Posts by e_del

    Well, the MIDI documentation seems quite complete indeed...
    Maybe there's some SysEx Editor/Librarian that can be adapted to control the KPA... anyone experienced?
    investigation mode ON... ;)


    UPDATE:
    as usual, seem I'm trying to reinvent the wheel... haha...
    someone had a similar idea long time ago...

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    if you have so many you surely don't mind sending us one or two which don't work? we will happily swap with you so we can have a closer look. because we don't have a single USB stick in the entire office which does not work. if you're interested, contact support by email.
    gs


    to KPA engineers:
    I gave a link to the model I originally used... here it is, for clarity...
    During the various trials I formatted it both with the KPA and with my iMac OSX (that by the way continued to write some hidden file immediately after mounting the volume)
    I think you can try ordering a similar one from Amazon.
    My stick is currently in use, as HFS external volume, but if you are interested in examining this particular unit, I could send it in a "bubble envelope", if you send me another of same model...
    The only thing is that it has been reset and reformatted, so no tests can be made on the content...

    An editor is absolutely needed
    Although the front panel is very well displaced, now that I started using the rig manager I think having all (or many) controls available on screen for tweaking is definitely better than going up and down the studio from the stool to the shelf where the kpa is located... (am I too lazy? :) )


    Does anyone know if (and what) controls are availble via MIDI SysEx messages?

    Hello everybody,
    Just a quick note to raise a flag about USB stick compatibility.
    After long time using an old USB 128 MB stick (*quite* old), I got rid of it and bought a superfast and modern USB 3 32GB
    exactly this one:


    After formatting and copying as usual the kaos.bin file for the 2.7.3 version, as i connected the USB stick got some errors while unpacking the file (still at 0%)
    People at Kemper Support were very quick answering, and the gave me some action to do for troubleshooting, but nothing got better.
    In the end I resolved going back to an old 8GB cellphone memory card and adapter, USB 2.0, that let the upgrade go flawlessly as usual.


    I cannot tell what the problem eactly is.
    Maybe the USB 3.0 technology
    Maybe the R/W speed (it's a "fast" unit)
    Maybe .. who knows...


    Just be careful and keep some oldie (but goldie) USB 2.0 stick around.
    I'd like to know if anyone had a similar problem...


    bye
    Enrico

    Uhm, let' see if I can summarize my thoughts on this interesting topic...


    I'll try to establish a few (hopefully) undisputable points:


    1) KPA is an open platform. It was designed for profile sharing and the rig exchange section on their website is a great way to increase hardware selling, the core business of Kemper.
    Without profile sharing the diffusion and success of KPA (but also other products, POD, Guitar rig, etc...) would have been slower, maybe too slow to grant business sustainability... but that's not the point at the moment.


    2) What you buy with a commercial profile? A sound? Not entirely.
    You buy the effort involved in profiling high quality profiles that "normal" users couldn't profile by themselves...
    That involves the costs for having the rare amp models available (bought, rented, collected, whatever...), and/or high quality equipment for recording (mics, mixers, recording studio, etc...), and/or the time and knowledge, or skill, necessary to obtain the final product.


    3) When you buy a commercial profile, you explicitly sign an agreement to use it for personal use, as a KPA owner.
    Doesn't matter if you're a performer, a recording musician, or a simple amateur...


    With that in mind I'd say that sharing a commercial profile is neither ethical nor legal, but in the real world:


    1) Kemper doesn't necessarily have to take charge of protect the profiles.
    It could, in the future, e.g. if it wanted to sell their proprietary profiles, but we are in the present now...


    2a) Trying to protect the commecial profiles (taht are more than a simple "sound") is up to the sellers, that have to find a way to protect their products.
    With the current open hardware platform I think it's almost impossible, but it's not a problem I have to solve. commercial profile producers have to.


    2b) Another problem is: how can you reasonably detect the shared profiles? There's no tool in the KPA firmware that can compare the profile files, so do you think to go and ask to any KPA owner to binary check the memory content of their KPA (if they agree to)?


    in conclusion I think that, at the moment, in theory sharing a commercial profile is a violation, but in practice without the right tools, it's impossible to avoid or persecute it, so in the end the "commercial profile" business is possible only taking sharing in account, and hoping that the loyal user base grants a sufficient income.
    If this doesn't happen, it's the end of a unsustainable business that in these conditions probably wouldn't have started at all.


    I personally bought some commercial profiles, and they're the best I found until now.
    I'm not sharing them with anyone, but I wouldnt think to start selling my own profiles as a base to make a living... ;)

    You could always monitor using your main outputs. Set those to master stereo. For recording, you could use your SPDIF connection. Set it to guitar/stack. Use input monitoring in your DAW so that you only hear the sound of the master stereo outputs, but record the track which is set to the SPDIF input.



    Ok, so I should have both SPDIF and Main stereo out (KPA) connected to the audio card... using spdif to record and audio signal to monitor...
    MOTU has a line in/out channel pair, and maybe I could use them. This way I wouldn't lose the 2 mic/inst inputs, that could come handy for an acoustic guitar, or singer mic input...


    I think that's a good solution...


    thx a lot

    Hello everybody,
    at last I now have my KPA and a decent audio interface (MOTU audio express)... and Logic Audio X recording software.


    while navigating the various user manuals now I'm thinking of what could be the best setup I could use to allow me both playing and recording, without too much hassle in plugging/unplugging cables on the fly....tweking params as little as possible


    The main issue I see at the moment is about the stomp section.
    It's great for setting up a live sound, but when recording I think it's better to go with the dry stack sound directly into the audio card. (I'm using s-pdif) and then add ambience or modulations.
    But even if recording, playing with a dry sound is not the same feeling of the complete wet KPA...
    Moreover I have only a couple of near field monitors (or headphones, by night)... And as a final candy, my Logic pro software has its own monitoring capabilities...


    So, I'm trying to set up a clean yet flexible solution...
    Did you already go through these issues? How did you resolve them?
    Listening to other experience could shorten my learning curve a bit...


    thank you in advance for anyone who will spend some time answering...


    You can avoid to hear the latency of your DAW, I'm using a monitor controller (SPL 2381), going from the KPA straight via the "Musician"-input into my monitors (no latency). The signal for recording is going parallel into the inputs of my audio-interface.


    I'm going to buy a new external interface for my iMac, and I'm thinking to some MOTU low-end model...


    My plan is to use SPDIF to avoid AD/DA/AD conversion, but what about using also the KPA audio output just for monitoring purposes?
    Do you think it can be done?
    Many audio cards offer a direct monitoring option for audio inputs. Maybe it's also possible to record SPDIF signal at the same time?


    I'm not quite expert in this... any thought/suggestion about any other particular brand/model ?


    thanks in advance
    Enrico

    thank you for the hints, I'm going to check them all out...
    Anyone had any experience with MOTU?
    http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/4pre


    a bit pricey, but seems to have the best of both worlds in terms of I/O... USB/FW, analog and digital input... AFAIK solid drivers...
    although no MIDI...


    About Focusrite, very famous, real good product.
    But a friend warned me about their tendency to continuously release new product and models, rapidly dropping support for the older ones e.g. in case of new OS updates...
    fact or fiction? :S:)


    bye, and thanks again

    Hello everybody,
    time to change my Alesis FW mixer, that is not working properly anymore, and repairing it costs too much...
    I'm (I was) using it with my glorious iMac24 with Firewire 400 , but I'm considering upgrading sooner or later to rome more recent machine (I still don't know if iMac, or macbook, or macbook Air), that have thunderbolt and/or FW800



    Do you have any suggestion for a good (not necessarily pro) interface that has
    - SPDIF in (for the kemper)
    - 2 (or more) analog input
    - MIDI interface
    - possibly (not necessarily) 2 headphone out


    P.S.: possibly with the least software driver issues ... working with no problems in OSX is mandatory, but there's also Windows on the other side of the coin... :)


    What price range I'm going to hit?
    I'd prefer to stay away from USB... but maybe there's some interesting device working properly...


    I 'm starting to browse the tech specs around, but if anyone has yet had (and solved) a similar issue, any help is appreciated :)
    thanks in advance
    Enrico


    I agree on this (for an actual hammond organ player, not for a synth/keyboard player or a guitarist).
    But my point was that it's very well possible to decide which the 2 speeds should be in a Leslie for a given gig. And that's something we currently can't do with the Rotary Speaker effect as is.


    I'm completely on your side on this.
    To me, the LEX pedal parameters are a good example of what's needed (and missing) for the KPA.

    As I said in another thread, a Leslie does NOT have 2 fixed speeds only.
    The limitation in an un-modded Leslie is only, that you can use 2 speeds while playing. But if you prefer different speeds you can change the belt drive's gear disks or the motor or even mod it to have variable speed.


    I didn't know about the "more than 2 speed" mod, thanks for the info!
    Besides, my personal experience is, having sometimes talked and played with hammond players, that I never heard about the need of three or more rotating speed... at least in a ordinary gig...
    That was the point of my "keep it simple" suggestion... the easier to implement, the more likely it gets implemented soon :)


    bye!

    hello everybody,


    I think that if we're essentially talking about a leslie simulator, things should remain as simple as possible...
    A Leslie speaker has only two rotating speed, and that's the effect I would look for...
    I think the essential parameters are those used also by the Strymon LEX pedal... a very good pedal.


    Essential params are: speed-hi, speed-lo, lo-hi reach time, hi-lo reach time.
    Two more optional params used are:
    - brake (temporarily slows and stops the rotation effect while pedal pressed)
    - overdrive (simulate some kind of tube overdrive only for the rotating speaker effect)


    look ath the variuos STRYMON LEX demos on youtube...


    More than that, I wouldn't need anyting... obviously IMHO

    Distorted Sens is also not a simple booster, as it does not affect the gain of clean sounds.


    I'm a bit confused when I read ABOUT "clean" and "distorted" sounds... it seems as they are completely different animals, but they actually appear to me as two different input volume control settings, one (dirty) more powerful in both direction (gain <1 or gain >1) and one lighter... connected in series... for the same preset
    To my ears it's obvious... but what technically within the KPA define a sound (rig?/preset?) "distorted" and "clean" ? The fx chain used?


    Sorry to appear a bit lame (probably I am)... Maybe I missed some paragraph in the user manual? :S

    Since we can not answer in the announcement section.


    The best way IMHO would be to let the user enter a 4 digit number to use the USB port to load/save anything via the USB port.
    Double the time interval between each wrong try and the next.


    +1 for me
    could be a digit, or a button sequence (easier to operate from the front panel) to mount the USB storage...

    Maybe it's easier to clarify what parameter is *NOT* saved in a performance bank...?
    Looking at the manuals and other forum threads, it seems they are not much...


    I'm trying to figure out a way to display on paper the main paramenters in a "patch sheet", in a different form than a raw parameter table...
    So understanding correctly what is stored where is quite important to me...
    But I keep reading, understanding then forgetting those KPA manuals ... :)

    Output EQ is saved separately in the output/master menu.
    A performance saves all the amps and FX settings in all the slots of a performance.


    Ah, ok... it's a bit clearer now .. :)
    I have now the need to configure some (not many) different sound to be used in my repertoire, and I want to be able to use any of my guitar, also having the choice to go direct recording, or to a DI box and PA system, or to a guitar amp (final stage only)...


    So the correct way to manage would be having a combination of one different rig for any guitar (with the different input sensitivity), and one for any output situation (let's say 3: Direct rec, DI-PA, guitar cabinet).


    E.g.: 3 guitars means 3x3=9 rigs (for a same amplifier profile), and then for any of these, using performance to store the FX combinations...


    ...right? :huh:

    sure, but what I have in mind is a temporary dimming, after the last button/pot was operated.
    If I had to tweak the KPA again, I'd want the full light again...


    It could be a 0..<nsec> global parameter, meaning 0=no dimming, and <nsec>=dim after n. sec of controls inactivity