Posts by greenblob

Real guitar feedback needs speakers, volume and proximity.. but if the old school earplug way isnt your bag (it is the Kemper forum afterall!) then imo,

- The current Kemper FW has nothing on board that can simulate feedback. This makes me very sad.

- Convinving speakerless feedback can be done with the Digitech Freqout. Just dont expect it to be fawless all the time. It does add a very cool live feel if set subtly and tastefully -but- is still no substitute if you're a 10 second intro feedback kinda guy. When your natural string sustain dies, the feedback effect gets very confused and the illusion is wrecked. That's the trade off. For me though, the Freqout is amazing for adding spice to IEM live solos and more intense sections.

Atm it's the best we have unless you want to stand infront a speaker and blast yourself with... yourself. .

Quote from Chris Duncan

Probably the single most vulnerable point is the non-Neutrik ethernet connection in back of the Kemper. Seems like a strange place for them to cheap out given the critical nature of the connector, but a tie down for security and cable strain relief (plus a couple of spare cables in the bag) should make that a non-issue.

I have always thought they may have kept the KPA's ethernet port as non-neutrik so it can act as a "break away" point. If you ever snag yourself up in the ethernet cable running out to the Remote not being Neutrik locked on both ends is a good thing. Maybe?

I know there is a little baby plastic clip on rj45 plugs, but mine always break off in the first few weeks no matter what cable I'm using, so I added a small velcro tab to the kpa end of my 75ft flexable cable and stick that to the onother velcro patch at the back of the rack. Secures the connection, but will break free and avert a serious hardware snafu if I or any of the guys unknowling catch a foot the under the cable while jumping around. It's only happened once live, but it pulled out as intended as was as easy as plugging it back in at the end of the tune.

The remote has been good to me but I did have to clean the expression pedal socket on one of the exp inputs as it was acting funny. 5 second fix and good as new.

Quote from Sunshine

Using Shure GLXD14. Works flawlessly.

I like it better than the Line 6 G55, too. But we can have that debate elsewhere, Line 6 users...

I still have my GLXD14. Thinking i should revisit it and see if i can find the cause of the dropouts. I did love it when it was working!

*Edit - I see there is a new firmware on the Shure site. Might as well give that a go!

Quote from MikeStoner

Yes, I've noticed that random flicker too. Always makes me worry that something has gone wrong somewhere, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. Strange!

Quote from Chris Duncan

Think it might be related to the quality of the cable or firmness of connections?

Mine had the flicker too but it dissapeared once I went to a PoE injector to run longer Ethernet cables. So, possibly just a voltage sag?

Over 3 years constant gigging use here and no issues with the remote. Seems solid!

Was using a Shure GLXD14 for a while but was getting occasional dropouts. Tried everything under the sun to resolve it but couldn't (frequencies, positioning, firmware, cables, etc etc). A shame as I loved a lot about it (body pack charger and spare battery inbuilt into receiver, great body pack design etc), but dropouts were obviously a deal breaker. Maybe mine just had an issue?

Our bass player had been using a Line 6 G50 with no issues so I changed to one of those. Its been rock solid over the last 2 years. Receiver mounted in the KPA rack. Much less adjustability/channels than the GLXD14 so that could possibly become a problem if there are alot of g50's in use nearby, but for me it's been solid (and its significantly cheaper than the Shure). Not a fan of the body pack battery door design (I now tape it closed for piece of mind as it had popped open on me twice while performing) and having to keep up on AA batteries in the transmitter kind of sucks, but its never had any erratic signal dropouts. Had to replace the cable from guitar to bodypack also, but the original received ALOT of use before it failed. Overall though, I can recommended G50!

At a just for fun jam at a mates place I wired up an old hi-fi stereo from the 80's and a pair of big ass floor standing home theater speakers that were kicking about in his garage.. Haha. With the Kemper gerry rigged into its tape input. ? .. suprisingly it actually sounded pretty great (and in stereo!)

Not my 1st recommendation for amplification obviously, but I guess it shows you can almost make anything work!

Quote from Chris Duncan

Crap. Just when I thought I was done buying toys, I watch a video on Freqout.

Are you guys using it in momentary, or does it do a good enough job on auto to set it to fire and forget?

I stay in performance mode on the KPA, so have the Freqout engaged and set to Auto all the time (momentary Off) but only have the loop (ie, freqout) activated on ganier patches. Works like a dream and sounds natural as long as you dont go too mental with the pedals settings or want perfect 10 sec feedback swells etc. Can get a wee bit erratic and almost synth like at that length!

Also have used a TC Electronic Mimiq (double tracker effect) in the stereo loop for acoustic gigs too with great results.

The Kemper is amazing, but it has nothing onboard that can do the cool specialty things the Mimiq or Freqout can, so sticking the real things in the FX loop is the easiest solution for now.... I reeeealy hope that changes though with a future KPA FW treat of some sort.

Yep, Freqout in my loop too. Perfect to generate a little feedback coolness when on iems with zero stage volume. Love it.

yeah... well this massively sucks.

I'm not a big user of social media etc, but spend a fair amount of time casually scrolling user forums on topics I'm interested in. Inline photos (that you dont have to click on to view in detail) are key to that experience. The very active Kemper forums included.

I understand that Kemper are just doing what is needed to protect them from liability, but wouldn't an updated "KPA Forum - User terms and agreement" cover it? I'm not a liability lawyer obviously but

I hope whatever the big boys (FB, Twitter, Snapchat, Ebay etc etc etc) do to protect themselves and their core business, filters down to all other community driven online information sites... even the humble audio gear forums.

This very popular thread will suffer as we can't post in pics to appear directly in the threads anymore (as discussed in the KPA forum here: LINK ).. but anyways....

Here's my newest guitar. Wife bought a sweet immaculate 2004 Collings D2H acoustic for my birthday. Absolutely love my Matons (Tommy Emmanuel Custom and EBG808CL) and they have been played to death the last several years, but the Collings is the sweetest of the bunch.... that is... till i broke it

My 3 favorite acoustics:

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/3GObM2n.jpg?2]

With my 2 fave electrics:

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/cuiKtzY.jpg?2]

A few days after these pics I heard a clang and awful string drone from the basement. Shortly after my 2 cats bolting up the stairs. Went to investigate and found a broken guitar stand and the new Collings face down on the floor .... with the headstock partially snapped. Noooooo!!!!

Busted headstock:

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/J18fIbu.jpg]

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/WCU01mU.jpg?1]

Busted guitar stand:

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/VAxjd44.jpg?1]

Its at the guitar doctor now, and he assured me as it was a partial break and clean break it will be an easy, solid and almost invisible repair.. but after all these years its the first guitar that I've kinda busted. A little gutted that it happened to this one so fast though.

Cheap guitar stands and cats. Not a good pairing. Wife won't let me remove the kittens, so I guess a fancy new stand is in order!

That's one hell of a classy introduction marcpattison and.. welcome!

We are lucky to be in an age where sharing tones and is so damn easy and I love that you have that as a mindset from the get go.

An "effects heavy profile sharing" thread would be super cool to see what people are doing with onboard fx and no doubt inspire some amazing music. Will keep an eye out.

Again.. welcome mate!

pamplemousse What is your target budget for the cheaper SM58 alternative? Knowing that might help dial in the suggestions a bit more?

Quote from DML

Please, go to your local musicstore and try some mic's that are within your budget. To choose a SM58 ("because it's the best bang for the buck") is a stupid choice. You're playing guitar? What guitar(s) are you playing and why did you choose them?

DML I see your point & imo handling cheaper performance mics at a store is totally worthwhile as in some cases they look decent in photos etc but just feel super fragile and scream poor build quality in person. Actual performance though is hard to test. He may find one that sounds great on his voice in the shop (with whatever is being used for monitoring there.. thats a whole other can of worms) and the price is right on it, only to find that it gets totally lost in the noise of rehearsal requiring massive eq tweaks (does that make it the wrong mic?).. or maybe it loves to feedback like a screaming banshee because it's rejection characteristics don't suit their needs in real use.. Imo the shop test could be very misleading is all I'm saying

The boring 58 is obviously far from the only choice, but its a relatively safe one with very well known performance characteristics (for good or bad), and proven reliability at a pretty fair price. I'm sure there are cheaper and decent 58 alternatives out there that will suit the OP's humble needs so I'm interested see what people recommend.

That's a tough one. The SM58 is still one of the best bang for buck decent performing mics out there (along with the Sennheiser 835 imo) and unless it gets lost will typically last a lifetime.

For half the price you might want to consider the Shure SM48, but imo one of the first 2 suggestions is what you should be aiming for to be content in the long run.

Oh, and be cautious buying mics on fleabay etc. Alot of extremely convincing fakes on there that look the businsess and appear to be a genuine bargain, but are totally counterfeit and perform awfully against the real mic. I bought a bargain SM58 from an auction site a few years back (out of curiosity mostly.. was always suspecting it was fake. Think I paid maybe $30), and physically side by side it was almost impossible to tell the difference (actually pretty impressive work)... but performance wise - it was trash compared to the real SM58.

Velcro straps and a sports bag. Classy i know.

We have a bit of a whacky setup that uses a fair few cables (extensions snakes, ambient mic runs for IEMS, click track computer patches, multiple 100+ ft xlrs and cat6's etc etc) but the simple big soft sportsbag has served us well over a the last 2 years (200+ shows). No cable failures to date. I cant lie though..... nowdays we just dump out the bag sidestage before we setup - and more often than not its a bit of a horror show (what we class as "cable care" at 3am is very different to "setup care" the next night apparently). Everything is color coded with tape so as long as each run was coiled up so its not a total twisted mess and the sleeved velcro cable strap was used to actually keep it contained - its usually not too hard to sort out. Used to have a stage box that housed all that stuff.. but as we often lug all this stuff ourselves the soft bag proved to be the easy winner and gets it done.

No one has mentioned P.A placement.... so,

P.A placement!

Make sure the speakers are at ear level and positioned so noone is getting blasted while the others cant hear. If you cant hear the singer in that particular PA, everyone else has to turn down/play lighter so the vocals can be heard. You hear alot that the drummer is the loudest acoustic guy in the band so we all have to turn up to match them.... that's the wrong thinking. The vocals should typically be the clearest thing in the room for a good sound, so it's the bands job to make sure that happens. Everyone's.

If you practice alot, try to do it a

the lowest volume as a band possible. It will make you actually listen to the sounds as a whole and ultimately play better together, keep you in the room longer, and allow some finesse in the performace/song to shine through. Louder does not equal sounding better - and good bandmates understand this.

It can be a challenge when the room is an echo box and the PA is possibly undersized for the particular style of music you're doing, but do what you can to steer the herd away from the classic rehersal volume wars.

You're not the first band to deal with it, and surely not the last!

Wheresthedug nailed it. Use your ears in context with the band/particular song. Meters dont mean much when there are other instuments playing vaired parts throughout the song.

I have our show setlists setup like yours as a song per performance, and doing it that way really opens up alot of options (especially if you ditched your old classic pedapbaord and just use the remote). A pain in the butt re-doing set order every damn show (super clunky and slow to arrange with kpa buttons.. still my biggest gripe with the kemper) but for our wildly varied tonal setlist, its indespensible.

There is a spooky amount of emty space in both he rack and toaster kempers. Ive stripped both down to bare boards and it's all pretty easy.

I fell on the soft bag containing my toaster after a show and bent the hell out of the face plate. Pulled it apart, removed the LCD/button pcb's and hammered it it flat again. All good. I may have pics on my phone of that repair. Will have a look.

Pulled my rack apart to remove a bit of grass or something similar that had gotten between the LCD and the clear front panel. Again, super simple.

Imo, dont be scared to open up your gear and take a look if you think its needed. As always with electronics just be gentle to the ribbon connectors.

Quote from pamplemousse

I have also been dreaming of doing full time music as a living but I have debts and a family to grow.

Yeah, aiming to morph an enjoyable part time hobby to become your full time source of income doesn't necessarily make it more fun. That's a very common illusion imo. It can be great, but the added repetition/obligation/stress that comes with trying to make that thing pay your bills can quickly suck out a huge chunk of what previously made it appealing.

Be it golf, photography, fishing, cycling, a car rebuild project - whatever really.. a big part of what keeps you coming back is that you can challenge yourself, learn some cool new skills and improve totally at your own pace. No undue stress.

As I've grown older I've realized a big part of what kept music fun and productive is it's social aspect and the friends I've made through it. We all spend many hours alone practicing, and I enjoy my time at home in front of the DAW and tinkering with gear, but all of my best playing memories have come from getting out and actually making noise with people. Doesn't have to be with a band necessarily. Casual garage jams, hitting an open mic with some mates (or going out to meet people), or just sitting down and writing with another muso for an afternoon... This not only makes you a better player/musician but more importantly, keeps it fun - and that's kind of the whole point ya?

Basically, a casual weekend round of golf is much more fun with some other people.

Quote from Greg

I am far too scared of failure to make music my proper career - so I am green-eyed with jealousy that you've made it work at such a young age!! Well done mate!

Failure is always a possibility, but really... failure is just as much of an adventure, as success is. Thats how I justify my leap anyway.. New adventure = Good?

Just don't make yourself homeless in some delusion that you are the true next Bob Dylan or poppy Bieber hit machine after writing a few tunes... Obviously.. that could end badly

Back to the OP:
Learning to play is one thing, but imo, connections are everything if you want to move towards making music a living with a focus on performing. Put time into meeting and hopefully jamming with the best musos in your town. Don't be creepy about it ( ), but be obvious and intentional. No-one wants to be the worst guy in the room at a jam session, so do whatever is needed to jam with the best players you know. It's one of the best motivators ever...

Keep those relationships. This leads to meeting the good local sound guys, who know the booking people for the cool bigger local venues, who know the bigger festival coordinators, etc etc.