Dear God - I hope it gets better than this!

    Hi OhG,


    I was thinking nearly the same thing as you on my first try with the Kemper for the distorded tones. I have it since 6 months. I play mainly with headphones because I love it loud and my wife have some disease so I don't kinda have the choice and it was really fine with me anyway.


    For now, I really thought to buy a second Kemper, JUST IN CASE mine just broke. Everyday when I turn it on and the booting process was achieve, the sound I hear is litterally like a drug for my brain.


    So I think and hope you will go through the same feelings as time passed by. I mainly play with the Reign In Blood profile (free) from Daniel Waldmann.


    (Kemper stereo output to mixer, mixer to an analog amp like a stereo receiver and headphones into that amp. Mod effect on Stereo Loop and 3 Stereo Strymon (bluesky, elCapistan, Ola) and damn it sound good.)


    Give us some news.


    Regards

    Something's amiss here by the sound of it.


    The factory rigs just aren't that bad. Sure, relative to some commercial and RE profiles many of them may be inferior, but that's only in comparison with "total awesomeness". There's plenty of variety in the factory set so the fact that you were hearing Boss Metal Zone-style character in all the high-gain rigs screams to me that something is wrong.


    Trust me, even the "bad" rigs in the factory set are a step up in playability and tonal variation (in terms of the Rigs on offer) from the typical modellers out there.


    I'd definitely start with a full reset and reloading of the factories from the System menu.

    You have to understand that when they made the profiles that come with the KPA, they weren't using headphones and they weren't using your guitar


    You've got to make some adjustments to get it to sound the way you want.


    I played with headphones for the first few days that I had the Kemper and enjoyed it well enough, but it wasn't until I plugged in my 410 cab that I truly realized the potential.


    Read the manual, dive in and tweak some things, and you'll enjoy it.

    I hate playing my Kemper with phones. It's much better with my cheep pair of M-Audio monitors IMHO.


    Regarding the factory rigs, I dislike 90% of them, so I feel your pain. That being said, I've never played any modeler, multieffect, etc that I didn't dislike 90% of the presets. I also dislike the way that 90% of the amps at my local Guitar Center are dialed in at this exact moment. Someone liked them though back when they were playing them.


    I think most folks only like 10% of the presets, we just can't agree on which 10% are the good ones. :) It's also easy for a "bad" sound on a device to taint your opinion of it. But in this case it would be like judging protools poorly because the guy down the street makes "bad" sounding demos with it. Hunt for better sounds on the rig exchange, you will find them. Also, be advised that sounds that shine on one playback system might not shine on another without some tweaking.

    I hate emojis, but I hate being misunderstood more. :)

    Like 1

    My suggestions might be quite different to most suggestions here.


    1. Do NOT start tweaking rigs yet! Instead go listen to good rig demos. There's plenty of places to listen to rig demos from very trusted and highly regarded profilers. If you don't like the sound you hear, then your headphones are likely crap. Go to TAF or MBritt or sinmix (for the harder side of life). Also, listen to a few songs of your favourite music through your headphones before you start trying rigs. I'm 100% sure, you suffer from adaption problems. You still have the full blast of your amp/cab combination in mind when you start trying rigs on much thinner sounding headphones. Close that gap by listening to great recordings of music and rig demos!


    2. Never switch off ALL effects on a given rig when trying with headphones! At least use some "Space" or some decent reverb setting (you can lock that slot so you have the same reverb on every rig you load). A 100% dry amp sound directly projected to your ears will always sound uncomfortable. You need balls and whistles in your sound. You don't seem to be one of the strictly technical analytic minds. Give the profiles a bit of enjoyable "room" you'd feel great playing in. Completely dry sucks BIG time! Same would happen with a recorded real amp.


    3. Always keep in mind that even your holy grail of tube amps would sound like shit if you listen through a "My first Sony", hahaha. Not trying to write down your current headphones (I don't know them), just trying to make you aware of the fact that the key to a GREAT sound is the whole signal chain from your fingers through your guitar, the amp (Kemper in this place) and the device that projects the sound to your ears (speaker or headphones). Your headphones are great if you enjoy listening your favoruite music through them (at volume).


    4. The reason I wrote "don't start tweaking yet" is: First you should make sure your whole setup / signal chain is of the quality you expect. Since you're not yet sure about that, it is very likely that you start fixing problems in your signal chain by tweaking a rig that actually doesn't need much tweaking. You need a trusted environment to start tweaking the hell out of a given rig. Once you get your DXR10, hook it up and play some recorded music through it. Once you found the settings that you like and a decent amount of volume ... only THEN start connecting your profiler. The Profiler through FRFR PA speakers basically gives you "recorded" sound.


    5. Don't rush! You're in an adaption phase, it takes a bit of time for you. Other GREAT artists around the world have made it ... you can do as well. :)

    I havent read all 2 pages of posts but from reading the OP 1st post i would say something is set up wrong. I also read that the OP was using the stock profiles. Some are good and some are not so good IMO, but i'm going on when i first got my KPA 3 years ago and i know alot of great commercial sellers have added profiles to the stock bundles. I would say search the good ones out. Also what you monitor your KPA through will make a hell of a difference. Before my DXR10 arrived when i purchased my KPA live i used a Wharfdale monitor and it sounded terrible and i was worried at first but as soon as i used my DXR10 live the results were steller. Trust me the KPA is one of the greatest musical tools to be invented you just need to dive in and give it a chance.

    The weak link is NOT the factory profiles, it's the inferior signal chain of the OP. It's The "Imagine you heard your favourite amp through cheap headphones for the first time " - syndrome.
    You get the analogy?
    My recommendation: Don't switch on your profiler until the DXR10 has arrived.
    Every other action will lead to wrong conclusions anyway.

    I received my KPA last week and it sucked a lot.
    After an hour or two, I decided to perfrom a system restore because I couldn'n believe to what I was hearing.
    Turn on KPA while holding RIG button (or look at wiki KPA) and perform a system reset.
    After system restore, sound were pretty good :)

    I'll suggest a different tact: some people just don't adapt to digital. You clearly came into the experience expecting the worst and that is what you got. No offense intended, but for some folks, it will never work. My suggestion is save yourself some time and trouble - its not the unit, its you.


    I've read the basic and in depth manual twice now, before even getting the Kemper. I've watched all the tutorials on the Kemper channel, and as many others on YouTube that I could find. The clip of Pete you've posted above is him playing direct. I have no interest in that because I'm using this for live sound. So I need it to sound good on stage first, and then worry about front of house. I know that's backwards in some respects. But for me, I play better when I'm happy with my sound on stage.


    I'm not giving up on the Kemper yet. Like I said, I know listening to it through the Bose headphones is not the best option. But it just reminded me of the Boss Metal Zone pedal.

    Quote from Dean_R


    All I can say is, when your Yamaha FRFR comes in, give it some volume, I'm not talking concert level volume. at the same time it can't be low level practice volume.


    Believe me, the one thing I'm not shy about is volume. (c: I crank my tube amp on stage for gigs, so I want to be able to do the same thing with this.

    Quote from OhG

    Let me preface this by saying I literally did nothing more to my Kemper than turn it on, plug my Guthrie Govan signature model guitar in, and plug in my Bose QC15 headphones. Believe me, I know Bose headphones aren't the best way to judge the Kemper.



    I have the same headphones.
    I love them when i fly on airplane because of the noise reduction system (i fly a lot...more than i would like because i hate airplanes), but i don't use them for anything else.


    They sound horrible with the Kemper, for the simple reason they aren't suppose to be monitor headphones(the fact they have a noise reduction system is a dead give way).

    Quote from HappyKemper


    In this thread you write that you have been reading this forum for over a year learning about the kemper, but I'm a bit surprised that it seems like you've never heard a kemper before, seen videos or read about how pros and tube amp users use it. There are thousands of videos and songs online. link Just bought a Kemper - need some help


    I have been reading on this forum for over year. Well before the Controller came out (because that was one of the reasons I didn't buy the Kemper to begin with - no controller). But all the reading in the world can't change what comes out of the Kemper when I do the initial test run of it's factory settings. The thread you referenced "Just Bought a Kemper - need some help" is one that I started, because I wanted to get a headstart on any adjustments that I need to make. Again, I'm not using my headphone test as my final decision. I knew it wouldn't sound great through headphones, but I didn't expect it to be that bad either. I've already asked around for the best profiles (in another thread), so I'm going to load those up tonight so that I'll have them ready to go on Friday when I receive my DXR10.


    I'm holding out hope for the Kemper. But that first listen was like taking the first punch to the gut in a boxing match.

    Quote from Monkey_Man

    Something's amiss here by the sound of it. I'd definitely start with a full reset and reloading of the factories from the System menu.


    How do I do this? Just walk through the steps in the System menu? I'll try that tonight. But it doesn't bode well if people need to do this on a brand new, factory sealed unit.

    Quote from Klappy

    Regarding the factory rigs, I dislike 90% of them, so I feel your pain. That being said, I've never played any modeler, multieffect, etc that I didn't dislike 90% of the presets.


    This is exactly what I'm thinking. I do intend to load the high quality stuff this week (Tim Owens Friedman stuff, some Amp Factory and Michael Britt profiles). Then test those when the Yamaha DXR arrives on Friday.

    Quote from Frodebro

    My first reaction to my Kemper was about the same. I was excited that I had something new and cool to play with, but the sounds I was getting out of it weren't exciting me at all.


    the first time someone invited me to listen to this mistery machine, he plugged it on a mesa boogie fifty-fifty and to a 1960 V30 4x12 Marshall...turned the amp volume ALL the way to the top and got me to play a chord (it was a mesa mark IV profile).


    I remained breathless by the sound pressure and its timbre that was irresistable...never had anything different since

    "...why being satisfied with an amp, as great as it can be, while you can have them all?" michael mellner


    "Rock in Ecclesia" - new album on iTunes or Google music

    Like 1

    Why don't you record some sound samples? To demonstrate us what is the problem.
    But I agree about trying other profiles. I have around 125 profiles on my KPA, most of them are free ones. I don't think I have more than 2-3 stock ones.