So, first gig yesterday with the KPA powerhead - I used it with my Framus 2 x 12 (which I had them mic) and an FCB/Uno4Kemper. It behaved great. I used the global eq as adding a little bass and cutting a little treble suited the venue. Soundcheck was interesting....we had to do it without our keyboard player as the guy's partner had a fall in the venue (no lights on and a big step) so had to rush her to A&E! I am also accruing soundman classics. Me "can I have a little more guitar in my monitor, I can't hear myself", soundman "just turn yourself up a bit".....riiiight so you don't know / care about front of house vs stage mix?........!!!
Anyhow, I've only heard a tiny mobile phone recorded clip of a duo with the singer with me using an acoustic guitar profile, but it sounds great.
I had given myself maximum range on the guitar pedal so I could leave it half way, and therefore have the ability to both decrease and increase my volume on the fly. I found the change in volume a bit too unpredictable though....to be fair, in exactly the same way I have found with my old amp and a Morley power volume - I find messing too much with volume etc while I'm playing can easily distract me to the point of hitting bum notes - not good. So what I think I'll do next time is just set a stomp (top row of FCB) as a pure boost. Out of interest, can you have more than one pure boost programmed for a rig? And can you use them incrementally? So one would give me a small lift in volume, and if I wanted more, I could engage the other one as well?
Also, I currently have a green scream stomp set up for a just a little gain and treble boost. When you change slots within a performance, it stays on. I completely understand why, but in the way I set my slots, I'd rather it turned off when changing slots. Is there any way to control that behaviour?
At the moment I have 4 performances programmed. Although I go from clean to increasing drive on the first 4 slots of all performances and have the last for lead, I did have a few moments where I had to study the KPA display to remember which slot I wanted for which song section. I'm not sure if I'll just rely on becoming more familiar with slots vs song/section of whether I should be less particular and try and have a more standard 5 slot selection that I use for the majority of the set. What do you guys do?
Last thing, the tuner, particularly with the FCB display the Uno4Kemper gives, is just brilliant. So much more easy to use and stable than the Korg Pitchblack that I had been using.
Cheers,
Andy