Hope it's as easy a fix. 
Posts by franknputer
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Reaper is excellent, particularly for tracking and audio-heavy projects. If you're looking at using virtual instruments, though, and you want to stay native then Studio One or Logic are probably your better choices.
I've been a Reaper user since its earliest days, and it is super solid. I would encourage anyone to get a license, because I still fall back to it when stability is an absolute must.
S1 has a ton of features and has gained a lot of ground in recent years. That said, I had comping issues with it last time I ran it on my Mac that I never could get solved. I have an NFR license for the current version, which sounds amazing but TBH I haven't installed it yet.
Now, I'm a big proponent of cross-platform software choices being the wisest ones. However, I've been a Mac guy for the past decade now so I finally bit the bullet and sprang for Logic Pro - and for me it's been a good choice. I do a lot of my work in Ableton, but if I'm not working with loops in Session View (Logic has some sort of similar workflow now anyway) I find Logic to be a great choice for composing stuff. Apple being a closed platform is a downside for changing OSs, but their software is excellent so I'll worry about crossing that bridge when it comes up.
There's something to be said for choosing according to your workflow. As an engineer I always preferred Reaper (I was a pro audio engineer in my former life) but as a musician who wants to think as little as possible about technical crap I've been pretty happy with it. They all have a bit of a learning curve, but it didn't take long to get familiar enough to do what I need to do and it's easy to look up solutions if I get stuck. I'm a fan of the Logic drummer too, it's a good tool for getting a decent beat in place quickly and moving on (a battle I've fought for a looong time). It's great that they have a full complement of instruments built-in, whether you use them or not.
I guess my best advice would be to figure out which product ticks the most (and most significant) boxes for you for your workflow and your ultimate aims. -
SoundToys Little Plate is really nice. Right now it's on sale for $39.
Valhalla DSP makes some good plugs that aren't expensive, and they also have a few freebies. Valhalla SuperMassive is one, cool if you need long ambient reverb.
I also have several Eventide plugins - hard to go wrong with them, they're not cheap but Eventide was a pioneer in digital reverb so they definitely know their DSP. -
I understand your frustration, given what you've said about your experience. I wouldn't try to set it up on the fly with the band waiting, that's for sure. Not until I find my way around all of the settings.
I did find right away that different pickups reacted differently to different models (which makes sense, you'd have the same issue to some extent with any amp or pedal). My approach so far (and I'm still very much a n00b here) has been to take an evening, sit down with one of my guitars, and try to set up a Performance going (loosely speaking) from clean to heavy, with #3 usually being a lightly crunchy tone. For example:
- A nice Fender clean sound
- A different clean sound, maybe with an effected tone like a rotary or a delay
- A light overdriven rock tone that cleans up a bit with the volume knob, but can be pushed for more grind
- A distorted tone that could still do rhythm, like a good Marshall or such
- A heavily driven "guitar hero" sound
So I save that rig with the name of the guitar I used. Next time, grab a different one, or a bass; and repeat. This way I've got a good set of jumping-off tones for each guitar that I don't have to over-think when it's time to play - if I grab my Reverend RG I just call up that performance and I'm ready to go. If I switch to my Tele, then I switch to the Tele performance.
Over time I'll take those evenings to work on refining these a bit too - but I'll tell ya, I LOVE not having to futz around with things too much when I feel inspired. -
The manufacturers are paid when they ship to the distributor or dealer.
Actually no. Major retailers often have agreements to pay the net costs within a certain time frame. That's the 30/60/90 I was referring to - if your terms are to pay the net within 90 days then that's when the bill is due.
As to how much that may or may not factor into EZ pay plans, only the retailer could say. -
That's not really how bankruptcy works, but that's not pertinent to the topic either.
What I said was Sweetwater is not extending you credit. It's not their money you're borrowing, it's Synchrony Bank's. They specialize in retail credit, including PayPal Credit accounts. -
I got a $12,000 Sweetwater credit card for 24 months at 0% interest on all my purchases. Can't beat that payment plan.
Yeah, but that's not Sweetwater extending that credit, it's Synchrony Bank. They're behind a lot of consumer credit. The payment plan is a good deal if you make the payments - Synchrony is banking on you being late.
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The manufacturer has no say in how their gear is paid for. They can dictate price and what dealers carry it.
They couldn’t care less how the money arrives.It's not about how it arrives, and I'm sure they are concerned with when.
What I was referring to was fairly standard billing practices of a 30/60/90 payment schedule - we ship you 100 widgets, and you have to pay us within 90 days. That might facilitate longer payment arrangements, where a company that insisted on payment within 30 days might not have as much flexibility. Now, I'm just speculating since I don't have any inside info on anyone's arrangements, but it might explain why it's hard to get boutique gear on such terms. -
Referring again to the line about vintage stomps in the manual, I don't think they designed this as a rack gear emulation, and most (if not all) vintage compressor pedals were not set up with the same controls as a rack unit. The MXR Dyna-Comp, for example, only had two knobs: Output and Sensitivity.
My current HW comp is the Orange Kongpressor (which I really like btw). It's an optical design, and it also has attack, release, and squash controls (as well as volume and chime). If this is what Kemper was emulating (optical pedals in general, not necessarily the Kongpressor), then perhaps they'll consider adding another compressor emulation emulating VCA compression with the standard controls. -
It's not unusual for some brands to be excluded from those plans. I've bought a bunch of stuff from Zzounds that way - you can buy Kemper from them, but they only offer a 3 payment plan, where a lot of the brands will go as far as 12 months. (My very mundane guess is that it has something to do with accounting, and maybe how long a manufacturer will wait to be paid for the product.) I probably would have gone with Zzounds for my Profiler Stage had they offered longer terms.
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From a cursory read of the manual, it sounds to me like Intensity = Threshold, meaning at what incoming level the compressor is activated.
Squash is oddly described, I can't quite figure if it's essentially the Release control, but maybe there's more going on there. The last line about vintage stomps' ratio always being infinite seems to imply that the ratio is fixed. -
I like having fx on tap in the Kemper. I can't recall any that I would consider unusable, and many of them are quite good.
That said, there are still some pedals that I prefer for their specific sound or functionality, like some of my delays or my MF-102. Those will be integrated as needed. Fuzzes can be finicky beasts, and I'd imagine some work better with the Kemper than others do. That's true for any amp/fuzz combo, though, so I don't necessarily consider it a drawback. -
Maybe an active PU would help. Therefore not all cpu must be used by the KPA. But I am whether an electric engineer nor an expert in PUs so just requesting wishes from a players perspective.
This actually sounds like the Line6 Variax to me.
It's an interesting concept, but I wonder if the results would be satisfying? I think for it to be fully realized then you'd end up with a pickup version of a Kemper, emulating Strat/Tele/P90 single coils, dozens of humbucker types, vintage vs modern specs, over/underwound coils...not to mention bass pickups, pedal steel/hawaiian guitar pickups, foil pickups...quite the rabbit hole to go down! -
Just got the EP1-KP last week to set up for a switching wah pedal. It's nice having it work like a wah - before that I was using a Moog pedal, which also works great for expression. I may grab one non-Mission pedal to cover the other options (I actually use the Moog pedal on my Moogerfooger pedals).
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Going through this right now - the unit will need to be repaired/replaced. Kemper US Support is going to swap mine for a new one they just got in, that should not have the problem; my other option was to return it to the vendor for another, but there was no way to know whether I'd just get another bad unit so I opted to take Kemper up on their offer. Just got the shipping info, so I'll be without it for a little while during the swap
but at least that should take care of it. -
While it's true there is a lot of online material to draw from, there's also no filter (like all things internet) and so you have to sort through a ton of chaff to get something useful. A new musician might not have that skill. Also, what is on YouTube is very fragmented - a structure of some kind helps you to progress by building a more solid foundation (when it's done right, of course). Relying solely on videos might teach you a lot of "hacks", but you need more than that to really build your abilities.
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Hi! I'm new here also, and a lot newer to the Profiler. I was thinking the same thing about GAS, this is a great solution for those of us who would acquire more amps than our rooms (and relationships!) would allow.
Now I'm just trying to avoid PAS (Profile Acquisition Syndrome)! -
And sorry, can't resist to say: Your name is perfect for what you do. Little resorting of two letters and you have the name of the inventor of that great thing...
Yeah, I know. I learned his name a few years ago, and I emailed him to say I should get an endorsement deal for being his almost-namesake. For some reason he didn't go for it...
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Hi all! Another new Kemper user here - been GASsing for one for years now, and finally got the Profiler Stage last week.
I've been playing guitar for +40 years, coming up from a classic rock/blues base but I've studied some jazz, played in all kinds of bands, plus I was a live audio engineer for years (and fortunate enough to work with some great players over the years, famous and not-so-famous) so my tastes are pretty broad. In recent years I've done a lot of messing around with Ableton and some modular synth stuff, but the electric guitar is still my main instrument.
I mostly play for myself in my home studio these days (although I'm looking to get out again soon) so the Kemper seemed to make a lot of sense for me. So far I've really been enjoying trying out a bunch of profiles, tweaking things here & there, and learning my way around the unit. It feels really great to play the Kemper - I'm not a tube purist but I am a tube lover, and the Kemper does a really great job at capturing that sound and feel.
I'm also looking forward to profiling my small collection and seeing what results I can get - I have an Orange Rocker 30, a Trinity Tramp, and an old Ampeg Gemini VI combo, and a decent selection of mics to work with, so hopefully I'll have something more to contribute soon. 
Cheers!
Christopher Kemp aka franknputerhttps://franknputer.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/franknputer
(The stuff on my pages is mostly synth-oriented experiments at the moment, but there will be more guitar music soon. Track 3 on Magnetismecrosis is an experiment with droning open-tuned guitars and feedback.)
