Posts by mbenigni

Quote from MKB

It might be safe to guess that if Line 6 allows their guitarist at NAMM to only use a few amp models, and there are very few demo clips, that the device/models are still being perfected and not ready for prime time yet. And this is OK; many times a company will send an early alpha unit to trade shows to whip up interest.

I don't know if this adds up, though. Line 6 reps keep making the point that modeling a new amp takes as much as "one man-month" of effort. The Helix is scheduled to ship in 4-8 weeks depending on who you believe. So if it's not already packed with amazing sounding amps, they (and their customers) are in some serious trouble.

I think they just honestly believe that that (god-awful in my personal opinion) overdriven "plexi" tone holds some kind of universal appeal, and they haven't made it a priority to record anything else. I'm kind of operating on the "how bad can it be?" principle, given that I thought POD HD tones were "okay, not great", HX is likely to be at minimum a small improvement on HD, and the right IRs will go a long way to dress anything up. That, Line 6 effects (which I generally dig), flexible routing, and intuitive controller programming = worth the asking price (for me). If I had deeper pockets and more time with my guitar, I'd have a Kemper and a Helix... but I do not.

Laimon is right, of course - there's no way a brief interview on a convention floor is going to double as a demo for a new products tones. But it's a bit odd that there are no high quality audio demos anywhere else yet.

Thanks, GSF. I sold my KPA so I don't have access to private messaging here anymore. But the Camplifier is still available - please email me at [email protected].

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Run the Kemper in one of the loops.

That would be ideal, if I had all the money in the world and didn't mind the additional footprint and complexity. Alas, neither of these things are true for me.

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If you value tube tone and variety of amps I predict regret in the future for any that sell the Kemper for this.

It's a little different for me, because I'd already decided to sell the Kemper before I saw the Helix announcement. Helix just conveniently turned up as a "point B". If I don't like it, I'll return it and go back to using software and tube amps as the situation dictates. And if I find I regret selling the Kemper, I'll buy another one. The mistake will have cost me a couple hundred bucks if it comes to that, but right now I want to investigate some alternatives.

Quote from ReneLangenhan

Why don't you guys see it this way: IF the helix sounds any good, which remains to be heard, you might simply take a profile of it and keep the Kpa.

For me, this would totally miss the point. I already have (oops, had, haven't gotten used to that yet) great sounds in the Kemper; I'm looking forward to the integrated floorboard, the additional I/O, the extensive parameter mapping, etc. of the Helix. If anything, I wish I could take the sounds from KPA, and import them into the Helix, but of course that's not possible. I'm actually taking the leap fully expecting to sacrifice tone. Hopefully not too much of a sacrifice, but that remains to be seen...

Quote from Gitarrenschlumpf

Wow! 14 pages about the Helix - without the Helix. Looks like we found our summer slump.

And 90% of it's me, trying to pass the time until it ships.

Ain't no cure for the summer time blues.

Quote from MathiasUlrick

Pretty sure I'm going to sell my KPA. I haven't done any profiles with it since I got it and I am just not having any luck with downloaded profiles. I will go blindly with the Helix because I've always loved Line 6, the POD HD Pro was an awesome unit my only complaint about it was the noise. I thought it sounded great and I could coax some really nice tones out of it. Even after significant tweaking I can't get a profile to sound very good. Yeah, I'm probably doing it wrong but I feel like after owning the KPA for about a year it is just not for me.

Wow, I did NOT see that coming. I thought I was the only guy on this forum who had "lost the plot".

My experience is a little bit different to yours though - I don't make profiles either, but I found quite a few on the R.E. that I loved the sound of - to the point that letting the Kemper go was a really tough decision. I literally lost sleep. But I owned the Kemper for about three years, and like you, my sense is that "it's just not for me". I just ran into too many roadblocks where practical matters were concerned - how to set up an efficient (meaning easy to transport, set up and tear down) live rig, how to build a versatile, affordable floorboard and get the KPA to respond to MIDI effectively, and so on. I invested a lot of time, and for me the return on that investment was not acceptable. I spent too much of that time waiting on f/w improvements - most of which have yet to be realized.

But the journey forced me to take stock of a couple of things about myself too: I'm not a professional performer; I'm not making important records; I don't have "ears of gold". I am an (occasionally) creative hobbyist, and it's more important that the gear I choose puts a smile on my face. No one in the entire universe cares whether I have the best tone possible, except for me, and after this past three years, I'm pretty much over it. Good tone, yes please. Best tone? Depends: how much hair am I going to pull out?

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Let me enlighten everyone to what the Variax actually is or was...

LOL if you're going to lead with "let me enlighten everyone", you should try to follow with something that isn't common knowledge. Which part of this is meant to dispel a "myth"?

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Guitar Center should have been forward with the wait time.

Guitar Center will say just about anything - factual or otherwise - to ensure you don't get cold feet and put off your purchase. They've always been this way. I've been told point blank that a product was in stock, waiting for me in a store, only to drive an hour and find that they don't even carry the line in question. Bait and switch.

Quote from Corey1213

So based on the videos, If I want to sound like hendrix playing through a pod then they've created the piece of gear just for me!

Ha - that does sum it up pretty well. And this is coming from a guy who pre-ordered a Helix!

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Seriously, their marketing team might want to show off some high gain settings, everything sounds insanely digital at this point.

I'd also be interested in hearing some genuinely clean settings.

Quote from flyingheelhook

Gee, I wonder if those might be the Michael Britt rigs that come with the Kemper?

That'd make sense.

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Thanks for update:) So the method i posted is working right?:D

I can't say for sure - but probably, yes. All I really know is that somewhere between point A and point B, I got sorted out. I just didn't notice as early as I might have.

I could have sworn that I saw some rigs with original song titles after the first couple of times I restored... but who knows at this point. More likely that I got confused than I found some mysterious secondary cache of memory.

Subject line covers it pretty well. This is KPA Solutions' excellent 25W power amp that mounts in the back of the toaster, using a little less than half the available space: http://www.kpa-solutions.com/camplifier/camplifier-studio/

Mine has barely been used, and ships with the appropriate US power supply and mounting screws. Loud, lightweight, and convenient. I'm only selling it because I sold my KPA. The price includes shipping anywhere in the continental USA - faster and cheaper than waiting for arrival from Germany.

Thanks!

Ignore all of the above. I'm a moron.

For months now, I've been tagging personal variations of rigs by prefixing them with my initials, i.e. "MB [original rig name]".

These last two nights I was banging my head against the wall trying to reset my Kemper, and I was convinced it was failing because I continued seeing all my personal "MB xxx" rigs. Except, as you've guessed by now, they weren't mine at all. The factory content includes about a dozen rigs named exactly the same way (though I'm not clear on the reason.)

Unfortunately, Damian, that didn't do it either. It still reboots with all of my rigs in storage. Ugh.

And just repeated all of the above, then deleted non-favorites, confirmed no content, rebooted, confirmed no content, installed factory rigs (from System menu), rebooted, all of my old rigs are mysteriously retrieved from beyond the grave.

Tried it again, but this time restored factory rigs from thumb drive, and again it mysteriously "found" my deleted personal rigs. Trying Paul's approach now.... and that appears to have done the trick. 30th time's a charm LOL.

Thanks all, and goodnight!

Thank you, Damian! I will try this as soon as I get home. I did an Init using this procedure before I sent the KPA off for repair, but I think at that time I selected "No" for step 5, in order to keep my profiles.

Hopefully this will get the job done!

I never noticed this specific problem, but I did notice something similar: when parallel mode is enabled on a rig, and you've panned hard to the dry path, there is still a little bit of signal running through the AMP/CAB block. In other words, you can never quite attenuate to -inf dB.

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It's a shame... that the most active thread in the entire forum is about a Line 6 product ...isn't it?

And it's ironic that you just started another one.

Quote from whippinpost91850

Mark, sorry to hear you are still fighting with the Kemper. But I don't know what to add to what's already been said. Paul

Thanks, Paul - not a huge deal at this point. Looks like the KPA will be leaving for a better home tomorrow, and all in all the interesting experience of owning a Kemper owner didn't cost me too much. A couple hundred bucks and a handful of frustrating evenings... On to the next adventure.

Thanks, Kempermaniac - but I already tried that. It's truly a mystery to me.

My recommendation to Kemper: on the same web page that presently has additional factory rigs, just post a recommended, current, "factory" backup file. It wouldn't literally be a factory restore, since rigs etc. are a moving target, but more of a recommended starting point. I can't make any sense of what the factory restore and system reset processes are actually doing (or not doing.) It just seems like a "known good" backup file (or perhaps a couple, e.g. one with core factory rigs, one with factory + additional rigs) would be so much simpler for everyone. The page is already there - it would just be one more hyperlink.

My last love/hate moment with the Kemper. Love: the new Wagener profiles are god-like. Hate: deleting content is madness.

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What a nightmare...

And no one to blame but myself. I'm pretty good at keeping track of my feet, and I never lose track of a Guinness LOL, but I let my guitar cable get away from me.

Worst part is getting needlessly distracted at the top of the set and feeling like you've already let the rest of the band down. So you soldier on, in spite of n% of CPU cycles spent adding up the cost of pedals in the back of your head.