Posts by RosboneMako

Since you are rehabbing still, using the Kemper manually may be a good thing to force you to use your brain a lot. But if it gets to the point you just are going to put it away, I would get a computer next to it and use Rig Manager (RM) to edit and sort thru profiles.

It is 10 times easier. No bending over spinning knobs. Just you, your mouse, and a large computer monitor. If you are older, like me, it is hard to see the small menu anyway. Nothing like a 27" monitor to let you see everything from far away with a guitar in your lap.

WORKFLOW

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- You start RM and you are presented with a list of all the profiles in your unit. You can just start clicking on them and playing.

- After clicking a profile, the editor shows you the signal path from input to output.

- Clicking on any point in between lets you edit the stomps/amp/cabinet/effects/etc.

- If you like the edits you made you save the profile.

PICTURE - RIG MANAGER LAYOUT

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A) In this panel you can see every profile available to you.

-MY PROFILER is all of the profiles stored in the Kemper.

- LOCAL LIBRARY is an area you can make folders and store profiles on your computer.

- RIG EXCHANGE is the online list of profiles people have uploaded to the web.

- RIG PACKS are the Kemper made profile packs. These are free and are great.

B) This is the list of profiles that are in the PANEL A areas. Double click a profile to play/edit it. You can use arrow keys to move up and down but do not go fast. It takes time to load each one and you can get this messed up.

C) EDITING - Clicking on any block between INPUT/OUTPUT lets you edit that block. Right-Click the block to get a pop up menu that lets you add stomps/effects at the block location. Edit the parameters for that block with the knobs in the panel below.

D) When you are all done you can save the changes you just made with these buttons. Their names change so you will need to read them. Usually say something like STORE IN PROFILER.

NOTES

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- Rig Manager has changed some since this picture was taken.

- Do not edit profiles in the RIG EXCHANGE window. Copy them to the Kemper or LOCAL LIBRARY area first. You can RIGHT-CLICK a profile to get Copy/Paste options or use the buttons in areas D to store profiles in the Kemper.

- It is best to make a copy of the profile you are editing before editing so you do not lose the original.

- I like to make folders in the LOCAL area to keep better organization. It is better to edit profiles in the LOCAL area then copy the finished profile to the Kemper.

I am a simple man. And Rig Manager is one of the best programs I have ever used for editing guitar units. I love using it and spend just as much time in Rig Manager as actually playing.

Quote from joetdc

I have windows. I'm honesty thinking of changing to an AXE, Quad, or even Helix just because of this.

I am a Line 6 fan boy. Been using them forever. And I can say in all honesty, for simple profile editing Rig Manager blows the Helix Editor away. Its not even close. Messing with IRs in Helix is a nightmare. I am never really sure if my edits are saved or not in Helix. Its a mess.

I literally will never stop using my Kemper because I like RM so much better than anything else.

I have been using 32" Vizio D Series TVs as monitors for at least a decade

Quote from Trazan

Chose speakers that music sounds good/right though.

The key is to get a flat response. Studio monitors are probably the best options for flatness.

PA speakers and home stereo speakers may be designed to add some highs and lows because that is what our ears like to hear. One of the pros can probably quote some Harman curve or something that shows the exact freqs we like.

PA Speakers may also be designed to operate at very high power without blowing up. And frequency response is a 2nd worry after getting it to not blow up. No one cares how flat it is at 1000 watts

So if you are going to play at reasonable volumes, studio monitors. If you are going to crank it, maybe a PA speaker, FRFR, Kemper Kab/Kone etc...

There is no right answer.

Most electronic devices follow the pattern of the more it is on the hotter it gets and the sooner it will fail. Heat tends to age components. So much so that companies will do HALT/HASS tests by heating the units to speed up when they fail.

For a densely packed unit like the Kemper I would guess its temperature would gradually increase and max out around 4-6 hours. Meaning, it will get as hot as it is probably going to get at 4-6 hours.

I would try to not run it much past 3 hours at a time. But if you are like the rest of us, it is on all day long no matter what.

If the unit is designed to last 50-100 years and you cooking it means it will only last 25 years, then what is the harm. By then we will all have Kemper 2s

Quote from Steve5478

except these two sentences i find in contradiction ;

An example could be you are profiling an amp with an 8" or 10" speaker. Or the amp EQ boosts 6 kHz a lot for some reason. As you are pointing out, a 12" speaker may be fine with just a little better response above 5 kHz. Kemper Kone?

But the Kemper has to assume you are playing thru an FRFR. Or using a Kone that it can digitally EQ to be flat.

The safest bet is always to play thru an FRFR. That way you can record the profiles with no editing. And probably play out thru a PA with very little editing.

FRFR is a necessary thing so people understand that the speaker will try to represent all of the frequencies you can hear.

A typical 12" speaker is too heavy to be moved back and forth really fast. So they will not represent frequencies above 5 kHz very well. In this example you can see the speaker output drops hard at around 4 kHz.

A typical studio monitor tries to create a flat frequency response across the whole 20 Hz to 20 kHz range. They employ a small tweeter speaker to recreate the high frequencies.

The Kemper is trying to recreate the sound of every possible amp. So it needs a speaker that is able to create sounds well above 5 kHz etc. So that it will sound like the amp it is trying to simulate.

The low freqs are also very hard to recreate, so they will taper off no matter what. The larger the speaker the better the low freq will be generically.

Typical flat speakers "FRFR" should have a flat frequency response from around 50 - 80 Hz to 16 - 20 kHz.

The important part for a Kemper is that the speakers do not color the sound. Just because they are considered flat (which is impossible), they will still have their own voice/tone/color/sound. That is why you will see a lot of posts of people saying they tried 20 different FRFR speaker setups. For 90% of us humans, most decent 2-way speakers will be fine for casual jamming.

Quote from b_ryan

I’m not gonna spend that amount of money on such old technology, when a lot of other good stuff is out there. So I am really hoping for a MKII.

I am late to the Kemper party. When I was looking at the Kemper, I was very afraid to pull the trigger because I thought a Kemper 2 may come out at any time. I almost went with a Helix, just because it was newer.

I think a new unit is something that really needs to be considered. They could be losing sales to people afraid to invest in something that may be obsolete any day now. And those poor people are getting stuck with sub par hardware out of fear Do it for the children.

I settled on the Stage because it was the newest hardware.

Quote from HowardBrown

I purchased an Eminence EM12 and liked the results I was hearing but still felt I could benefit from a different power amp so I purchased a SD PowerStage 700

Thanks for the great story! A friend of mine, who knows way more about speakers than I do, told me the bigger the magnet the closer you will get to the actual sound it is trying to put out. Meaning small magnets will have a colored sound since they cant control the speaker as well. Which is usually great for a certain amp or tone. But is not good when trying to emulate ALL amp tones. So I run big magnet Eminence in all of my amps.

Of course, I am not knowledgeable so I may have misunderstood. May have been cabinet related in that particular case.

When I looked up your EM12, I laughed hard. That magnet is huge!!! Probably sounds great for a variety of sounds from a Kemper.

OP

I have not tried the Kemper thru an amp yet. I play thru Behringer 2031p monitors. I just bought a 50w Katana for portable jamming but have not tried it. And I want to run the Kemper thru a stereo amp into my stereo 4x12 cab. One of these days...

Quote from Monkey_Man

I thought he said years ago that two Profiles could not be run at the same time due to DSP-power limitations, Ruefus.

HERE I GO AGAIN, RAMBLING ON LIKE A PSYCHOPATH...

The most demanding thing I would imagine is doing the calculations to use an IR. The Helix limits you to a single 2048 or two 1024 sample IRs. The Kemper is only doing a single IR. not sure what sample count. I am making a VST and as an amateur I am using two 1024 IRs. One per side (L,R).

In my light reading about tubes, I think tubes may be special because their frequency response may change with gain. Where a transistor does not. You drive a transistor and it just cuts you off and says you are done. The tube may be able to squeeze out some more low energy high frequency signal thru??? This is all a guess.

Assuming this is true, I would probably write a profiling amp to calc the frequency response at a few gain points. Represent each point as an IR. Then I can interpolate between each IR based on the amount of signal I see in the sample. Or maybe even base it on RMS value, etc.

This would mean I (or Kemper) am taxing the DSP chip with several IRs. Not just one or two.

Most IRs have little info past about 512 samples. So you could cheat and get a few more IR points using these shorter computation times.

This thought came to me while I was adding an envelope filter to mimic the tube response (if it exists). Been busy with other parts of the app, but I plan on trying this out soon.

But this could explain how the Kemper matches so many Tube amps really well. And why it may be hard to do two amps at a time? If only I were smart, I could figure this stuff out.

if I am correct, I may be making a profiling VST soon... better get to work guys and beat me to it

Quote from Navar

Not in the digital world. The signal to noise ratio stays as it is.

Correct. This is a good point to make!

I was thinking if the DSP chip put out a lower output (line level) you would have to amplify it up with an Op Amp etc. But the DSP seems to be putting out a higher voltage, so adding a pad to reduce its output is the correct thing to do.

Quote from gnoleb

4. For the love of whatever deity, hire someone to put tool-tips to describe what every single parameter dial does in Rig Manager. Its text in software, like the cheapest thing. Junior programmer level.

I have always had a textbox on my apps that shows quick help for whatever you are editing (bottom line). RM has space at the bottom for this also. They could expand it.

Tool-Tips are nice but I get annoyed when you have a lot of controls and they are popping up all the time. So I dumb it down a little.

Quote from Wheresthedug

Kemper’s recommend process is to leave output at 0db and tick the -12db pad switch. The pad is after the output converters whereas the volume knob ois before the converters.

This makes perfect sense. I will switch mine

I seem to recall that the TS outputs are hotter than a normal LINE LEVEL device. Which is what most devices want to see at their input. The Line Level standard.

In fact, it is 12 dB louder than a normal LINE LEVEL device. That is why there is a -12 dB option. To take it down to a normal level. I am not smart enough to know why it outputs such a high value. May have something to do with the balanced outputs?

So you have options:

- Run the -12 dB Pad ON and set your output to 0dB. ( So you get -12 out).

- Don't run the -12 dB Pad and turn your output to -12 dB. ( So you get -12 out).

Some pros may have experience with which way is better. Personally I leave the pad off and run -12dB on the volume. Anytime you amplify something you add noise. So why amplify the signal up to 0 dB then knock it down. But they may just be doing the math for you and subtracting the 12 dB from the user setting. Meaning both ways will sound the same because they are the same.

So your settings of -20 and the -12 pad means you are outputting -32 dB. A very low signal which may pickup noise etc on long runs.

Dont forget the Kemper has an acoustic simulator built in. May be in the EQ section (I am not at my machine). I started with a Rig Exchange profile based on an acoustic sim. Cant remember which one.

For clean there are tons out there. A fun one to start with (and works well with the acoustic sim) is Wooly Coats Spanky MK2 on the Rig Exchange.

A lead tone is tough because there are a 20k choices on the rig exchange. And you can use the built in stomps. My favs are the OCD overdrive driving into the stomp compressor set to its default soft (and raising the effect from 3.5 to about 4.5-5.5).

I am writing a VST for fun and made my Cab section stereo. Meaning it has separate cabs for left and right. Seems like an easy thing to add to the existing Kemper even.

I have not used it. But if they are using any form of delay the first sound you hear will usually sound the loudest. Your brain filters out the echo for you to locate prey/attackers

But I am sure someone has already tested it in a DAW etc.

Quote from JoshuaL1

I had this thing too.
Seems that rolling a little down the volume helped to get rid of some nasty high frequencies.

This supports my thoughts that the Kemper is being compressed right at the input. Driving the compressor could create such high freq harshness.

I have been working on making a VST (it is coming along amazing) and think there should just be a Kemper VST. It is a no brainer and cant believe they have not made one yet.

My VST started out very simple: Distortion pedal. But in order to test it out I need an amp. I got tired of running it in front of he Helix VST, so I added an IR Cab. Then it sounded like a POD/Helix/etc. So then I added Chorus, Stereo delay, and reverb. Then I made the IRs stereo. Now it sounds pretty huge.

My point is, I am not a great programmer. And I basically made a modeller in less than 2 weeks.

The Helix has a lot more DSP power than the Kemper. Yet the Helix VST runs fine.

So I see no reason why there is not a Kemper VST. It would probably skip the profiling steps. Just load premade profiles and automate the parameters and you are done. Then it all runs in software on the PC and removes any lag, extra cabling, etc.

One hitch may be getting certain things to matchup like reverbs etc. Maybe the implementation in DSP is easier or more effective??? So it may need to be slightly less powerful than the hardware version. Which is a good thing anyway, since you do not want to remove your hardware market.

Dear Kemper, I may figure out a cheesy way to get your profiles working and make a VST. You should probably do it first

For those interested, MS Visual Studio C++ 2022 and JUCE and you are off to the races. Both free. It compiles to a standalone EXE so debugging and testing is super simple.

I was making a profile yesterday and I had another thought on this topic: Kemper input compression.

The Kemper always sounds compressed to me. The CLEAN sense almost acts like it is a compressor, could just be some added gain, when you max it out you get more sustain.

Having compression before the gain stages will do two things:

- increase the bass/mudiness more.

- increase the attack and create high pitched noises when picking.

These are both things users have complained about when using the Kemper

Quote from Vinny Burns

It’s about the Kemper adding something that is not originally there on my own amps that I am profiling.

I agree 100%. Just trying to offer solutions until Kemper decides it is an issue and addresses it.

I also like to try and offer solutions for people landing here from a Google search with similar concerns.