Do you still use pedals with your Kemper?

  • I totally agree with the fact that some droves have their own sound. But, honestly, once put into a full mix, would you hear a difference between, let's say a ts9 and the kemper tube screamer? Or even between a ts9 and a ts 808?

    You are totally right. I hear the difference at home with headphones.


    I'm happy when I ear my guitar when I play live.

  • I think those using separate pedals are bent over building their pedal-board, rearranging, patching, power-supplying or continuously twiddling knobs and therefore lacking the want to respond to this thread. The rest of us get the desired result in one or two clicks and have time to reply (and play guitar). Allergy warning: the above may contain traces of sarcasm

  • I have a Digitech FreqOut in front of my powered toaster. That's it. I have a Mission EP-1 connected to the Kemper for wah. I absolutely love the built in wah sounds. I was a long time devotee of the vintage pre-Dunlop Thomas Organ Cry Baby wah. I have several vintage examples. Once I got the Kemper and dialed in my wah sound those wah pedals went into storage. Same for my vintage BOSS CE-2 and my MXR Phase 90 and flanger. The only Kemper time based effect that I am not wowed by is the rotary speaker. I don't use that effect very often but when I do I really miss my Dunlop Rotovibe. I'm pretty basic when it comes to effects. I haven't scratched the surface of what the Kemper will do regarding effects but likely never will.

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    Only a real fuzz pedal can clean up in that certain way. It is simply not possible with Kemper - technically.


    Kemper can not replicate the sound of a Boss HM-2. Even profiles done with a real HM-2 are not authentic sounding. Some come closer after tweaking, but not completley satisfying. Same goes for other pedals.


    Internal stomps don't respond exactly like the external pedals.


    Kemper does not respond exactly like a tube amp (or how you would expect) when hit with external overdrive pedals. It's o.k. sometimes, but not perfect. Strymon Iridium does a much better job here for example.

    Edited 3 times, last by Ibot39 ().

  • Most of the dirt pedals I have are of the Marshall-in-a-box variety, and with the KPA I’ve got plenty of Marshall profiles that don’t need a pedal of that flavor. I did used to run a pair of H9s in the loop to cover delay and reverb, but the upgraded Kemper effects rendered them unnecessary as well.

  • Just one pedal: a Source Audio Kingmaker Fuzz. I have it going into the front of the Kemper but it switches via MIDI.
    I can't quite get the more extreme fuzz tones out of the Kemper. Yet. Quietly hoping for a revamp of the Kemper's fuzzes, so I can put the Kingmaker with all of my other no-longer-required pedals.

  • I forgot to mention my Dunlop Wah that I haven't used in years. The built-in Wah is really great. I especially like the flexibility of it. You can turn it into any Wah known to mankind.

    I was gifted a particularly sweet sounding Crybaby by a Dunlop employee/demo-guy because I helped him out with a guitar strap at NAMM one year.


    A while later I swapped the inductor for a (Dunlop) Red Fasel - loved the pedal even more.

    Later again I read about the Whipple inductor a guy in NYC makes, ordered one, put it in the Crybaby and was even more happy with the sound.


    However - in each instance I was able to easily convert the sound of the wah into a PROFILER preset (Cry Red, Cry Whip in the factory content) so that is all I use.

    The pedal is still fun to mess with (I installed mini-pots in stead of fixed resistors), but whatever I will come up with there will quickly become a PROFILER preset. :)

  • Garrincha V8guitar Garrincha deadman42 - So all of you are telling that you can get the same tones as a Tone Bender mk I, II or III, smiley or any other number of unique fuzz sounds? None of you would put a Chase Bliss Automatone in front of your rig and use it as a overdrive or fuzz? I would love to know how to get all these sounds out of my Kemper. None of you would use a Klon, Timmy or Blues Breaker? All of you think the Kemper can do all this sufficiently enough?

    I can't talk about fuzz because I don't use it. True fuzz to me sounds like a cheap amp/pedal to me so not a sound I go for.


    With regards to your other points, I have never used external drive pedals. For me they are brought in to add something missing from a given amp...to drive a cleanish amp into overdrive. Id rather use an amp with overdrive. Its like don't buy a slow car and try to make it fast. Buy a fast car in the first place.


    I never got the point of having a beautiful valve amp sound with all its harmonic overtones.....what makes a valve amp special... to slap a transistor based pedal in front of it. So for me, I always tried to get the sounds I wanted out of the amp and guitar. The whole balancing the gain stages, noise/true bypass, faff....just unnecessary for me.


    I totally respect people who do this and of course there are many great guitarists that do this despite having unlimited options with amps e.g. SRV. But SRV's sound isn't amazing or mystical to me....its his playing that is!


    Would I use a Klon, Timmy or Bluesbreaker? Nope. Not in the valve world or digital world. This "special" interaction that many people talk about I've not experienced. To me they just push the gain and change the tone. I went through a pedal phase many years ago and had a bluesbreaker - didn't like it at all.


    Do these pedals add something the KPA can't do? Possibly, but I believe even if that is the case its so small that its as much psychological than real - BUT I'm not a sound engineer. I probably can't pick up these nuances like others.


    If you love your pedals, keep them. For me I don't need them.

  • I sometimes use a genuine 1973 Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress flanger and a genuine Yamaha Magic Stomp UB99MK2 from the early 90's. And rarely a Rockman Acoustic guitar pedal.

  • The first year I had the Kemper (several years ago), I continued to use my Klon Klone, my Timmy and I actually bought a Line 6 M5 so that I could use the Spring Reverb and a few other effects I was used to hearing. (Kemper didn't have the Spring option then).


    I also found that I wasn't totally sold on the Kemper when using these effects in front of a clean profile and wondered if I should have bought the Kemper.


    Then I spent more time looking for basic profiles where the amp profile was already close to producing the sound I was looking for without pedals. I started using the banks of Performance Mode to save amps with varying amounts of gain instead of using the pedals to create the bulk of the sound and maybe just tweaked them a little using the Green Scream or the Mouse if needed.


    To me it sounds way better, in terms of different gain structures, going from "63 Vibroverb" profile to "The Duke" than it ever did stepping on my original TS9 in front of my real Ampeg VT40 (like a Fender Super Reverb with more control of the mids). - Sure I miss the swirl of the sound between those 4 x 10" speakers but in terms of the quality of the gain sound, I am way happier.


    If I have to go to a more distorted sound which is very close to the original cleaner sound then I will use one of the Kemper's drive options and it also sounds more organic (closer to the original sound profile) than sticking a real pedal in front.


    To me I could never get exactly the same sound as I got sticking the real Klone in front of the clean Fender profile - but I think I got better sounds going to a more distorted profile - that I could tweak - to say tighten up the low end as the gain increased and lower the reverb setting and save them in performance mode than stepping on a real overdrive pedal in front of the profile with the same settings. - But I always used analogue pedals to simulate the sounds of a more overdriven amp, I was never thinking "Man I really want the sound of a Klon!", and maybe that is why I am happy without the pedals.


    Other people may be looking for something quite different and really WANT the sound of that real Marshall Bluesbreaker or that Way Huge Camel Toe pedal. They should probably keep using those pedals.


    As far as Fuzz Face type pedals and the response you get with them and volume on your guitar, I am not sure you are going to find that in exactly the same way with the Kemper. It will clean up but I am not sure it will sound the same. Actually because of the way Fuzz Faces react with the input on a tube amp, I am not sure you'll get it to sound the same with the Kemper at all. - I will leave that to people more knowledgeable than myself. I haven't had a fuzz face since I bought the Kemper.


    I also found that even using the old Legacy Reverb I was able to find settings that I found more subtle than the external pedals Spring settings I had been using that I prefer when listening back to old recordings i made.


    Now Kemper has the new reverbs and the new drives and things are even better I suppose - but to be honest I am already getting the sounds that I want with tools that were already available.


    There also two other factors:


    1) Having no real pedals in the chain really makes for a much QUIETER signal path with fewer things that can go wrong like bad connections and dying batteries.


    2) When I was using a tube amp and pedals I would often find the "magic settings" one night only to return to them the next day and find that it sounded different to myself and others on another day. (I am told Fuzz Faces can sound different on the same night as they warm up!) Since going to strictly Kemper my sound is extremely CONSISTENT. This is especially good if you need to go back and edit a recording you made earlier - but it is also just generally a good thing!

  • I used a Rivera Blues Shaman for one gig to boost leads, I took it out because I can accomplish that easy enough with the Kemper, I had the Freqout pedal in for a while but I use a Mission Engineering FRFR and I can get plenty of sustain and feedback if I want it. For me it's not worth it, I do run three expression peddles for volume, wah and gain though. I really wanted to keep things simple so I try to resist the temptation of putting any other effects in front of the Kemper. - That being said, it really responds good to pedals so I would say if you tried it you would probably like it but it is certainly not necessary.

    “I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.”

    Dave Lee Roth of Van Halen - 1979

    Edited once, last by sstauffer ().

  • Fuzz addict here, have a bit of a pedal thing going on, there are just certain things the Kemper still can’t achieve but I’m ok with that.


    The behaviour of a Face face in regard to cleanup is no different to a tube amp, just like a good profile that cleans up with your volume control.


    I also have a few univibe pedals which the Kemper can’t replicate.

    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”.

  • I still use my real pedals with the Kemper, they sound better than the built in stomps (Including the new Kemper Drive stomps).


    I disagree with 'The Kemper is all I need', as when I use the profiled amps more overdriven they sound very different to my real stomps in the send/return stage. I can just dial in my favourite types of sounds with my HBE Power Screamer, or Fulltone OCD.


    If I don't use my real stomps, I find myself looking for 'that' sound for too long.


    Saying that if I did play at loud volume levels, which I don't, the gain of the real stomps would be turned right down to compensate, therefore I am really only using them as a preamp stage.


    For reference I only ever use the MBritt Dumble ODS profile, and have done for years now.


    Maybe I should just buy a Dumble ODS...

  • I disagree with 'The Kemper is all I need', as when I use the profiled amps more overdriven they sound very different to my real stomps in the send/return stage. I can just dial in my favourite types of sounds with my HBE Power Screamer, or Fulltone OCD.


    If I don't use my real stomps, I find myself looking for 'that' sound for too long.

    My personal point was I've never seen the need for an overdrive pedal with Valve amps. Marshall DSL's don't have enough gain on the Rhythm channel for me, so I went Laney GH100L because it has massive gain levels on tap rather than slap pedals in front on it to make it bend to what I need. They sound different but I actually prefer the sound of the Laney anyway, which in many ways is more about what you become used to - took me 6 months to like my Laney but I now its my fav amp of all time.


    I'm not surprised that real pedals will sound different to emulations in the Kemper. This might be more because that is what you are used to and you know how those pedals react.


    Cool if that's what you need, I can;t stand the hassle factor of pedals, particularly live.


    Funny how we all have different approaches and needs.