Posts by LoudNFeckless

I used 4x12 kones in an orange closed back....and while that was great, I ended up going back to a regular guitar cab and turning IRs/Cabinet off. 4x12 Celestion EV30s...just so hard to beat.

Yeah I'll give another simple example. There shouldn't be an option to turn cab sim off if you are playing through an FRFR speaker. The result is shitty and fizzy and if someone does it by accident it's confusing and frustrating and disappointing. If the Kemper or Rig manager just asked on set up - is the speaker out hooked up to a guitar cabinet or FRFR. If guitar cabinet, turn off cab sims and bury that option in settings somewhere, and default cab sim on for PA outs L/R outs. If they say FRFR, bury the cabinet off switch deep in settings.

This is the point about refining the UI. There are options available that will make the Kemper sound horrible, and they are easy to confuse or turn on by accident.

It's doubly frustrating because when properly set up the Kemper is an incredible piece of gear.

I found the addition of Kones to add a layer of configurability where the amount of options overwhelmed the ability to easily get good tone. That’s where all this came from.

But full stop, as much as I love Kemper, and I absolutely do, their interfaces are not good. Not the profiler or the rig manager.

That's exactly my suggestion with a correlation engine - learn from all of the other tweaking that has been done to set defaults on the more complex/nuanced settings. I'm not suggesting the settings are taken away, I'm just suggesting they are buried deeper in the menus and set automatically as a starting point - if the Kemper knows your set up and can anonymously capture useage data, it can likely get those settings right a bulk of the time - leveraging thousands of hours of trial and error from its users.

I'm not at all suggesting this not be adjustable changeable, I'm just suggesting it would be an effective way to streamline the UI while likely improving user experience and immediate satisfaction with profiles.

I get the AI is a trendy word. I’m more thinking correlation engines. If anonymous data was reported back to Kemper, maybe it could set the lower level deeper settings based on hours weighted use of the same profile by other users.

I appreciate defending the UI for its depth but there’s a reason even successful complex systems have simple UIs - it is better design when it’s possible.

For what it is worth, I think the issue is not really with the Kones - because with a lot of configuration I can get good sounds (ckemper - those output settings are what I was using - so monitor cab off (ticked on), kones on, and then would use the imprint I wanted vs. the cab IR).

I think the bigger issue is there are so many selectable settings, which I appreciate we are appealing to audio engineers, it takes quite a bit of work to both understand everything and then to dial in settings for profile/tone. My main job is tech investing...I actually think the Kemper team could use some great UI experts to simplify the interface, improve the software, and lose settings that are largely inconsequential or add AI or automatic settings to tweak those based on the settings available to be changed. My point is you've engineered a product that has so many settings, it's easy to hurt yourself with them, and difficult to dial in well. You have world class, innovating engineering, why not have world class / apple like UI engineers on the front end?

Maybe you are already there with new products en route given you are hampered by old hardware / OS builds. Either way, I am a HUGE Kemper fan.

ckemper - It was a long time - because I think the profiler is an incredible feat of humanity - could not be a bigger fan of your work. Profiling is truly an incredible feat of audio engineering.

So I kept tweaking, different profiles, EQs, I learned the entire output stack to master low and high cut, and to understand how exactly the Kone switch, cabinet off toggle and cabinet in the rig worked with the Kones so I could try everything. I've seen the videos....and can't really explain why I had this experience. The tone was never terrible, it was just never as good as it was with the original stock V30 cabinet. It's almost like the simulations in the speaker and CAB layer almost added too much digitization to the process. Each profile took 20mins of tweaking to get to sound almost as good...and I found myself using 2-3 imprints at most. I suspect people are much more satisfied who play largely clean profiles. I play alt rock - so mid to heavy gain stuff.

Feel free to delete this review - I didn't mean it disparagingly as I know many people have great experiences with the Kone, and tone is subjective.

Enchilada! Great name. I'll probably list them on ebay - not because I wouldn't sell them to you, but I have no idea what they will go for used or what to ask.

So I have a powered toaster and was playing it through an Orange 4x12 with V30s (stock). It sounded awesome. Unbelievable great tone. I decided to swap the V30s for four Kones…thinking it will be just as awesome just more variety.

After 6mos of tweaking, for the stuff I play, mid and heavy rock, regular speakers are just better. The Kones are full range speakers - so the imprints kind of narrow the range to copy a particular speaker, but in doing so they kind of throw a blanket over the whole sound. You can EQ a lot of it out - but it takes a lot of tweaking and still sounds slightly worse all around in my view.

I absolutely love my Kemper, but for me the Kones add a ton of diversity but they do it at the expense of tone, and in the end it’s not a worthwhile trade off.

I do understand the use of the rig cab sim or having it globally off to skip cab sim but use just the imprint, and tried both. I also tried putting it in full range mode and using the high and low pass filters to get rid of the harshness - but while this gets rid of the blanket sound, it is still fizzy and frankly would mean the output section would need to change for every profile.

I'm a big Kemper fan - the profiler technology is absolutely incredible, and I was tube religious prior to Kemper....however, I think they missed the mark on the Kones for the type of music I play. I’m selling the Kones and going back to V30s, although 8ohms this time...

Obviously, this is very opinion related - if you love the Kones, awesome, but I wanted to pass it along.

If you have monitor cab off ticked, it basically enables the Kone imprint in your Kabinet/actual amp. If you turn the cab in the rig off, it actually turns the imprint off, and the speaker goes to full range mode. If you have monitor cab off unticked, you are using the cab sim, the imprint (if checked) and of course your actual Kabinet.

I run through a 4x12 of Kones, and most frequently use rig cab on and monitor cab off ticked in output with the imprints. This basically uses my actual cabinet (an orange ppc412) and imprints with the amp model. FoH if I was using it, would be sent the cab model from the rig as well.

it took me FOREVER to figure this out. Especially because un-eq'd cab on in the rig sounds blanketed in a lot of models. But this is totally fixable with EQ/imprint choice.

If you ever use it with an actual cabinet with regular speakers, you want the cab sim off in the rig..because they don't have the harsh range the Kone does....this also sounds awesome btw.

Thanks - it’s a powered head, connected via the speaker out to the cabinet with 4x12 Kones. Weird part is when I have monitor cab off ticked, and the imprints on, and I turn the cab button or cab in the rig off - it makes a difference. I thought it wouldn’t if monitor cab was off globally via that output tick.

I have a powered toaster - I use the red speaker out into a 4x12 of Kones.

My understanding is when I have monitor cab off ticked, it bypasses the cab sim on the rig. But if I have this set, and then manually turn off the cabinet sim, the sound changes dramatically.

Kones are enabled in all of this. I’m not understanding - I figured if cab sim was off globally turning the individual cab on or off wouldnt matter?

thanks for any thoughts

So I have an Orange cabinet loaded with 4 Kones. Obviously on gain profiles - putting the Kemper / Kones in linear mode with cabinet off makes the high end very fizzy - but the whole sound is also much brighter and the low end bigger. Has anyone decided to try and EQ/play in linear mode because of this or does everyone stick with Cab sims on?

[] sorry mods - deleting post

stratdude - thanks for the reply...much appreciated. Just so I have that right you are saying Monitor Cab Off = On, Rig Cab = Off, Imprints = On, the imprints are actually turned off? Or you are saying this config just bypasses the cab module and still uses imprints (kind of what it sounds like to me - I can still change the global imprint setting on this config).

So for your set up though, you run Monitor Cab Off = Off, Rig Cab = On, Imprints = On with your 4x12 of Kones? Seems like I get a pretty dead/blanketed sound that way. Maybe I need to tweak more though.

I don't to a lot through PAs, but if I did run FOH, or when I record, I do put the rig cabs on.

Thanks - appreciate that. I did open it back up and rewire exactly as Kemper recommends (which is Parallel/Serial) - Orange had wired Serial/Parallel - but a little different from all the Serial/Parallel diagrams I found on line. Anyway - that did help, I think something must have been a little out of phase. Now I'm getting good tones from profiles with the Kone on, Monitor Cabinet Off = On, but rig cabinet off.

I want to use the Rig Cabinets, but every time I enable one, it sounds as if a blanket was thrown over the sound - which I can't seem to EQ back to life the way it sounds with the Cabinets off. This is using decent bought profiles (Britt, Tone Junkie, etc). I'll continue to work with it.

I abandoned the betas a few months back when I had performance overwriting problems..but do run the latest full releases.

paults ...yes I know. When I enable rig cabs, and this is only playing live through the powered head and an actual cabinet loaded with Kones (but was the same when I was using a regular cabinet) - I get a very flat sound like there's a blanket on the cabinet or something. I haven't yet been able to figure out how to EQ that out so I can get the benefit of the cab simulator. I want to use the cab simulations, I just haven't been able to make them sound good on high gain profiles.

Usually the inputs will be connected to your existing speakers, so you only need to connect the other ends - not really the terminal of the input. ie, just swap the new speakers in for the old ones. I just did this a few days ago with 4 kones into an Orange 4x12.

To be honest, despite being louder (the Orange speakers were 16ohms), if you are a gain player, there are only one or two imprints that sound good in my opinion...and those took some EQ work. Most sound fizzy and thin even with the treble and presence knocked down. The imprints are nice and varied with clean sounds though.

I use Monitor Cab Off = On, Imprints = On, Rig Cab = Off. I find if I turn on Cabs in rigs, regardless of the monitor cab setting, the profile sounds like 5 blankets were thrown over it.

Hey Strat dude - how are you running the 4 kones in the 4x12? I've only been able to get decent gain tones out of one or two imprints - and run Monitor Cab Off = On, Imprint On, Rig Cab Off. Seems like when I run Monitor Cab Off = Off and Rig Cab On, I get a very flat blanketed sound.

I have a powered toaster - I had it plugged into a regular Orange 4x12 with 16ohms per speaker in series/parallel. Sounded great, but I was hoping for the versatility of the Kones. I put the Kones in exactly with the same wiring - of course they are 4ohms so much louder.

Generally I use monitor cab off, and rig cab off when I was using the old speakers. I was using the same configuration with imprints on. For gainy profiles, the imprints sound thin and fizzy. I know others have had this issue. EQing helps a little but the sound still isn't as good as the old speakers. I really like the Kones for the volume boost and clean sounds, but it just doesn't sound as good as the old speakers on gain profiles. I can EQ out the fizzy shrill stuff I originally get, but it still sounds thin.

People said to try monitor cab off but the cabinet in the profile on. I will try that...but I believe I had and it still sounds very thin.

Two questions:

- I read someone else had this exact problem and did a 'system reset' that fixed it. I guess this is a factory reset? Have others had this experience where it fixed something? Did they update again to newer OS's? I don't understand why that would fix it.

- Could it be the wiring of my cabinet? I wired it exactly like it was, which looks like series parallel, but I didn't follow the exact schematic in the Kone box for 4x12 (I assumed it was the same at first glance, but didn't look carefully).

Thanks for any help - I really don't want to go back to the old speakers.