Posts by Preacher

  • Question regarding effects

    This is maybe a kind of weird question, so let me just preface it by saying that I don't have much experience with different effect pedals and units that have been popular through the ages. I know all typical effects by heart, but my frame of reference are the software plugin versions that follow Propellerheads' Reason software. So whenever I am comparing effects to find one to pick, my frame of reference is limited. I can hear the effects compared to one another, and I can compare them to how I feel they should sound, but how would I know a good phase effect from a bad phase effect. Well obviously, whatever my ears prefer.


    That said and put aside, though, it would still be helpful (and it would help me get a better overview) to know if any of the effects in the Kemper are celebrated as particularly good within their respective categories. I've heard people say the stomps aren't very good (to which I agree) , and that the reverbs are limited. I know better reverbs are coming. I think the delay section seems fleshed out and strong but back to what I sais earlier, how would I really know this. There are many types and many options which to me implies sophistication, but like... Yeah. You probably get what I mean by now.


    So I am looking for opinions or research on how the Kemper effects compare to dedicated pedals of the same effects, or to the most high-fidelity and renowned versions of the same effects preferably. Are one of the flangers renowned as the obviously best flanger in the Kemper over the others? And so on.

  • Kemper into Line 6 Helix FX Loop Questions?

    Quote from chopsfromhell

    Two year old thread I realize, but...


    I'm trying to put this same sort of rig together as I have a Variax JTV59 that I am wanting to incorporate into the setup for adding open tunings, acoustic stuff, multiple guitar models. I was hoping to combine the Kemper and Helix via spdif but I just discovered that if you use the VDI digital input to do all the Variax coolness, the spdif ports are unavailable. Can't use both digital connections at the same time on the Helix. Bummer. Gonna look into the analog connections. Could be a beast of a rig if I can get it figured out. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

    Similar problem, i use L6 link to Powercabs. I hardly ever play with anything but FRFR or LF Raw, and then it's just for fun, so XLR or 1/4 is an option if I can even get S/PDIF to work. A good secondary solution is Mogami patch cables. There's an assembler on Amazon that I can recommend, WORLDS BEST CABLES. We're talking like 40 bucks for a 3-pack of top notch Mogami patch cables. Also, if you get a 50cm cable to go with them, the front input of the Kemper is less noisy than the alternative input (higher dynamic range). That's how I currently have mine connected. Last tip, if anyone goes for cables from them, make sure it's the 2524 cable. They also make cables using the Mogami 2319 cable, and I have A/B'ed them. 2524 is better it seems.

  • Kemper into Line 6 Helix FX Loop Questions?

    I've been teying to connect the Kemper via S/PDIF. It didn't work for me. I made took a blank Helix preset, changed the output of path A and the input of path B to S/PDIF. On the Kemper Input menu I set the input to "S/PDIF re-amp" because that was the only place I found the words "input" and "S/PDIF" in close proximity.


    What I got out of the Helix headphone out was an unprocessed signal in only the left channel. I know the Kemper sends the unprocessed guitar in the left channel when you use it to re-amp through S/PDIF. It was late and I was slow, so I started thinking maybe I've misunderstood how S/PDIF works, or there is something obvious I'm not realizing, or there's something wrong with one of the S/PDIF connectors on either the Helix or the Kemper. Then I just gave up cause goddamnit and watched some TV instead lol. I made one of those suggestions for S/PDIF loop blocks, but I am wondering if I was asking for the wrong thing or that I've misunderstood something essential.


    Are you guys saying you managed to get sound through the kemper and back into the helix and out to the speakers, and that worked? What did you do to get the Kemper to pick up the S/PDIF signal?

  • Acoustic guitar percussive playing (nearly solved)

    Quote from lakewood

    Just to clarify:I'm happy with my kemper otherwise I would have sold it. And yes, I know, it's made for electric guitar and bass.

    I was just curious about the possibilities of the kemper. It's such an amazing tool and I explore it from day to day.

    By the way: if never anyone would have explored the boundaries of an amp, something like overdrive would'nt exist - and no kemper.


    But if I disturbed the rules of the forum, I have to apologize!

    You are asking a reasonable question I think. There are no such rules. If the thread weas renamed to "Tips and tricks for performing acoustic percussion using Kemper" it would be a resource, and that is practically what this thread is. There are many ways to Rome.

  • Do you realise we don't even hear sounds the same way?

    You are technically right that our hearing differs. It's logicao when you think of it. You hav an exact number of nerve cells in your ear that pick up vibrations that your brain translates to sound. For every pickup cell in the ear there is a corresponding reciever cell in your brain and a neural link between. If you only consider the "pickups" in yourr ear (because we differ in how we pick up sound, but we also differ in how we treat the sound we pick up, but let's keep it simple) their exact position in the ear canal are as critical as the exact position of a microphone in front of a cabinet. Just picture a blown up version of your ear canal with lots of little dots that are your hearing cells. This is an oversimplification, but it's not wrong to think of it this way. So then, we wouldn't all have the same dots in the same places just like our faces don't all look the same. And so thus, we hear things differently.


    When it comes to chasing tone, however, another phenomenon comes into play. From your subjective hearing you hear something you like. Someone else can hear the same thing and not like it. The reason they don't like it could be that they hear it differently, or it could be that they hear it very similar to how you hear it, but for other reasons, do not prefer it as you do. So while we don't hear the same things, we also don't prefer the same things. But just like you can run into someone that looks similsr to you or someone you know in an uncanny way, you can find people that hear tgings exactly the way you do, or prefer exactly the same things as you, or both.


    When you find a sound you like and try to describe it, two more phenomenons come into play. One is that if we decide on parameters to differentiate people's hearing, say we define the most high-shifted, most low-shifted, and most centered/balanced/flat type of hearing. In reality there are other factors like spatiality and timing, but again, to keep it simple say we tried to order the different types of hearing. Within that order would be all the statistical phenomena. The difference the most high-shifted and most low-shifted person would hear in a sound would be rare and extreme, and most of us would be "somewhere around the middle".


    Then, when you go on to describe the tone you like, you use words that can be interpreted in many ways, and we all interpret things differently.


    Even still, we have a rig exchange and forum, and people find help here. That seems to imply that no matter the differences, we can find common understanding through language. I can describe that I like fat, bassy guitar sound. Not everyone hears bass the same, but everyone hears bass. Everyone understands bass. Or "thin", or "airy", or "squeel'y". So through the iterative process of exchanging ideas, a common understanding is created. It is how we learn, actually. From people who do not see or hear the world the way we do.

  • [Questions!] Using a Helix rack/controller and Kemper rack/controller together.

    I run the Kemper in the Helix' FX loop. The Helix has a guitar input in front which is the best input to use, fidelity-wise. I forget why on the fly, but it's similar to how the Kemper alternate input is noisier. Also, if you ever want to record stereo or use a wet/dry/wet setup, the Helix has way more routing abilities (and easier UI to do it with). I use only a Helix controller.


    I run my guitar through a Polytune3 with buffered bypass into the Guitar input on the Helix. Then I take a cable from Send 4 around to the front of the Kemper (guitar input, has better signal-to-noise ratio than the AUX). I then use the L/R line outputs of the Kemper to Return 3 and 4 on the Helix.


    That way, the first path on the Helix can be used as a mono pre-amplifier path for distortions and boosts and whatever else have you. The second path is stereo, having effects post-amplifier, with stereo return from Kemper, allowing me to use the stereo effects on the Kemper as well. I then go to a Powercab Plus, so technically i can choose whether to have effects pre or post cabinet as well.


    This is the best way to run it, imo. One big selling point with the Helix is all the routing you can do with it. Putting it in an FX loop seems weird. The kemper lets you put effects anywhere in the chain anyway, so my proposition seems to have more flexibility about which effects from which unit ends up where in the chain, and where all the signals go.

  • I'm at a point where I'm kinda confused and frustrated with my tones and I need your help to sort things out

    I didn't see anyone else mention it (but scrolled past some posts), but since you specifically talked about hearing just "pick noises" after a while, I remembered that I've seen some Kemper tutorial video or something lately where I remember there was a setting on the Kemper that affects the presence of the picking sound. Like Pick Sens or something. That wasn't the name for it but maybe someone else knows what I'm talking about. Or maybe I dreamt this, lol.