I finally had the chance to use my Kemper at a live gig. And by “chance”, I mean, I finally had the guts to try it live. Here are my 4 biggest complaints:
1.Setup time – This is going to be a problem. I had my entire live rig set up much faster than normal. I mean, I was done so fast, I then had to figure out what to do with all that spare time I had before the gig started. This resulted in me consuming more alcohol than anticipated before the night began and then had to concentrate a little more on songs due to being rather intoxicated. I blame it on the Kemper.
2.Too much room on stage – I’m using the Kemper to replace what was once a 65lb pedalboard monstrosity. The Kemper does everything my old board did, and does it great. The problem is that it now takes up far less room than my old pedalboard, which means there is more room for me to run around on stage. I didn’t plan for this type of cardiovascular workout while playing on stage and found myself to be more covered in sweat than I usually am at the end of a show. Again, I blame the Kemper.
3.The looper – I found myself taking advantage of the looper on a couple of songs where the guitar repeats the same chord progression for a long time. By “taking advantage”, I mean, I looped the chord progression to play over and over again, set my guitar down, went and stole my drummer’s drink while he was playing, then picked my guitar up and played. Unexpected intoxication. Again, the Kemper’s fault.
4.The tone – The tone was too good. And this is going to be a problem on multiple levels. First of all, I couldn’t believe how I was able to replicate the sounds of different amps for different songs. It gave a whole new life to our sound. The problem? Well, now I’ve set the bar high, and my bandmates are going to expect to hear even more of the signature sounds from other bands that we cover; which means I’m going to have to spend more time dialing in tones. This is unacceptable. I deliberately try to set the bar low so that nobody expects too much of me. Now they expect me to sound even more fabulous than before.
In all seriousness, the Kemper BLEW ME AWAY this weekend. And this was at a venue that is known for not having a good sound system. I had this thing CRANKED too. I had the Monitor Output set at -10db, with the Master volume around +5db and my Yamaha DXR15 set to around the 9:00 setting. I’m not trying to sound like a fan-boy, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything negative to say about the Kemper from this past gig. The ONLY issue I had was when I went to one of my rigs that I use for one specific song, and it was a LITTLE too loud; which wasn’t the KPA’s fault anyway. Easily fixed for the next gig. I cannot wait for our next show!
great story!
