Posts by joshriggs

Quote from jfischer518

I bought the Stage when it was released back in August of 2019 and was impressed from the start. Since then I have had a few tube amps in and out of the home studio, currently I have a Rockerverb 50 MKii and an Archon 50. I love my amps but I really love tossing my Kemper in a bag and going. I usually run my Stage into an Orange Pedal baby 100 and into a Mesa Lonestar cab. The last 6 months I kept toying with the Idea of getting rid of the Kemper for a Mesa TC50 or something like that but for the second time in two months I was jamming with people and getting compliments on my tone. I guess I have just gotten used to the tones over the years. My main profiles that I tend to play are the Dumble pack from MBritt. Not to plug his stuff but I am just spoiled with great gear and profiles I guess. No real point to this post, just still happy with the Kemper after two years.

How do you like the Pedal Baby? I have a similar setup, but I use a Duncan PowerStage 170. It's fine, but I keep wondering about the Pedal Baby. ?

My guess is that they've done the cost / benefit analysis and it doesn't justify hiring a full-time android engineer, having multiple app platforms, or hiring a 3rd party company to built and maintain it.

My guess is either 1. They're already working on it, or 2. They have considered it, but don't see a way it could be profitable. Given that the price of the Stage is $1700 USD, my guess is that the cost of a mini unit would be too high to justify it to anyone outside of a handful of power users here in the Forum. Or the manufacturing and logistics cost of a brand new product are too high right now.

Or maybe they'll surprise us and it'll be a part of a Kemper 2.0 suite of products. I highly doubt they are completely unaware of the trend of smaller super pedals, though.

Quote from lbieber

+1 restarting RM has become an integral part of the flow for me. RM is not stable and hangs frequently. This is especially true during copy operations. Of course, a refresh button won't function once RM is hung

Interesting. I don't have any issues whatsoever with RM once it connects to the Profiler. Have you contacted support about it?

When I start up Rig Manager, I find myself constantly having to quit and restart, unplug / replug the USB cable, or power off the Prodiler (stage) because the Profiler doesn't always automatically connect. And if I leave Rig Manager on but shut the Profiler power off, when I repower the unit I also have to restart Rig Manager. A simple refresh connection (or sync, or whatever you wanna call it) button that would check for a connected Profiler would make things a lot less annoying.

Quote from BayouTexan

Another example is that I use one of my favorite profiles and create 9 mores copies of it inside Kemper with varying degrees of Gain, EQ, and Effects.

I take a similar approach, but I also like to make copies with different cabs. I have a handful of cabs from various rigs that I've saved as presets, so when I find a profile I like, I'll make a few copies and drop in some of those cab presets into the copies. Works great for recording. For live, I have a different setup since I use a real guitar cab and turn the monitor cab off.

More good high gain amp profiles would be greatly appreciated. In no particular order, I'd love to see Revv, Fortin, Soldano SLO, KSR, Bad Cat Lynx, Mesa Badlander, Victory Kraken / Jack, Diezel, yadda yadda yadda.

I use the Green Scream "Boost" preset and it works great for tight chugs.

Quote from Ni6htWalker

that is not true,Fractal devices are pretty good and easy to use,building a preset is super easy,on the Axe Edit i can highlight my favorite amps and IR`S and bingo,you said you hate the IR rabbit hole and you are doing the same on the Kemper,you are saving your favorites cabs

I disagree. ?‍♂️

Quote from mtmartin71

Spot on and why I enjoy the Kemper more than I did the AxeFX for direct to board tones. I've tried some Ownhammers on the Kemper and didn't find it to be better sounding...worse actually. I wasted time. Funny enough, I was constantly playing with IRs to get the "perfect" AxeFX tone and now it's just playing with the amp parameters a bit on a profile.

Ugh, I hated the Axe FX IR rabbit hole! I had an FM3 (2 times now), and that was the worst thing about it. When you build a new preset, it defaults to a Pignose 1x4 cab, and when you go to pick a new one it's like "here's 7000 IRs, good luck bud!" I think the Fractal folks are amazing software engineers, but terrible product and industrial designers.

Anywhoo, what I like to do instead of using 3rd party IRs is to create presets of my favorite Kemper rig cabs, and then swap those out for different flavors. Any time you load up a rig and you like how it sounds, save the cab as a preset. Then try swapping out various cabs with your favorite rigs. You'll be surprised at how many good sounds you can get when you do this. It works best with Merged rigs, but depending on the rig, can work just fine with Studio rigs. And of course, just like anything else Profiler, different rigs sound better or worse for whether they're being use in a live or studio setting.

Some sound great. Some sound better than others. And yes, technically you're supposed to use IRs with merged or DI profiles, but you can absolutely use them with studio profiles because Kemper has an algorithm to remove the cabinet from the profile. Is it 100% accurate enough to fool Steve Albini? Probably not. Do I make different versions of my favorite profiles with different Kemper cabs as well as IRs for different flavors? Yes! And it works great.

For whatever reason, I found that the Ownhammer IRs that I loved on my Helix didn't sound great with Kemper profiles, but 3 Sigma IRs sounded great.

As with most things, YRMV, so just try it out and see what you think.

Stage all the way. Cheaper, smaller, updated newer industrial design. Like someone else said, just one cable back to your powered speaker - or like I do - Seymour Duncan Power Stage + guitar cab. Also way easier to go between home / studio and live setups.

The way I see it, if I'm gonna lug around a heavy rack case and floor controller + cab of some kind, I might as well just use a traditional tube amp and pedalboard. Just my 2c, though.

That sounds like RF interference to me. It's the electrical wiring in your apartment. I have it too. Turn the noise gate up to about 3 and it will go away.

Yes, I'm very familiar with the difference in FOH vs personal stage sound and that the Kabinet is for self monitoring. ?

I thought the whole point if the Kabinet was to make a profile sound / feel more like an amp in the room, which I assumed it did without using Imprints. So then is the Imprint then just for additional tone shaping for personal monitoring?

Quote from stratdude

Instead of for monitor outputs, with the cab module only for main outputs

Thanks, yeah I get that part. But if you're using a Kab as your monitor, wouldn't you want the sound from the profile's cab instead of some other speaker sound from an imprint?

I still don't understand the point of the imprint. Do you use it on top of the profile's cab, or instead of?

Quote from dacop1313

I do the same. I play live with a powerhead and use a real 2x12 cabinet with G12T-75 and one with V30s. I find that Merged and DI profiles sound best with real cabinets but do use some Studio ones also, Cab Off option enabled. I also have a 1x12 cab with a F12-X200 FRFR speaker, when I use that one I turn on the Cabs obviously. Its just VERY different, you certainly have more tonal options with the FRFR (in your case it would be the Kabinet) because you can literally change the characteristics of any profile being used by changing Cabs/IRs. I like both options honestly as its nice to have options. But I do prefer the real cabinet for rehearsal and live use.

BTW...If you do go with a Kabinet or any FRFR speaker, you will be shockingly surprised on how different the same profile you have been using with a real cabinet sound in an FRFR. I tend to create two profiles settings with the same profile, one for a real cabinet and one for an FRFR. I also have a Headrush powered FRFR, yet again...a totally different tone from the same exact profile.

Thanks! Yeah, I leaned from the last couple albums I mixed how much of the tone is decided by speakers, and how completely different amps through the same cab can sound nearly identical. That's my thing is that when playing live, I don't need a plethora of different tones - just a few good ones I like. Recording, of course, is a whole different beast.

So it sounds like the tl:Dr is that Kone / Kab is good for getting variety and more accurately representing the original profile's sound. Real cab is better for that real cab feel if you don't care about the above.

Does anyone here have experience going from using a power amp and good guitar cab to a Kemper Kabinet setup?

For live use, I currently run my Stage into a Duncan PowerStage 170 and an Avatar Orange-style 2x12 cab with v30s. It's a great cab, and typically the kind of cab / speakers I tend to stick with when choosing profiles for recording. So "only" having the one sound of this cab is fine with me.

I get that the Kemper Kab will allow me to use the cabinet part of a profile and also let me use imprints, so I can have more options. But if I don't really care about options and just want a good beefy v30 tone, is the Kabinet any better?

Quote from paults

If you are NOT connected to Rig Manager software:

No - when you return to a Performance Slot, it is recalled in its Stored state, not in an edited state.

Quote from paults

If you are NOT connected to Rig Manager software:

No - when you return to a Performance Slot, it is recalled in its Stored state, not in an edited state.

Awesome, thank you.

They are digital. ?