New KPA Owner, First Impressions

    After doing some research I couldn't find any retail outlet or reseller with a KPA in stock in Canada, so I bought a unit that was lightly used from a gentleman online purely as a matter of impatience. Still had the sticker covering the screen and original box, so I don't think I missed much.


    I've owned and used tube amps, but find them just cumbersome to use and just generally a bad value. Do you get an amazing sound from the real thing? Sure, but I have ADD and what keeps my excited and interested in my playing is being able to flick between drastically different sounds that inspire me to play different styles of music. To that end I've also used a lot of the most popular modelling software out there and in particular I've spent many hundreds of man hours inside different versions of NI Guitar Rig, POD X3 Live, etc, et al.


    I fired up the KPA and was instantly blown away. The sound quality is just worlds away from anything I've used in modellers. The very very best settings that I've tweaked and refined for months in GR5 almost come close to some of the worse profiles I tried. What struck me was how natural the sound was, but more than that, how it felt. Just this very immediate response to my playing that just gave every profile I tried this very tight and realistic feeling. As far as sound quality goes I'm extremely happy and it's even better than I thought it would be. Of course, this is the most important thing.


    The second thing I noticed was that the quality of the screen could be better. Even after proper adjustment the text fades away at even slight angles which can be annoying sometimes.


    The third thing I noticed was how much of a pain it is to transfer profiles to the unit. It just seems really silly to need to preformat a USB key, and copy profiles to it, and then move it physically, and then import them. I mean there's a USB port on the damn thing, why can't I plug it directly into my PC to make this easier?


    The fourth thing I noticed was that after importing a number of profiles is that browsing through them is a real pain. I had my profiles layed out in a nice organized folder structure that I had planned to copy to the KPA when it arrived, when I found that it doesn't support organizing profiles into groups at all, for some reason. I'm sure some people would disagree, but hierarchical folders are a tried and true and intuitive method for organizing files that makes sense to everyone. It would be really nice if that was an option that was available.


    Lastly, it feels stupid to me that I have my shiny new KPA hooked up to my old crappy POD X3 Live just so I can record it. I understand that the general feeling Kemper has with this is that professional folks already have an existing audio interface and DAWs work best with one audio interface, but here's the thing. Nobody's talking about taking away the other outputs on the damn thing, it would just be nice AS AN OPTION, for a unit that's already going north of $2K to act as a USB audio device, considering all the hardware is already there. If nothing else, "professionals" could always use it in a pinch, if that's all Kemper cares about. Just something to consider.


    Besides those few things though, very happy with it!

    You can sort profiles by amp, author, name, gain and filter them as well. The key is not to have 1000 of them :)
    I think usb audio would be a highly redundant feature, to be honest.
    AFAIK, pc editor/librarian is in the works.
    Other than that, I'd encourage you and every new owner to spend time playing with one or two factory profiles to avoid ear tiredness (which is very easy to get with kemper) - and many of them are really good. If you like a profile, press rig button and it will add to favourites. After a month or so you can delete all non favorites with one button.

    Quote from mdeeRocks

    You can sort profiles by amp, author, name, gain and filter them as well. The key is not to have 1000 of them :)
    I think usb audio would be a highly redundant feature, to be honest.
    AFAIK, pc editor/librarian is in the works.
    Other than that, I'd encourage you and every new owner to spend time playing with one or two factory profiles to avoid ear tiredness (which is very easy to get with kemper) - and many of them are really good. If you like a profile, press rig button and it will add to favourites. After a month or so you can delete all non favorites with one button.

    I'm aware of the sort and filter features, they're just woefully insufficient in some cases, like for example if you have one of the big packs from TheAmpFactory, because they're all the same author and the names aren't always what you'd expect.


    Of course I am favoriting a small number of my chosen profiles, but I'd still like to be able to go through and discover new favorites in a more organized fashion. Why should I compromise the number of profiles I can store on my Kemper just because the browser is terrible? Having thousands of amps in a little box is part of the allure of this unit. Unfortunately it's just tedious at the moment to have that many.


    Explain to me how you think a USB audio feature would be "redundant". I'm going to assume you know what redundant means.

    New owner here as well. Took all of a day or two to make a mess with 700 profiles. Lol. And yeah sorting through them could be easier.
    Some sounds I like, some sound like they are on the other side of a tunnel. Been saving snapshots of the ones I like for tweaking, setting them up in performance mode and hope to take my KPA to rehearsal on Wednesday and not look like a total numbskull spending time turning knobs and all.
    I can say that I already love my KPA and know it will only get better.

    I find the sorting is pretty easy once you get used to the options.
    When I import new profiles I always add the ones I like to fav and delete the rest


    Another good option is to load up performance mode with particular favorite profiles, makes it very easy to navigate.


    The thing is with using it as an interface I'm sure you would have to run your monitors out of the kemper etc.....I did that with another device and it was a PITA , especially sorting out the main mix/vs device mix


    Just a tip for organisation....I use the kemper renamer to put a prefix on some of my profiles (B for bass , L for lead etc) this helps with organising

    Well, I am personally happy with about 50 profiles loaded, from which I use 2 or 3 per song at most (or even 1, due to Kemper amazing ability to respond to volume knob and picking dynamics)
    Sorting by amp helps a lot, so is sorting by gain, I by accident loaded whole Amp Factory pack 1 (which is a lot of profiles) when I got my Kemper and still could navigate them with ease,


    If anything, the biggest problem I have with Kemper is not being able to slave it to SPDIF clock in straightforward way, which I'd expect from professional grade equipment. I think this also answers the question regarding USB out redundancy.


    Anyway, let's wait and see, Kemper team is seems to be responding to user suggestions, so if it's technically possible there is a good chance they will implement it sooner or later.

    Quote from mdeeRocks

    If anything, the biggest problem I have with Kemper is not being able to slave it to SPDIF clock in straightforward way, which I'd expect from professional grade equipment..


    .



    What did you mean by this because I have heard this being mentioned before with ther equipment as well?
    When I use SPDIF into my RME I just set it to clock source - co-ax ....for output it has consumer/professional.....which is the one to select?

    Quote from caveman1

    What did you mean by this because I have heard this being mentioned before with ther equipment as well?
    When I use SPDIF into my RME I just set it to clock source - co-ax ....for output it has consumer/professional.....which is the one to select?

    Kemper at the moment can only act as SPDIF master. So you sync all other hardware to it, in some studio setups it may be a major pain in the ass ;)


    For instance, if you have a sound interface with SPDIF which you use to record a Kemper, you need to set clock source to SPDIF or external instead of internal (terminology may vary, but you get the drift) so it gets synchronized to Kemper.

    ... and if you do some band recording with multpile digital sources (e.g. 2 Profilers and a keyboard/synth) at the same time, it will get even more difficult.
    That's why a studio master clock (or the internal clock of your audio interface) and slaveable external gear is preferred.

    I see, I was reading my RME manual and it has some AutoSync thing that takes care of that apparently


    I'm guessing sending the SPDIF out to the kemper it should be set to 'professional'?
    I only did re amping before with my M-Audio FTpro

    I'd also like to add to my impressions that I was pretty bemused when I hit the undo / redo buttons for the first time, to see that they would be included soon in an upcoming update! Hasn't the KPA been out for like 2 years now?


    Still extremely impressed with the sound quality. My fingers are so very sore these days. I just wish they'd make this thing a little less rough around the edges so my brain doesn't have to be sore.