Posts by guizmobro

I still have my Mesa Mark iv

The Amp1 seems to be great at the Marshall stuff though... I already played the Amp1 of a friend, and it sure did drive a 4*12 without any problem. This thing is loud and sounds great. I still get your point though in saying that it's not a real tube amp.

But my mind is constantly changing on an almost hourly basis. I found some nice profiles of the Atma and the Singleman 16 is also very nice. I'll have a week of holiday in December. I'm going to try all the different amps and decide afterwards.

Thanks for your input ! I also feel that not having a tube amp at home is like missing out on one of the greatest feelings in the world. I love the Kemper, but it is hearing an amp and a cab through a microphone. It's great, but having a 12" speaker swinging next to you is not the same...

Still hesitating between the Bluguitar Amp1 and a real tube amp. I think I'll order the Amp1 with Thomann and if I don't like it, I can always send it back.

Hey there,

It's almost Christmas and it has been a long time I offered myself something nice (the last thing was the Kemper).

I really love my Kemper, which I use mainly through headphones and studio monitors. I only play at home, so it fits this purpose really well. I use the aux in for backing tracks and online courses.

I find myself longing though for a real tube amp and the sensations of a moving 12" speaker. I was (and am) looking forward to the Kabinet, but who knows when that's gonna hit the shelves?

I have been surfing the big wide web and am really tempted by a Bogner Atma, a Brunetti Singleman 16, a VSA Vintage 5 or even the Bluguitar Amp1. The first 3 (so the real tube amps) are quite expensive. These amps are particularly interesting to me as they have power downscaling possibilities, making them more or less home friendly.

Even though I have the luxury of being able to spend the cash, I wonder if it's really worth it... It would be a shame to buy such a nice amp if in the end I'm only going to use the Kemper.

So my question to the guys and gals who do own both, what's your opinion on this? Do you like going back to a real tube amp?

This is more to do with having fun and enjoyment, but I thought I might as well ask people who might have the same need than I do

Beyerdynamic DT 770 for me (80 ohms) and I absolutely love them. I had a pair of Audio Technicas (ATH M50 X), but they were not working for me. Everything sounded muffled and I had to increase definition, treble and presence by a lot. They almost made me sell my Kemper. I talked about it with a quite well known commercial profiler, who told me that the AT's had a lot of low mids. He recommended the DT 770 and I don't regret a second having bought them.

The Choptones sound very bright to my ears too... I really like the others, a bit less the Kranker. I also had some issues of experiencing muffled profiles in the beginning. I had to crank up definition as well as treble and presence. I play almost exclusively through headphones. I had Audio Technicas and switched to the Beyerdynamic, which improved things dramatically (I know that plenty of people here are very happy with the Audio Technicas though). For my taste, there were just too much low-mid frequencies with the Audio Technicas.

With time and experience (and with help from people in this forum), I also noticed that rig volume plays a huge role. The frequencies at louder volumes are not the same (Fletcher Munson). Try and increase amp volume (within the amp block) and rig volume. This made a huge difference for me. I disregarded so many profiles because they sounded so dull / muffled at a first listen. This lead to another "problem" though: I had to go through all my +2.000 profiles again

I hardly need to adjust definition and top end now. I only play single coil guitars though (my Les Paul is getting dusty), and I would image that increasing top end would be necessary with humbucker guitars.

It has been announced and will be released at some point. You bought the stage fully knowing that the editor was not available at that point in time. Would you rather have a buggy piece of software or something stable with which you can actually work? What difference will a couple of weeks make?

Kemper announded summer, but never commited to a precise date. As such, you really don't have the right to complain in my opinion.

Be happy that Kemper is providing free upgrades, which in the past dramatically improved the capabilities of the machine. The hardware is now 7 years old. Do you know of any other company in this business which provides free updates over such a long period?

You have 2 options:

• Kemper + System audio to audiointerface and monitoring through you interface
• As Kempermaniac suggests, use the Aux In. You'll need a specific Y-cable

I use both, but I have to say that I mainly use the Aux In. It's just easy and quick, which is what I want most of the time.

I totally understand how you use the EQ and it makes total sense. What I don't believe in is eq'ing the hell out of a profile in order to make it sound more or less good... There's so many great profiles that work without much adjustement needed.

I count myself very lucky to speak German, because this masterclass is great. I tried his tip for setting the EQ "Pre" rather than "Post" and this opens a whole new door in terms of tone sculpting.

It also confirmed my approach on how to try out a profile. Basically, you should be able to get about 90% of what you want by just using the definition control. The tiny rest can be achieved by the eq.

He's not a fan of adding eq's in the post slots, which I also agree with.

A lot of helpful stuff in this masterclass. A second masterclass on live use has also been published. He also uses Bert's profiles

Quote from tkline615

Awesome thank you both! So if I’m understanding correctly I can get the unpowered Kemper, go straight from my guitar to the Kemper, and use headphones from my Kemper and that would work fine for quiet use?

And conversely if I want to play without headphones then I’d need a pair of studio monitors based on my needs?

You guys have been super helpful!

Yes, the Kemper has a headphone output, which works extremely well.

For loud playing you need any kind of output device. This device should be frfr. So this can be studio monitors, a pa oriented monitor (like the headrush 108) or even a hifi system.

Unpowered. Really no sense in buying the powered version if you're not planning on driving a guitar cab.

Not sure I understand your second question a 100%. The Kemper has a headphone output which works really well. The Kemper does not have a built in speaker (like a Yamaha THR). So you'll need an output device (studio monitors, hifi system). And yes, you can play at low volume in that case.

The quality of the headhphones is really important! I had a first pair which I really did not like. I got a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770, which sounds great. But there are loads of posts about headphones in the forum. With a bit of searching you'll find plenty of references

I don't have any experience with FRFR's, but for strict home use I would advise studio monitors. It is my understanding that a frfr cab needs to be driven with quite some volume for it to sound good.

Good studio monitors: search the forum as there are quite a lot of threads about this. I use a pair of Yamaha HS8 which sound good to my ears. I'm planning to switch to smaller Genelec monitors though (8020), but only because my wife is not a huge fan of 2 bulky monitors in our living room... Mariage is an ongoing negociation

Other recommendations based on forum posts (as I recall): Adam AX7, Neuman KH something

Kemper also announced the "Kabinet", an frfr cab, which is scheduled to hit the market end of this year (don't count on that though). However, they said it would be passive, meaning that you'll need the powered Kemper or an external power amp to drive it. An active version might also be in the making but hasn't really been confirmed.

In any case, the Kemper is a great solution for bedroom / living room guitarits.

Hope that helps.

You'll need to spend some time with the machine, but I can tell you that it's really rewarding. And to be honest, once you know how to adjust the profile to your guitar and your playing, it actually is quite quick. It's still quicker than dialing in an AxeFX. Not saying the Axe doesn't sound good, but I would just spend so many hours on tweaking rather than actually playing. It made me nuts.

Let us know how it works out!

These are not general approved tips, but they work for me:

I'm also not super happy about my volume knob behaviour, but what generally helps in that regard is increasing compression within the amp menu (hold down amplifier, and I think the parameter is on the 1st or second page).

Ruefus already mentioned the Definition parameter, which is quite powerful. It does more than just increase treble when turning clockwise. Don't hesitate to increase it by several points (it's virtual, so what can go wrong?). It works really nicely to brighten up profiles and acommodate them to humbuckers. Tonejunkie has a great youtube tutorial on this specific parameter (and lots of others btw).

How do you monitor? Headphones, monitors, guitar cab, frfr cab? Huge impact here! I switched headphones and things sounded much better after that. I also plan to invest in Genelec monitors as I'm not super happy with my Yamaha HS8 (but that needs to be validated by wife first). I'm really looking forward to the Kemper Kabinet, which has been announced to Q3-Q4 this year. With the introduction of the stage and the programming sprint of the editor, I very much doubt that this will happen before 2020, but I don't care. As long as it comes out at some point

Volume / loudness is also really important. You need a certain loudness for profiles to come alife.

Commercial profiles:

I have what feels like a gazillion of profiles. Actually, it's a bit more than 2.500 profiles I believe. I filtered out a lot and have around 50 on my Kemper right now, which is still too much for my taste. I want to narrow that down to 20 max. My personal experience with Mbritt and Tonejunkie was also kind of meeh... I had to tweak a lot to make them sound good. And some packs just didn't work at all. When I discovered the loudness thing, I tried some MBritt profiles again and the sound was great. Kind of cool to rediscover awesome new profiles, which I filed away as meeh.

My favorite profile maker though is Bert Meulendijk. I just love his stuff and I almost do no tweaking to his profiles. As soon as he brings out a new pack, I buy it without even thinking about it. His last filmo pack has some sick clean / edge of breakup sounds in there. Bert has his rig pack in the righ manager, which is not super big (I think it's about 10 profiles), but it'll give you a quite good idea about his work. His first 2 packs and the Wisseloord pack contain my all time favorite profiles. In his rig pack, there's a fender showmaster which works great for me.

As mentioned above, these are just my personal opinions. The things I mention work with my guitar and give me sounds that I like.

Maybe some of these things will help your too!

Quote from Burkhard

This is currently a known limitation and it always has been. Store has never been referencing to a Rig in the PROFILER's browse pool, if loaded via Rig Manager. Before OS 7.0 the last Rig loaded via front panel could have been overwritten. If you for example loaded Rig "A" via front panel and then previewed Rig "S" via Rig Manager and selected Store/Replace, it replaced Rig "A" and as a result you lost Rig "A" and got two Rigs "S".

The fact, that now there is just "Store As" available, makes this limitation explicit and avoids accidental overwrites.

Danke Burkhard

I wasn't event aware of this limitation. I never noticed a profile being overwritten. Guess I'll just have to change my habits...

I bought the 64 Custom Deluxe Reverb and I love it.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before...

With OS 7 : when browsing and tweaking the profiles that are on my Kemper via Rig Manager and hit store, I'm only able to "store as". This means that I'm not able to replace the existing profile on my Kemper.

Anyone else noticed this?

Noisenet

I also mainly play a strat which has been built by a luthier. As I mentioned in the initial post, the pu's have been conceived and built based upon original 61 strat pickups (which the luthier owns and which is absolutely stunning btw). The pickups are made by heartbreaker, you can't buy them though. The luthier explained to me that aged pickups loose quite a significant amount of treble and top end over time. The pu's sound a bit more mid-rangy, but you also may describe it as fatness.

I was surprised that I had to increase top end quite a bit (as well as definition) on profiles as a strat is supposed to be a very bright guitar. I have a super light alder body, which is supposed to sound bright, but then again my fretboard is rosewood, which has the tendency to darken the sound. I think the dullness I was experiencing was due to a combination of the darker pickups, the headphones I used and loudness.

I went through MBritt profiles, which sounded quite dull before and now it's like the sun has gone up.

Thanks for your input. Changed headphones and used my HS8 and things sound awesome! I wasn't expecting that loudness would have such a big effect.

Indeed, CK said at Winter NAMM that an active version was also planned. An active version makes much more sense, especially now with the Kemper Stage hitting the shelves.

I also have to admit that I have the non-powered toaster and that I definitely am going to wait for the active Kabinet as I don't want to have an additional power amp.

I'm actually surprised that they didn't wait until both products were finalized (and by that I also mean an active Kabinet). I mean, the Kemper stage in combination with the active Kabinet is a great all in one solution. Most retailers would have offered them in a bundle. At this moment, people still need to look for other solutions. Offering directly a bundle definitely would have boosted Kabinet sales right from the start. But priorities and limited resources certainly played their part...