Posts by JimmyK

    Hmm... and then You say You don't want to use a FRFR but an guitar cab? What cab would give You all these tones?You will not get a Fender or a Vox sound from a 4x12 Marshall cab or a Mesa Rectifier sound from an open back Alnico 1x12...
    If You want that flexibility, and I do, the FRFR path is the way to go... it might not kick Your a$$ the same way as that Marshal, but I think if You put 4 Yamaha DXR12 together it would probably do it quite well. :D

    WIth my Engl E570, my Mesa 2:90 and my 1922 cab I still can get pretty close to all these tones I need, except the Vox maybe... Heavy stuff, but if you come as a second guitar player with your poor Frfr's on the same stage, you simply will be vaporized hahaha :D If I could come as close as this with a lighter rig would be just fine :)

    Why are you beating yourself up trying to make this work? If it was that important to me, I'd stick with an amp with something like a Fryette Power Station for home use and move on. Life is too short. Just accept that it's not for you....nothing wrong with that. :) Other people like competing products which I find sub par in tone, so I've chosen what sounds good to me. I still have amps, BTW. (Mark V, Rivera Fandango, 60s JTM-45), but I never feel like I'm missing anything for the times I use the Kemper.

    Haha you've got a point here, but when I said 'five core tones" I meant "five core tones from different amps". Let's say a fender, a vox, two marshalls and a boogie :) Pretty much what Kemper claims of being able to do, in a small 5kg box. If it worked, it would be like Heaven! But anyway, I guess you're right. I'll keep it for the recordings and stick with my real amp for the gigging. Many thanks to all the guys that tried to help and find me a solution and rock on!

    Thanks @HappyKemper


    Rappoport's tone is great. Of course he is a great player too. But the cab isn't miked, all we hear is from FOH where he probably goes direct. And probably uses a tube power section on stage


    The outlaws' tone isn't worth much to my ears. In fact, at the second video you can hear a bit of the weird pick attack I always talk about at
    2.09. If he played a strat the tone would be very thin.


    I guess the difference in tone between these two bands is exactly what happens with Kemper and me...through monitors it sound awesome and through cabs...not so much.

    1. So, which sound cuts better in your opinion, Petrucci's or Aldrich's? The one is much darker than the other... ;)


    2. There is something called "volume knob". You can turn it on and off either with a real cab or an FRFR... :P no need to blast nobody


    3.4) Come on man, those two show that you haven't read my previous posts...

    I think we're just recycling the same things in the conversation, but I'll do a final attempt to organise my thoughts and clear up some (in my opinion) misconseptions I see repeatedly here:


    -There is no guitar sound that "translates". Whatever you do, if the sound engineer cuts all your middle and treble at his desk, you won't be heard.


    -There is no guitar sound that "cuts" in general. For example, Petrucci's tone is much different than Slash's tone which is much different than Doug Aldrich's tone which is different to Mayer's tone which differs than Slipknot's guitar tone. They all "cut", but in completely different band mixes. The sound guy will create a mix and will alter you sound as much as he believes he has to, in order to achive a clean and pleasing outcome according to his taste and ears. If for example your bassist's tone is mid-heavy, or your keyboard player plays with three hands in 6 octaves range :D , you won't "cut" as easily.


    -When I gig with my tube rig, I always carry a 57 with me and I position it myself. That way I know EXACTLY what I'm giving to the sound engineer, as someone would know with the master output of the Kemper. It's the exactly same thing.


    -Top Jimi merged profiles are awful with real cabs. I've also tried the Brown ones, the Friedman BE and the Super lead. The studio ones are great, but the merged when LOUD with real cabs are so plastic, loose and thin that no miking technique would make them sound good. In fact I wonder how could somebody use them live with a real cab lol!


    -The "full Kemper experience" is very subjective...someone wants to mess with a hundred sounds and effects and doesn't care for the response of the real thing but someone else needs 5 great tube tones AND the smooth feel of a real amp.


    -Mic bleeding exists from the beggining of time :D . Most sound engineers are used to mic bleeding and it doesnt stop them from making great mixes, in the studio or live. In fact, most of them expect it, especially in live situations. Even if the guitar signal is "clean", there will be so much bleeding from the drums to all other mikes.


    -Tube amps and guitar cabs exist from the beggining of time :D . All the great records we've heard and all the great live shows we have enjoyed have guitar tones from real amps and real cabs.


    So, what exactly are we discussing here?


    Are we talking about "real cab vs frfr"? If we do, the answer has been given many years now. Think of your favorite player's tone: It's coming from a real cab, in the studio or live. But I don't think that's the discussion here.


    Are we talking about "kemper vs tube amp"? My first though is "for the studio Kemper, for gigging I don't know yet", which leads us to the next question:


    "Kemper live better with a real cab or an FRFR"?


    The response of the real amp and cab is part of the instrument for the moderate/advanced blues/rock guitar player, either we like that or not.


    So, if Kemper can deliver that, it's fine for gigging. But can it? I don't think so. It is close, but I have mentioned numerous times in my previous posts the annoying unnatural excessive pick attack that can't be reduced, and the notes that thin out at high strings and high frets when used with a real cab at high volumes. And of course, many others have mentioned it and I posted the links.


    Whoever wants to use an FRFR is free to do it. I guess that way is better if we take for granted that Kemper cannot reproduce the original tone and response of a tube amp with real cabs. But come on guys, the best FRFR with the best profile cannot come even close to the sound and the feel of a real tube amp and a real cab in your face.


    If you are happy with it, fine by me, everybody can do what he wants with his tone in the free world! :P But the ideal thing would be to get the tube sound with the Kemper with a real cab so when gigging to get the feel and the response AND the great sound and the effects etc...


    Anyway sorry for the big text, just my 2 cents... :)

    Too many variables...That's what I see when it comes to getting that live tone right. Unless you do the band mix yourself, or work with the same sound company, somehow you have to be flexible enough to "fit in". But introducing real cabinets back into the equation sounds like a bad idea to me. You're filtering a filtered tone. I can't see that working. FRFR is the way to go, and that will only be as good as the FRFR monitor solution you choose. As far as how loud you cranked the monitors when you dialed in your sound, that matters. Hopefully folks know to "crank it" every once in a while to verify the bass is not too much.


    And I agree that the best option is your own personal monitor solution that replicates your reference monitors. Not an easy task to find that quality in a stage setup. I tried ear monitors once and ended up pulling them because they made me feel disconnected from the band...and the live sound that I interact with. I still believe that if the "core tone" is done right, simple bass/mid/treble adjustments can get you sitting in the mix just fine. But if your guitar tone is not translating to nearly every type of stereo, TV, computer speakers of whatever, then the core tone is off and never going to work in any live situation. Then you need to focus on getting that balance right before you can go forward with a live situation.

    With all due respect, I don't agree. Why "filtering a filtered tone"? If you send a preamp+poweramp signal with the cab sim off to a real cab, you don't have any such problem. Besides that, either you send a miked signal or a direct with cab sim, the sound engineer can process the sound the way we wants, and change/process it as much as he wants. And coloration will always exist, even if you use the best FRFR, which will depend on your volume, the place you're gigging, the FOH speakers which will be different than your monitors etc. If you are not in the crowd, there is no way to know what people are hearing from your tone.


    There are a bunch of guys out there like me, who got a Kemper (apart from the studio convenience) not for having a million different sounds on stage but to get an all-in-one solution in a five kilos box, to use with our real cabs when gigging. If that worked fine, I wouldn't have to carry a twenty kilos head, an effects rack or 15 pedals and the cab, but with a powered Kemper, a two way switch and a small 1x12 I would be just fine. So I would have (much) less weight to carry, less connections and cables (with less signal loss of course) with the same tone and the same feel/response. If the tone and the response was there, I would prefer to mike it than send from master output.


    That's why I wonder why people dont use it with miked cabs, but everyone seems to prefer to send to FOH from master output, which means they are sending something different from what they feel from their monitor. If Kemper is not meant to be used that way (I see many people here saying this) , the ideal thing would be people to know it.

    It's like asking "why would anybody gig with a tube amp miked?". "Because he can" is the answer. Or "because he wants to". Besides that, I can think many reasons. Small venues, air moving, feel, two guitar players and the other one has a tube amp, sound guys that are used to the classic way of dialing with guitar tone, giving the soundman a sound from a real cab etc etc...If you had the perfect tone and response through your real cab, why spending hours and hours to find a "cab" that sounds close to the real one and not just mike it, if you know how to mike it?


    But my point is that guys probably don't use Kemper that way, because it doesn't sound like the real deal with a real cab under the specific circumstances I have mentioned earlier. If it did, why losing all the feel and response of the real amp behind you? Everybody would place a 57 in front of the cab and ready to go. There is a reason that people avoid to do that. For me, the response of the amp is very important, almost as important as the tone. In fact, the response IS the tone. Don't get me wrong, don't trying to be a smartass here, I'm just another bedroom player nowdays that gigs occasionally just for fun, but used to be a pro a few years back. And I only need five great core tones to express myself, not a bunch of sounds with a hundred different cabs etc. So, if Kemper could do that, would be great news for me.

    I mentioned numerous times a very specific problem. Strange behaviour at medium/high gain, at high (gigging or rehearsal, not high appartment volumes) volumes with real cabs, with every profile, merged studio or DI (tried marshalls, boogies, friedmans, EVH, peaveys, bogners etc) . Tried with different guitars, poweramps and cabs, even with different Kempers (a friend's powered Kemper) so the problem is clearly from Kemper preamp section and not from the other parts of the chain. Nobody said that kemper is not good for gigging. I said (and i still belive) that under these very specific circumstances there is a serious flaw, the unnaturally exessive pick attack can't be reduced (tried every possibe parameter) and notes thin out at high strings. This happens with every profile (tried more than a hundred from almost all popular vendors), and this DOES NOT happen with tube amps. Not even one, and I've played many of them, through the same cabs I did with Kemper.


    I even have given links from many other people that have that exact problem under these same circumstances.


    I have seen nowhere any great professional guitar player with great tone, that uses kemper live (not at home) with a real cab and MIKES the cab. Most players send master out to FOH, most players prefer FRFR solutions, and most of the ones that use real cabs do not mic the cab but use it only for monitoring their sound.


    I 'd be really happy to see links of some great professionals that get great tones live and use the Kemper with MIKED cabs, to ask for their advice. I'd also be really happy if I am wrong, but I've tried all possible combinations of settings and the problem is undeniably real, and thankfully I am not the only one that has it.


    And as I said again, I love my Kemper and I can get great tones easily through studio monitors or frfr cabs. I love being able to listen directly to the tone I'm recording. I love the convenience it gives me, but I want to give an honest and detailed opinion and not to be a fanboy here. I believe that only by being honest we can help each other and (who knows??) maybe helping Kemper Gmbh to improve an already great product, if they are still open to suggestions.

    I’ve done it all, merged, direct, my own direct profiles, Guido Bogner profiles, Berts Friedman profile pack, Which are great for live use without a cabinet, but nothing captures the real amplifier tone and feel, nothing…
    If you find top Jimi’s (Merged) profiles sound good through guitar cabinets, then we are on a completely different wavelength… I guess we all have different ears, tone is subjective…
    Sorry, They sound and feel nothing like a real tube guitar amplifier through a 4×12 cabinet…
    Hope you’re having a great weekend bro!

    Exactly! Especially Top Jimi studio profiles are great through monitors but the merged ones are the worst I've tried with a real cab...


    Btw still laughing with your post about electric shock treatment... :D

    I use the powered Kemper into a 2x12 guitar cab with direct profiles. Anyone who says it doesn’t respond like a real amp is insane. It’s indistinguishable, especially in a live setting.


    I will admit that when I first got the Kemper, using it with studio profiles definitely didn’t sound great through a traditional cab.


    I still own several amps, but not one has hit the stage since I got the Kemper. It’s been a game changer.

    So many people can't be insane. I guess it depends on the player and the tone he is chasing.

    In these situations, I believe this is where going FRFR is where you truly get the biggest benefit from the Kemper.


    What profiles are you using?


    Have you tried MBritt stuff?
    It will get you there for live playing.

    Everybody keeps sayin that about using an FRFR, and after the problem with real cabs, I tend to agree hahhaha.


    I used pretty much everything, GOT, Sinmix, Mbritt, TopJimi, Mattfig, Choptones, lots of very good free merged, DI and studio profiles from RE. Happens with all profiles al high volumes with real cabs, I am pretty sure it's not the profiles' fault.


    I dont like at all Mbritt stuff. He has some decent studio profiles for cleans, blues and country-ish styles, but I dont think he understands crunch / high gain sounds, tried his 5150 merged pack and it was very bad-sounding in my opinion. I am more a rock-hard rock player and other popular sellers have much better profiles for my taste.


    Thanks anyway :)

    i like the strong low end and punch to the power chords (sounds very good) but the solos are really sometimes thin

    Exactly that!

    It‘s ridiculius to say, that a guitar amp miced with a SM57 sounds „thin“.

    Nobody said that. The SM57 gets what you give it. OP asked for an "honest opinion" and that's what I'm trying to do here.


    @Morph indeed both tones have something common. Nice playing mate!


    To conclude this, my "honest opinion" is that Kemper is great for recording, great for live use if you send a direct signal to FOH and get stage monitoring through an FRFR or some kind of monitor, but for live use with a real cab it has a serious flaw, you can't reduce the unnatural attack it produces and it DOES NOT behave like a real amp, feelwise or soundwise. So, in my opinion (and many others' as I can see), if you want to use your cab onstage and get that real amp feel, get a real amp.


    For everything else, Kemper gets the job done just fine. I am the first that wished it could do everything perfect, but unfortunately it can't. Hope they fix it someday, if they do I'll carry a small 1x12 and the Kemper in every situation and I'll be the happiest man on earth!

    I reset the link in my previous post. Hopefully it is cooperating now.


    What pups are you using in that Strat? They definitely are hotter than typical vintage specs. Regardless, it is a nice tone you got there (great touch and feel too!) and I understand what you are after. I can dial in Trower type tones on my Kemper with vintage spec pups with no problem but that is about all the gain I ever use for my Strats. That being said, my tube amps do fatten up when I hit the gas, something my Kemper just doesn't seem to do.

    Sure, it's a dimarzio tonezone, pretty hot, but I can't get the same sound with this guitar with the Kemper, it's much thinner with the same guitar/pickups. I understand what you say, I guess we can't have it all hahaha. And many thanks for your kind feedback.

    @JimmyK
    Great playing and wonderfull sound. :thumbup:


    You saved my morning after not winning a gold medal. :)

    Haha, thanks mate, really appreciate it!

    I have that sort of sound in this clip, not the same but close I think. It sounds the same through in ears with a really similar feel and through an FRFR (EV ZLX12P). It is bright through my EVM12L guitar cab though. Suhr strat is the guitar. Please pardon the odd phasing on the crash cymbal


    https://youtu.be/cNbXcioI4qA

    Sorry mate, says "not available". Maybe something is wrong with my computer I dont know...I'm sure everyone can get great tones through frfr monitors, I can get great tones out of my Yahama monitors. The problem occurs only with real cabs at high levels. Wish Kemper fixes that, so as we can have everything inside this little magic box!

    The link doesn't open to me, but I guess you are talking about clean to medium gain tones...I dont have a problem with those either, they are great with the Kemper. I m talking about gainy lead saturated sounds where you can bend at the 20th fret and still sounds fat (or at least not dead) like 3.38 of a song of mine here


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    I can't do that with the Kemper at high volumes with a strat and a real cab. Sounds too thin. With the Prs not so thin, but still not huge like it would be with my Engl E570. That's the only problem I have with my Kemper, other than that I love it, but it's a significant problem for my needs.

    Have you tried a compressor before or after the amp stack? Pick attack is essentially a transient so you could smooth those out with a compressor set to fast attack.

    Yes I have, didn't work. Thanks!


    Yes. exactly. It happens mostly through cabinets. Tried with the definition parameter, if I cut it waaay back it reduces the pick attack a little bit but takes all the brightness away and the sound becomes very dark and muffled. So much that when I switch from rhythm crunch to lead there is a huge difference in brightness, so big that I must have the lead tone A LOT louder to cut through, and of course all the bite is gone. As I mentioned tried a lot of things but nothing seems to work, tried all stomps before the stack section to fatten the sound and reduce the strange excessive pick attack but I guess it's a flaw...thanks very much mate for trying to help



    I have been using my powered toaster for live gigs with conventional guitar cabs for several months now. It has proven to be more compact and versatile than my vintage and boutique tube amps and still sounds and feels close enough to them for my needs.


    That being said, I think I know what you are talking about. What I have noticed about my Kemper and other digital units I have used is that as I get louder, the attack stays the same as it was at lower volumes. With my tube amps, they get more compressed and roll off more highs as they get louder and hotter and I push them more with my pick attack. If you've grown up gigging loud tube amps, it is something you immediately notice but maybe not something you can quite put your finger on.


    While this isn't necessarily a bad thing for me, it does take me a little bit of effort to adjust my playing and setup the Kemper to react more like I am used to at stage volumes.

    I am not sure that this is the exact problem, many times I used to use my Engl E570 through an SS poweramp and a cab, and the lead tones with my strat were ultra fat and singing...there was not tube poweramp compression there, just the quality of the preamp.... At last night's gig I had to use my prs custom 22 because my strat was very thin-sounding at high strings, because of this unnatural pick attack of the Kemper. And I am a strat guy so this is a big compromise for me, I thought that I would be able to get great tube-like tones with a strat as advertised. I could adjust my playing to this weird thing, but I can't get fat singing lead tones with a strat so this is a big problem for me!

    Takes some time to find the right profiles for my guitars in live situation.
    Common mistake was to choose profiles with bedroom volume.
    Last two years we had several gigs with the kemper and everybody is absolutly happy with the sound.

    I did many rehearsals where I tested the sound at high volumes. As I mentioned, tried lots of profiles, studio Di or merged, different guitars, different ss poweramps and cabs, all at high volumes. Different settings of every possible parameter. Its more a FEEL problem and less of a sound/tone problem, altough the sound is affected too (thin high strings). I've found others talking about the exact problem here:


    Spiky attack


    "However, I do have one problem with the actual sound: the attack can be extremely "spiky" when you hit the strings hard. This is difficult to explain, but there is a quick popping sound in the beginning that doesn't happen with a real tube amp. This happens mostly with the first note/chord after a short break, not so much if you play constantly. This can be witnessed with studio monitors or headphones, but is most apparent in high volume with a guitar cabinet. Some profiles are worse than the others, but I think this happens with most of them to some extent."


    And another friend says


    "This has been reported and documented. Kemper, it seems, has no interest in fixing it."


    So I guess it's a general existing flaw of the Kemper and either someone will have to live with it or gig with real amps.