Anyone Disappointed With Their KPA When It First Arrived, But Then........????

Quote from resonator48

Just wondering, with all the hype and wonderful reviews you read before buying your KPA, Who was disappointed with it when it first arrived? I doubt I'd get any response from those who returned it and moved on because they probably wouldn't be reading the forum. But for those of you who were disappointed at first and are now happy with the KPA, what did you have to do or change to turn your opinion around?

I was not so impressed with My Kemper when I first got it because I downloaded the rigs that I heard Killer recordings of and I Hated it.... . I quickly took a deep breath, realized that different tunings and guitars were used for the recording and I stopped the nonsense and started reading the manual. It took me 10 minutes after reading the manual to dial in MY SOUND and I've never looked back. I'm not the type of person who makes rash decisions. I stick with something for a LONG period of time until I figure if it will or won't work for me. That's my 0,02!

When i first tried my KPA in Jaunary i wasn´t that impressed either. There wasnt a single rig i really liked for my metal stuff. After 30 Minutes of netting nowhere i hooked up my JVM, placed the mikes and everything was good by then

I got the kemper in April (early firmware). Initially, I plugged in a guitar and listened through headphones, results were not that great. Next, I hooked it up through the effects loop return of a tube amp. Sounded better, but that was when the cab didn't get completely removed and was still not what I wanted. Finally, I got a decent FRFR, that's when I knew the Kemper was a keeper.

The key was I had heard other people getting great sounds out of the unit so I knew it could be done.

I was initially. We'll not disappointed as in it didn't sound good, but disappointed as in I didn't think out of the box it offered an upgrade over what I could get from my Digitech GSP1101. You can read my first impressions and some eureka moments here: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=1147388. Now, I love it...

Quote from Gainfreak

I'm not the type of person who makes rash decisions.

I remember that rash, it was horrible....

First thing I did when I unboxed my KPA was profiling my Champ. And that was already so much convincing that I was shure that I won't send it back. Then it took a long while for me to trust it so far that four months later I did my first live gig whithout any backline amp, just FOH and monitor speaker.

Things that helped me to make a desicion and which I would always recommend:

• get a good FRFR for reference. (Don't underestimate the influence of what comes after the KPA!)
  

  
  

• get a good guitar. (Seems like the KPA really unveils the character of the guitar. If it's a good axe - fine, but if it is a bad one don't blame the Kemp.)

When I purchased my Kemper in March of this year I already owned an 11 Rack and frankly was a bit underwhelmed when I went the through the stock profiles. However, taking the time to understand the unit, firmware updates and purchase of a few Amp Factory profiles have left me shall we say a very happy Kemper owner. I'm not a person who likes to spend a lot of time drilling down through screen menus etc and the intuitive and user friendly interface has added to the aural satisfaction. I have a pretty decent set of studio monitors and like others have mentioned, I had heard really good clips of the Kemper so I had an idea of what it was capable of doing and I figured I just had to spend some time with the unit to fully understand what was needed to get the sound I wanted. When I first got the unit, I loaded dozens of user generated profiles and found most unsatisfactory so when commercial profiles were available, I tried a few and now stick almost entirely with them. That's not to say there are not good free profiles available e.g. some unique Bill Ruppert profiles but it was taking me too much time separating the wheat from the chaff.

i don't think disappointed is the right word, since i sort of expected it. the things i was hearing seemed to good to be true so i managed expectations. out of the box i wasn't digging most of the built in profiles, but i have a different view of tone than most guitarists, especially not liking the somewhat modern trend toward very bright, fizzy sound (hehe yes others will use more superlative words). we have discovered some tonal issues, some of which have already been fixed, some that may be fixed, some that have workarounds, etc not disappointment as such. i think most of us experienced this to some degree and most learned to dial in their own sound. i am a bit too new yet to know if i will get there, but so far i think i will...

I was really disappointed when I first got the Kemper bit this was down to the profiles I was using. I tried to return it and luckily my dealer ignored my email because it would have been a huge mistake. As soon I tried the Amp Factory profiles it completely changed my opinion and now I love it.

I play clean to rock crunch (up the heavy leads).
I have experienced the same: i wasn't pretty unhappy with the stock KPA profiles (consider that i bought it before the amp pack came out), but as soon as you start messing with till's cab and some killer profiles, man you can just go mad.
I'd suggest you to check some Rivera profiles and my new favorite mild crunch profile: the Caveman (1 and 2).
Those are really top notch imho.

Yes I was, i should say underwhelmed rather than disappointed. It took a while for me to get it, to compare it against the old modelers in a fair light side by side and see just what a difference there was for instance, to profile my own amps and see just how close I could get. Once I spent some time I started to realize it's genius, and of course that it just sounds like recorded amps, so it's kind of hard to expect mind blowing there, if it was mindblowing then it probably wouldn't be sounding like recorded amps and so would be a failure as a profiler. Over time I've come to realize that every amp profiled has value and the presets are in fact very good too, they're just perhaps not the tones that I would go for in their default states, but with a little tweaking you can see that all of them have tremendous depth and responsiveness, that each would be considered an "upgrade worthy" addition to any other amp sim and would have their users eulogizing, but with the KPA it's so commonplace that you can simply afford to say "nah, don't like it" and treat profiles/rigs like real amps rather than like precious gifts from the coding gods that must be cherished because of responsiveness and authenticity rather than because you actually like that amp in real life.

So yes, underwhelmed at first, now I love it, could love it some more with more additions and tweaks though. Oh and I play low to mid gain mostly.

Nice post Per

I was not quite sure what to expect at first, but upon unpacking it and getting rolling, I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the stock profiles. After I picked up some user-made and commercial profiles (some of Ola's stuff and profiles from The Amp Factory), I can't imagine using anything else. I also found that the Marshall Golub Crunch Mod profile is one that I keep using for noodling around. I play mostly mid to high-gain stuff. I like 80s rock to modern metal, i.e. Lamb of God, Chimaira, etc. This unit has the cojones for it.

It probably wouldn't hurt to mention that the other unit I was considering was the AxeFX 2. I was already on the waiting list, and I waited until I received my discount coupon from Fractal before making the decision as to which one to buy. After spending about four months listening to different sound samples that people were doing, the choice was pretty clear. KPA all the way.

Since it is a similar story with a so many of us, perhaps there should be something like a Top 20 Demo Rigs that should be named to be the first profiles when turning on the KPA for the first time. Since there are some all time favourites that nearly everybody seems to like in the same musical direction this could be a nice thing. Like 2 or 3 for every "major kind of taste" like clean, crunch, solo, metal and so on...

Quote from resonator48

what type of music/sound are you guys looking for mostly with the KPA (Clean, Mild OD, Medium Gain, High Gain)?

I want to add that all my scepticism was only about playing live and playing solo gigs. It was quite early on very clear to me that the Kemp is gorgious for recording. And also it did not take long until I used it for gigging in my louder bands. And many people (even the sound guys) came to me after the shows with a big smile and thumbs up.

I was only worried about if it is really good enough for a electric guitar solo gig. I play Echtzeitmusik, Improvised Music and Freejazz (yes, that outlandish stuff like this here) and I only need one single sound which is the crunchy overdrive of a simple, non master volume, class A, 6L6-powered amp. I want a sound that is extremley versatile so that I can take it from chimey clean to crumbly crunch just with the attack of my fingers, without touching footswitches. For solos I am still not at the end of the search but after I got Armin's profile of a 59 Bassman it is going in the right direction. It is really tough to find a crunch sound that is as versatile and dynamic as an acoustic guitar.

Quote from tylerhb

Top 20 Demo Rigs that should be named to be the first profiles when turning on the KPA for the first time.

For me the D'Lux cactus should definitely be on that list for dynamic, bluesy crunch sounds. I was happy with this for quite a while.

I was mostly sold on the Kemper the day I heard the Silent Underground tone matches on youtube. The day I set up the KPA, I was a little disappointed in how thin and nasally those profiles were. But since they were designed to be in the mix, they weren't as fully rounded as a guitar in the room would be. With drums/bass, I was really impressed with those clones. With a little bit of tweaking, I gave myself the best of both worlds. It's amazing at how easy it is to dial in, still loving my KPA and will be for quite a long while.

I've sold off most of my pedals, my 6505 and should have my mesa 4x12 gone this week. All in all, not a huge cost in the upgrade for me. And so far, 3 of the people who have bought my old gear were blown away at how good the Kemper sounds.

It's the same with all digital boxes - and I owned a lot of them starting with the Korg A3 up to the AxeFx II.

I have high expectations and when I connect the box to my speakers - I think - no - it sounds digital - then I switch on any of my tube amps - and yes, that's the sound.

The Kemper sounded different from the start on - I loved some stock profiles very much - others not so much.

Then I did my first tests:
1) Profiling my AxeFx II
2) Profiling my 57 Fender Deluxe

Since then I loved the Kemper!