8.1.0.27128 Public Beta - Discussion

  • Wow totally blown away by how you continue to innovate Kemper, thank you so much! It sounds fantastic! Question for all you fuzz aficionados, if one wanted to get their inner Billy Corgan on, any recommendations on how to dial in an opamp big muff or Jordan bosstone fuzz circuit?

    Try these settings as a starting point...

  • I am very grateful for this update - I love fuzz and I've been hoping for this. It doesn't disappoint :)


    I have a 7 year old toaster so the bad news is I don't get the impedance joy thing with the stage but even without it this is killer. Really versatile, intuitive and fun. I'm sure some folks with red dot mojo germanium transistors will recon it's not quite there. I have 3 fuzz pedals and all are home made - I'm a happy bunny. I think the only way most folks would tell that this isn't a 'real one' is that this thing doesn't buzz unless you want it to.... The silence is all the more impressive when you hit a chord and it's outrageously dirty :) And to get such a great bunch of fun on a 7 year old product is really, really cool.


    I saw one other comment asking if it's possible to display preset name within Rig Manager above the virtual stomp boxes - I think that's a really good idea and would welcome that in a future update if possible. Especially makes sense when this effect and the Kemper Drive pretend to be so many things. Saying what it's currently pretending to be would be useful.


    Looking at the updates over the years, this box is just becoming better and better. Modulation next? If the tremolo could get a similar rework to those we've seen with distortion, delay and reverb over the last few years that would be more icing on an already great cake.


    Thank you :)

  • I never used any fuzz before, but, as everyone, I really like the kemper fuzz. Just an idea to make it even more inspiring : why not editing a complement to the "legend tribute pack" or create a new one ? What songs would have to be in the list?

  • Looking at the updates over the years, this box is just becoming better and better. Modulation next? If the tremolo could get a similar rework to those we've seen with distortion, delay and reverb over the last few years that would be more icing on an already great cake.


    Thank you :)

    Oh, yes please !

  • As there seem to be lots of folks here who haven’t been exposed to much fuzz, a few thoughts for you follow. I’m not an expert (at this or anything else musically) but I’ve made a few fuzz pedals based on schematics widely available on the web and it’s an interesting subject. I’ll share my limited experience and I’m sure others more knowledgable than me on the forum can help me learn on the subject too :)


    Like all things guitar, there are huge opinions on which style of fuzz circuit is best (classic fuzz face, muff, tone bender etc). There will then be huge disagreements over exactly which transistors should go in it. If you’ve experienced amp snobbery or tube rolling snobbery you’re in for another treat here as people will pay very big bucks for a vintage germanium transistor. Starting to do so with old BC108 silicones which I remember blowing up regularly at college. There were maybe £0.08 back then. Not so much now. Wish I’d stashed a bunch :)


    One of the the highly regarded fuzz makers is Analogman (the guys who make the King of Tone distortion). It’s worth looking here to see the huge amount of options available in terms of ‘what transistor do you want? https://www.buyanalogman.com/A…un_Face_p/am-sun-face.htm as it will give you some idea about the properties associated with germanium and silicone (which in a nutshell is germanium is gentler, silicone harsher but that is an unfair simplification). Generally speaking, Silicone reacts more quickly to a given input and therefore can be ‘more accurate’. Germanium takes its time so potentially softens things. A bit like ‘transistor amp vs valve (tube) amp. Again a simplification but you get the idea :)


    Keep in mind with the above website that the Sun Face fuzz is basically a classic ‘fuzz face’ circuit. About as simple as these things get. The differences you’ll find (beyond how you set it / your guitar / your amp and how it’s dialled in) will come from the transistors fitted from this list. And as you’ll see, even the germanium transistors all have very different descriptions given! When I’ve made fuzz in the past, it’s like the lottery when you buy old germanium transistors because they are all, to some extent, imperfect. Get two identical models and they’ll probably be entirely different in terms of how they work. And they’ll be different again on a hot day. That was (and is) the charm. But the style of fuzz you can make is very much determined by what you can get hold of. Silicone was more accurate / more reliable / more consistent / cheaper to make / more temperature stable etc which is why it typically replaced germanium in the fuzz circuits as time when on.


    I think that’s why it makes such sense to have a control on the Kemper fuzz that goes from germanium to silicone.... Extrmely soft germanium at one end and extremely harsh silicone at the other. All the space in the middle for the huge variations. Very cool.


    One thing I’ve seen requested here is ‘fuzz factory’ style presets. This fuzz was made famous by Muse on ‘plug in baby’ - you can get wild oscillation and weirdness. I’ve made one of these too and, whilst I like it for a couple of things, it’s a nightmare to use if you’re not familiar. I think if Kemper did implement this, it would need to be a different fx module.


    The fuzz factory has 5 controls as opposed to the 2 on a fuzz face. One of these is to reduce the battery voltage (which makes the circuit unstable). Some fuzz addicts seek out slightly dead batteries in their regular fuzz pedals to do the same thing. I did mention there was mojo involved :). The other fuzz factory controls are altering the voltage fed to a couple of different points of the circuit if I recall correctly. The good news, if you get it dialled in right, is you can make it do weird and wonderful things. The bad news is that you can get yourself into trouble - all the controls interact and, if you’re wanting a ‘useful’ tone (subjective I know) compared with ‘this thing is making noise and I can’t stop it’ then you have to stick within certain parameters. Traditional fuzz pedals only allow you to modify settings that don’t breach the design of the circuit so therefore they always work as opposed to oscillating. That’s why I think fuzz factory style fuzz would need a separate fx type within the Kemper - if it allowed you to ‘break the circuit’ in this way, it would be more difficult to do the normal dirty stuff. Whilst I like the concept of adding a fuzz factory, I personally like the new fuzz as it is - I can play to all extremes without oscillation. Well, I think so - I need to play more :) But if CK wanted to add another fuzz type (like doing the OCD separate to the Kemper Drive) with a dying battery control etc then that would be cool too.


    Thats enough from me - hope this was interesting to someone out there :)

  • Here is a Spotify playlist of almost 100 Fuzz Guitar songs.


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  • I never used any fuzz before, but, as everyone, I really like the kemper fuzz. Just an idea to make it even more inspiring : why not editing a complement to the "legend tribute pack" or create a new one ? What songs would have to be in the list?

    Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

  • yes ! exactly what I meant ! thanks for this and for your longer experience sharing before. For some of the songs in this list, I knew it was fuzz, and I definitely felt in the same universe when I tested the kemper fuzz yesterday. I'll explore more the rest of the list. :thumbup:

    Don't Worry - Marty Robbins. Literally where fuzz was first heard.

    Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones is a no brainer.

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

  • Really love the new Fuzz implementation, one of the best digital effects ever seen.


    I only have to advice Kemper Team that the migration from OLD Fuzz Stomp to NEW Kemper Fuzz is not correct to me, the sound is a lot different in the test I made. I will send you a couple of rigs that you can test on both Version OS 8.0.6 and 8.1.0


    Same rig sound very different in different OS. There is something to adjust here for what I discovered.


    Thanks

  • Hi Maurizio,


    Is it possible to post parameter values from an old Fuzz setting and the resulting new settings, for a quick check?

  • Is this confirmed? That you can't load presets into a locked slot? Anyone tried on the profiler?

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