Manual seems useless. Is there practical step by step instructions for a person to get to know the basics without having a electrical engineering degree?

  • if there were someone like a laird to write a white paper on explaining what the manual is talking about I’d not want to drop this thing on the head of the engineer who (is brilliant) wrote the manual..

  • There are several manuals. The main manual is full details for when that's what you need. There's also the MIDI parameter documentation, equally detailed. Additionally, there's the PROFILER Quick Start for Head, PowerHead, Rack, and PowerRack models. It's 26 pages and is probably what you're looking for. Once you get up and running and want to delve into deeper matters, you can reference the main manual and MIDI guide to get the most out of your Kemper.


    Go to the downloads section and make sure User Manuals is selected. Change the filter to Oldest Addition and you'll see the quick start referenced above. I would heartily agree with @karlic's suggestion about the videos, as they're very nicely done.


    I would also mention that the community here is unusually nice by Internet standards. People go out of their way to help you and are very generous with their time and experience. We all get frustrated from time to time but I think you'll find that if you're nice about it you'll have a much better experience than you would with angry or insulting posts. These are nice folks here and they really do want to help.

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

  • Ive read a few posts on the forum when I have some time and the community is quite outstanding. It’s one of the main reasons why I’ve purchased the kemper over its competitors. Thanks for the advice and it will be looked into

  • I’ve watched them when I first received the unit but they seemed so vague. There are people who really know how to do something but can’t convey the information and those that know how to walk through step by step and why those steps are important. I’ll have to watch again and take notes. Thanks for the reply

  • Perhaps this is not a unit for beginners of modeling gear.

    One thing that will help us point you in the right direction is knowing how you're using it and what you're looking to accomplish. For example, I don't play bar gigs anymore and spend most of my time in the studio, so stuff like reamping and the occasional bit of MIDI are things I really enjoy.


    Some folks don't gig and just want to plug in the guitar, turn on the amp, and rock out. So that's obviously a simpler scenario.


    I tend to pick a profile I like and just use it, but there are also people who are really into sound design and will take a basic profile and sculpt it with EQ and other effects. Naturally there's more knobs to twist for that sort of thing.


    Others use it primarily for gigging. They'll load up the profiles they want and perhaps use the remote and thus set up performances.


    And then there are the people who actually create profiles. Not all of us do. For example, I really suck at dialing in a tone, always have. I love the fact that I can load a profile from someone who's good at it and just play guitar. Profiling is its own thing, so that's yet another use case.


    There are also many varieties of studio rats (I'm the kind with the grey hair). If you're going to be recording, there are many things that can be a factor depending on the complexity or simplicity of your studio setup. Want to just jack the Kemper analog out into your audio interface and press the big red button? No problem. However, there's a wealth of options like SPDIF, monitoring, reamping etc. (I love the fact that the Kemper was designed with reamping in mind).


    Many of us here are geeks, professional or otherwise, so the techie stuff comes more easily. For instance, I develop software for a living, so I guess technically I'm the variety of studio rat that has grey hair and a pocket protector. However, you don't have to be an auto mechanic (with apologies to Gary Larson) to figure this stuff out. It's the same as any product. If the tech manual has 1,000 pages it doesn't matter, as long as I know how to find the 3 pages that I care about.


    So, what sort of scenarios are you going to be using the Kemper in? The more we know about what you're looking to accomplish, the easier it is to point you in the right direction.


    I think once you get the basic concepts down you'll find it much easier to use than you might think. After that it's just a matter of knowing which page to look for to learn the particular new thing you want to do.

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

  • maybe I’m just a freak but I actually find the manual well written and really informative.


    are you using the full Reference Manual in a pdf reader which can search. I usually just type in a search for a keyword that might suggest what I’m looking for such as Output Menu and within a few seconds I can find the answers I need.


    what specific issues are causing you trouble? i’m sure if you break it down into a few specific questions at a time so e of us here will be able to answer them for you.

  • maybe I’m just a freak

    You're a musician. I thought that was just a given. :)


    However, in an effort to make you feel better about yourself, having done some video production I can attest to the fact that actors were created to make musicians look normal.

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

  • absolutely and I’m definitely one of those. Perhaps this is not a unit for beginners of modeling gear.

    First, the Main Manual covers *everything*. It is not meant for a how-to.


    The Quick Start manual is what it says. The videos were also excellent for me.


    As far as Kemper not being for beginners.....it’s a ~$2,000 piece of professional gear. It’s a *deep* box. That said, it is FAR simpler to use and get good sounds out of than anything else I’ve used. Move to a Fractal? Helix? Atomic Amplifire? Forget it.

    You *have* to spend some time with it. In under an afternoon, I was quite content.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • I’m absolutely blow away by the profiler and the people that have made the great profiles. It’s staggering. I splurged and purchased the powered rack, foot control and a mission engineering Gemini 2 Bluetooth and the sound coming out it this just floored me. My frustration is mostly because I am new to this and I usually pick up on things quickly (except for the G-system) I’ll have to sit and watch the tutorials again with a notebook to keep tabs. Many of the YouTube guys seem more interested flashy entertainment than newb help. Lol.

  • I’m absolutely blow away by the profiler and the people that have made the great profiles. It’s staggering. I splurged and purchased the powered rack, foot control and a mission engineering Gemini 2 Bluetooth and the sound coming out it this just floored me. My frustration is mostly because I am new to this and I usually pick up on things quickly (except for the G-system) I’ll have to sit and watch the tutorials again with a notebook to keep tabs. Many of the YouTube guys seem more interested flashy entertainment than newb help. Lol.

    The how-tos on the Kemper site are where you should focus. To the point and very clear.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • for now I’m definitely a plug and play until I decide what to do else wise whit this machine. I do rock band covers in the line of 50’s rock and roll, because it’s just fun. But doing also some more modern things like Go-Gos tunes. (Yes I have a crush on Jane weildlen). I consider myself geeky but still have to read tech manuals twice to understand what I just didn’t understand. I’m a power plant mechanic that welds yet still absolutely love gary Larson so I’m not afraid to try and fail and try again and new mediums such as the kemper. Being new to midi and all that jazz can be daunting to say the least. I guess they should probably write the “kemper for dummies “ book for us plain simple folk. Lol. At least that what I was hoping for when I opened the manual. I’m going to spend some quality reading time tonight with the books and I’ll write you back when I make some headway. Thanks for the reply. The forums here are a great way to get a perspective from pros and the like on the way to approach a new frontier! Cheers! And hopefully I’ll have something positive to write about on a new day!

  • I'm pretty much a plug and play type of guy too which is why I get on so well with the Kemper. At the one end you can litterly just load a decent profile and play it like a basic tube amp. At the other extreme you can do some really impressive nonsense. I would highly recomend that you A) just spend a few days playing with random profiles to enjoy the sounds and find home base. B) familiarise yourself with the basic operating workflow. I found some of it unintuitive at first but once you get your head round the VERY basics of Kemper logic it all starts to make perfect sense. C) after that you should have a pretty good idea of exactly what you want to achieve and enough basic familiarity to figure out how to do it (or at least ask the right questions to get help with it).


    Above all have fun and avoid trying to over think things. It's only as complicated as you make it.

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    Kemper 101....I am a newbie also, enjoying the challenge


    Welcome to the Forum

  • I'm pretty much a plug and play type of guy too which is why I get on so well with the Kemper. At the one end you can litterly just load a decent profile and play it like a basic tube amp. At the other extreme you can do some really impressive nonsense. I would highly recomend that you A) just spend a few days playing with random profiles to enjoy the sounds and find home base. B) familiarise yourself with the basic operating workflow. I found some of it unintuitive at first but once you get your head round the VERY basics of Kemper logic it all starts to make perfect sense. C) after that you should have a pretty good idea of exactly what you want to achieve and enough basic familiarity to figure out how to do it (or at least ask the right questions to get help with it).


    Above all have fun and avoid trying to over think things. It's only as complicated as you make i


    This Sunday I’m locking myself in my studio and nothing is coming in except my Mac, a coffee and my reading glasses! My frustration is mostly from trying to learn the tc electronic g-system and that was a complete nightmare of a instructional manual . So I’ll approach this with more patients. I believe the kemper is worth the time to invest in, just from mucking about with the profiles that were available, i can tell this wil be a beautiful friendship! (Know anyone interested in a 1967 fender bassman black face? ;-).

  • I think we each freaked out a bit during the first few months. It really seems like an insurmountable challenge, but... thankfully due to the sigmoid curve your rate of learning will go exponential if you just stick with it and take your time. ????