SIM1 XT-1 - thoughts, opinions, reviews

  • Hi,


    I'm looking for opinions from fellow Kemper owners about the SIM1 XT-1. I think we have some things in common so if you have had any experience with the SIM1 XT-1, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts about it.


    I've read through the other discussions here where people have mentioned it. That's what caught my interest.


    Cost

    In my country, the SIM1 XT-1 is half the price of a Kemper Stage, twice the price of a Strymon Iridium - just mentioning that to put it into perspective.


    Rationale: Unlimited Guitars

    I have all the guitars on my bucket list (and I just bought two), so I wouldn't be getting it to save the cost of new guitar acquisitions. By choice I don't have any Fenders anymore, and I don't often find myself missing those sounds. But if I needed those sounds, it would be handy to have the option. This afternoon I told a good friend about the SIM1 XT-1 and when I said, it's like having a Kemper Profiler for guitars. With barely a blink she said, "But the guitars feel different".


    Guitar Tones: Make/Use your own

    If I've understood the concept, I can make my own tones for my guitars (with their pickup selections). Then I can take one guitar to a gig and make that one guitar sound like any of my other guitars. This would be like profiling all my amps and taking the Kemper to the gig.


    Guitar Source Guitars - a separate USB key for each guitar

    It sounds like I would play different guitars but have access to all the tones I had created by having a separate USB key for each guitar. I can imagine keeping the USB keys in the guitar cases for each guitar. For me, part of the reason for having more than one guitar is l like the way different guitars feel and look (in addition to the way the sound and sound different from others).


    Fly Rig: Amp Sims, IRs, Reverb and Overdrive

    I've been thinking about getting a small unit for those times it's not convenient to use my Kemper Profiler (unpowered lunchbox). For those situations the Strymon Iridium looks pretty good. Every time I get close to buying one, someone suggests I get the Line 6 HX Stomp instead. It's an easy up sell. I don't have any pedals and I might end up getting a couple. Although for what I play most of the time, a decent reverb, occasional touch of delay. Setting aside the creeping incrementalism, I wonder if the SIM1 XT-1 would be enough for those casual occasions instead of the Strymon Iridium.


    Reputation, Reliability, Quality

    I can't find much online about the company behind the SIM1 XT-1, the reliability of the unit, the quality of the tones. Do you have any experience with the SIM1 XT-1?


    Okay - thanks for reading. I'd appreciate your thoughts and insights.


    Cheers,

    ST

  • I have owned the Sim1 XT-1 for a few months now (took advantage of a promo and got it approximately 100.- Euros off)


    The build quality is great, and the true signal quality is awesome. There is no discernible latency.

    I made the experiment to profile my guitars and play the source guitar with its own profile and switch the true bypass original guitar and the profile on/off. You can’t tell which is which.


    I'm sure your use cases for unlimited guitars, use your own guitar tones and separate USB keys for different source guitars will work very well. They work for me.

    What I can’t comment on is the fly rig use case (as I simply haven’t used this yet).


    Compared to a Line6 Variax the Sim1 is much better.

  • Have been thinking of buying one of these.Has anyone here gigged it?


    I'd love to use one guitar for multiple different guitar sounds on any gig without having to carry multiple guitars around !


    Also,if this re-creates well then I could potentially select my best playing guitar action wise and feel wise and use that instead of worrying about the actual output sound?

  • Have been thinking of buying one of these.Has anyone here gigged it?


    I'd love to use one guitar for multiple different guitar sounds on any gig without having to carry multiple guitars around !


    Also,if this re-creates well then I could potentially select my best playing guitar action wise and feel wise and use that instead of worrying about the actual output sound?

    Unfortunately there are no gigs ATM, otherwise I would have gigged with it.

    And yes, you take out your favorite player and carry all of your precious guitars in this little box.

    The Sim1 sounds like them, but it always feels like your source guitar of course (which is fine).

  • Ingolf

    Thanks for your replies.


    Thinking through the playing experience it looks like I will have to tap the SIM1 XT-1 one or more times every time I change change pickups on the guitar I'm playing. For example:

    On the guitar, switching from the bridge pickup to the neck pickup - the blade switch moves through one, two, three, four notches but of course, you can do that in one smooth movement. On the floor, I have to tap up or down button, one, two, three, four times. That feels like a lot of thinking and coordination to switch pickups. That might not be a big obstacle in the studio, but I can imagine getting out-of-sync when playing live.


    Ingolf, am I missing something?


    ST

  • You can Midi Change but according to this video I think you need a midi / USB convertor ;


    https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2288749731340231


    'SIM1 can read Program-Change MIDI commands via the most popular MIDI-to-USB adapters, and to re-route program Changes as a midi-through feature.Through the Editor you can even configure your XT-1 as a Midi Master mini Pedalboard, to control other devices'.


    So I'm assuming KPA midi out ( via convertor ) to Midi in on Sim1. I'll probably set up a performance per guitar type ( 3 or 4 guitar types max.a night will do me )

    then for example , Telecaster Clean Neck : Stomp 1 , Tele Crunch Neck:Stomp 2 , Tele Lead Neck : Stomp 3, Tele Crunch Bridge : Stomp 4, Telecaster Lead Bridge : Stomp 5 etc...


    Is there an easier way ?

  • Hi Robman,

    Using the Kemper Remote to control the SIM1 XT-1 sounds like a way to avoid tapping the SIM1 XT-1 multiple times when changing pickups. There are still the mental gymnastics of keeping the pickup selector on the guitar in sync with the pedal.


    It might be simpler just to add another midi controller or just tap dance on the SIM1 XT-1 though. What if you want to switch rigs?


    For example:

    Say you want to play five different rigs but with those, you might choose any one of three guitars with up to five different pickups.


    You'd be okay if

    - You stayed with one profile for a whole song, but switched pickups at various points in the song.

    OR

    - You stayed with one guitar and pickup for a whole song, but switched rigs at various points in the song


    For studio work, I imagine you could reduce the number of variables for a song or passage.


    I'm beginning to think this could be challenging for playing live if you frequently switch pickups while playing.

  • Of course you can get out of sync. ;)

    OTOH, if you know you'll only use the 5 and 2 positions of your Strat you can program these to positions to neighbor patches.

    All in all the pros are you can leave several guitars at home.

    The cons are you need to do some logistics regarding what source guitar you plan to use and what sounds you want to play and program this thing accordingly.

    Unless you use midi (which needs planning as well).

  • I bought one and it works well but the software and web site doesn't work so well...


    I can’t add new guitars now and had to reset the device so it connects to the mobile app. I had to reprofile the guitars but now they sound very different. I must try picking harder and softer until I get the desired results. I checking the results against my real guitars.

    Edited once, last by pacocito ().