Posts by Posinator

    Just had my first Kemper gig last night and it went very well. It got my wondering about something. I have Main Volume locked at -18db going XLR to FOH. Worked great. I'm using Monitor out to a powered Mission Engineering Gemini 2 amp. For sound check, I found myself fiddling with the volume level on the Gemini rather than the Kemper. Don't know why. I think in the rush to get set up that's just what I did. Anyway, it sounded great and after a song or two we had it dialed in. When all was said and done monitor volume was at -3.7db and the Gemini was about maybe 3 out of 10 on it's knob.


    Is there a best practice around this? For example, Should I set the Gemini at say 5 out of 10 or even higher and have the Kemper monitor out closer to that -18db number?


    Thanks

    Thank you, Messrs. Britt and Kemper. Just played my first Kemper gig last night. As many others have already said, it sounds good in rehearsal but MAN did it sound INCREDIBLE during the show. Exceeded expectations. Everything I threw at it from classic Southern rock to Beatles to Motown was just effortlessly beautiful (of course that was the result of hours of performance setup and tweaks in preparation). I was running wireless and had the opportunity to step into the audience and hear how everything sounded coming out of the FOH sound system. Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Meanwhile, my poor lead guitarist was fiddling with mic placement on his Orange and talking about how his amp sounds so different last night vs. previous shows. No more of those worries for me!


    Anyway, just wanted to say thanks and I 100% in love with the system and Michael's profiles.



    p..s Just saw this new Grab and Go pack on Michael's site, complete with performances. There gladly goes some of my gig money :D
    https://mbritt.com/2018/06/16/grab-n-go-pack/

    Agreed. I just wrapped up my first gig. XLR straight to FOH. Just make sure you have the output level set to -18 or so. I also ran a monitor with unlinked volume control. Worked awesome. Good luck. I’m absolutely in love with the Kemper now. Liked it in rehearsal but it floored me tonight. Sounds amazing, performance mode is ridiculously convenient and the FOH guy loves you for the consistent tone.

    If you really like it you could also store the stomp with a unique name and load it on other rigs from the stomp browse list. I just started doing this with some slap back delay settings. Works great.

    Hmm. Choices to ponder for me. I’m using the transpose stomp on two performances and there is definite latency. It’s ok but just barely. I’m intrigued by the improved latency (it seems on this thread and others) but am terrified to upgrade this week. First gig Saturday with the Kemper.

    Thanks. Now that I think about it, the speaker cable usage is mostly me not "wasting" a pretty expensive cable I used in my old tube head/cab setup. Looking at this article, it seems a good (but not great) TS instrument cable will be fine and perhaps a tiny bit safer in terms fo noise rejection for the three foot run from rack to Gemini.


    https://www.fender.com/article…he-same-as-speaker-cables


    Mono vs. Stereo: I'm just keeping it simple for now but would love to go stereo next time. We do our own FOH sound and I'm basically re-using the XLR input that formerly was a mic'd cab.

    I'm excited to have my first Kemper gig coming up this Saturday. Here's my general setup. I'd appreciate you taking a looking. Is there anything I'm messing in preparation? What types of lessons did you learn after your first gig with the Kemper?


    Gear:
    Unpowered rack, Main Left XLR to FOH, Monitor to Mission Engineering Gemini 2 FRFR powered cab (speaker cable). Kemper Remote, Mission pedal for Wah/volume (mostly wah)


    Setup borrowed from other threads:
    1. In output menu choose "Master Mono" for the Main Outs.
    2. Bring the level of the Main Out to approx. -18 dB.
    3. Unlink the volume of the Main Outs from the Master volume knob to always have a fixed Main-Out-Level.
    4. Adjust Gemini sound level to taste for monitoring and/or tweak using master volume


    I have five or so basic performances like Fender Twin clean to dirty left to right, Marshall, Vox, etc. as a fall back plan but my main plan is to cycle through the 45 performances/songs in order. For those, I end up using one to maybe three slots max. Generally intro/main rhythm in slot one and solo in slot five (paranoid about hitting solo by accident so I keep them far away from each other. Solo tends to be same as main but with a "red" stomp pre-engaged when I switch to it. Haven't messed with morphing yet. Performances are using 100% Michael Britt profiles some I'm hoping for consistent volume levels among the different performances (seems so in rehearsal).


    My only real worry is the system or remote freezing during the gig. That happened twice during rehearsal but only when I had the remote and laptop (rig manager) connected at the same time. I won't have the laptop connected during the gig. The only other variable is this is an outside gig and all rehearsals were indoors. 8)


    Thanks for taking a look.

    Thank you. By save I mean I'll typically use RM to copy and paste rigs into performances and slots or delete rigs from slots (example above I would have rhythm in the Hard Day's Night performance slot 1 and solo in slot 5). I just realized I didn't point out there's a Kemper Remote in the workflow as well. I'll then select slot 5 on the remote to make it active on the Kemper, tweak it by adding a boost stomp or something, then save in the Kemper itself. This generally works fine.


    Where I'm running into trouble are in the steps from my original post. I'm not in front of my Kemper now so I will walk through it again tonight to ensure I'm accurately representing the problem. I know I said save frequently but I think this happens even before save (i.e. paste a Vox/Fender/whatever rig into a slot, see that slot illuminate on the remote, press the remote slot and the actual rig is "Crunch.").


    Crunch is one of the original stock performance slots I think, right?

    Hi guys, I need some help setting up performances for my first gig with the Kemper. All in all, it's been straightforward but every now and then something has me scratching my head. Here's my general workflow:


    • Put Kemper if Performance mode
    • Using Rig Manager on my laptop USB'd into the Kemper, create a new performance. Let's say it's A Hard Day's Night.
    • In Rig Manager > All Rigs > Local Library, I preview several Vox profiles using my laptop (playing my guitar, obviously) until I find the one I want for the strumming part of the song. From the laptop, copy the profile and paste into slot one of the performance (All Performances > My Profiler). So far so good.
    • I do the same for the solo: find a profile, paste into say slot 5 of the same performance, tweak stomps, etc. and frequently save "3 times." Works great, usually.
    • I'd say 95% of the time this works but sometimes the second or third rig pasted in shows as "Crunch" in the Kemper despite looking correct in rig manager's performance inspector (VOX AC30, whatever). And when I play it is definitely not the amp I pasted in. ?(

    Any ideas? Not sure if it matters but generally speaking, I have a lot of rigs on my laptop but practically none on the Kemper. Instead, I've been trying out rigs during rehearsal (switching using my laptop), taking notes, then going home and setting up proper performances (i.e. not sure if it matters but I frequently have rigs that only appear in performances and not standalone). Like many newbies, I'm overloaded with so many rig choices. In general, I'm sticking to M. Britt for this first gig and hopefully taking any volume leveling issues out of the equation. My thought is once I get a good amount of performances setup, my workflow will change to more of a "copy performance, tweak and Save As" rather than setting up from scratch.


    Thanks

    Welcome aboard. I took the plunge a few weeks ago and started using it in band rehearsals over the weekend. Absolutely blown away by the sound. I downloaded the Mesa Mark V profiles from @Jonathanrsullivan at Tone Junkies (apologies for probably posting this in the wrong thread) and I'll tell you I really can't tell the difference between them and my actual Mark V head (that I will definitely sell now). Yes, this is a reasonably steep learning curve but between YouTube and this forum, you'll be in great hands. Like you, I surfed the forum for months before I made the switch. Absolutely no regrets and from a $ perspective, the Kemper costs about the same as that one head I'm selling (not to mention all the other glorious tones that ship with it). Good luck!

    Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm happy to report I used the Kemper with my 2nd band last night, this time XLR out into the mixer and from there into our in-ear monitors (for rehearsal we turn off the "mains" and just use IEMs for that band). Everyone was really impressed with the sound quality and I enjoyed not having to carry my Gemini 2 cab over and mic it. The only complaint/observation from the bandmate who does our sound was that the Kemper signal was pretty hot. I hit the "reduce by -12db" setting and that helped. I looked up some previous forum threads and read the manual :) but still have some questions or at least need a recommendation. Here's my situation:


    Band 1: Unpowered Kemper rack into Mission Gemini 2 cabinet that is mic'd for front and back of house sound. That band (5 pieces) uses floor monitors. Next gig June 15
    Band 2: Unpowered Kemper rack out to board with no cabinet. That band (8 pieces) all use in-ear monitors. Next gig June 23
    Future: Possible future coffee-house gigs (2-3 pieces), smaller setting, quieter sound. I definitely want to use the Gemini cab.


    For Band 1, I like to set and forget and output level but I assume that will vary from gig to gig (indoor vs outdoor for example). I imagine I might one day go simultaneously out to Gemini "for me" and to the board "for the band" and "for the audience."


    For Band 2, I would love to set and forget/lock the signal level going out to the board. My goal is here is get it to good level for the board and never mess with it again (i.e. remove that as a variable going forward when troubleshooting all the other inevitable sound tweaking that pops up from gig to gig).


    If my assumptions are valid, I'd like to set and lock for Band 2 and have that vary independently for what I will need for Band 1? Make sense? So far I've just gone Kemper main out (TS to Gemini for Band 1 and XLR to board for Band 2). I have not tried monitor out, etc. yet. I'm also not sure where to set the output level of the cab vs the Kemper (for example, set Gemini at say 5 out of 10) and tweak the Kemper?


    Any advice would be appreciated for how to approach this.


    Thanks!

    Hi everyone, I've had my Kemper for about a week now and finally got to play it in a band practice setting today. Coupled with a Mission Engineering Gemini 2 all I can say is WOW. I'm in a cover band that plays everything from classic rock to country, jazz and funk to Amy Winehouse (basically anything but metal). It sounded great. I'll admit I'm still in choice overload mode, trying way too many samples of Fender Deluxe Reverbs for example but it's a great "problem" to have. Next up I plan to create some all-purpose performances (Fender clean through lead, Vox, Marshall, etc.) then focus on building out some song-specific performances. I have have the remote and just ordered an expression pedal. So much to learn but I'm very happy so far. Attached you'll see a photo of my rig and my "safety net" Mesa 5:50 Express. We have a gig coming up in mid-June that I really want to use the Kemper for. Tomorrow I plan to try running the Kemper direct into the mixer and try just using an in-ear monitor (I'm in two bands - one that uses in-ears and one that does not). So may options and so much to experiment with. So far so good. Thanks in advance for answering the inevitable questions I'm going to have.