Posts by JedMckenna

    I have always used .009s for regular e-e tuning on guitars with 25.5" necks and. 010s on 24-3/4". That gives about the same tension when swapping back and forth between different guitars. The exception is for 60's-style instrumental music for which I prefer heavier strings. Rick Beato's test unfortunately ignore both clean sound and sustain. With distortion and/or effects masking the true sound of the guitar you can get almost any result you want with any string gauge given a few minor EQ tweaks.

    Indeed, that youtube test is whack imo. Your attack eventually adapts to the gauge you use, of course if you attack the same way on .012 that you do on .009, it'll sound like you don't pick hard enough and if you attack like Stevie Ray Vaughn on a set of .009, it'll choke and sounds like you have no control. Also, as heldal said, this riff he does and overdrive he uses is quite useless to compare tonal difference. The biggest thing about string gauge which he doesn't seem to address is that feel, stability and sustain is a much greater variable than tone in my opinion and except maybe

    for the latter, those can't be understood by a youtube video.

    Another guy started a Kemper channel when it had just came out and because Kemper was in the name of the channel, he explained that he had received a lawyer letter saying he had to stop using that name because the company didn't want to be represented by non affiliated random people doing Youtube videos specifically about their products. Not sure what's happening here and I don't want to speculate but with a name like that, I wouldn't be surprised if it were a similar legal situation.

    If the QC lives up to its claim, and I can't see any reason why not, then it's going to leave the Kemper looking like a DVD player in the 4k/5k streaming era or whatever it is.

    If the KPA stage had half of them it would have been an innovation but instead they just repackaged old tech in a still large floor unit with an even poorer interface.

    The same Kemper box has been gaining market shares every year since its introduction and if you were aware of this market share in the pro recording/live touring circuit, you would know that it's not some new unit, no matter how great, that's going to make it become obsolete overnight.

    "Old tech" is a weak argument and pretty dismissive considering how well it is being sold at the moment. A lot of folks on the pro scene around me are ditching their AX8 (has been for many years and still is the unit of choice) in favor of the Kemper stage these days, as I predicted... old tech or not, it seems to perfectly hit a niche market. I see the excitement of some folks for "Neural" or whatever new company, but it'll take not only quality but a serie of specific circumstances before a product takes over and become industry standard the way Fractal and Kemper have become these last few years.

    I've noticed than many profilers like to crank the level (in the stack section) very high - probably to give a false impression of "sounding better" - and it's creating kind of volume war between profilers similar to what we saw in the field of pro audio. It's a bad habit that needs to be stopped for the reason you mention for one (ie. many acoustic rigs have no way to match some distorted ones). I often end up lowering that stack level variable for all profiles of a seller by a fixed 3-4 Db and compensate with giving more in the mains out. However, a rookie mistake is to have louder clean sounds than distorted because when you set them up, you adjusted them to be the same: they usually have to be much lower in the first place because of the context they are usually used in. That balance is a complex thing that takes a while to get right: when you think you have it right, record your gig and check again.

    Cool use of Bert's Friedmans! They are awesome. At first I thought they were just good but now I've been progressively ditching so many others in favor of Bert's because out of the box they just sound exactly what a guitar should like for a certain genre. I think I also use one with the "Sat" setting too - definitely incredible value in that pack!

    Bought:

    - An awful lot of pedals: Strymon Dig, El Cap, Flint, King of Tone and several other drives, EH Pitchfork, Volume Pedal and tuner, expensive cabling and power supply for pedalboard, etc.

    - Komplete midi Keyboard

    - Ipad (only dedicated for reading sheet music live)

    - Imac 27" (mostly for music production)


    Sold: Nothing


    With some of the artists I play with on smaller venues, I'm enjoying pedalboards a lot again. As good as the Kemper effects are, when playing mostly with effects/textures, I find the pedalboard/stompbox configuration to work way better. Had several music production gigs spontaneously come up this year so I had to get geared up for that.

    This. I use the acoustic profiles of a famous Dutch profiler. I did choose on of his great profiled preamp and eq matched to fit a recording of my singer's amazing high end Taylor mice'd (mostly by ear because the visual representation doesn't seems to reflect reality). I mostly use it with a Godin Multiac kind of acoustic/electric which is feedback resistant. It's changed my life for live acoustic and also useable for recording - unless the part needs very pure/exposed acoustic where I would probably still get a well mic'ed acoustic. I also suggest to do slightly different settings for strumming and picking.

    I think there might be something wrong with your sample. Something in your chain might not be right. One of my main out had become defective on mine after a few years (Kemper took tare of that in an exemplary fashion).


    I'm reading this thread coming back in my hotel room after playing an arena, so I had to chime in. If you want to "hear clips" of other people, just go outside; it's being used everywhere at the moment, from major recording engineers to the live circuit, the Kemper is literally everywhere in the pro world without you knowing it because it's hidden in a rack behind the fake Marshall stacks or on some number one hit where you have no idea it's been used. No need to prove that it's capable, just do your homework correctly and you'll figure it out.

    I look at pickups in this simplified way: either they are single coils, low output HB or high output HB (or P90s/filtertrons but I'm not using those often these days.) Of course different models of pickups all have their characteristics (and often some of this is marketing bs) but the difference can be made negligible once you compensate with adjustments the main eq section of the profile. Figure out one of the 3 category the sound you want is from and then just hunt for profile and tweak until you get it.

    Either you use an EQ post in your sounds to bring out the good frequencies and take down the nasty ones or better, start off with profiles that have your idea of "creamy tone" in the first place and apply minor tweak to fit your intruments. Look for sounds on RE (it has over 14k rigs, many of which are great) or inside the Factory Rigs and then stick to a handful of rigs that you like for a little while.

    Original song recorded with Canadian singer-songwriter Ember Swift. I tried this rig "60s Fuzz Jubilee" by paults on RE with minimal EQ tweaks when mixing (the pedalboard is a prop.) I also lowered the gain down so that I could go from smooth to "chainsaw" just with the touch.


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    As MM said, mains/spdif sound the same. Not familiar with this specific interface but I think those Sony cans are closed and have added low end or EQ that you like (they might not be very flat). Maybe it feels better to you through that kind of EQing? You can try to match this with the graphic/studio EQ.

    We need to look at this for what it is, a profiler and not a modeller. Now that there is a editor "like other companies", this concept will go over the head of even more people. Unlike those other companies, on this platform, amps and cabinets are profiled together to constitute a rig (which are all listed two inches above in your list of rigs.) People used to modellers go straight to swapping cabs etc but while it cab be done, the algorithm to separate the cab part isn't perfect. So choose your rig first (containing amp+cab together) and then arrange effects and whatnot around that. If you want to work backwards, save your effet presets and then recall them on another chosen rig.

    Indeed. I am so grateful for the timing since I'm going on rehearsals/tour in which massive editing will be required. I find unbelievable the level of entitlement I see from some users on this forum, of which some have little or no real professional needs in the first place. This release is such a glorious way of putting an end to the whining that had been going on here (although the nagging will start all over again soon with the Kone/Kabinet). Kudos to the hard work this company puts in, and it reflects in how their products are becoming industry standard for touring or recording touring artists worldwide.

    If we're talking about studio profiles being recorded direct as is on one end and you listening with proper speakers on the others, cab choice shouldn't matter. There is lots of deception indeed and it's been blatant since the explosion of commercial profilers. Many double track their excerpts / add post eq/effects etc. Kind of like the elite cycling world with PED: if one doesn't cheat, it's week in comparison to the rest of the competition who does. Try to get individual samples first and navigate this world with caution.

    If it's good enough for many major studios around the world and for an increasing number of major artists ... I wouldn't be worried it's not good enough for you.

    Indeed. At the end of the day, whether it's with a Kemper or even a POD, your effect processor/amp is rarely the weakest link stopping you from getting great sounding tracks. Especially with the modern high end devices, engaging in the marketing battle of brand 1 vs brand 2 is a waste of energy imo.

    I feel the pain man. I have to say though, the option of buying oversea should be last resort. You were in Canada thinking it was cheaper buying in Euros from Thomann but... at best, you get shafted with import/custom taxes/shipping costs you didn't even know existed and at worst, you have to send it back and forth oversea like you just did. Kemper and plenty of other brands sells at over twice the US/Europe price in some parts of the world and unfortunately buying at the crazy local retail price still usually ends up being better option than buying oversea. That was an expensive mistake but I suggest just make peace with it in your mind and try getting a KPA head locally or wait a year or so until the new batches of Stage get more reliable.

    As awesome and useful as Kemper/Fractal etc can be, I think you are missing some of the most fundamental aspects of electric guitar playing if you only play through digital devices. I am kind of limited in terms of space and try to keep gear to a minimum but I have at least a small tube amp I still vastly prefer going through for most smaller gig or with some particular artists where I use more effects. Some folks these days are forgetting that in some situations, some amps get you there quicker and feel right straight away without being dependent on a PA, good speakers or sound man etc.

    It depends on what your doing. To keep it very flexible, I go from rig 1 to 4 in order of gain. Rig 5 is solo sound. I usually just use 2/3 performances for electric sounds and 1 for acoustic/nylon. It doesn't sound like a lot but with effect switches and morph for each rig, it gives way more than enough options. I typically play 20+ song concerts and write on each chart which preset is used for what song, I try to keep the sounds of one song within the same performance. If I were always doing the same material, I'd have a performance for each song but for now I find this to be the best option when repertoire changes all the time.