Posts by Danger

<p>My question would be... Why would you wish to run two cabs in mono? You are prepared to spend $3000 dollars on a Kemper, who knows how much on guitars etc. What's another grand or two on a decent set of powered speakers. The only reason I opted for the powered Kemper was for gigging when there was a chance I could blow someone elses driver across the room! I long for a guitarist with a large ego to power up the magic transducer and listen to that seldom heard but always obvious crunching buzz. Even better with smoke!</p>

<p>In all seriousness though, the quality of the sound is why we buy these things. The choice of speaker is paramount to do the Kemper justice. To truely enjoy the Kemper is to be in stereo.</p>

<p>The Kemper amp will 16/8/ and 4 ohm outputs so it depends on the load [ speaker{s} ] you choose to use. Some speakers are 4 ohm, if this is the case you will be limited to 600 watts I believe? which by all acounts would either rip the ears clean off your head at 30 paces or launch the driver accross the room.</p>

Quote from paults

The old Fender tweed, blackface, and some silverface Bassman amps were also great sounding guitar amps. That's why you see the amp used for both instruments.

Ive used guitar amp / cab combos for bass as a last resort and if you want a nice tight high mid they aren't too bad. However, the frequency response on speakers with 6/8 or even 10" paper just doesn't produce a low enough bark. But yeah, the inverse is true, there are some good bass amps that can produce some good tone with 6 string guitars.

For guitar I'm using a Telecaster or Acoustic Git through 2 QSC 153 i's and that absolutely rocks the stage big time in stereo. For bass I use the powered KPA through a 13 ply Baltic Birch cab loaded with a single 15" JBL Full range. That works quite well and isn't brutally heavy. Of course the QSC's work well for bass too. But I'm not the greatest lead guitarist so I tend to play rhythm and the twin QSC's are stellar side fills you can pump the entire band through them and if your PA packs it in... just turn em towards the audience!

This is why I find the Kemper so exciting! It actually can provide not two, but four different signals to the console.
A clean dry signal - no amp - no cab
An amp only signal
An amp / cab signal direct out
An amp / cab signal mic'd
there is a difference in a mic'd cab sound due to the colour of the mic and its placement. You can't say" well the sound is already a mic'd cab" because we may have elected to turn off the cab sim and use a traditional HiWatt cab for example.
And we send any of these signals from the console to the artist so there is no need to use the Kemper for that.

Sure, but a clean un coloured signal for recording is helpful too. A recorded amp sound is just like a recorded effect in a way. Yes you can EQ it but the tone and colour can't really be changed much in post without serious degradation. Whereas, with a clean signal you can re amp it. This means that you preserved the perfect take in a way that is totally flexible. Otherwise you may need to find a different amp/ cab combination and try for that magic take again.
Also guys, remember that when you have a console and other gear, monitoring your sound can be achieved in other ways, ie through the console and other gear. There is no need to use any of the outputs on the Kemper for direct monitoring. Any and all outputs can go to the control room and then be sent back for monitoring.

Well I don't employ tape very often! But I just sat in with some musicians from Switzerland that wanted to create a demo of some tunes they wrote while here in Canada. They insisted on tape for mastering? Even though we had plenty of mics, a console and interfaces. They even supplied a Tascam 8 track to do it with. The unit looked brand new! We succeeded in setting levels and doing a few good takes. As you know this can be time consuming and a delicate task. Anyhoo the Tascam started to get wobbly and unpredictable... tracking issues? I pulled the plug on the Tascam and put the remainder through the console and then digitized it. After the session I grabbed an old Sony VHS and passed the entire stereo mix through that and of course, this is why I don't subscribe to this process... converted the tape back to dig for obvious reasons. I liken it to film cameras vs digital, sure film is warmer and more natural to some but you cant get it developed anymore and its not as portable in todays world. Thats no different for music, you must bend over to some degree.

Absolutely! If you have room on the console for a clean signal that can be treated separately from the wet mix and your sound man knows what to do with it. There are several things that can be done. Firstly, blending which is obvious. Less obvious is eq which can now be applied to both signals differently. And then there is additional effects that can be added solely to the dry signal or both. Some engineers find this arrangement to cumbersome, there are more things to go sour, however, if he should be able to benefit from the added tonal control and signal processing then why not? Don't forget, Mr. Kemper has made the unit quite flexible with the possible outs! In fact, if you had the interface you could include the spdif outs for use on a digital console, I believe. My Kemper is sitting at the local dealership today so I have no experience with it yet. But in general, any time I can get a line out and a mic i always do it. You can always kill the mic.

No no hair splitting at all! Quite the opposite, the influencing will have a massive impact on character! So that's important stuff, thanks for clarifying and sharing that.

Is it used?

There is one exception in the truly analogue world. I hate Tascam and Fostex style 8 track recorders! They suck! Sure you can get a decent recording if they are tracking properly... If? But the machines are finicky and very difficult to monitor what is actually being written to tape. Therefore, they suck! If I want an analog tape sound I prefer to use VHS it's simpler and less tracking issues. That said, I don't because digital has come of age and while not a perfect representation of a tape sound, it's pretty darn close! As I said before, no tube amp officianado can sit blindfolded in a room full of tube amps and tell me which one is playing. That's just not possible due to the variables, starting at the source... The instrument. Introduce a Kemper into the room and see if the person can single it out? Doubt it very seriously. Maybe if they were interacting with the instrument, but still unlikely. Most of us think we can tell but we can't.

I guess the question I'm trying to ask is why you are you sending two signals? When you only need to send to the console? Most Consoles have the capability to re route audio signals to other devices via line out, rca out, phono out, effect sends and returns etc etc. or are you connecting SPDIF from Kemper to computer and audio to console? And not getting SPDIF to the computer or no signal to the console?
if you are having an issue with signal to the console, I recall reading that there is a menu to select the output level for the mains out, if it is set too low you will need to raise it for the strip input level to see it, if on the other hand, it's too high you will obviously clip the strip input. Also it was mentioned you will want to separate the volume control and fix the output level for the mains out.
sorry for the off topic stuff... Just trying to be helpful.

Monkey man, you say you are sending the Direct signal to the computer? I assume through an audio interface of some sort? Why not send it to the mixing console then out the consoles many options there for routing to the audio/digital interface to computer? Or is it that you are not getting a signal from the Kemper?

So what I'm taking from this is that prior to the improvement there could be residual cab character that would stay with the amp sound after de activating the cab? The new method is more precise and less or no cab colours the amp now, correct? So this would suggest a HiWatt cab could be selected for a Marshall head and the Marshall cab would not migrate into the HiWatt cab? Or simply eliminating the cab for an amp connection would yield a more pure amp sound? I hope I'm understanding this right?
Is there a limitation on swapping amps and cabs? Let's say you have 100 amps and 150 cabs, can you mix and match any amp with any cab? Or is this wishful thinking?

Welcome! Don't worry they won't bite ... Hard. Everyone is really helpful on this site. But since my toaster hasn't shown up yet, I'm not the right guy to give set up advice yet. But when it shows up I'll be all over it like hair to a gorilla.

I too prefer analogue. I got the powered toaster mostly because I gig and sometimes I don't need to take a cab as there are plenty out there to be plugged into. But really, the powerless unit should serve fine for 90% of the gigs you will play. And will be all you will ever need for recording. You made the right choice rest easy.

Long and McQuade say my toaster will be here on Friday‼️
Slap a cord in it and make some NOISE!

So what about profiles of the commercial type? Let's say you paid for some smokin' profiles will they re issue those as improved ( merged ) profiles? Or will there be a whole new category? If they start a whole new category there will be some lag before the selection is as vast as now. And all the older ones will be kinda mouldy and forgotten. People like me that haven't yet received our Kempers will hold off until the new and improved profiles emerge.

So it's a winding tower! Ok why was it chosen? Was the Kemper family coal miners? Just curious as to how the tower came to be in the logo.

Right, but as you say he could send a clean signal and two miced ones with cab and amp tones to be Blended as required. Sure, not the same and likely wouldn't sound as good but an option none the less.