Posts by Steeldom

A dear friend of mine is a luthier and has built my 3 guitars. http://rockline-guitars.de/?page_id=86 Another one is currently in the making and its an absolute stunner. If money was not a limiting factor I'd have him built a ton more.

And apart from that there are a lot of custom guitar companies that I'd be currious to try out.

I like Kiesels, I dig the new english made series of Chapmans, Aristides guitars look fascinating to me.

I'm still hoping that I will one day own a really good Les Paul/ Single Cut.

So I not so much have list of specific guitars. It's more that I'd like to try out all sorts of guitars. At this moment even though I've been playing guitar for almost 17 years now, I couldn't even define my "dream guitar". It would probably be some kind of super strat. But I haven't tried enough different guitars yet to say for sure.

And I've not even begun exploring the world of accoustics.

How embarassing. The problem was 50cm away from the screen as it would seem.

Thank you!

Hi,

I'm not exactly sure if this is the right place to post this.

I have owned a Kemper for years , sold it, owned one again for a couple of years, sold it again.

I understand that access to the private forum is limited if you are new to maybe avoid spam or trolling.

However I think having had a product registered for years should enable a user to participate in the private forum as well.

What do you think about it?

Hi,

according to the Manual the Direct Output with "Git Analog" selected in the output section should transfer the signal to the amp without any change, correct?

So whether I'm plugged into the amp directly or into the Kemper and then via direct out should result in the exact same sound?

Are there any parameters that can affect this chain? Anything else that can be adjusted or that needs to be turned off if I really want to transfer just the pure guitar signal?

There's no AD/DA conversion with this configuration?

The thing is that it does sound different to me. It sounds more compressed with onpleasant highs that get more noticable the louder it gets.

I've checked different cables, guitars etc. The compression is especially noticable when I turn down the volume on my guitar. Directly into the amp I can turn it down to a point where there's just a shimmer of guitar sound, when picking really light with my fingers. With the Kemper in between I can never get as quiet.

Have you experienced the same thing?

Ok so I think I've made SOME progress.

The Engl has a balanced output, so I've been able to profile that and run it through the Power Kabinet. Now there's two things:

1. The profiled sound was virtually identical to the amp. So for me this proves again that the Kemper can reproduce the sounds it is given accurately.

2. The sound was still bad though, because that balanced lineout is (imo) an emergency solution at best. Also philosophically I don't think it is really a good thing to be depended on profiling my one somewhat decent amp. I mean the whole point of the Kemper is to be able to have access to countless amps from all over the world.

So I still think I'm doing something wrong. My reasoning is that many people are super happy with it. A lot of pros use it on stage and in the studio from all kinds of musical backrounds. And I've read the "I have many tube amps and only use Kemper now" story comes up so often in this forum.

Again I'm not talking about nuances. My engl for example. If I plug straight into it and give it just a slight bit more treble with the rest at 12 o'clock that already sounds like a decent rock sound. Not mindblowing amazing. But a fantastic foundation to build on with effects and boosts and such.

And at this point even if I use all the effect blocks for eqs and compressors and post shaper (like Rhett suggested) and such I'm still not getting to the point my tube amp does with everything at 12 oclock.

I REALLY want to use the Kemper. It is an amazing piece of technology and would make so many things so much easier and offer opportunities that I don't have at the moment. I'm not looking for the holy grail. Just a decent rock and metal sound.

What would you suggest? What would you say are possible errors I might be doing?

Here's my situation:

A few years ago after contemplating for a while I got myself a tube rig. An Engl Gigmaster, an OCD to push it and into a TAD 1x12 Cab. This is by far the best sounding equipment I ever owned. And its also for me the mountain that the Kemper (or any other digital gear for that matter) has to cross. And just to be clear I don't need THAT exact sound, but something AS good or better.

To be brutaly honest I have never been able to get the sounds out of the Kemper that I wanted and expected after listening to samples online. And everytime I thought "well it must be because I don't have this or that". So last week I decided to answer this question for myself and pulled the trigger on a powered Kabinet.

Imho that is the most "fair" way to listen to the Kemper. Its like pairing a Helix with a Powercab. These products have been designed to work together so I could expect a proper sound, at least that is my reasoning.

So yesterday it arrived and I've played a round with stock profiles for a while. It didn't sound bad of course. But it's not there, not even close.

Maybe I was foolish but I kinda hoped that it would already sound well with everything untouched. And that I then would "only" have to tweak the last 10% to get the effect combinations I want etc.

I did some experiments with the things I have (inlcuding a Helix LT). I went into the Kemper and straight out of the direct out into the input of my Engl. And it already sounds different than going directly into the amp. The same thing was true for the Helix. So maybe there already lies part of the trouble. I don't think anything is broken in my Kemper. Unfortunately I cannot properly record this to show you.

Another thing I noticed is that I can play my tube rig for hours even at higher volumes without any issue but after about an hour of the Kemper+Kabinet noodeling I felt my ears getting fatigued.

What I really miss is a body of mids that I cannot seem to add by eq. It's either there or it is not. And so far with the Kemper (and Helix and probably all other units as well) it hasn't been there.

At this point the only reason I'm still trying to get this to work is because I just can't believe that so many pro players would sacrifice that much sound for convenience. So it MUST be my fault.

So, what should I do?

EDIT in reply (sorry for the confusion):

- White Kemper Head, latest firmware

- I played the Kemper with the Power Kabinet exactly as instructed in the manual and as adviced in this forum and connected to the Monitor OUT.

- When trying to plug the Kemper between the guitar and ENGL amp, direct out is set to GIt Analog. I should also mention that the difference is not huge but noticable and becomes bigger when i turn down the volume knob on my guitar.

Thank you for your tips so far!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to try some things out. And I've made some progress but I'm still not there.

So maybe I have to take a step back and look at it again as a whole.

Normally with amp modellers what we hear is the sound of the amp, the cab and the microphone. All of it amplified through a PA type of speaker. Right? So you can't really compare that to a tube amp that stands right beside it because these are different points in the signal chain. A fair comparison would be to put the tube amp in another room with a mic and have them both be played through the same PA speaker. That's true for all the modelling gear, if you use it to display the full chain (amp+cab+mic).

And this has been true for the Kemper as well. But as I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong, the KEMPER Kone is there to bridge that gap. The Kone should in theory reproduce the "amp in the room" sound. So it actually IS fair to compare a Kemper through a Kone to a tube amp standing right beside it, right?

I just want to be sure that I'm not making the mistake of expecting something that the gear isn't actually meant to do.

So if that is a fair assessment then shouldn't it also be fair to expect a "plug and play" situation? Like a good tube amp you just plug in and it sounds good right there right then.

So I'm a bit reluctant in adding a general EQ to this setup. I admit I kinda expect it to sound decent without any major eq tweaking. But that of course means to have the right profiles to begin with.

So maybe I should start there, like V8 said.

What I find very difficult is that I don't have a starting point to compare. Profiles online always sound very different when I try them at home. I haven't had a single one where I did the same tone like in a video for example. Of course the guitar has an impact and everything. But I thought there should be at least some that I could use as a point of reference.

The transpose feature does change the sound a bit. But it doesn't have the major impact that is bothering me.

I've tried out some ADA profiles and I didn't tweak a thing just to be sure. Monitor out EQ is also not tweaked. Cab was on. I think in that regard I didn't make a mistake.

I've had some additional thoughts. With guitar cabs closed or open backs can have a huge impact on the sound. Is that also true for the Kone? Because my cab is open and maybe that is something I should change. The Kemper Cab is closed as far as I know. Also how much of an impact does the cabinet actually have on the Kone? I mean it is pretty much the cheapest cab I could find. So maybe a better one/ the Kemper cab would fix that issue?

In terms of power amp I thought, well my camplifier can still go louder maybe it actually is reaching its limit and starting to get thin? Is that a thing, would a more powerful poweramp handle the situation more easily?

Has anyone compared 1x12 and 2x12 Kemper Kones. How much of an impact does it have on the sound?

Also I've though about adding a Tube head to the mix. Now here's my question. I know that I don't want power amp distortion through the Kone, because its not going to sound pleasant. But could I use 4 cable method with the Kemper, and send the full Kone info to the effects return of the tube amp and use it as a clean power amp. Has anyone tried that, and if so what was the result?

I also came to the conclusion if I can't get the sound out of the Kemper alone I could just use it for effects and quality of life stuff, with the 4CM. Like the detuning etc. But if I could use it standalone that would be great.

In terms of profiles, do you have any suggestions on very fundamental basic sounds that I could try out? No sound like EVH more like just a cranked Marshall with nothing on it as a starting point?

I'm open to any suggestions, free as well as commercial profiles.

So first of all I'm not sure if this is the right sub to post this. It is a combination of "issue" and "other hardware" and "which profiles" so I hope this is ok.

So my situation is the following. Yesterday I had my first rehearsal with my new project. I went there pretty confident with my Kemper and left extremely

disappointed. I heavily suspect user error on my part. The thing is I haven't rehearsed or played gigs in 4 years so I'm kinda out of the loop in terms of sound and

loudness. I was very pleased at home with what I had but as soon as I cranked the volume things started to fall apart. Yesterday evening I though about just letting my

Kemper stay at home and invest in a new tube amp to do what I want. But then I though that is kinda dumb. Not only are there a bunch of features that I could hardly recreate

with analog gear, also so many people are using the Kemper live. So as I said, I suspect the problem lies on my part.

What we are playing is Heavy Rock and Metal. D is our standard tuning. We are doing Pop-Metal covers. Like Victorys "I'm so excited", or Jaded Hearts "Larger than life" or Mystic Prophecys "Shadow on the wall". So that is what I'm looking for. Not the typical Metallica metal sound, more of a modernised midrangy 80s hard rock tone.

My gear for yesterday was the following:

- Kemper Profiling head (white) + Remote (Software 7.2.2.16146)

- Camplifier Studio

- Harley Benton G112 --> Which I have equipped with a KEMPER Kone.

Loudness was not an issue, which honestly surprised me. I thought the Camplifier would have trouble keeping up but in terms of volume I still had headroom. And we even agreed that we wouldn't rehearse as loud as yesterday in the future (kinda did it because it was awesome after such a long time ).

I tried quite a lot of different profiles. Some of the stock ones (like Tills dual amps), Tone Junkies Mesa, some profiles I did out of my Helix. And at some point they all sounded the same to me. What really shocked me was that I didn't like the KEMPER Kone AT ALL in that situation. As soon as I disengaged it and just used it as FRFR it became more bearable but still far from great. It all sounded very harsh very fizzy.

The guitars can be overlooked in this case, we tried a bunch, some from the other guitarist as well. Of course there were differences but none of them solved the main issue.

One thing that can be noted is that I use the transpose feature of the Kemper to detune my guitar from standard to D.

Our other guitarist is using a Maxon RTD800 into a George Dennis Mighty Mouse 30 (EDIT: with the matching 1x12 cabinet) for reference. I know I'm comparing apples to oranges BUT the KEMPER Kone is advertised as recreating the "Amp in the room" sound so maybe it's only oranges to grapefruits .

I like the Kemper for a reason. Like other digital amps it's just so convenient (which in itself isn't really metal but what can I do? ). Transposing my guitars means that I have to bring less guitars to a show and can pretty much do the gig with one guitar and a spare and that is something that I was definitely looking forward to. Also I have all the effects I could ever need at hand. The Kemper doesn't need to be miced up. It solves grounding issues on its own. Also if HAVE different guitars I can very easily get them to the same point sound wise where changing from a Les Paul to a Strat on a tube amp can be a bit tricky. I mean I don't have to tell you, you all know the great ways of the Kemper

So I really want to make this work. But I'm also let's call it "project focused". If the Kemper doesn't do the thing I need I will keep it for practise at home but have to try and come up with a different solution.

So what I really need is advice in terms of:

How do I set up my Kemper for rehearsal situations? What additional gear am I missing? Which are in your opinion the best profiles I can get for the type of music I want to do?

Thank you for your input in advance! I really want to make this happen with my Kemper.

Quote from V8guitar

Really happy you've got the sound you want but....

I do struggle a bit with the combination in the same way I still don't understand why people still need OD or boost pedals.

There are 15,000 profiles out there on RE alone and countless commercial profiles and yet you are not alone in not finding your sound without adding other stuff.

The Helix is also a great device with loads of great sounds but the thought of trying to use both gives me a headache. I'm sure there is someone out there using Helix, KPA and Axe in an even more complex set up..

In my mind if you are having to add more gain or eq. etc. and hence presumably why you run out of effects slots then its probably the wrong profile. It just seems overly complex and expensive to add more external gear. One of the big things to me about the KPA is its a one stop shop.

I have always looked for the right base sound and then just added time based effects on top. More gain needed? Get an amp with enough gain ( hence why I used ENGL's and not Marshall - btw I know they sound different but there are other options)..hence I'm not even close to running out of effects slots.

I know this isn't how others use it and no criticism intended, just wanted to share my approach. Keeping it simple has so many advantages, not least matching devices ( gain levels etc), additional gear and connections blah blah - it just shows what a diverse bunch we are..

Maybe I'm just too easily pleased

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I do get where you come from. And believe me I've tried A LOT of profiles and I don't deny that maybe the profiles I made out of Helix sound "better" to my ears because I made them and there's some Mojo involved

The pedals in front of the amp are not purely for gain reasons. Also for shaping the sound. I highly recommend Rhett Shulls Youtube channel he has a video on stacking pedals in front of a clean or slightly distorted amp. And many many heavy sounds have a tubescreamer with the gain set to 0 in front just to sharpen the sound or channel it into a certain direction.

I have not yet had the time to put the profiles online. But I will and I'm also experimenting with the Revv amp in the Helix. To me this is like owing a room full of amps to profile. And yes I could just use Helix. But since I also love my Kemper, where's the fun in that?

Hey guys,

I just had to share this.

I had a Kemper in 2012, sold it, was VERY unhappy bought one again last year. But the Helix has drawn my eyes ever since it came out. And the reason is that for me it is probably an "AxeFX light" so to speak. Many routing options, more than the Kemper allows. But my heart was with Kemper and at the time I could only afford one of them so the choice was easy. But my mind never let go of the Helix.

I don't have any tube amps, so I rely on profile packs from the internet. I even bought some. But I never found myself to be AMAZED. I liked the sound, it was ok. But I always wondered. Every time I hear profiles on youtube they sound amazing and I just couldn't recreate that sound at home. Maybe it was my speaker. Maybe my guitar.

And the second thing I found myself doing all the time was to use up pretty much all the effect slots just to get the sound to where I want it. With one or two distortion pedals in front an equalizer behind the amp. A light ambience hall. A noise gate.

And since I lock in a Solo boost that I can activate from any sound. That leaves me with little space for other things like delay or chorus.

So then I thought about Helix. There I have more than enough effect slots for anything I would ever need. Up to 4 amps in parallel and all kinds of shenanigans. So what if, I would use the Helix to create a sound and then profile it with the Kemper? And that is what I did. Last week I bought an Helix lt. And I fiddled around with it a bit. And started doing the exact same thing. Pedals in front, effects after until I reached a point where I was satisfied. And then I profiled it.

So in the Helix my signal chain almost always is:

slight Compressor - distortion pedal - Amp + Cab - Mesa Equalizer

And that combined gives a pretty rad Amp sound. And the Profiler captured it perfect. Even more so. I think I've tricked my Kemper into thinking it is profiling something it actually isn't. There's no compression going on in the profile and yet I get full and rich sounds. I think (although that maybe mojo) it even enriches what comes out of the Helix a bit.

And boy oh boy I couldn't be happier. I had to force myself to stop playing the other night when it started to see daylight again. A clean signal chain, no effect, not even the usual ambience hall. And it just sounds amazing.

If I find the time on the weekend I will put online what I've profiled so far. Hiwatt, AC30, 5150 and Fender Deluxe.

Now it really feels like I have a collection of vintage amps at hand to profile the way I want.

Now you might ask: Why not just use the Helix?

As I said to my ears it actually sounds better after profiling.

And the profiler has some features that I just don't want to miss. Such as the detuner is way better than Helix'. It's not even comparable. On the Kemper I can detune my guitar a half step or a step and play comfortably. The Helix just doesn't get there.

And the second feature is the locking effects. Being able to have a soloboost locked let's me adjust that in rehearsals or live without having to change every profile I use. Just like having one boost pedal on your pedalboard. I haven't yet found a way in the Helix to achieve the same.

So the end of the story for me is: The combination is so much greater than the sum of it parts. To me it is ridiculous. I have the feeling I hear my Kemper for the first time.

So thank you Kemper and thank you Line6 for making me a very happy guitarist.

Quote from Wheresthedug

Do you have any form of mixer, audio interface or DAW at home? If so just sent the mono signal out of the Kemper main outs to that then pan center to send to headphones.

If not you could buy a cheap headphone amp with a mono switch.

Yes, and this will be my workaround for the moment

Thanks for the tipp monkey! Will definitely look into this.

For me it will be the challenge to organize my different setups. Live, rehearsals, at home jamming, at home recording.
I've not yet decided which way to go live. If I use Inear monitoring, I might just go stereo. But at the moment I only have a monosetup for rehearsals.
And my fear is, because I had the exact situation when I first had the Kemper, that I will dial in awesome tones under my headphones and they will sound
unusable Live and vice versa.
I will have to seperate these situations and a mono setup for my headphones might help smooth the gap for me.

Otop: I'm preeeetty exicted since my Kemper will arrive in the on friday or saturday

Hi,

is it possible to have a mono signal through the headphone output?
Reverb is in Stereo but it changes the signal quite a bit for me when I compare headphone sound to monitoring sound, during rehearsal etc since I only have one box there.

Is this a feature the KPA has?

Quote from Man_With_Gas

I'd like to believe CK recognises Damian's tremendous and tiring efforts in providing an editor for the KPA.

This will no doubt assist in further KPA sales for those where not having an editor is a total deal breaker.

I know this is stating the glaring obvious but WHY is Damian not contracted by CK to actually build the official editor?
He clearly has passion and an intimate working knowledge of the product. Even if CK has another vision of the finished product surely Damian
can be involved to make it a reality sooner rather than later.

I don't know Damian but clearly he has initiative and a great work ethic along with skills so I'm dumbfounded as to why he isn't in the KPA circle pushing things forward.

I'd like to add that a USB interface would be far more convenient and more universal than a midi interface but I'm sure there's a reason that I ignorantly don't know about.

Great work Damian and I'm very grateful to you.

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As intuitive as your solution sounds I don't think Ck will consider something like that for various reasons.

1. Damian is not associated with Kemper, so if Ck where to adapt his work he would have to pay him. All sorts of complication might occur. How much work (quantity) did Damian invest in his programming? What would be price per hour. And so on.
2. CK would have to invest a considerable amount of time in checking if the code was ok. This is a thing that affects both parties of this deal. Because if, for any reason, the software might get corrupted and one or multiple KPAs would suffer damage, it would be CKs responsibility. So he has to take that responsibility for a work that neither he nor his team has done, which is a very dangerous thing company wise.
3. Damians solution is a workaround. He uses midi to change whatever the KPA allows to be changed via midi. If Ck would adapt this immediatly there would be requests to implement all the other features into the editor that are not midichangeable. So the proper solution from Kemper would be something fully integrated (and via USB). And I don't think you can transform damians Editor into "the real deal".

Now here are two things I see might result from Damians work:
- Kemper offers him a job and he is part of the development team inside Kemper. (Which would honor his knowledge and dedication to the product)
OR
- Ck sees how well an unofficial editor resonates with the community and decides to pull the trigger on their own development.

Hi,

I'm not exactly shure where to post this, maybe a friendly mod might place it where it belongs

I just found this video:

And I thought, now THIS is a challenge for the KPA. Is there any Kemper owner who maybe has this Amp or might has the chance to profile it? This might be the right kind of things for Tonejunkie, I think it would suit their sound design pretty well.
I think the Amp sounds amazing and if the KPA can profile it, it would be a killer argument for it imho.

Quote from Nemo13

I’ve never seen a simple feature request bring out so many emotionally charged soul searching posts.

It is such a mighty request, it has its own gravitational pull. It pulls in not only targeted players, but unaffected players, post bombers, and visitors from outer topic!

The magnitude of this request is so impacting, there is a scientific study in place with devoted experts working 24/7 on the psychological and societal consequences to the music community worldwide!

The aftershocks of its initial creation has actually driven players who have zero need or interest for such a feature feel absolutely compelled to journey here and announce / remind the whole forum that they personally have no need for this particular feature request.

The power of this one simple request has even breached the very Kemper forum itself! Traveling far far away into distant alien forums!

This must be... The Armageddon request...

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You...

I like you

I have to wait another week

BUT it's coming. Although I am collecting Profiles that I want to try and already have about 400...
Has anyone experience with stoping the time, in order to have more time for playing? Might be a feature request for the future

I think there are rather two big groups of Kemper users.
One is coming from tube amps and for one it is another digital competitor. Those groups differ in some points and share others.
Like everybody is looking for "the sound" but one group want one sound to be the best possible and the other looks for a lot of flexibility.

And it also depends on how you use your Kemper. If the main portion of your usage is profiling and reamping, then you don't need a detailed editor. But if you tweak A LOT then it becomes a very very handy tool.
Again of course it's not like you cannot do without. The Axe-Fx 1 was also programmable without the editor. Of course, otherwise the unit wouldn't make much sense, would it?

But the editing is one aspect of digital gear. And it's made much easier with a pc/mac editor.

Quote from Monkey_Man

Exactly, AJ.

Kemper listens; we know that much...

I mean... it's kind of the job of the KPA to listen

I think we should do a poll in this forum. I remember that the community had a much influence in desicion-making regarding the foot controller.

Also a poll like this in this forum might have the needed weight to make CK reconsider his statement regarding an editor