A Reason Why I Bought a KPA

    One of the main reasons I purchased the KPA (second to its great sounds) vice any other modeler was that the KPA is in its infancy and is already competing head-to-head with one of the top modelers today. I think the upcoming updates to the KPA are going to be awesome. I then read a current forum thread, excerpt below.


    poster in thread: If one read my previous posts , he will find about my friend, professional
    producer who is using 2 Virus Synthesizers in a last 15 years or so .
    He told me not to worry , if KPA is going like a Virus, in a few years time we will have everything - effects to dream about it , decent librarian, fantastic Foot Controller , even more better Profiler and amp sound, and maybe few more things only CK knows about...


    CK: Ask your producer friend how we did the development and evolution of the very core sound
    of the Access Virus in the last 15 years.     His answer might express exactly what our plans are with the Profiler.


    I don't know about everyone else but I found this little golden nugget in the thread to be extremely exciting as a KPA owner.

    The Kemper Profiling Amp is the best musical invention since the Electric Guitar and the Marshall Amp .

    Laker, I'm not sure how CK meant his comment, but it might have been a hint for all of us to understand, that there will most likely be no change to the very core of how the KPA creates the sound from its profiles ... or profiles from sound.
    And as far as I'm concerned, I'm very very pleased with the awesome work of And44 which clearly shows the real potential of the lunchbox. I completely understand that a new user will have serious trouble to immediately create profiles as good as TAF ones. There's quite some experience, time, knowledge involved to produce these brilliant profiles that let the KPA really sing.


    The only thing that bothers me a lot in terms of "sound" is the digital I/O mess. And I still fail to understand how this possibly could have happened (44.1kHz sample rate only, and KPA has to be master sync). This is just ridiculous, sad to say so.


    Cheers,
    Martin

    Quote from lightbox

    Laker, I'm not sure how CK meant his comment, but it might have been a hint for all of us to understand, that there will most likely be no change to the very core of how the KPA creates the sound from its profiles ... or profiles from sound.
    And as far as I'm concerned, I'm very very pleased with the awesome work of And44 which clearly shows the real potential of the lunchbox.


    The only thing that bothers me a lot in terms of "sound" is the digital I/O mess. And I still fail to understand how this possibly could have happened (44.1kHz sample rate only, and KPA has to be master sync). This is just ridiculous, sad to say so.


    Cheers,
    Martin


    i've deleted one line and now there's a BBBIIIIIGGG +1 here! sad but true. but then again, it's the only gripe, well apart from latency :wacko:

    I know that latency can be a pain in the ass, but in terms of our lunchbox, I really can't even see the smallest reason to complain. If I remember correct, the fixed latency of the KPA is 7ms? Variable latency can be something like 4.5 - 5ms?


    Maybe I should remember you, that the speed of sound gives us a natural latency of 3ms / meter. So the KPA latency feels like standing 1.5m - 2.3m from your tube amp's cabinet. I'm sure you never complained about latency standing right in front of your eardrum massage device.


    Cheers,
    Martin

    So if it's 3-4ms in variable latency mode, we're talking about an additional distance to cabinet/speaker of 1 meter, that's what I wanted to clarify. If we were talking about 20ms or more, there would be reason for discussion and room for improvement. But c'mon, everything below 10ms is just n.o.t.h.i.n.g ... you deal with a lot more, when you're on stage.


    Cheers,
    Martin

    3-4ms is fine. I can't detect that by feel, but 7ms or more and I can for sure. 10ms is unacceptable for recording, and even live. That puts me at least 10 feet from the source of the sound and that almost never happens, especially not with wedges around. And if I was 10 feet from the cab and had a wedge near me, then I get a slight chorusing effect. Sounds wider, but at that point it's not only feel-able, but also audible.

    Quote from lightbox

    So if it's 3-4ms in variable latency mode...

    Quote from lightbox

    But c'mon, everything below 10ms is just n.o.t.h.i.n.g ... you deal with a lot more, when you're on stage.

    I've always preferred to play live with my amp or monitor at least eight to ten feet away from me - any closer than that, and those old 4x12 guitar cabinets would have been blowing all their volume at my knees.


    The drummer is generally a similar distance in a different direction. The bass player's and keyboardist's rigs are on the other side of the drummer.


    In the bottom left of this picture, The Kemper is sitting on my Bose - you can see its lights.


    Those distances don't feel like latency to me - they feel more like that "in the room" thing :)

    [Blocked Image: http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp135/pshamell/IMG_1336_zps63e60a13.jpg]

    The way you over come latency in a big stage environment is to stagger monitors in order to avoid being too far from an audio source. The latency of the KPA is more than acceptable to me. There are some folks I think who are just very, very particular about certain subjects. Kinda like those who hate cigarette smoke. If there's someone within 50 yards of them smoking they're coughing and gagging and saying they have to get out of there. Me, I don't really care that much if someone is smoking standing next to me. Everyone's got their hangups. Some folks would complain even if the measurable latency was less than 1 ms.


    EDIT: BTW, I can feel 10ms latency. What throws us of off as players is when we've played with traditional rigs for many years and are used to being a certain distance from our amp and then you move to a digital solution which introduces latency on top of what we are used to. So that 10ms of natural latency might be delayed further to 15 or even 20ms. You can't wonder as far from the monitors without feel being affected.

    The reason I got a Kemper was a guy came up to me, put a gun to my head, and said that either my brains or a Kemper was going to be on my studio table.


    Naturally I didn't want to sleep with the fishes, so one whole Kemper later and my brains are intact.


    Now I can fry them on some bad-assed distortion!

    Quote from db9091

    a guy came up to me, put a gun to my head, and said that either my brains or a Kemper was going to be on my studio table.


    Is Donbarzini selling Kempers now? ?( 8o :D :D :D

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


    Quote from Will_Chen

    The way you over come latency in a big stage environment is to stagger monitors in order to avoid being too far from an audio source.

    Yep, that's what I was saying regarding wedge monitors. I'd never play over a certain distance from my amp if there wasn't another monitoring source. And it gets phase-y or chorus-y if you're not careful with your stage volume.