My personal experience was very positive in general with the main Kemper effects. I made direct real comparison, trying to perfectly replicate the analog sounds and recording A/B with blind test and so on only 4 times. With an Overdrive, with a Big Muff, with an MXR Phaser 90 and with a Compressor and I would say that the 90% of the effects were replicated in an incredible way (some of them were also posted in the forum in some sections).
What I missed from the kemper during the comparison was tipically the extreme range settings (gain at max level, depth at max, etc...etc..). For those I had more difficult to replicate exactly the sound.
So, at the end, I was very satisfied and thinking about bringing some external pedal instead of using the internal already tweaked and ready to use and adjusted also with specific EQ, I never had any doubt or never I really miss something significantly using the Kemper alone.
Obiousvly this was my personal experience! .... tell me yours!
I use a Damage Control Glass Nexus for reverb, delay and some modulation effects. Works out great! The GN can store 1200+ presets with midi commands, I have 50+ presets. The KPA sends midi to the GN and it all works perfectly. 95% of the time the GN is running stereo out into a KPA Loop Stereo. There are a few times I run it in front of the amps in Loop Mono or Loop Distortion. Great that the KPA is so flexible is this regard.
I'm also using a Minifooger Tremolo, a Boss Super Octave and a EH Micro Synth in the same loop as the GN. These are control by the KPA and a Decibel Eleven Loop Expander. The LE turns 4 different loops on and off in any combination by midi commands sent by KPA. This also works great (so far anyway.)
I use the GN because it sounds great and is easy to use, six knobs for reverb and delay, 3 more for mod effects. And it's a tube buffer, runs on 2 12AX7s. The Minifooger gets a trem tone I can't from the GN or KPA for one song. I call the Boss SO the Neil Young pedal cause of the nasty fuzz/octave it gets.
The main reason I went to the GN instead of the KPA for reverb was the need for a better spring reverb. Then I just remembered how much I liked the GN for reverb and delay so it became my main effects box.
Here's my external board. I like my ODs and FX to be controlled independently from my rigs on the kemper because I often have multiple different delay, OD, and reverb settings on one song and I don't want to clutter up my kemper with all that. Maybe I need to learn more but as far as I know you can only have 1 reverb setting per rig, is that correct? Regardless, using external FX entirely removes the step of programming everything into the kemper. For me the kemper functions as just a clean tube amp platform for my pedals. Also I found the digital OD models in the kemper to be painfully lacking when compared to real analog ODs.
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Here's my external board. I like my ODs and FX to be controlled independently from my rigs on the kemper because I often have multiple different delay, OD, and reverb settings on one song and I don't want to clutter up my kemper with all that. Maybe I…
sweet. I got a bigsky too.
What signal do you use as your fx out? "stack" or "master mono/stereo"?
sweet. I got a bigsky too.
What signal do you use as your fx out? "stack" or "master mono/stereo"?
I don't actually use the fx out, I just run everything into the front of different clean profiles and use master stereo out I think, but I only use 1 xlr out.
Display MoreI use a Damage Control Glass Nexus for reverb, delay and some modulation effects. Works out great! The GN can store 1200+ presets with midi commands, I have 50+ presets. The KPA sends midi to the GN and it all works perfectly. 95% of the time the GN is running stereo out into a KPA Loop Stereo. There are a few times I run it in front of the amps in Loop Mono or Loop Distortion. Great that the KPA is so flexible is this regard.
I'm also using a Minifooger Tremolo, a Boss Super Octave and a EH Micro Synth in the same loop as the GN. These are control by the KPA and a Decibel Eleven Loop Expander. The LE turns 4 different loops on and off in any combination by midi commands sent by KPA. This also works great (so far anyway.)
I use the GN because it sounds great and is easy to use, six knobs for reverb and delay, 3 more for mod effects. And it's a tube buffer, runs on 2 12AX7s. The Minifooger gets a trem tone I can't from the GN or KPA for one song. I call the Boss SO the Neil Young pedal cause of the nasty fuzz/octave it gets.
The main reason I went to the GN instead of the KPA for reverb was the need for a better spring reverb. Then I just remembered how much I liked the GN for reverb and delay so it became my main effects box.
Another fan of the Nexus - I love it too - can't believe that they stopped making them - really a great unit. I find it sounds better after the Kemper rather than in the FX loop of the Kemper - I think the FX loop seems to dull the sound a bit of some FX units.
As far as Kemper FX are concerned - the RAT OD is pretty good actually. My real rat is slightly better but not by much. The Kemper Muff isn't great.
Kemper Chorus is pretty good but quite 'hi -fi' sounding. My Small Clone is much warmer.
Kemper Flanger is good and pitch shift FX is very nice. Delays and reverbs are OK. Wish the delays had easier parameters to set them up how I like. The current parameters are hard to tweak.
I've found that the new free Top Jimi Fender profiles sound much better if I run my Jan Ray o.d. in front
of them...
Im guessing that Archer Rockett sounds real nice too.
I'm a long-time Eventide user and when I bought my KPA I found that the delays and reverbs weren't quite what I was used to, so I'm running a pair of H9s in the loop. I'm sure that down the road those effects will be updated in the Kemper (and at that point I'll probably ditch the external effects), but until then I'm happy with this configuration.
I am very unhappy with the way the Kemper manages all presets including stomps and effects - and the ability to tweak and save etc., but that said, I am content with the effects themselves - hopefully that makes sense.
In regards to using external effects my answer is that I am still growing acclimated to the Kemper and not sure what the final outcome will be. I have a Line 6 M13 that I love but I don't use it with the Kemper if for no other reason that in my current gigging project, I play mostly clean tones with occasional light chorus/phase/flange at most. I also have a developing project where I might try to bring it in, I don't know.
Also, I am overly conscious of my stage foot print. I am currently using an FCB1010 with Eurekaprom and that often takes up what little front of stage real estate I am afforded. I have a Kemper Remote on order (might come today!) and I may try to figure out if I can use both it an the M13 at some point.
The bottom line (for me) is if Kemper can give me more robust editing and control over my presets, I should not need any external effects for my projects and if I do bring them in, it will be 'gravy' so to speak.
Display MoreI am very unhappy with the way the Kemper manages all presets including stomps and effects - and the ability to tweak and save etc., but that said, I am content with the effects themselves - hopefully that makes sense.
In regards to using external effects my answer is that I am still growing acclimated to the Kemper and not sure what the final outcome will be. I have a Line 6 M13 that I love but I don't use it with the Kemper if for no other reason that in my current gigging project, I play mostly clean tones with occasional light chorus/phase/flange at most. I also have a developing project where I might try to bring it in, I don't know.
Also, I am overly conscious of my stage foot print. I am currently using an FCB1010 with Eurekaprom and that often takes up what little front of stage real estate I am afforded. I have a Kemper Remote on order (might come today!) and I may try to figure out if I can use both it an the M13 at some point.
The bottom line (for me) is if Kemper can give me more robust editing and control over my presets, I should not need any external effects for my projects and if I do bring them in, it will be 'gravy' so to speak.
Most of the pedals I use are in a small rack case that the KPA sits on top of. Those pedals are controlled by midi commands sent from the KPA. Helps me have a small footprint in front of me. Don't know about the M13 as far as being midi controlled, but if it can be, rack it!
Most of the pedals I use are in a small rack case that the KPA sits on top of. Those pedals are controlled by midi commands sent from the KPA. Helps me have a small footprint in front of me. Don't know about the M13 as far as being midi controlled, but if it can be, rack it!
I have both H9s in the same rack as my KPA, each of the three units being on a separate MIDI channel. My controller is a Voodoo Lab Ground Control Pro, and it is configured to send individual program changes to each unit depending on what I want for each overall preset, which makes setup fairly simple.
I use an eventide H9 and a line 6 M5 in the loop. I can control both with midi from the Kemper if I want. The midi on the M5 has a catch though. While I can send the H9 a bypass midi message, the M5 doesn't have one. So if I don't want to ever have to touch my M5, I can't turn it off with midi. The best I can do is use an effect with the mix at 0%, which means that the M5 is still engaged and therefore buffering my signal (assuming I leave the Kemper loop on)
However, lately I've been not bothering with using midi messages sent when I change rigs in performance mode. Rather, I have rigs with the loop on and others with it off and just manually control the H9 and m5. I only use the M5 for the autoswell effect. I have a three button switch for the H9, so I can manually go through the presets in it that I like really quickly.
While I find the built in effects in the Kemper great, they lack an autoswell, and the more elaborate delays and reverbs that I can get in the H9. Plus, since you can only have one in each Rig, I would need to have multiple copies of the same Rig, but with different reverbs and delays in each. Having some sort of external independent effect like the H9, I can stick to a single performance in the Kemper, but have a tons of options of effects.
This limit isn't just a Kemper thing, it's the same issue with all all-in-one processors in a similar organization paradigm. All of them give you lots of options for effects that you can combine, but it's only practical or possible to have just so many effects at your disposal in one "patch" or "preset" or Rig if talking Kemper. All of them give you the ability to have as many presets as you'd ever need, but the more presets you create in order to have all the effect options you want, the harder it is to keep everything organized.
This is why a year ago I came up with a solution and suggested it on the requests: Instead of only having the option of choosing a specific amp and cab to go in the block, you choose "Global amp A,B,C,D,E, etc.." These amp presets would be global. Therefore, instead of choosing a specific amp, you could choose one of the global presets. Therefore, you could have a dozen performances set up with all sorts of various effect combinations. However, each Rig could be set up to one of the global amp presets. Then if you changed your mind about what basic amps you wanted to use, or wanted to edit one of them, all you'd have to do is edit the global preset, or assign a different amp the status off being "global preset B" for example. then all of the Rigs that have Global preset B as their amp would be changed accordingly.
In the current paradigm, if you're set up is like me, you've set up several perfmances with the same amps, such as clean, slightly overdriven, crunch, lead, slightly overdriven with a different combo of effects or whatever in a single performance. In another performance you have the same core amps, but with a different combo of effects. While we may like to have access to all sorts of amps in our arsenal, for concert purposes, we probably one use a few. If we are only going to use a few, the more performances we create, the more headache it is to keep them all organized.
