Posts by MKB

As was mentioned before, if you are switching the amp inputs and the outputs will always be connected to the same set of speakers, any A-B-Y will do. However you do NOT want to put an amp switch on the output of a Kemper power amp. Class D amps can be blown up quickly if their output terminals are both not floating in respect to ground.

I only mention this as the OP mentions the output class of the amps. Most amp topologies such as AB or A have the negative lead of the output grounded, but most class D amps do not.

IMHO this is a good idea and might work well depending on the speakers chosen. Back in my Line 6 HD500 days, when I had a need for really loud stage volume, the best setup I found was to install a "full range" single driver 12" (Eminence 12LTA) into a transtube Peavey Bandit. In some cases on really loud stages the FRFR monitors started compressing and all you could hear was the tweeter, which was very unpleasant. But the Bandit/12LTA did a great job in keeping its tone even at loud volumes.

For some reason this same rig did not sound that great with the Kemper. But I do not have really loud gigs any more, so the KPA through a FRFR is fine.

Beyma makes a few excellent full range single drivers, 10" and 12", that might do a terrific job in a guitar cab with a clean neutral power amp and a Kemper. I would definitely try a pair of the Beymas if they weren't so expensive in the US. I'd think a pair of these with a stout class D or T power amp would sing at all volumes with a Kemper, and you could keep the cab sim activated as well.

In general, it is best to use the most neutral and full range speaker possible with a modeler, because most guitar speakers have their own unique tone and character that would then be placed on all your profiles. If you are playing through a V30 equipped cab, and are trying to get a AC30 or tweed Bassman speaker tone, it would be difficult to do.

Just wanted to add that I don't consider drew_fx a troll, I've read and enjoyed his posts on other forums. And seriously, has there ever been a band name quite as great as Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster??

Modelers are different things to different people, and I can easily see where someone might forego a bit of amp realism in order to have the effect versatility and more usable UI on the floor for live performance. How good does the amp modeling have to be in all cases? The Helix has the current UI to die for at this moment, and I can see how it would greatly simplify getting effect heavy tones live. Line 6 has seriously upped the bar on the floor modeler UI, it makes most everything else look like an also-ran. Compare it with the UI on the Amplifire and Fractal AX8, both of those look a bit weak in comparison.

OTOH, the last few times I have used the Kemper live, and listed to its results in the mix, I have thought that it might not be possible to improve its tone capabilities. It's as good as an amp tone needs to be for my ears. That's hard to give up. The Kemper does have a ways to go to improve the effects selection and routing, but in basic amp tone, I can't think of any improvements.

If someone needs lots of effects and complicated routing capabilities, the Kemper might not be their cup of tea. In fact, every Line 6 product from the X3 on up is better than the Kemper in effects selection and routing. But in cases like mine, not many effects may be needed, and the Kemper is perfection. Different strokes and all.

They didn't well demonstrate the dynamics of any of the tones, all were at a mostly flat input level. IMHO the best thing about the Kemper is its unreal dynamics and touch response, and the Helix tones I've heard so far are no competition at all. In fact the Deluxe mid gain tone had some of the Line 6 HD treble sizzle. I haven't heard anything from the Helix so far you couldn't get from a HD500.

Quote from Bear

Made in Germany..need I say more..They've always made the best product in the world....from way back to now..Germany is very good at what they do..weather it be Cars, Guns, Knives, Musical equipment..the list goes on and on..if it says Made in Germany, you don't even have to look twice..you just get it.cause you know it's good..real good..and No, I don't own a Kemper yet, but what I just said stands true..and we know this..I cant wait to own one guys..man I cant wait..

Not meaning to be contentious, but as my day job for decades has been as a development/manufacturing engineer for a company that makes devices with hardware somewhat like the Kemper, and also worked for a decade for a US arm of a German company, I'll have to disagree a bit. Not that German engineering is bad (it is generally excellent), and their build quality is poor (often it is excellent as well), but IME they are not any better or worse than the UK or US or Taiwan. I have seen as much crap delivered from German companies than from any other country; one time we received a batch of very expensive test equipment from a German firm (everyone would recognize its name) that had unsoldered connectors on the entire batch, and not a single one would even power up. I've never seen that from a US company. And my first Kemper was a factory refurb, and it had issues out of the box and had to be returned for exchange. I've never had that happen before in over 30 years of playing.

My point is the country of origin of a product has nothing to do with how well it is designed or made. Perhaps Germany has a good reputation as they in general make expensive products that should be perfect, while say China gets a rep for poor quality as they make the cheap stuff. Keep in mind all of your excellent quality Apple products are all made in China.

The Kemper is a very well designed piece of gear, as it should be for its price. I regularly work directly in areas such as chassis design and graphics, and to my eye the Kemper is unsurpassed in its design, from an aesthetic as well as functional standpoint. But this is totally due to the care and drive of the Kemper company, and has nothing to do with them being in Germany or the US or anywhere else in the world.

Quote from mbenigni

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.

It is possible that the Helix sounds great and the new models help in that regard, but it's possible (if not probable) that the rest of the software is still buggy and incomplete. That might be a reason that well known Line 6 users haven't had their hands on one except at shows and limited store demos. If the software isn't stable, one of these guys would make a video and show how poorly it works. This is not meant as a poor reflection on Line 6; I have worked at several companies that announced and showed products that would barely work, and the demonstrators had to be careful not to push the wrong button or do functions in a particular sequence or the unit would crash. We all might recall when even Bill Gates got a BSOD during his announcement of Windows 95. I'd guess too that the time between now and product release will be used to wring out the bugs.

My used Kemper had a problem and I sent it back to Kemper Americas for a replacement (long story with a happy ending, Kemper has unmatched customer support, but I digress). I had to use my old HD500 for a few gigs, and then got the Kemper back yesterday. All last night at practice I was in awe of the tone of the Kemper, and can't imagine how its tone or response can be improved. This is after 10 years of gigging with modelers and almost 35 years of playing. How in the world does Line 6 expect to play in this same league? They better bring some serious tonal game at the Helix's price point. It's just curious that they are stirring up the buzz on the Helix but have almost no real tone examples, when with the HD's early hype days there were many examples. Can't help thinking there is a reason.

I'm a bit late to this discussion, but would like to add a personal experience to the mix. In my day job we design and build a device that provides protection and monitoring to the physical layer of computer network interconnections. It is a high technology product, and was basically designed in its current form over 10 years ago. We have made small cosmetic improvements over the years, and quite a few firmware upgrades, but the basic hardware is the same as it was a decade ago. It still sells great and is considered the Cadillac of its product type in the industry.

My point is there are times when you can design a product with enough foresight where it will not need a hardware upgrade for a long time. The Kemper can easily be such a product. Can it really be improved in its core functionality, other than the effects implementation? Most improvements one can think of can be made with firmware upgrades.

And on the Kemper's cosmetics... I have had several folks comment the Kemper on how beautiful it is; the CEO of my company saw it and was quite smitten on its appearance, and this was when it was unpowered. IMHO the Kemper toaster format is a brilliant rethink of the modeler UI, on par with the original Line 6 bean, and the multicolor LEDs and button/knob selection is brilliant. I picked the toaster over the rack version as I simply think it looks great.

I'd guess if there is ever a Kemper 2.0, it will be a less expensive reduced capability version. There might be a real market for a less expensive floor model Kemper that will only play back profiles. But the original Kemper does what it does so well, maybe there aren't many ways to improve it.

Quote from guenterhaas

For me the KPA is very, very unique, so there's no real competition from my point of view. It's the only tool, which is able to profile my own amps and put them into a small box. There are a lot of good guitar-devices on the market, but the KPA is revolutionary in many ways.

Effects are always a matter of taste, I'm really fine with a lot of the KPA-effects and I also like my effects and pedals from Strymon, Fulltone, Mad Professor, Okko ect. Some pedals sound very unique, too and you won't find them in any digital device.

Indeed, the Kemper is in a category all its own, and is a totally different animal from most anything else out there. The Kemper totally frees you from the limitation of having to use whatever model that is present in the modeler; if you can find a sweet amp that has that perfect tone, you can profile it and get 95% or more of that tone in the Kemper. And you can even enhance that tone with the Kemper deep parameters, making the profile possibly even better than the original amp (for example making its dynamics more usable with Distortion Sense and other parameters).

I have to say it is a bit strange watching the megathread on the Helix at TGP, and how many potential users are asking Line 6 to add certain specific amp models to the Helix, even before the unit is available for sale. Us Kemper users simply do not have that problem at all. It's really simple to add external effects of any kind to the Kemper, but it is far harder to get an accurate Dumble ODS or Friedman Pink Taco model into a Helix. I cannot imagine for a second going back to a Line 6 product.

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.

It's also interesting that in the early hype of the HD series, there was a huge emphasis on the sound quality of the unit as well as the modeling accuracy. There were many early clips with HD modeling, and they sounded great (I certainly bought into the hype). This emphasis on tone seems to be mostly missing from the present Helix hype, they instead focus on features and operation of the unit. It's fascinating that it almost seems as if the sound of the Helix is being treated as not its most important feature.

We can be sure that sound clips are on their way, and the Helix will most likely be significantly better than the Line 6 HD or other products. But it remains to be seen if it will approach the Fractal or Kemper units in feel and tone.

If Line 6 would simply fix the HD power amp modeling, add decent speaker sims and third party IR capability, and improve the HD's UI, it would be a far better unit and more widely used. Maybe this is the Helix in a nutshell?

As much as I love the Kemper, I have to say the manuals aren't very good. They are easy to read, but do not provide all of the information in a clear and concise form. Nor does it seem to explain how various functions interact. I have had to do internet searches on some items I couldn't find in the manual, only to later see it was in the manual but buried in a section where it could not intuitively be found.

One of my functions in my day job is to write technical manuals and application documents, and I often read manuals on equipment before buying it (read the Kemper manuals as soon as I bought one). Even after reading the manual I didn't have much of the info.

That being said, the manual does read well and looks great, and obviously some care and time was taken in creating it. But it may have the issue that occurs in many small companies; the engineers that design the gear also write the manuals. This is almost never a good thing as items are left out or misplaced by those that deal with them on a daily basis.

Sorry for the OT rant.

All this talk about the Variax and making a converter has gotten me a bit curious. So I got out the X3 Live schematic, and here is some info on the Variax 1.0 interface.

The signals to and from the Variax do not look too complicated. There are two differential signals (pins 1 and 8 driven by a line from the uC named VDI_MIDI_TXD. Pin 6 drives VDI_MIDI RXD through a voltage divider and a few gates.

Pins 3 and 7 drive a RS422 level translator, which outputs a signal VDI1_AES_RXD that goes straight to the uC.

Pin 4 is +8v, and pin 5 is ground.

That's it. So perhaps the Variax merely has a midi interface and an AES/EBU digital output, along with power and ground? That would actually not be too difficult to work with, as long as Line 6 didn't do any screwy coding on the AES signal return or use nonstandard data rates. You could whip up some simple interface electronics and use various analyzers to check the signal protocol and midi commands, and a converter box might be as simple as a few signal level translation chips, an AES to analog converter, and a few midi jacks. I'd probably give a converter a shot if I had a Variax.

EDIT: After a bit more thought, there is a possibility that if the Variax output is indeed AES digital, the output of the RS422 IC in the converter could be level shifted and plugged into the SPDIF input of the Kemper. You could then use the SPDIF as the input to the Kemper and keep all of the Variax signal generation in the digital domain. That would be cool.

If anyone is so inclined, an internet search will bring up schematics for older Line 6 Variax units. You could determine the pinout from that. Also there are schematics available for Line 6 modelers that should have the Variax connections as well.

It's possible that the non-power amp and power amp versions of the Kemper have different main power supplies; the power amp Kempers will require much more power from their power supplies, most likely will need a few more voltage outputs as well. Different supplies can mean different voltage ranges. Most companies buy the power supplies as completed assemblies for a number of reasons, and the company that makes the supply may have different specs than other companies' supplies used in the same product.

The aftermarket power amps for Kemper retrofit almost always have their own power supplies, so the stock Kemper supply will not need to be modified.

This is very good information. In my previous band we had a voltage monitor in the onstage mixer board, and I could clearly see the line voltage at that location at any time during the gig. We sometimes played gigs when the line voltage dropped from 120VAC nominal to 98VAC. At that time I was using a tube guitar amp that was sensitive to line voltage, and it would sound bad, and the low voltage was often the reason.

Since the low end voltage for the Kemper is 100VAC, I would see issues at those same gigs. So I plan to buy an inexpensive UPS/voltage conditioner (available for around $50 or so) and use it with the Kemper. This is probably a good thing to do regardless of what microprocessor based device you might be gigging with.

Quote from hjscheffler

What happens when you restore the backup?

Thanks for the response. I tried this, and after the unit was on for a half hour or so the distortion reappeared.

BTW I found that the Kemper was on firmware version 3.0.0, so I upgraded it to the latest version before the backup restore.

I noticed that the Alt in seems in some cases to sound fine when the unit is turned on after being off for several hours, but after being on for awhile the distortion starts. Maybe there is some sort of thermal issue, or an analog bias drift over time? I will work with the unit a bit more to see if this might be the cause, and if there is a time constant involved.

Another symptom is that the hiss with the Alt input increases when the distortion is present, and there are noises present between songs being played on the mp3 player (clicks and hiss that are not normally there, like the low level noises between the songs are amplified). This is what is making me think of a biasing drift; for example if the mp3 player has a DC offset at its output and the input analog circuitry in the Alt input is DC coupled, that could perhaps cause such issues. However that probably isn't happening here as the distortion also happens with a guitar with passive electronics.

Sure wish I had a set of schematics...

There might be one big arrow Line 6 has to shoot towards Kemper and Fractal; the Variax. AFAIK no other modeler or amp (aside from Line 6 products) have any real integration with the Variax. To have a guitar that changes tones as easily as the Helix changes amp models would be a powerful thing, and the Variax has already been accepted by many guitarists. But Line 6 has not been able to really latch on to a direction with the manufacturing of the Variax guitars (first generic guitars made in Asia, then the partnership with Tyler). But most likely the purchase of Line 6 by Yamaha will change all of that.

Yamaha is an instrument company that is very forward looking, and has many times invested in a new technology and stuck with it for many years until it has matured (for example their pioneering use of FM synthesis; the early keyboards with FM were large and expensive and unreliable, but after a decade or so they took over the industry with the DX7). Yamaha has developed their own line of semi-successful modelers, used by several famous musicians (Phil Keaggy and Alan Holdsworth come to mind). So why do they need Line 6?

I'm curious if Yamaha's purchase of Line 6 was not for their modelers or mixers or other pro gear, but for the Variax technology. Line 6 is clearly the industry leader in such guitar technology. I wonder if Yamaha plans to use their considerable funding and patience to develop the Variax/modeler system to a degree that will make it ubiquitous in the music world. The Helix would be a big step in that direction, at least from the modeler perspective.

Maybe Yamaha/Line 6 isn't playing catch up at all; perhaps they are positioning themselves so far ahead of the curve we can't see it.

So tonight I worked with the Kemper on the Alt In distortion issue. I powered up the Kemper and made a backup, but before the system reset I tried the MP3 player; no distortion. I the did the power on system reset, after the reset the distortion in the Alt input came back. After this I tried System/Init Globals, this did not help the distortion problem either.

Do you think I have a defective Kemper, or maybe it is a software issue as from time to time the distortion isn't there (so the hardware works at that time)?

Quote from PETERFR

Yes of course. The kemper has no limitation on amp models like other modeller.

This. If you buy any other modeler, you are limited to whatever amp models the manufacturer provides to you. If there is an amp model you want but isn't provided, you have to beg/wait/hope the manufacturer adds the model. But with the Kemper, you can usually find about most any amp made already profiled.

There are tons of free profiles I would be happy with, but I am now mostly stuck on a profile I made of my favorite amp, a Dumble clone. It is very cool to be able to clone the essence of a killer amp if you can get your hands on it for say 1/2 hour.

Not to mention that the Kemper just sounds and responds so incredibly good. It's worth the money for that alone.

I do think that Kemper could make a killing if they released a lower cost profile player with no profiling capabilities. If they could get the profile only player under $1k US, and perhaps in a stompbox format, they would kill most every other modeler on the market.

Very good, I will try this, thank you for your help.

Quote from hjscheffler

I would suggest that you try a system reset by powering the unit on while holding down the system button to see if that fixes the problem.

Thanks for the response. Will the system reset wipe any Rigs or Performances? Thanks.