Yeah, i would appreciate this as an option to change it to something significantly shorter. I can appreciate that it's a safeguard, against an accidental press. But, for me, at home, i'm not in the middle of a gig—two seconds should suffice. Or, Instant-Off with a combination of two buttons—that would be cool, too, as long as i could do it with one hand....
Posts by CKDexterHaven
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I do the same thing but not in a folder
Oh, man. Okay. Got it. Works for me. I guess i outsmarted myself by trying to organize stuff into folders....
Thank you, ever so much.
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If I save an effect block to my Kemper then it is available in the preset list for that block. Worked the same from the device before there was an editor in Rig Manager too.
Can you tell/show us what you're talking about?
I have a folder called My Effects Presets. In the sidebar, it looks like they're on my Kemper Stage (My Profiler).
It seems like you're saying that you do the same thing, and to use them, all you have to do is Control+click on the effect block, and find the appropriate preset in that menu. But, i don't see them.
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I can't speak for everyone, but for a guy like me that used to have to shell out THOUSANDS of dollars to change up a rig just to eventually find it wasn't QUITE what I wanted ... or that a Fender Blackface tone can't be created (even close) with a JCM ... and neither of those can sound anything like a Mesa Trippel Rectifier, etc, etc, etc, I just really like trying out different rig packs for ..... oh, $30-$60.
Shoot, my wife spends more on this a month for lottery tickets and I super positive, I get more out of my commercial profiles for the same price or less
Yeah, me, too. Getting a new profile pack is like getting a new pedal. But, for like 10% of the price. I like when ToneJunkies has their Flash Sales. I’ve been getting 50-90% off—makes buying a new amp profile almost a no-brainer. Like lunch from Carl’s Jr.
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Back pain is no fun. Missed a year of work from 2006 - 2007 due to injury. Hang in there!
Ooh. Yeah, i'm grateful that mine is not a chronic issue. I have a thing where once a year or so, i'll just do something—nothing actually—and something will hurt like the dickens for a week, but not much more than that. The perils of aging. I might have just reached for a cup this time. Once, i just woke up like that. Once, it was a sneeze. Once, it was just stumbling as i put on my pants.... Ironically, for a 54-year old, i'm reasonably athletic and not in bad shape. But, some little innocuous twist will have me locked up for a week. I cannot imagine losing a year to this. Wow. You had to deal with painkillers, i'm assuming? Are you watching Dopesick? And the new season of Goliath is also about opioids and such....
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I also agree that the tone and feel of the amps are better in the Kemper. I think the reason for that is that the profile is just more of an accurate representation of the amp than what a model is. The profiler gets information from the actual amp to create the profile. The model is purely software written to simulate what the amp does. I think that is where a lot of the feel difference comes from. I found that I have to roll my guitar volume back much farther to get the same reduction in gain that I get with the Kemper and my real amp. I also think that higher gain players like the Fractal amps better. To me the factory presets all had way too much gain and effects on them.
I am going to be keeping my FM9 as well as my Kemper stage. I am able to do something with the FM9 that I can't do with my Kemper and that is run two completely different signal chains to run my electric and acoustic (from a piezo pickup in the same guitar) through one unit. That is a valuable feature for me. I am still working on the amp settings to try to get it as close to what I get from the Kemper as I can.
That is something i forgot to comment on. I think guys like Leon Todd make the Fractal sound killer, and they are really fantastic with the very high-gain tones. He's probably one of the reasons i was most interested in going back to Fractal. Him, and Brett Kingman and Robert Baker perhaps. For the contemporary 'metal' rock, the Fractal is probably a great option. I tend to think of the Fractal as sounding more 'produced' and the Kemper more raw/organic/original—if that makes sense. It probably doesn't, as when you compare them head to head/A-B, you don't really get that sense. It's probably more of my feeling about how the Fractal effects may be more polished? I dunno. You know how people say Strymon effects have a certain polish and 'pedigree?' Maybe it's that same thing with Fractal—a 'sheen' that Kemper doesn't have?
Ironically, though, my most important high-gain tone is the EVH Brown Sound, and i still think the Kemper does that far and away better than any other system. I pretty much bought the Kemper on the basis of the TopJimi profiles. The thing about the Brown Sound, though, is that it is not very polished. It's a raw, brash tone that isn't 'precise.' Which is why maybe i think the Kemper delivers it better. It's organic, not technical.
Yeah, the two different signal chains thing—if that sort of thing is important to you, Fractal is the tool. I used to think Dual Amps was going to be a big thing for me. Watching all those That Pedal Shows where they run two amps... plus, just my general supposition that two amps must certainly create a bigger, more nuanced tone—surely that's better than one amp, right? But, when i used to try it with Overloud TH-U, i just got bogged down in balancing and mixing them, or whatever—it just never gave me results that made it worthwhile to continue. I honestly didn't even try it on the FM9, except for a preset or two(?) that was already set up that way. I think i'm just fine with a single amp, but i do love my stereo effects....
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Why did you not like it?
I am on the waitlist for the fm9, so I am curious. I like the amps in my Kempers much better than in my Helix (and the fractal units I tested myself) but "even" it is great and ampwise indistinguishable on stage. So I am curious of what made you want to sell it. The Kemper is not even close to the fx routing possibilities of a fractal. Was it too overwhelming to get to a good result, was it the "feel" or what was it?
Take this for what it's worth—i was predisposed to not want to keep the Fractal, and i really only used it enough to get a 'hot take' on it.
1) I've long read about how tube amps "feel" different than sims and modelers. Having been an apartment dweller for the past 30+ years and not having played through tube amps more than in guitar stores for handsfuls of minutes, i was not really familiar with what that meant—feel. They talk about it in terms like "lag" and "sponginess." Okay. I didn't know what that really meant, and sometimes it sounded specious. But, that was one of the first things i noticed about the Fractal. It is very, very immediate. That was the word that sprang to mind. It reacts immediately. Which, if you're talking about latency in software modeling, would be a good thing. If you're talking about a modeler vs a tube amp—i guess it may be a matter of opinion... but i don't think i liked it. I mean, it's hard to suggest that immediate response is a bad thing. But, i had only recently reached a point in my Kemper ownership (~6 months) where i am very happy with my tones. I worked out some issues with my interface and the volumes balance, and then i started doing the hi-/low-cut thing, and my tones are fantastic. So, when i plugged in the Fractal, i had that in mind, and as i scrolled through some similar presets/familiar amps, i just didn't get any sense that the Fractal was doing things better. Or even 'as good.' And i know that's unfair, as it took me 5 months to get 'happy' with the Kemper, but that was about some setup and technical issues that i wasn't having with the Fractal, and even the experience with the Kemper allowed me to set up the Fractal so as to avoid those issues. Plus, i had an AX8 a few years ago and am familiar with the editing software, so it wasn't a newbie experience.
2) I thought the Fractal editor—from my memory—was going to be a far superior experience to using Rig Manager, which i don't love. But, it wasn't so significantly better that it made a difference for me.
3) Difference of Usage Intent. With the Kemper, i use a pretty good-sized pedalboard. That was always my plan—to treat the Kemper as an amp farm, not as a multi-effect unit with amps. I'm not sure why i thought of it that way. Actually, no, i remember.... When i had the AX8 and NO outside effects, i used to be envious of pedal users. I used to go to music stores and see those cases of shiny, bright-colored metal boxes and i was jealous. I don't like the idea of selecting effects by cursoring and selecting an ambiguitized name from a menu. I like hardware knobs to see where they're set, and to be able to just reach over/down and tweak. Plus, i just like the design and the stories. Just yesterday, i was watching a video with Robert Keeley and the That Pedal Show guys, and they were talking about his career and how the Super Phat Mod originated. A pedal that i have and love. And i was just interested in that story. I find it to be a far more compelling experience with guitar to get a bit invested in the nuances between pedals of the same variation, for instance. So, over the past two+ years, i have a pedalboard that i'm pretty happy with. I ordered a custom board for it just last month, and the penultimate pedal just last night. But, when i ordered the FM9, it was with the intent of having it serve as pretty much the only device. For a few reasons: A) i think the Fractal effects are just better than the Kemper's, in general, but especially in the reverbs and delays. And i have some expensive reverb and delay pedals i thought i'd be able to sell. And if i got rid of those, then many of the other drive pedals could go, too. Not sure that makes complete logical sense, but that was the plan. And it was a plan i didn't really want to execute. I have a beautiful board being custom built, and i was excited to finally wire my stuff up in a neat way, so i didn't want to feel compelled to try to sell that, and then sell my 15 pedals that i've spent two years amassing. But, when the FM9 was about to arrive, i did manage to convince myself to be 'honest and open' about it and to give it a real chance. Because, selling the pedals would have netted me nearly two grand, which i would have put into a killer guitar. That was how i motivated myself toward objectivity.
4) The Fractal arrived and i 'unboxed' (i so totally hate that word) it, and plugged it in and got the software running and switched it on. Wow. Nice impression. The screen is beautiful. The scribble strips are lovely. It's a clean, robust design. I don't care for the hardware UI, but just as with the AX8, i wasn't going to use the hardware to do anything. The editor software is pretty much the same as it was with the AX8, and it's responsive and better-designed than Rig Manager, IMO. But, it's not great, either. I'm sure i'm hyperpicky, because i'm a designer, but whatever. It serves its purpose. After that, though, i just wasn't wowed by anything sonically. It is very easy to get a working sound very quickly. I mean, you just choose an amp. You don't have to choose it with a predetermined thought about which gain range you want to use, etc. Just pick an amp. And a cab. And, the gains and volumes are pretty much right there for you—i didn't have to figure out stuff like the Kemper's output stage settings for Cleans and whatever the other thing is for Single Coils vs Humbuckers. So, that's cool. It just seems to work right out of the box as you would expect it, more so than the Kemper did for me.
5) Not sure what else to say. I just wasn't wowed. Again, the day before i tried the Fractal, i had been loving my Kemper tones. Clean stuff, edge of breakup stuff, with or without my pedals adding to the gain. And the Fractal tones were just 'good.' The other thing was that they reminded me of the AX8 tones i used to get. When i had the AX8, i thought it sounded great, because i was coming from an Atomic Amplifire. The AX8 was better than the Atomic by a step. By a lot of steps if you include the effects. But, my quick experience with the FM9 gave me the sense that the Kemper is better still. More nuanced tones, with better, more organic feel. I still envy the Fractal's effects, but with my board, that's neutralized. Now, re: the "feel" thing—i'm sure Cliff has engineered some parameters to control sag and sponginess somewhere. And i didn't even look for that. I just didn't feel like playing the Fractal anymore after getting that initial sense of it. And that, in and of itself, is another factor i pay attention to. Over the last six years or so, i've learned that there are some devices or softwares that make me want to play and some that don't. And i don't know what it is specifically about them (maybe it's the 'feel' thing?), but that's important to me. For example, the Amplifire made me want to play, more than Overloud TH-U, for instance. The Kemper, more than the FM9. I used to like iOS Bias FX on my ipad more than some other iOs modeler. I have no explanation for it, but it's palpable. Some devices/softwares just have me wanting to turn them off and stop playing after a half hour, while others have me going and not paying attention to time. It's not an overt thing about one being grating or harsh in the actual sound—not that i'm aware of. There's some sort of 'magical' engagement thing happening or not happening. That's about all i can say about it, but again, take that with a grain of salt, because i'm sure it's completely 'personal' and not based on anything empirical. Your experience may vary.
If you have any specific questions, please ask. I've already rambled about matters that may or may not exist, and from a perspective of some ignorance, but it was enough of an experience to solidify my confidence in my Kemper Stage, which was valuable, considering that i can pretty easily and quickly become infatuated with the idea, promise, and romance of a new piece of gear.
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Right Click on the Presets Folder and select open in new window. You can then have your rigs open in the main RM window and a second window with the Presets so you can reach for a preset without navigating away from the Rigs folder.
You can use the numbers keys on the keyboard. Blocks are number 1 - 8 if you press 5 it will select the X block, 7 will select the Delay block etc. The radio button to turn on/off is basically on the left hand side of the edit section. If you use numbers to select a block you could use the mouse to toggle on /off the effect in the left edit area. Or you can just double key the number which seems easier to me.
Parametric and Graphic are totally different things. Think of parametric as being a surgical scalpel which graphic is a rusty old blunt cross cur saw. You wouldn’t use the saw to carry out heart surgery but you wouldn’t use the scalpel to frame your house.
Sorry for the delayed response. I'm experiencing some extreme back pain and can't play for a while. Had no idea about the number keys. Hope to be able to try these tips later this week. Thank you.
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I just got the Fractal FM9.
I very quickly decided that I am very glad to have a Kemper.
I’m selling the Fractal and now I am no longer haunted by the thoughts that possibly a Fractal might be better. The GAS/FoMO demons have been exorcised. -
I’m sure there’s a technical reason why parametric is ‘better,’ but is there any reason why we can’t/shouldn’t have a 10-band graphic EQ with sliders? Graphically like any pedal, a Mesa Boogie amp, or a 1985 combo stereo receiver? I’m probably too dense to quickly grok the rotary knob thing, whereas with sliders, I can see at a glance what I want to do. Plus, it corresponds visually to what a frequency metering shows.
The other thing:
I would love to be able to save an effect block as a preset without dragging it to a folder in the sidebar, and then—more importantly—be able to select that preset with an option+click in that preset block rather than having to drag it back in from the sidebar folder.
Basically, I have folders of profiles in Rig Manager for each guitar and when I’m editing one of those profiles, I don’t want to have to go to another folder to look for a preset, drag it onto the block and then return to that preset in that folder.
And another:
Is there a way to turn blocks on and off without double clicking? I kinda feel like a click should be what selects a block, but a radio button in the corner of each block would be more effective to turn them on or off. Similar to the Lock button, but more obvious. Maybe I’m just clumsy, but with selecting and on/off both being some variation of the click, I’m always turning something on/off by accident when all I wanted to do was select it… or vice versa.
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Which output is going to the Focusrite? I would make sure that whatever one is being used for that would be unlinked from the Master volume. In fact, generally only the Monitor out would be linked to the Master, so that you can adjust your own Monitor volume without affecting any others.
The SPDIF is going to the Focusrite.
I didn't find any difference whether Monitor was linked to the Master.
I did update the Focusrite software, though. And then, for some reason, if i click the 1 and the 2 in the focusrite app outputs section, instead of the 1-2 linked stereo pair, the volume is increased. But, i don't get the full stereo effects from my loop.... But, then after that, selecting the 1-2 again sorta raises the volume a bit.... It's so bizarre—i hate that software. It's a bit like the Kemper Rig Manager, in that there are some settings you select but you can't then see what is selected.... Ugggh.
Thank you, though. Things sounded pretty good last night. But, i've said that before, only to come back a day later and have it wonky again. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
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I generally use a mixer because I do a solo act and want my vocals and guitar coming out together. In your case, however, it shouldn't be necessary. Have you checked your output settings to make sure that the -12dB cut isn't active?
In my settings, the -12dB doesn't have an affect. And the Pad is OFF.
Wanna have a look at my settings page to see if you see any glaring mistakes? I'm using SPDIF into the Focusrite, but it was the same story when i was using analog outs into the Focusrite's front end mic pres.
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Really? I think the new (since like 7.5) reverbs are as good as any boutique reverbs out there.
That was what i had read, so i just didn't think anything of it, and i just took for granted that the Kemper Reverbs and Delays were 'top notch.' But, i kept seeing/hearing demos of various gear, and being struck by the reverbs from the UA and the Chase Bliss autothingy. So, i bought the UA, and now i basically just use it. In the initial honeymoon period, i really couldn't switch the Kemper reverb to the UA quick enough. I did it by default, because the UA reverbs were just more satisfying. More recently, i might be coming back toward the Kempers, but only because it's easier to configure them for each profile. But, in a general sense, i think the UAs make me happy, and the Kempers are just... there.
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Hey, all.
So, after i got the Kemper (Stage) this spring, i recognized that profiles were not responding as expected—much less gain, and even the effects seemed significantly minimized, versus what i would hear when listening to the same profiles being demoed on youtube. I later realized that my Focusrite Scarlett interface was not getting enough volume from the Kemper (or something like that) as i was trying to balance the Kemper input with my iMac computer volumes, and outputting both from the interface into my studio monitors. I have (somewhat) corrected that, so that the Kemper is turned up, and computer volumes balanced in the Focusrite software. But, i still feel like Kemper profiler gain is not optimal—i still turn up the gain a little to match what i hear from other people.
I think if i were to plug my monitors directly into the profiler, that would be solved. But, then i'd need another set for my computer. Not good, space or cost-wise.
So, would a small mixer work somehow? I'm talking strictly about home use, for practicing and recording into a DAW. I'm not even sure how this would work, but i imagine the Kemper goes into the mixer, and i can optimize the Kemper's output. Then somehow the computer audio also has to go into the mixer—not sure how that would work. Seems like the headphone out would be suboptimal.... And then the mixer would output to the monitors. Similar to what i'm trying to do in the Focusrite software, but... better. I don't know—i had things working 'fine,' and then something changed, and it's just a pain to try to remember how i had it or just to see what changed. [I despise the Focusrite software—didn't even need it for Gen 2, but Gen 3 is married to it.]
I guess there are mixers that have USB audio, but is that two-way? So, my computer output goes into the mixer also?
Anyone using a setup like this?
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- Refinement of the Rig Manager: so i can see names of effects presets and IRs after i've chosen them; i'd like to not have to quit/restart Rig Manager (50% of the time) after i shut down the Stage and then turn it on again; better preset management....
- Flexibility to use footswitches 1-5 to toggle effects, so i don't have to use Performance Morphs just to trigger the flanger for those quick Van Halen bits.
- Better reverbs so i can sell my UA Golden Reverberator
- A killer uni-vibe so i can stop looking at monstrous $400+ pedals
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That's a little bit funny, because in the "stock" content there are some profiles by TopJimi and Michael Britt. Have a look at the factory content and all the other rig packs!
Yes, i recognize that. And there are a bunch of other profiles by other people in the free set, who are also in my paid profiles sets. I think i was just speaking about my general tendencies to avoid stock presets. I don't really doubt the quality of the Kemper stock stuff. I'll get to them!
Thanks—
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Bray 4550
Divided by 13 BTR 23
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Honestly, i have not really even bothered to try the 'stock' profiles.
When i first got the Kemper, my priority was to start working with the TopJimi Van Halen stuff, which was possibly the primary reason why i chose the Kemper over Fractal. After that, i went to Michael Britt and ToneJunkie stuff, because i had been exposed to their demos and forum comments about their products during the many years i lusted after a Kemper. They basically had built-in brand equity.
And afterward, i tend to gravitate to 'recommended' profiles that i find out about in forums, or stuff that is being marketed, because i'm hearing/watching those demos on youtube, so i have a sense of the quality/qualities.
I probably also have a predisposition to disregard stock presets in modeling systems, so i'm sure i have a prejudice against the free stuff, whether that's irrational or built on past experience.
But, yeah, i should and will go back to try the stock stuff.
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I had just finished my 4th mix, which is something I am totally new at doing, and watched my wife have a big smile on her face when she listened to it for the first time. Later on, I caught her in a phone conversation with her out-of-town friend talking about my songs and saying, "I don't know if you heard, but Larry bought this Kemper thingy that cost like $3000. I don't know what it does but it's very powerful. Maybe he can bring it over when we come to visit".
Is my wife now accepting my expensive musical purchases? LOL. All I have to tell her next time is that it is "powerful".
Anyone else have something to share?
That sounds like something you dreamed. You sure you didn’t finish the second mix, collapse due to exhaustion, and dream up the rest of the story?
If not— if this was real—well, I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even imagine a WAF scenario that good.
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I have a cheap one from Nektar that did the trick, that one time I fiddled with Kemper wah.
