Posts by strabes

still available? cash in hand...

still available? motivated buyer

Quote from C-4

I keep a Fly Rig in my gig bag, and until I read this thread, actually forgot that I did have it with me when I go to work!

One thing has always baffled me and that is why do players report unloading all of their other gear just after purchasing a Kemper? I kept my valve amps, and may buy another one, or the new Bias thingy that looks like a Kemper. Obviously, I hope my Kemper never goes down, but better safe then sorry.

I had $5000+ of high end tube amps and after having the kemper exclusively for two months and zero desire to lug those things around any more, I got rid of them. If the kemper went down at a show I wouldn't have the tube amps with me anyway, and the flyrig can get me through a show for $200, and just stays in my car all the time so I don't have to think about it.

How do you have the in/out levels set up on the H9? For example on the timefactor there are switches on the back to separately set the input and output as instrument or line level. If those switches are mismatched I get a big volume jump. The H9 has similar options for I/O levels.

Quote from AxeSlash

Is there a noticeable gap or latency when switching between rigs/presets/fx/whatever?

No

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What sort of distance is the tuner readable from? Do I need to keep my Korg DTRs? I'm usually 4' or so away from my rack when tuning.

Easily readable from 4' away. The four soft buttons above the screen also function as a sort of strobe tuner when the kemper's tuner is active, and they're readable across a stage.

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Given that IRs are involved, has anyone measured the latency? I'm pretty retentive about tightness and hate even tiny amounts of latency.

No noticeable latency here. I don't play a lot of metal but even when I do have some fun with quick tight alternate picking riffs, I don't feel any latency.

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Given that it comes with hundreds of rigs out of the box, is there an easy way to kill off the ones you don't like/don't use so that you're not spending your life searching for them when setting it up for use?

I deleted all the factory rigs because they were just getting in the way. In the system menu there's an option to delete all non favorite rigs.

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Nothing on the back of it is labelled 'fx loop'…I presume that it is still possible to use external effects with it and that some of the existing connectors on the back double up for FX loop use?

You can use one of the stomp slots for an fx loop, either before the amp/eq/cab stack (for an overdrive pedal or something, use the "loop mono" effect in A, B, C, or D), or if you want to run them post stack, use the X, mod, or delay stomps as a "loop mono" or "loop stereo." On the back of the kemper you use the send and return jacks as the fx loop. If you have a stereo rack delay or reverb or something, you can return stereo to the kemper using the alternative input jack on the back as the right channel return.

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The profiler has been around for a while now - are we expecting new, better hardware any time soon (i.e. should I hold off on buying one to see what the new model brings)?

Nope, no new hardware on the horizon right now.

I was under the impression that the amp compressor only affects how quiet your overall signal gets when you roll down your guitar volume knob. Higher compression settings result in a clean sound that is louder than if the compressor were set to 0.

Source (skip to 5:37):

If you like the profile you're using you could also run it into the fx loop return, just disable the cab on the kemper.

I use the reverb for a light, always on reverb to make my sound not so dry.

Run a compressor and a couple Od's in front of the Kemper, and a Timefactor and big sky in the loop. This lets me have a lot of live flexibility without having to preset set lists.

I also have have a midi controller that turns on and off different effects that I have preset and locked on all the slots on the Kemper. This way the Kemper functions as a virtual pedalboard for sounds that I use often, but don't need separate pedals for, and I don't have to lug around a bunch of different expensive pedals for sounds that I use once a night.

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Awesome! Any videos available by chance? Would love to hear it!

@sanders4617

Thanks, and yep there's video of the full service!

Jump to 4:30 for the start of my solo with the klon + king of tone + the /13 profile I mentioned earlier. The keys player and I did back to back solos, so that was a fun thing to throw in there. Not as loud in the video mix as I'd hoped but I assure you it was blazing in FOH, my guitar got so loud in the ambient mics during that solo lol

https://vimeo.com/174069528

Similar but opposite experience here with mbritt's profiles. Most of them were painfully bright but after bringing down the treble and presence between 1 and 1.5 notches and bumping the mids a similar amount, his divided by 13 JRT 9/5 #3 profile has become my favorite profile ever. This weekend I was playing at a 20,000+ person church and the FOH guy told me my lead tone was the best he had ever heard (it was my mythical overdrive klon clone pedal into that profile). I am so impressed with some of mbritt's profiles now.

I'm sorry but in the OP "in the toilet" just cracked me up

Disclaimer: not bragging here just trying to give the scale of how great the Kemper can be.

I'm playing at a huge church this weekend (20k+) and was playing one of mbritt's profiles (/13 JRT9-15 3).

I had backed off the treble and presence and bumped up the mids to about 1.5 because a lot of times his profiles are really bright or scooped.

For a lead I hit my klon and FOH guy told me it was the best guitar tone he had ever heard. Wow!!

Please add this. I use my kemper like a pedalboard, with 7 fx/stomps programmed and locked, but I'm kind of restricted as to placement and I'd like to have more of my modulation fx (which are programmed to a couple of the A-D stomps) after the stack.

When I have to play acoustic on a song or two, I just use the "Acoustic B" default rig. It's a profile of some preamp that I can't recall right now. Sounds great and lets me not have to run a 2nd line to FOH for the soundguy to forget to unmute!

Quote from Michael_dk

I'm more with OhG on this, definitely! I have found some of them that are usable for my tastes, but they are SQUARELY in the "dark" area of the pool Don't think I'd call them muddy, necessarily. But they do have their share of low mids. There is NO kind of ear-splitting treble or presence to my ear - I find most of them quite lacking in this regard, actually (again, for my tastes and music).

This is Pack 2, I believe. This is mostly talking about profiles with gain at around 4 and upwards.

That is so strange to me. There must be some setting buried somewhere that I am missing. I'm monitoring with IEMs if that makes a difference.

Quote from OhG

I haven't found a single distortion profile of his that doesn't sound way too muddy or dark for me

I cannot comprehend this. Almost every mbritt distortion profile I have tried (every profile in both packs 1 and 2 and a couple smaller packs) is absolutely ear splittingly bright, even with HBs. They sound like the treble and presence on the amp are cranked way up and the speaker is mic'd right in the center. The AC30 B2 profile is very clean and sounds good with pedals and such, but anything with breakup is way too bright.

Flyrig 5. Best $200 you'll ever spend as a backup. Lives in my car always.

https://imgur.com/a/6vFft

Quote from citizengain

It is no wonder that Palmer units are so popular especially in live situations. For example Palmer PDI-09 is basically a low pass filter set at 5kHz. The low end gradually and very slightly rolls off from 200Hz to 20Hz. It also doesn't have the bump at around 150Hz that regular guitar cabs have, so it may sound a little bit lighter when palm muting etc. It may sound dull and blunt when played at home but it works with a band very well. Also, the Palmer's eq curve is more like a straight line, compared to the eq curve of a miked cab which is jagged with peaks and valleys. So the sound, while not being so authentic, is more full.

In my opinion it is the mid content between say, 600Hz to 4khz that are crucial for a fat sound and cutting trough live. May profiles are too scooped in that area for live playing.

In studio one will use whatever sound that is suitable for the track and double or triple tracking guitars may need more high end than a single guitar. Plus the guitar sound has to leave room for the vocals etc. But for live sound, the "frown" curve eq is the way to go imo. In other words, guitars slot in band sound is in the mids, whereas the lows and the highs will be washed away once the band kicks in.

Listen to profiles made by professionals with lots of live playing experience, for example Michael Britt or Bert Meulendijk. Those guys' profiles have ample of mids and not too much piercing high end or boomy lows, so they work live very well.

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Thanks for the info. I'm basically a hired gun around town, 100% live player besides my home preparation. Helps fund the gear so my day job can go to normal expenses =) I don't do a lot of studio work. So before I got a kemper I used a palmer PGA-04 power soak and speaker emulator with my tube amp heads. For live playing I preferred it to a real mic'd cab. It was just so much easier to get a good tone out of it than micing a cab, and sound guys loved it exactly for the reasons you mentioned 1) full, flat EQ and 2) no bad peaks or valleys. My back liked not lifting 80lb AC30s around any more either.

I definitely agree about really emphasizing the mids. Sounds honky and dark at home but live in a mix it really shines due to the fletcher munson thing and just as a result of where guitars sit in a live band mix. Some of Mbritt's profiles fit this mold and as a result work really well live, like the Vox AC30 B1.

I am regretting mentioning the HPF thing in my initial post because the ear piercing brightness is still there with some of these profiles with or without the HPF. These profiles sound great in headphones for recording, but again, live they just become an absolute ice picky mess.

Quote from MLScola

Can you get some time at rehearsal and tweak your settings with the band? Maybe record a tune or two? If you can get it to sound good on the IEM's and it sounds thick on your recordings, problem solved, yes?

When it comes a fatter tone you might try lowering your cut-off around 85 to 100Hz and do some careful EQ'ing in the 100 to 500 Hz area, maybe roll off a little 4K-5K. And, if possible, do this at the highest volume you can get away with. Perferably with the band. If not, a decent bass and drum loop will help immensely with your EQ choices.

Do this with your darkest and brightest guitars

It's true that a lot of profiles are made to be played at mid volumes. That's why I like M. Britt's stuff so much ... to me it's gig ready.

Best of luck!

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Thanks for the advice, I will try that out. I'm obviously not an engineer so I just go with what I've picked up online or from players I respect around town.

Quote from ColdFrixion

This is a common feature of equal-loudness (aka Fletcher-Munson) curves. This is one reason it's a good idea to listen to profiles at gig level when creating them(assuming you gig).

Yeah that's why I always set up my profiles to be darker when I'm at home. They sound bright and full live. I was just stumped as to why most of the profiles I've bought seem to be set up for recording or home level playing. Even at home some of them are really bright, especially the top boost profiles (which makes sense obviously).