After more then six months my Kemper now sound excellent.
Is this a long story: yes, too long then only read the last few lines.
On my Asian 1 mounth holiday, Oktober 2012, I heard about the Kemper, read as many as possible, look any Youtubes and decided from my vacation address to order an Kemper on the internet.
So after holiday when I arrived at home there was my big surprise.I played about 2 days with the Kemper, changes many settings, downloaded many profiles, but the sound: nothing special. I had the same with the Eleven Rack (wich I gave away after 5 mounths). Even before I was never satisfied with my JVM205c, Crate amp, Valvetronix AD120vtx, Class 5, Bulk Sonica, Blues Junior/Deluxe, Hotrod?s, H&K etc. I always spend money about amps, but always try to play the cheap guitars (wood is wood and strings are strings). My latest cheap guitar is an Ibanez JS100. Oktober 2012 I changed the stock elements with Dimarzios Mo Joe's ans Elixer strings. Sound a little bit better but not special, did a few gigs and nobody complained, so?
How did the Kemper sound with the JS100: it sound bad, like somebody say if there was a blanket in front of my speakers, it sound hollow, too many bass, harsh, to much high etc. I downloades hundreds of profiles from the library, tried the stock profiles. Only 5% of all the profiles sound a little bit ok, the rest was unusefull. Allways started with all effect off, onlyÿamp, eq, cabs.Changed: cabs, changed clean/distorted setting, volumes before and after the amp. Nothing works well.
I read the last months more then 100 treats, trying to get my sound alright. Take it to the rehearsal room, tried it with different PA'ss, tried it direct into tubes heads, combo's, transistor amps (in the front, in de fx-returns, direct in the power section). Of course with cabs on and off, with monitor out, master out (xlr/trs). Very far away I could hear the potential of the Kemper, but the magic keep stuck deep away.
I read everything on the forum about (active) monitors. Read about the JBL's, RCF's, Yamaha's, EV's etc.
At home I have an Dynacord powermade 800 and 4 x EV-Z90's + 2 subs. Tried everything on the Powermate: mic-in, trs-in (stereo), poweramp-in etc. in combination with Kemper: monitor out, master out (xlr, trs), tried all possible combinations, to exclude what course the bad sound. Of course tried many (type) EQ is many stomp positions, changed in the amp-sections all settings, only clarity give a little bit better sound. Changed the master- out and monitor-out EQ, changed cabs setting. Tried an Crown 1500xls with the EV's and with some guitarcabs: it not sound good.
Read again many stuff on the Kemper forum about PA and monitors and decided to buy 2 x Yamaha DXR12. There was not a big different in sound between using de xlr/trs on the DXR, only volume wise. With the new DXR's a little bit better sound than the (passive) EV-Z90, but nothing magic.
Read treats about how guitars influence your Kemper sound, read about what CK writes about the better sound with better guitars. I am from Holland so I think bla bla bla?. (why expensive when you can do it cheap)
Maybe I bought an Kemper with bad AD-DA converters or other problems (I had 1 problem with the Eleven Rack). Changed to older OS, did some factory resets, (init) flash memories etc. No better result.
Did an small gig straight in de DXR12's as FOH and the sound was ok, not special because it fits in with the voice, drums and bass (take all bass on the Kemper out under 100Hz). The Kemper not sound special but it sound ok. So everybody (drum, bass. Voice, guitar) into the small Dynacord Powermade 800 and the trs master-out from the Powemate to the xlr-in from the DXR.
Another gig with a bigger Dynacord PA was also ok, Kemper xlr-out straight to the FOH and Kemper monitor-out to 2 x DXR12. And here the same, the Kemper sound ok (fits in the total sound) but nothing magic. Some college musicians say the guitar sound good, but for me not special.
In both gigs I had to finetune my live-direkt-PA sound during the first 4 songs, because making a sound on sleepingroom volume is something else than stage-sound or direct PA-sound. Later at home I played my "live sound" presets and they sound horrible.
Sometimes a stock profile did work well ( 6 on the scale from 1-10), but never better than an 6. Those few profiles (about 10) with an scale:6 I used live.
Every weekend I tried different settings and finally I take the Kemper to a friend with Protools 9 and Yamaha H50 studiomonitors. And there a little bit of magic comes . I play with his (more expensive) guitars (Les Pauls, Fender customs etc.) an yes the sound was getting better. With my JS100 over his Yamaha?s H50 the sound was better then at my home, especially when I brought the Mo Joe's more up to the strings.
Back home (JS100-Kemper-DXR12) tried again everything and the little big magic was gone.So I thought my DXR are not flat (EQ) enough?
I already told my friend for many months that I had something special and they can sell (most of) their tube amps, (like I did) because the Kemper is the solution. But last months I was thinking about selling my Kemper, because the sound was nothing special. But how I could sell (or give away) my Kemper while I said to all my guitar friends for months they have to sell an Kemper (because so many people on the forum or youtube are veryÿsatisfied with the Kemper). So I decided to keep the Kemper and buy some "professional profiles", especially Marshall Plexi professional profiles, because all plexi profiles hurt my ears (harsh). With these professional profiles deep deep deep away I could hear the "magic" glassy sound of the professional profiles, but not with the JS100-Kemper-DXR12.
I had 2 more new Dimarzio Mo Joe's and I decide to build them in an cheap Squire stagemaster. I read the wiring diagram and placed the element, skipping the potentalmeters etc., so straight from the element to the guitar-output jack. Re-used the, I think, 5 year old strings, plugged into the Kemper and DXR and: YES it good quite sound. I had all elements wiring outsidethe guitar, so I could change quickly single spool to humbucker and vice versa, could change polarities etc. Sometimes when changing polarities (red,black, white and green wires) the good sound was gone. And then I remembered something?
And what was the problem: my elementsÿin the cheap JS100. I did put the bridge pickup in the wrong direction (oktober/november 2012). I tested it with turning the bridge Mo Joe pickup (90 degrees). The pickups where probably out of fase and now the polarity between the pickups are ok.
Why dit I not mentioned a good sound with some other of my guitars? Because they have not good sounding elements (quite normal on cheap guitars). But any cheap guitar with good elements can sound good with the Kemper (JS100). And did an expensive Les Paul (euro 3200) soundÿdirectly good with the Kemper. Not always, I tested an cheaper? LP (euro 1800) and it sound better with most stock profiles. Problbly it is an combination of quitar + element(s) + Kemper.
No no it must be: guitar + element(s) + profile(s), because the Kemper is out of question.
Conclusion1: the MAGIC is coming?.. The searching is not over I gonna test with many other guitars (friends) and profiles (i have to go through about 800 profiles again) to find some good combinations.
Conclusion2: not good sound? It can never be the kemper?..
My problem were the elements on my guitar.
and I ended up playing guitar 10 times more than before and recording enough songs to get a full album in the last 12 months ( I just did one recording before the KPA).
