New to this and having trouble

  • Hi! I’m totally new to this whole Kemper thing and have no idea what I’m doing. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong but I’m not getting any sound out of my Kemper rack at all. I used to play through a Fender mustang 1 but needed a much more professional amp and got this after lots of research. I’ve never used Kemper before and am very lost. I tried plugging my guitar directly into the rack and got no sound, and same thing happens when I plug it into the Kemper the same way I did with my old amp. Any help would great, thanks!

  • Welcome, mate.

    same thing happens when I plug it into the Kemper the same way I did with my old amp

    This gives me a clue that you've probably used the input socket on the left of the Rack.


    1) Make sure you're using the correct input! The Kemper's "non-standard" positioning of the headphone and guitar inputs has seen many make this mistake before. Headphones on the left and guitar on the right.


    2) If you've followed step 1, try listening on headphones.

  • Yeah, used the input on the right side and I’m getting nothing. I would use headphones but the ones I have don’t have a big enough headphone jack for it, so I need to find a pair of headphones that has a big enough input jack for the amp. Any suggestions?

  • Ok so for some reason (I’m a 19 year old who plays at church on Sundays only right now) I thought the rack I bought was like an amp in that I could plug my guitar directly into it and get sound out. I didn’t realize I’d need a cab for it and since I don’t have a cab, I can’t use it. My church also doesn’t have a cab that I know of because none of the other guitarists at my church use Kemper. So I may have to respect my Kemper and buy an actual amp and dela with the heaviness of it unless I get a Fender Deluxe reverb that’s around 40 lbs, which I can deal with. I don’t know, haha. What’d I get myself into?

  • I don't know how loud you want/need to play in church but have think about a small powered monitor. I've used the KPA into 70watt 8" speaker (seriously) wedge on smaller gigs. (The drummer was on hot rods and brushes) there are a number of compact wedges available with plenty more power than this and at reasonable prices.

    This might be useful:

    Monitor for Kemper profiler stage

  • When I was playing at church I went directly into the church sound system (they had monitors as part of it). Otherwise, the Headrush 108 has been getting good reviews here, and is fairly inexpensive.

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer

  • When I was playing at church I went directly into the church sound system (they had monitors as part of it). Otherwise, the Headrush 108 has been getting good reviews here, and is fairly inexpensive.

    For the money, the Headrush 108 is hard to beat.

    Does your church have a PA system they use? You could use that and have your guitar in the monitors. If your church uses in-ear monitors, you don't need anything else. This is exactly how I run my Kemper when I play at church.

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

  • It sounds to me like the Kemper is a bit of overkill for your situation. A small combo amp should be absolutely fine. Once you get some more experience you'll probably be able to get your money's worth out of a Kemper.

  • Ok so for some reason (I’m a 19 year old who plays at church on Sundays only right now) I thought the rack I bought was like an amp in that I could plug my guitar directly into it and get sound out. I didn’t realize I’d need a cab for it and since I don’t have a cab, I can’t use it. My church also doesn’t have a cab that I know of because none of the other guitarists at my church use Kemper. So I may have to respect my Kemper and buy an actual amp and dela with the heaviness of it unless I get a Fender Deluxe reverb that’s around 40 lbs, which I can deal with. I don’t know, haha. What’d I get myself into?

    Kemper is like an amp head with additional options. So, you’ve realized that Kemper does not have built-in speakers, that’s fine , however Kemper does not need a cab, necessarily. If you can connect directly to your church mixer or PA, you might be ready to go. You did not mention how is your church sound setup. For instance how your audience listens to your vocalist (if any)? how your vocalist monitors his own voice? what about the rest of the band?