beast and I will get back to making music. Axe FX owes me 9 years of my life. I will never get it back but i can hopefully stop wasting time tweaking and spend more time playing.

    Wish me luck.


    I feel like a recovering modeling addict.


    Hi, my name is Desmond and I was addicted to model tweaking.

    a room full of modeling addicts reply in unison (Hi Desmond!)

    Cheers,

  • Hi, welcome and have fun here in the forum and with your Kemper. Thanks for your great introduction. Same here, I do not like extensive tweaking. With the Kemper it is quickly done if changes are needed and mostly they are easily clear. So enjoy the sound...

  • Welcome, Des.


    As I've said so many times here before, if I had a dollar for every time I read a story like yours...


    Similar deal here, mate. Went through many modellers including all the PODs right up to the HD500. I found the earliest PODs the most-gratifying, requiring minimal tweaking, but as they became more-sophisticated, achieving acceptable sounds grew into a headache-inducing affair, culminating in the HD500 which saw my suffering neck and shoulder pain for many months due to e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d tweaking in order to reduce the "scratchiness" I perceived from pretty much every model. That was 2 years with that unit alone that I'll never get back. :pinch:

  • thank you all for welcoming me. I hope to learn fast and add to the community. I showed my Kemper toaster to my friend who has his own studio. and he was blown away by what it sounded like compared to my best effort on my axe fx. I asked him if I could profile some of his classic priceless amps when i learn how. He said he cant wait for me to do it so he can buy a kemper and take the tones of his fav amps out on the road while the real amps sit safely at home.

    He has some good mics in his studio and a perfect environment so we should be able to make some killer profiles of some classic amps that are in mint condition. He seriously treats them like his kids.

  • welcome and thanks for the story :)

    my "modeling journey" ended already with the HD500 back in 2015, thanks to the extended great work of Meambobbo I got good sounds out of it, but the dead feeling during playing was a showstopper for me... the experience when playing via the Kemper was just like a sunrise. Stories like yours reassure me that it was the right desicion not to invest much more money in an Axe FX (but resisting this G.A.S. attack was not easy :D)

    have a lot of fun :thumbup:

  • he has an extensive collection of Fender Marshall Vox Mesa etc. Also lots of 80s rack gear. The Fenders i think are the first he wants to try and profile. He has awsome mics. Spared no expense. I got to learn the basics of the unit then grt to work learning how profiling works. My friend is the best at mic placement. Always gets the best tone w amps. I cant wait to see what this powered toaster can do.

  • I am going to try and make a profile of Matts' FENDER TWIN this weekend. Its in pristine condition

    ALSO. I purchased some profiles for metal and again, no tweaking hardly at all. all I did was turn up the gate and save.

    I made a recording of one of my band's songs. I used 2 patches. Sort of an Axe 3 VS KEMPER throwdown.

    I did one take with my best patch for Axe FX 3, it took me months to create "tweak"

    I did another take with my new TOASTER, just loaded up a profile, turned up the gate and rocked.

    I know which one i liked more. I will see what my bandmates choose.

    It feels so nice to be back to playing an Amp and not wasting time. I mean Playing a KEMPER,

    Hard to tell the difference. I am one happy KEMPER, uh i mean Camper.

    :D:D:D