Do you still use outboard pedals?

  • I do have some nice pedals in front of the Kemper. But, after the Kemper Drive and Fuzz were released the only pedal I turn on is a Digitec Freqout and sometimes a Caly76 compressor and a Boss RC-3.

  • I have the Kemper since 2012 and up until COVID, no pedals.


    With the lockdown, I was SO bored at some point that I felt the need to spice up stuff a bit for a change.


    I bought 3 pedals within a month...

    • Digitech - Freqout (because of what I read here)
    • MXR - Green Day Dookie (Sounds exactly as the name suggests using a clean Marshall type amp profile)
    • Zvex - Box of Rock (Because I like Cam Cole and he uses this pedal to get most of his sound)

    Was a good change overall just to play with different buttons AND made me play guitar more often.


    All of this sounds awesome on the Kemper Power Kabinet as well, which I love BTW.


    :)

  • Funny you say that I’m currently selling my last lot of pedals, going completely Kemper and I feel a cleansing of spirit with the purge.

    New talent management advice to Laura Cox -


    “Laura want to break the internet? let’s shoot another video of you covering the Nightrain solo in the blue singlet, but this time we’ll crank up the air conditioning”.

  • The only pedal I currently use is a Digitech FreqOut at the input. My effects needs are pretty basic. I get by with the Kemper flanger, phaser, chorus, rotary speaker and delay due to the simplicity of the all in one package. They are all adequate but none of them sound as good as real pedals to me. I really miss my Dunlop Rotovibe. The Kemper wah (once I got it dialed in to taste) sounds really close (and much quieter) to my vintage Thomas Organ Cry Baby pedals.

  • I've sold all of my pedals, pedalboard, power supply, etc., just 5 weeks after getting a K. It almost feels sacreligious to plug straight into an amp again. What is this...1993? :) The Kemper does everything I need all in one place.

  • Using a crybaby as controller and the presets that DonPetersen did, I've also got rid of my wah, with the added advantage of touch capability.


    I assume you've tried them and prefer outboard, but if you haven;t, suggest you give them a go :).

    I have not tried that. I just didnt feel the need to purchase an expression pedal to use for nothing else but a wah when I already have one.

  • I have not tried that. I just didnt feel the need to purchase an expression pedal to use for nothing else but a wah when I already have one.

    Get what you are saying but there are some advantages of using the KPA Wah:


    1) Less cables

    2) More flex in the sound

    3) Less noise

    4) Less/no tone suck

    5) Touch wah - no clicking on and off ( which I hate - the amount of times you go into a solo, click the wah on, realise its not on try again and then lost my place in the solo, finally pull it together, solo over).


    I bought a used crybaby for £30, did the conversion, and boom. There are other controllers that are cheap - I use Moog EP-3 for volume which would work for wah, although I prefer the feel of the crybaby.

  • Personally still using and buying pedals! As much as I love the simplicity and wide range of effects offered by the kemper, I still prefer the reverb sounds I get from my Specular Tempus… and things that the kemper cannot do as of today like my Hologram Microcosm can (I effing love this pedal). Currently pulling the trigger on a Meris Mercury 7 by the way.
    for live setup it’s almost always the profiler alone but for recordings/composing/noodling, I feel much more free with additional pedals. That being said, I don’t feel the need to buy external ODs, compressors and so on

  • 2 expression pedals for morphing / wah / volume. Freqout just 'cause it's fun. Every now and then hook up a Damage Control Womaniser, Klon copy, or various other od/ dist pedals just because I still have them.

    Also have a midi controller to hook up for rehearsing etc.

    Life's good :thumbup:

  • Yes.
    Most users say the Kemper has great reverbs and delays, but I kept hearing really good reverb in various pedal or guitar demos that I just couldn’t get with the Stage. I eventually bought the UA Golden Reverberator and it’s just better. I basically immediately change all my profiles’ Reverb block to a stereo loop block, and Boom—happiness.


    Kemper delays are okay, but I put a cheap Donner White Tape dual stereo delay into the loop, as well, and Yes. Might be possible to dial in the same thing with the Kemper, but it’s so much more immediately satisfying to just tweak the Donner’s knobs. Simple. Good. Cheap.


    Fuzzes are much better—still—from pedals.


    I still have like 8 ODs. The Kemper is really good at those, but I still prefer tweaking hardware and I just have more confidence in the pedals.


    when my objective with a Kemper is to get ‘as close to the real thing as possible,’ it helps with the mental aspect with me to use ‘real pedals’ as often as possible. There’s a massive disconnect for me when cursoring to a preset sim for a pedal in a menu, where the settings have been chosen by someone else as ‘ideal,’ and the name of the pedal has been only alluded to… versus twisting a real knob on the very specific version of a hardware pedal I chose because of its (perceived or imagined) nuanced differences between it and others of its type.

  • I second all of this and am glad I’m not alone. When I use real pedals they naturally lead me to some good tones. Their limitation of knobs and options guide me into the direction of how the pedal was meant. It’s intuitive. The Kemper is in many ways not intuitive. It’s a great tool to copy sounds but not to discover them. I played with the Kemper big muff and had a hard time dialing it in to my liking. I plugged in my real big muff and had the sound I was looking for in seconds. Afterward I could copy it on the Kemper but had to use settings and options that the real pedal didn’t have to get close to the sound. The result was 90% there but the missing 10% are enough to use the real thing.

    I also got lucky to call the Boss Waza Tone Bender my own. The sound and the way it reacts to my guitar volume can’t (yet) be copied by the Kemper (at least not the toaster version).


    Then there are other pedals that add a certain secret sauce, especially some boosters like the EP or RC. The Kemper booster doesn’t do the same thing and, ironically, lacks EQ options.

    I also use a Boss SY-1 to add a fat bass tone or hammond organ to my guitar signal, which the Kemper can’t do yet.


    I also found the Reverbs lacking a bit but then realized I just much prefer my spring before the amp section. Still thinking of trying a Strymon Flint. The UA looks great, too. I happen to like the Delays but wish I hadn’t sold my Catalinbread Echorec. Another story is the looper which has too short recording time in my opinion.


    Anyways, I think it speaks for good Kemper profiles that they take pedals well.

    As always, YMMV. But glad some others do it the same way as I do it.

  • I want to clarify something I wrote in my last post, about ‘confidence’ in pedals and the mental aspect. It’s all about how you think about things. For me, I often get infatuated with a very, very specific tone. And I am compelled to recreate it, with some combination of the Kemper plus whatever guitars I have. I sometimes feel a need to buy a guitar to get there, just because the original player used a certain guitar and I attribute certain specific characteristics to that guitar.


    Sometimes in the tone chase, I want to buy a pedal. Let’s take a specific example. I recently wanted a Klon clone. I listened to a ton of demos, read a ton of user comments, and eventually chose a Decibelics Golden Horse. Now, if I were to rely on the Kemper Klon sim, I don’t know what I’d be getting. I chose the Decibelics because of minute, nuanced differences between it and other considerations like a Tumnus and a Centura, for example. If I used the Kemper presets, I’d basically be settling for a generic simulation. Which could very well be as good or better than what I paid $300 for. But it just isn’t nearly as interesting. It isn’t tactile. It has no story or heritage or mojo. It’s just ‘code.’


    Some people don’t need to get involved in all the ‘backstory.’ And sometimes I envy that. I may eventually get to that kind of thinking. But, currently, I prefer the mindspace where all of the stuff peripheral to the actual sounds are also important toward giving me the feeling that I’m playing ‘real stuff through real equipment.’


    And then there’s the practical aspect of tweaking. I never use the Kemper (Stage) hardware to manipulate anything. Just Rig Manager. I think Rig Manager is the worst of the software interfaces I’ve ever used: Fractal, Atomic, Overloud, Bias, amplitube, etc. The process of adding and then editing Kemper effects is ridiculous. I mean, the simplest aspect: you choose Klon 2 or OCD 3 or whatever, and then as soon as you’ve left that menu selection, you can’t tell which one you’re using? I really hope I’m missing something there…..


    Anyway, somehow I’m fine with choosing and editing amps in the editor, but I hate tweaking pedals that way. So much easier to do it with real pedals.

    So, it’s like that cliché: “there are two kinds of people….” When I had the Fractal AX8 and loved its tones… but every time I went to a music store and passed those display cases of all those shiny, colorful pedals… I got jealous and felt I was missing something—that whole experience. So, now I have a hybrid approach. Which costs money, but I think it’s the best of both worlds.

  • It isn’t tactile. It has no story or heritage or mojo. It’s just ‘code.’


    Some people don’t need to get involved in all the ‘backstory.’ And sometimes I envy that. I may eventually get to that kind of thinking. But, currently, I prefer the mindspace where all of the stuff peripheral to the actual sounds are also important toward giving me the feeling that I’m playing ‘real stuff through real equipment.’

    I totally know what you’re talking about although I wish I didn’t. ?