Posts by MarkD

    First of all, thanks to all of you who have posted on this forum about the Thomann Thon Line 6 FBV Case.


    If anyone needs a well built no frills, but perfectly functional case for an extremely reasonable price (about $155 US shipping included), I would highly recommend it. It was very easy to purchase via PayPal, and it arrived to my US residence from Germany in about a 9 days.


    My needs were very basic. I wanted to shave off a bit of size/weight from my previous Pedal Pad board. They make great stuff, but it was just more than I needed. The Thomann board is a bit longer than my Pedal Pad, but that works out since I want to add a second Expression Pedal in the near future. The Thomann is a little less deep and not as high as my previous board and it shaved off about 6-7 lbs. Since the only AC I require is to power my buffer, I didn't need any space for the Voodoo Labs Pedal Power I was using in the past. I am just going to power it with a One Spot. We'll see if I have any noise issues with that.


    As far as securing the remote and my expression pedal, I just drilled some holes on the bottom of the board and mounted them directly to the pedal feet screw holes with some longer screws. Just FYI...The Kemper uses metric M4 - .70 (25cm length to get through board), the Mission EP1-KP uses Imperial 6 -32 (1 Inch length to get through board). I used the rubber feet as washers. It looks a little nicer!


    As you can see in the photos, a very efficient use of space. The Audio/One Spot cables roll up easily...I keep the remote cable attached to the KPA Head when tearing down. Even as lazily as I rolled them up, the lid is just high enough that is secures the cables without putting any undue pressure on them . If you look at the photo of the bottom of the Thomann you can see the rubber feet/screws where the pedals are attached directly to the board (just two per unit). You will also see an extra hole in the upper right where I messed up!. I will fix that later!


    I priced a number of other high end boards and some of them were coming in around $500-$600. I would possibly consider one of those if I was using a bunch of actual pedals, but considering the KPA pretty much does it all...Completely unnecessary. This is probably the most boring looking board I've ever owned. However, as someone who makes a living playing 125-150 shows a year, functionality is WAY more important than a million likes on the Gear Page!


    I'll let you guys know how it holds up.


    SOkerlund...No, I don't have a London Head, but I've played through them a number of times. Killer amp. Peter Stroud is actually a really good friend, and he sits in with us quite often. We do a Zep/Who show where we split guitar duties, and that is always a blast! I actually find the 65 Cabinet is not overtly heavy. If we do a fly date using back line stuff , I usually request an Orange cabinet. Now, those things are heavy!



    Monkey_Man...I'm Monkeyboy! Even though I'm damn near 50. Check out the 60s style Marshall Logo Joe Vallina at amplates.com made for me to put on the rack (just taped in place for now). I haven't had any thermal issues yet, and we have played some really hot outdoor gigs recently. Since there is an extra rack space on the bottom, and a vent in the back, this might help out with airflow.




    1fastdog...No, David Pack has publicly distanced himself from anything that has to do with "Yacht Rock". We, along with several other bands of the genre, were featured in a Wall Street Journal article about a year ago. He basically said that while he has no problem with his former bandmates performing the music live, he doesn't want rejoin Ambrosia at this time. In his stead is an amazing singer name Ken Stacey, who has an incredibly impressive resume, including being one of the back up singers that was to tour with Michael Jackson before his untimely death. He can be seen in the "This is It" documentary. The live band still features original members Joe Puerta (Bass), Burleigh Drummond (Drums), and Chris North (Keys). Burleigh's wife Mary also plays keys and sings.

    I just got back from a run of shows using the new Faux British Amp Head KPA Rack that I co-designed with the good people from Mojotone. They now offer this as a stock product if anyone is interested. Here's the link: http://www.mojotone.com/Cabine…ure-with-Faux-British-Amp. They matched the color scheme on my 65 Cabinet perfectly (They actually built the cabs for 65 in the early days). Our FOH guy is going to hard wire the input jack in the front of the faux head to an angled cable that fits into the Kemper very soon.


    Attached are a couple of live shots from a show Yacht Rock Revue played at the incredibly amazing Austin City Limits Live in Austin, TX. I know it makes "Kemper Spotting" a bit more challenging, but it's fun to hear people ask, "What kind of tube head is that, man?". The full stage shot is us playing the 80s classic "Break My Stride" with singer/songwriter/producer Matthew Wilder who has been one of the artists performing with us this summer.



    It fits right in a stock Pelican Case (which you can see is doing double duty as a mini riser that I put my cabinet on), and I have sucessfully checked it on several flights.


    On a related note...We had the legendary Ambrosia open the show on some select dates, and their guitarist Doug Jackson is a killer player! Most people are only familiar with their radio hits, but their other material leans way more toward some really intricate 70s prog.

    Since my band Yacht Rock Revue has a retro 70s vibe, the KPA looked a little anachronistic onstage (although I don't remember anyone back then playing Nord Electro keyboards either, but that's another discussion!). I pitched the idea of making a faux British Style Amp Head for the KPA to make it a little more visually "Era Appropriate" to the fine folks at Mojotone in North Carolina. If you don't already know, Mojotone makes amp parts/etc and actually build cabinets and head boxes for many prominent amp builders. With a few doctored "conception" photos and some measurements that I provided, this is what they came up with. It looks amazing! Knobs, Lights, Input Jacks and everything! They even matched the color scheme of my 65 Amps 2 x 12 cabinet that I use. As you can see from one of the photos, the Kemper will load from the top and screw in to the Rack Rails, so I can access the knobs. The layout will be like an old Tweed or a Vox AC-30 with the knobs facing up. Of course, it's a little taller than most amp heads, but it had to be to make room for the cabling.


    These are photos sent to me from Mojotone. I haven't actually received it yet, but I'll post more when I get the KPA loaded up!


    If anyone has any interest in getting something similar, contact Andrew Simmons at Mojotone.

    My experience...I've been using the KPA w/ a standard guitar cabinet (65 Amps 2x12) for a couple of years now. Our FOH guy was mainly micing the cabinet and I was just running it through the PA like I would any standard tube amp. Recently, my band all switched to IEMs, and I decided to start running it direct from the rear XLR outs. I think this method really shows how the KPA shines in a live setting. Once I unlinked the master volume to the direct out volume, I could play with my onstage level without affecting what was being sent to everyone's IEMs. This way, everyone's monitor mix stays the same show to show even if I mess with my cabinet's stage volume


    I've mentioned before that I've never really bonded with FRFRs, but this is all personal taste. I just prefer the way a standard cabinet reacts. Even with IEMs, I like to run a live cab on stage, because:


    A. Unless you are playing really large venues (arenas/sheds/etc) I think having a rig that actually moves some air off the stage affects the overall vibe for the audience. Maybe sometimes for the worse, but I keep my stage volume under control. Honest!
    B. As mentioned above, harmonics/controlled feedback work best with an actual cabinet.
    C. If, for some reason, I can't get the attention from our monitor guy, I can pull my IEM out slightly and hear my cabinet if I need to hear a specific part.
    D. I've been ingrained with the masochistic necessity to carry a cabinet for so long...It just feels WRONG not to haul the damn thing around.


    Once I was happy with the live cabinet sound, I tweaked the EQ/cabinet settings for the direct out profiles wearing my IEMs. It's a pretty good representation of what is being sent FOH, and the exact representation of what you will hear on stage with your ears in. You also can get a pretty good idea of how to set the relative volumes between profiles.


    The first few gigs with the in ears were all outdoors, so the ambient mics we used for our monitor mix weren't really giving me the reflection of a room. I was kind of second guessing the direct sound in my ears, so I checked some live recordings to give me a little more impartial perspective. Our monitor engineer multitracks most shows we do, and I listed back to a few songs...I could isolate my guitar tracks and really hear what was going on tonally. I was pretty blown away! I guess I shouldn't have been...It's really no different that listening to the KPA through my studio monitors...But again, we're guitarists! We're always over analyzing our tonal perception of what we sound like onstage. Everything sat in the mix perfectly, and when the track was soloed, it sounded no different than a close miced amp. Plus, our FOH guy really prefers the tone/consistency of the direct line.


    Oh yeah...If you are going to dive in, get the remote. The functionality definitely warrants the price tag.


    I've got some shows coming up where my band is backing up former Journey singer Steve Augeri and Starship singer Mickey Thomas. I'll try to post some clips of full band mixes and soloed guitar tracks if anyone is interested.

    I've read a couple of threads that have mentioned a similar issue, but I just wanted to add my experience. I have done 3 gigs with the remote since receiving it last week. (Note: When properly working, I still maintain the design/functionality is superb!) However, on 2 of these gigs, the remote wouldn't connect with the KPA until I rebooted the head 2 or 3 times. I tried just unplugging the remote jack a few times while the head was still on and it never connected. Only on subsequent reboots did it actually connect. Also, as mentioned by others, there was a significant delay before the head and remote finally synced up. I suppose it could be a cable issue, but once it connects it works flawlessly. Any thoughts?

    My remote arrived today. I won't go in to an in-depth review at this point until I've gigged with it a few times, but my initial impression is...Wow. My money (and time waiting!) was well spent.

    I am really pleased with a 65 Amps 2 x 12 with a Celestion G12 H and a Blue. I tried a number of different combinations...A Port City 2 x 12 w/ Jensen Neos (A bit on the dark side), a Forte w/Scumbacks, various Marshall 2 x 12s, and a Diamond 4 x 12 w/ V30s (this sounded great, but I damn sure don't want to be lugging around a 4 x 12!). I also tried a couple of FRFRs (Matrix and Atomic), and didn't really vibe with them. Although, to be fair, I didn't get to spend all that much time with either. I generally use more classic rock type tones, and I found the combination of the G12H and the Blue gave a lot more "chime", and felt much more like a traditional amp than any other cabinet. Judging from the styles you mentioned, this set up might be worth checking out.

    Here are a few clips I did to demo some cool classic rock type sounds on the KPA. In addition to the solo recreations, I did a little improv over the outro of "Kid Charlamagne" just for the hell of it. The Steely Dan backing track is the actual original recording minus guitar and it came from backing tracks.com. The Cream track was soundalike project I worked on a few years ago for the rock and roll summer camp, Camp Jam. The rhythm section consists of Daniel Silvestri on Bass and Mark Cobb on drums...A pretty accurate recreation I think!


    As stated in the video, I used Alexis Boyer's Two Rock CR profile for the basic Larry Carlton sound and tweaked it pretty extensively...Added lots of mids! The Clapton tone was a profile I did of a Suhr SL 67...a killer sounding amp. I did a bit of post Eq-ing and added some effects in my DAW (Cubase using UA plugs), so I want to tweak the profiles themselves a bit more before I put them up on the rig exchange.


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    DAMMIT! I just plugged in my Gibson 333 (w/James Tyler Retro Hums) through my studio monitors, and these profiles are immediately impressive. I really haven't heard an 800 that I've totally bonded with yet, but this one had me smiling right out of the gate. The 900 is an amp I don't really think to use much, but this version is the perfect higher gain tone I need for certain projects. The Kosh and the 125 clean tones are really nicely balanced, none of the boxy/phasey characteristics that I hear in some clean profiles. I generally run a standard cabinet live, so I'm looking forward to trying the direct profiles this week. Thank you Ace & Kemper!

    Another +1 for this feature. I generally use the Rotary with a fixed speed, and often find the preset rates are not ideal for my purposes (that being said, the "Ramp Up" feature is pretty accurate to a real Leslie Cabinet). This is such a great sounding effect, and I would love to be able to use it in a more practical manner. Thanks!

    Great info, thanks guys! I ended up tweaking some stuff, and got what I was looking for. I was going for a Dave Edmunds/Scotty Moore Tele tone for a track I was doing for a client, and I was really pleased with what I ended up with. It's a profile of my Egnater Mod 50's Deluxe channel with a little grit on it. I added some compression, and a little bit of direct signal from the Amplifier section on the Kemper, since Dave Edmunds would occasionally use some direct tones to get an up front attack.


    In the mix, I panned the original guitar hard right and used a bit of slap back from the UAD Roland Space Echo...I could have dialed that in with the Kemper delay, but I didn't want to commit to an effect until after the fact. The UAD Oceanway Studio plug in was used panned hard left to simulate a room sound. The "room" effect is really subtle, but it defintely adds some space to the tone. Again, I could have probably gotten a similar effect in the KPA, but I wanted to have keep options open for the mix. Here's a short clip of the soloed guitars:


    Mod 50/Kemper Excerpt


    Time to profile some more sounds!

    Thanks, all...I was 99.999999999(etc) sure I was running something wrong, but I thought the coloration question was interesting one to pose for the benefit of both current users and those gathering information before taking the plunge. The Har Bal screenshots are great, raen. I use that program quite often as well. I am well aware of the way AD/DA converters can alter things sonically, but I had no idea that it would be THAT close according to the analysis. Impressive.

    AHH! Again with Clean/Distorted sense! I've really got to get that end of my KPA-ing together. This is the second time I've had an issue with this somewhat enigmatic parameter. Yes, Gianfranco, I need to reference the wikpa.org again...It's a great resource, and I haven't checked it out in quite a while. I'll do some more research before I go clean sensing any credibility I have left out the forum window! :) Thanks for the reminder.


    Basically, what I want to know is...Theoretically, the KPA should have no more effect on your tone (when profiling...obviously not in standard use) when it is in line than any other high end digital processor. Is this somewhat accurate?


    Also, on a somewhat unrelated note for anyone that might be reading this...I just picked up a KMI Softstep 2, which I think is a really promising (and affordable) foot controller option for the Kemper. There are few little things that I have talked to them about in terms of functionality with the KPA (above and beyond that which is already available, which is still pretty cool) that if resolved, will make it a excellent controller choice. I'll post more as I get the information.

    This is something I wasn't able to reference on the forums, I apologize if this has been discussed before.


    Although I have been using the KPA for some time, I don't have too much experience profiling. I've tested the water a bit at home, but this was more to get familiar with the process than to actually make some useable patches. I plan on going into a friends studio and profiling a few of my own amps, and just wanted to see if anyone has noticed if the KPA itself tonally colors the signal path significantly.


    More specifically... In this instance, I was micing up my Egnater Mod 50 to get some really basic "clean with edge" Americana type tones for a project I was working on. I ran just the SM57 in front of my amp directly into my Fireface UFX interface, and directly into my recording program (Cubase 7.5). After fiddling around a bit, I got a tone I liked and printed it to a wav file for a reference. Since I liked the sound, I naturally wanted to profile it. So, I put the KPA in line, ran it per the instructions in the manual, set levels etc. and went through the profiling process (without altering any EQ settings on amp or adjusting mic placement. I just adjusted the return level in KPA to match a similar profile). When comparing the Profile/Reference in this set up, they sounded acceptably similar. However, when I compared it to the previous mic sans KPA track...A WORLD of difference. The direct mic was clear and present, the tone through the Kemper in line sounded like it was running through a drive through speaker.


    I guess most people that profile are running through the Kemper from the get go, and dial in a sound they like perhaps compensating for any tonally anomalies the KPA might add to the equation. That, or very possibly, I'm doing something wrong. I know that everything in a signal path affects tone to a degree, but I thought this was pretty significant, and perhaps warranted a shout out to you profiling gurus that might know more than I. The way I am running it now, there is something seriously altering the tone between my guitar and the amp. Also, just as an aside, I am using all very high end cabling...Vertex, Vovox, so cables should not be an issue.


    I am including a very short mp3 so you can hear what I am talking about. The direct miced cabinet is first and the second clip is routed through the KPA.


    Thanks in advance for any input!


    KPA Color Test
    Mark Dannells

    This seems like it would be a relatively easy thing to fix. When I use one of the fuzzes as a stomp, even if I set it to it's lowest output (-5, I believe), it raises the overall volume of the particular patch (generally cleaner/mid gain tones) a little too much. Perhaps extending the range of -10 might clear this up. Yes, I know i can just write another patch and correct the levels, but that's a whole waste of another bank on my controller where a simple stomp would suffice. Other than that (well, MAC rig manager and KFC aside!), since the addition of the pitch effects, all is grand!