I still need to use my clyde wah
You have some very valid points (see my Spring Reverb thread...), but I TOTALLY disagree with you on the wah. The wah on the KPA is far more flexible than any other wah I've ever tried and sounds just as good and authentic as any, as long as you know how to tweak the settings (or have found Don Peterson's thread, hehehe...).
Cheers,
Sam
can you post a clip? I have not gotten anything or heard anything like a real clyde wah (for example, the tone near the end of this clip I recorded)
If you can point me to some clips that nail this tone, I will be very happy to acquiesce on that point! 
I'd like to hear it isolation, though, without the drive/univibe pedals.
Cheers,
Sam
I'd like to hear it isolation, though, without the drive/univibe pedals.
Cheers,
Sam
To me, the fact that it's so pronounced even through the thickness of the univibe and overdrive is a testament to it's tone.
The screamer in the kpa is a maxon od808, the circuit of the original screamer. Time and time again people say its not as good, but ck always says that the whole team cannot perceive a difference between the model and the real thing. If the screamer really is weak, id +1 to have it improved, but until i hear a/b clips that demonstrate such, i consider it a biased assumption.
Overall the kpa effects are not weak. There are a few sore spots, but overall they are great. The tracking on the pitch shifting is immaculate.
Also, 4:4 = 1:1
Reasonably stated opinions aren't subject to popularity - and, you aren't the only person who has indicated a preference to specific pedals to the internal effects.
BTW - @DonPetersen is creating more wah presets - he may not have settings for a Clyde yet. I think he just needs specific audio clips, but you could contact him for details.
To me, the fact that it's so pronounced even through the thickness of the univibe and overdrive is a testament to it's tone.
It would be impossible for me to recreate though, as I don't have those pedals... That was my only point.
Cheers,
Sam
It would be impossible for me to recreate though, as I don't have those pedals... That was my only point.
Cheers,
Sam
I'm not asking you to re-create, just to post a wah clip that sounds similar in terms of quackyness.
QuoteThe screamer in the kpa is a maxon od808, the circuit of the original screamer. Time and time again people say its not as good, but ck always says that the whole team cannot perceive a difference between the model and the real thing.
As I said earlier in this thread, I try to give the KPA's dirt stomps the benefit of the doubt by assuming that a lot of the amp profiles don't pair well with them. But I don't know whether this means the effects are bad (ineffective LOL), the amp profiles are bad, whether it describes a broader weakness in the KPA architecture*, or whether the original amps in question would sound equally bad (for my purposes) with the same original pedals (i.e. driver error.) The only stomps I seem to get any mileage out of in the KPA are the DS-1 - which is probably the last pedal I'd reach for "in real life" - and the MT-2, which serves a very specific purpose and is largely redundant with all the high-gain profiles anyway. And yes, the Greenscream is an effective treatment to tighten up an already gainy amp profile, but it doesn't seem to do much as an effect in its own right. I can't seem to set up a proper medium gain OD stomp paired with a clean amp profile that inspires the way a decent analog pedal would.
Probably just a lack of experience on my part, but since effects have come up again, I'm curious to hear others' thoughts.
*CK indicates the Greenscream's I/O characteristics are indistinguishable from an OD808's, but can we assume the interaction between the Greenscream and the amp block are identical to an OD808 in front of a real tube amp?
That's peculiar. I've not read people not liking the green pedal. I compared it to mine and they sounded exactly the same so I sold mine.
I think it's one of the "spot on" pedals in the Kemper.
Wouldn't have believed it was possible, but comparing is believing.
That's peculiar. I've not read people not liking the green pedal. I compared it to mine and they sounded exactly the same so I sold mine.
I think it's one of the "spot on" pedals in the Kemper.
Wouldn't have believed it was possible, but comparing is believing.
my real TS9 sounds better and has less gain with the gain knob turned off. I find that a lot of the kemper OD / Fuzz pedals have way too much gain. In order to make them work properly, you have to put a pure gain before them set to negative gain. In some cases, you may need to boost the gain coming out of the OD or fuzz pedal. IMO, this really negates the usefulness of the pedals.
I think we have to be careful not to be fanbois of the device. It's ok to dislike certain things so that they'll get fixed. I have seen a tendency of people to stick up for the weaknesses in the device the way they would for their home baseball team. It's a tool and we should insist the tool get better. Also, not having a zendrive, a fuzzface and a univibe and a decent chorus, delay or reverb is really a glaring weakness and one that the axefx blows away the kemper for.
Agreed.
Isnt the ts9 a different pedal than the original ts, so different than a maxon od808? Id certainly like more options for such cases.
Its also counter intuitive to need to use recti shapers and eqs in conjunction with the fuzz distortion when u just want a clone of some of the most popular fuzzes.
I'm on record saying many times how much better I think the FXII's Delays and Reverbs are, so if I am a fanboi, at least I'm one without blinders on.
But there are a LOT of variety of green pedals out there. I didn't have a hand wired original. I just did a comparison on the settings I most liked and couldn't tell a difference. Of course you have to "dial them in" I didn't compare exactly the same settings, I was looking for exactly the same effect.
But really, you have to compare effect by effect. The KPA has top notch effects, so-so effects, the Matchbox to me is just terrible, and there is an effect in the Kemper no one has, so "revolutionary" effects.
I think the FXII is stronger overall, namely because of it's dedicated DSP so it can do multiple delays, routing, and because Delay/Reverb are a guitarists bread and butter. But the KPA, in being second there, isn't a slouch either. It's got many great pedal emulations too.
i'm actually considering trading mine for an AXEII because of the effects but my suspicion is that the axeII effects aren't quite as good as the real stomps either so in the end I might need to use real stomps with the axe ii also.
However, the axe time based effects are very good so at least I won't have to mess around with external chorus, delay or reverb pedals.
Display MoreHere's my take and it may not be popular here. The kemper easily sounds more authentically like the amps it's profiling. I believe that the nature of the axefx' circuit emulation yields results that are theoretically correct but often times vastly different in response than the real amps it's profiling. OTOH, it sounds great. It just doesn't necessarily mimic the sound of the original amps exactly.
The biggest difference is in the effects and the routing. The effects in the kemper are VERY disappointing. So much so, that I'd consider trading my kemper for an axefx II even though the kemper sounds more accurate to me in terms of tube amp profiling. The time based effects in particular are very weak and when listening in a critical, studio environment it's pretty obvious they are sub-par. I did some A/B testing with the kemper reverb vs. a cheap digitech digiverb in the effect loop and no matter how I tweaked the kemper's reverb, I liked the digitech better. The tails just sounded smoother and the tails are a weak spot on this particular digitech. There are much better reverb pedals on the market. The delays are also poor and it's disappointing that you can't dial in the delay time directly without using ratios (i.e. why isn't one of the ratios 1:1 ???)
And the fuzz pedal doesn't react anything like the standard fuzzface that everyone likes. The TS-9 is decent but pales in comparison to a real pedal. There is no univibe pedal, the chorus is very weak. I could go on and on.
So don't get me wrong...I love the way the kemper reacts to amp / guitar dynamics and it feels more like the amps I know and love than the axefx does but with the kemper, I cannot give up my pedals. I still need to use my clyde wah, my TS9, my fuzzface, my reverb, my zendrive, etc.
With the axefx, you could probably get away with using all their internal effects.
OTOH, I personally don't mind using the pedals so it's not as big a deal to me as it might be to some people. I think if I had the quality of the axefx effects I might have a different view of that though.
One other thing, I do like the USB connectivity of the kemper.
I actually agree with you to a large extent. At home (I only use my Kemper at home right now) I use my pedalboard into the front of the Kemper. Once I get the Fractal FX8, I'll probably ditch my board entirely, and use the FX8 with my Kemper at home and my VHT amp live.
Until kemper updates delay/reverb, you can try out my advanced reverb presets. See the thread in the free profiles sub-forum. Several people have said they have started using them live and are now leaving their strymon reverbs at home, so i must be doing something right. Ideal? No. Good enough for me, yes.
Until kemper updates delay/reverb, you can try out my advanced reverb presets. See the thread in the free profiles sub-forum. Several people have said they have started using them live and are now leaving their strymon reverbs at home, so i must be doing something right. Ideal? No. Good enough for me, yes.
Thanks, I will check that out. I am just about ready to pull the trigger on a neunaber reverb so the timing is good.
Just search "MAB" on the rig exchange to demo them quickly
Just search "MAB" on the rig exchange to demo them quickly
Is version 3 the latest?
Yessir. There will be no more releases. I will add "wash" presets and prune the less desirable ones, and thats a wrap. Hopefully we will get similar sounds from dedicated effects down the road that are easier to tweak.
