A METHOD for ordering and naming KPA sounds (useful also to compare Amps and Rigs)

  • Guys, sorry to be the party booper, but you do understand that even if the idea for consistent naming is good, there's no way to control how many people name their profiles, there are many who are not forum members, and many other different reasons (e.g some use their initials before the profile name, others use special characters, e.t.c)? ;)

  • Agree with Stelio, I'm on the process to cancel all what i don't use (regardless how good it is) and I name the rigs in a way that I can remeber it. Not necessarily good for other people but for me.

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


  • Guys, sorry to be the party booper, but you do understand that even if the idea for consistent naming is good, there's no way to control how many people name their profiles, there are many who are not forum members, and many other different reasons (e.g some use their initials before the profile name, others use special characters, e.t.c)? ;)


    Well, of course there's no way to enforce a naming convention, and I wouldn't presume to tell anyone else how to use their equipment anyway. (Plus there will always be exceptional cases where a profile defies any given naming convention.) That said, I still say we could only benefit by establishing some "best practices" for those in the know. It couldn't do any harm, and it would improve at least some profiles considerably.


    In the interim, I'm hoping for some words of wisdom from Maurizio, as to how best to improve the names/ tags/ storage of existing profiles. He obviously has a LOT of experience by now. :)

  • "Best practice" for someone is most probably different to someone else.
    I cannot (and don't want to) imagine specific naming instructions, is like going back many-many years when we couldn't change the preset names or when we had 4-6 spaces to input a name and we were struggling to understand what preset was it (damn, I almost gave up my age :wacko: ).


    Please don't misunderstand me, I just believe that an approach like that is a little old fashioned. :)

  • "Best practice" for someone is most probably different to someone else.
    I cannot (and don't want to) imagine specific naming instructions, is like going back many-many years when we couldn't change the preset names or when we had 4-6 spaces to input a name and we were struggling to understand what preset was it (damn, I almost gave up my age :wacko: ).


    Please don't misunderstand me, I just believe that an approach like that is a little old fashioned. :)


    Well, not for nothing, but you've kind of overshot the mark and put some words in my mouth here. It doesn't need to be as bleak as all of that! :huh:


    I do agree with you 100% about the necessity of naming conventions being a little old fashion, but that's basically where we're at in the absence of better on-amp sorting and searching options. I tried to wish it away for weeks, but before Maurizio showed up, I was flailing with 1500 profiles named more or less randomly.


    Having said that, good naming conventions needn't be anything too involved or cryptic or restrictive, and it doesn't have to be a requirement for every profile either.


    Perhaps there would be no consensus regarding a single, ideal set of best practices, but with a little applied common sense and - at worse - a little compromise, a few obvious things do begin to surface. For instance, things really come into focus when browsing hundreds of profiles as soon as you can rely on rig names beginning with the amp manufacturer. For a specific user's library and application there may be better naming schemes, e.g. songs in your band's set list, a studio's clients' projects, etc, but for general users sharing profiles of amps, the amp manufacturer is a no-brainer. There isn't sufficient commonality in terms of model name or year for that to be a helpful browsing scheme (in absence of mfr). Grouping all of your Bassmans just doesn't make as much sense as grouping all of your Fenders for example.


    So it's nothing as crazy as not being able to change preset names, or limited characters (except to the extent that profile names are limited in length already); it's mainly just a matter of starting a profile with a mfr's name, and thereafter including (at minimum) a model name and (as length permits) whatever other items best define the profile, e.g. channel/ voicing, year, etc.


    I have to ask, have you actually tried Maurizio's backup for yourself? It takes 10 minutes to backup, restore his file, and check it out for yourself. If nothing else, it would keep this discussion on track.


    Beyond that, sure, different strokes. I know the reality is that there are already 2000+ profiles in circulation, and it will probably be up to each of us to get them named/ tagged to our own individual satisfaction. But are you really happy with the way profiles are named now? Just one example you gave: some members using their initials before rig names... that's fine on your own amp, but it makes no sense whatsoever for a rig name you intend to share; that's what the author tag is for. In other words, there are a hundred ways I might want to name my own content, but there are sensible ways to name content I intend to share.

  • Hi guys, first of all I want to underline that my method to order and name rigs is just my method. It's not and it cannot be for many others or for all. But since we all have a lot of problem, or at least, very time consuming, to create a sort of better organized rigs collection, I simply wanted to show mine hoping to help someone else or just giving some interesting ideas. Just as example I don't use DI profiles so I don't have them in my collection, instead many want to use them!!
    Second thing I'm very happy that someone like mbenigni take advantage of that, I think that my method and my backup file can be very very useful especially to start with the KPA avoiding lost in thousand rigs with no organization. But after that I believe that everyone must find his own method to organize rigs and preset, simply because everyone have different needs.


    Apart of that, some final notes:
    1 In general I didn't change any tag in my rigs collection, too much work required for this without a management tool, so I only change the rigs name. Moreover I create for almost every amp also a stack preset with different naming convention to differently switch between amps
    2 I'm in vacation with my family still some days, and let's say... the only thing really missing here is the ... KPA :) so, next week coming back to 'normal' working life I will post my backup upgrade with Rig Pack 2 inside, and some others few very interesting rigs... so, if someone is interested in, just wait some few days!
    3 For the Rigs Exchange instead I believe that a sort of Guiding Rules, not a constriction, at the very beginning, would had help... maybe too late now, I don't know, for sure the naming and tagging of the Exchange forum is very far from being under control, just my opinion!!


    Thank you for your attention and let's keep on, fortunately even with a randomic naming KPA sounds will beat everyone and give still a lot of pleasure to our ears!!! :thumbup:


  • You are a fully grown man of many words, i am a fully grown man of few.
    I am happy and I am able to find my way and use the rigs as they are provided by the "profilers", either I am using Andy's (=A xxxx) or David's (DP xxx) or Mats' (MN xxxx) or any other random rig pack or individual rig. Simple as that. If for any reason I want to rename a one or even a few, I do it manually, in the same 10 minutes it would take me to backup, edit and restore the file.


    What works for you, doesn't necessarily work for me.
    And to set the record straight, all efforts to make our lives with the KPA easier are welcome and I am sure we are all glad and appreciate that someone, and in this case Maurizio, is spending time on this. Only good things can come out of such efforts.


  • Fair enough, and no question I can be verbose when I want to be clearly understood.


    To each his own, and Stemast if you're already satisfied then done deal. For the rest, minimal investment to check this out and see for yourself whether it helps, is all I'm saying. And indeed, all I ever meant to say in the first place.


    Cheers for the reply, mbenigni :thumbup:
    I am pretty sure most things will get sorted, some sooner some later, and we'll all be even happier :)

  • I think I'm a bit late to the table on this one. I am guilty of naming profiles in ways that I thought would be creative without thinking through the sorting challenges that would come. For my own use I have since tried renaming the profiles I keep by amp make, followed by a brief description. This allows me to sort by amp model, all my Diezels are together, Marshalls, Fenders, you get the picture. This works best for me. A universal agreement in how to label new profiles being loaded onto the board could be useful but I still think it should stay in the realm of amp make and model. One man's overly distorted is another's not distorted enough. Give us the names and the basics, we'll be able to sort them from there.

  • I think I'm a bit late to the table on this one. I am guilty of naming profiles in ways that I thought would be creative without thinking through the sorting challenges that would come. For my own use I have since tried renaming the profiles I keep by amp make, followed by a brief description. This allows me to sort by amp model, all my Diezels are together, Marshalls, Fenders, you get the picture. This works best for me. A universal agreement in how to label new profiles being loaded onto the board could be useful but I still think it should stay in the realm of amp make and model. One man's overly distorted is another's not distorted enough. Give us the names and the basics, we'll be able to sort them from there.


    I agree, and this is exactly what I proposed above. It's also essentially what Maurizio's done here. The only reason his explanation might sound more involved is because he's used specific conventions to account for exceptions - e.g. cases where you want a rig named after a song you're perfoming, something most all of us will want to do sooner or later. That and the fact that he's abbreviated amp mfr names, but this is really just accounting for the fact that names need to be pretty short overall.


    I will say again that everyone is of course free to name their profiles however they see fit, but beginning them with your initials actually reduces value rather than adding any. There are precious few ways (3) the Kemper itself allows you to search for profiles and Author is already one of them. It adds your entire name automatically when you create a profile, and displays it all the time, too. So why not make the sort by Name option meaningful in some other way?

  • It adds your entire name automatically when you create a profile,

    Only if you actually create the profile, not if you make your own tweaked version of an existing profile. I put my initial always (to the ones I keep, the rest is deleted) so I know what still need to be scrutinized.

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


  • Only if you actually create the profile, not if you make your own tweaked version of an existing profile. I put my initial always (to the ones I keep, the rest is deleted) so I know what still need to be scrutinized.

    Sure, that makes sense. Once you're organizing things on your own amp, anything goes. I'm just talking about naming new profiles in a sensible way for uploading/sharing with others. If my initials happen to be FEN and I upload a Marshall... and repeat for a hundred other users... things get messy fast.

  • Waiting for a tool for ordering, naming and organize rigs ;(;) here is my latest backup file, for who is interested in starting with the KPA and doesn't know how to manage RIGs, but wants immediately a good starting point :D


    On this my latest backup file (done on 1.1.1 KPA firmware version) you will find the following profiles normalized in volume in the way that with Master Volume at 9 almost all of them are near the maximum peak without clipping:
    1) in total about 600 profile selected in the latest 6 months of forum usage (corresponding to 100 Amps more or less);
    2) 100 profiles listed as "Preferred" ones to be sorted with 1.1.1 firmware;
    3) Kemper Factory Default including Rig Pack 1 of April and Rig Pack 2 of June
    4) And44 free profiles
    5) Guitarnet selection profiles of last March
    6) Acoustic and Bass Amps profiles and Acoustic Guitar SIMULATORs
    7) several updates and adjustments to the previous pack/backup


    and for the presets:


    1) 400 Stacks presets ordered by gain in 5 categories: Clean --> Crunch --> Drive --> Lead --> Metal, all normalized in volume
    2) Cabinet presets selection of And44 Pack and Tills Pack plus others few ones
    2) 80 Stomp presets ordered by Effect Type
    3) Delay and Reverb presets ordered and with some additions


    Don't forget to save before all your RIGs you want to maintain and then to change your Author's Name on the KPA after installing my backup to easily find your RIGs with the new filter criteria "My Rigs" on the KPA Ver 1.1.1.
    The link of the file is in the top post, with further explanation of my RIGs organization.


    Hope to be useful to someone...


    Ciao and have fun !!!!
    Maurizio

  • The extension is correct, just save it in the backup folder of your usb (make sure nonother backups are in it) and then select "restore"

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff