Bass player wants to go to Kemper.

    I'm just a bass player.
    Used the FAS system since 2012, sold it because I never achieve a good bass tone with that.
    I have the effects unit from them (fx8).
    I definitly want to get a Kemper powerack unit.
    I have some questions:


    1) Kemper is a good choice for bass? Or has a boomy/mid sound?
    2) How are the effects from the Kemper? Like distortions, chorus, phases, wah, pitch, reverb?
    3) One example: If I use an ampeg svt profile as my sound. How can I put in the same chance another profile like a darkglass b7k, vintage, sansamp and others.. profiles in the same ampeg svt profile? Is it possible?


    Thanks for the attention! :love:

    1. It sounds pretty good, you've got lots of EQ to get the tone you want.
    2. There aren't any bass-specific effects (like the Bass Big Muff, Boss Bass OD, etc), but there enough parameters that you can get a good sound from all of them. There's also a parallel chain so you can blend a clean, compressed signal with the amped tone.
    3. You can't combine profiles. Someone would have to profile an SVT with the Darkglass in front of it.

    I'm not a Bassist, but I do play Bass when tracking. Just getting that out of the way first :)


    That said, I record my Dingwall NG-2 Bass through the Kemper + Darkglass B7K pedal, and it sounds crazy good, IMO. I just use one of the stock profiles as is, but you can tweak them to your liking (as mentioned earlier). There's also the Rig Exchange portal where I'm sure you can find free profiles of Bass amps that already combine the B7K in the signal chain.


    Worst case scenario, you get the Kemper, don't like it and return it. As long as you buy from a retailer with a good return policy, all you'll lose is time. But I have a feeling you won't be disappointed :-).


    Take care!

    There are about 90 free Rigs on the exchange and a few in the Factory set. There are some in the free Rig packs on the main Kemper site, namely the Bass Rig Pack I 2014-07 and Bass Rig Pack II 2015-09. Kosten has some Mark Bass freebies on his site, and jevo has posted some on the forum. R.U. Sirius has posted a Fender Bassman 100 1974 in the forum, Gabe Fry a Mesa Bass, Ed Lauwerens a Sansamp Pre->Ampeg Pro Neo, Pimporello a TC Electronic RH450, Klappy a B15 '66 Clean, Thomas Gabriel a UA LA-610 MkII Preamp DI Profile and toneclone an Ampeg SVT 1978 DI - there'd be other free offerings on the forum too that I haven't found - you'll have to search for them.


    Some of the commercial vendors who're thought of as guitar-only guys have bass offerings too, such as Guido Bungenstock, Michael Britt, SinMix and TopJimi, although they're usually embedded in guitar-oriented packs.


    Commercial freebies include Ampsound's Ampeg SVT, a free set from Dave Wilson Recording, ToneHammer's Ampeg SCR DI and Gabe Fry's Mesa M6 Carbine.


    In my experience many of these sound fantastic and I can't think of an obviously-bad one right now.


    As for FX, I think they're well-suited to bass because of their naturalness and the fact that they're generally not over-the-top. As a bonus, there's the ability to affect only a specified frequency range, as you might do for, say, chorus, in order to preserve the low-end integrity of your bass signal.


    All up, I think it's a great unit for bass. I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time 'til commercial vendors start putting out "mega" packs once the popularity of the KPA for bass has grown sufficiently; until now there've been mainly single-amp offerings, with the SVT's being hugely over-represented IMHO.

    Welcome frr :)


    Just to specify, with the Parallel option you can insert any of two effects in parallel to the processed signal. This include no effects (direct signal), but it's actually much more powerful than that, specially now that you can place delays wherever you want :)



    Also, not sure why you'd want to insert an amp sound in another one? Sorry, maybe just a language barrier by my side.
    You can load tens of sounds and just have one or the other under your fingers with just the push of a foot-switch. Of course, no matter what sound (we call them profiles) you are using at a given moment, you can always add effects, ODs, external pedals to the sound and toggle them in\out in real time.
    Hope this clarifies.


    Last but not least, the Profiler has got no sound signature in itself: it will sound like the profiles you use, the way you tweak them. The cab you use and the room you are in will of course play a great role in determining your final sound.


    :)

    Hi,


    I play both guitar and bass and don't use the Kemper for the bass. I would try it before buying if you are going to use it only with the bas.


    I always miss the low end in all the profiles available and I'm trying to do my own bass profiles (with several bass amps and all-in-one boxes) but no matter what I try too much low end is missing. I opened a ticket with support but I haven't found a solution yet. I want to try with other bass amps.


    No problem with the cables or the whole chain. When I profile the chain or cables without the amp is spot on and I take care with gain stagging...


    Saludos!

    Quote from pacocito

    I always miss the low end in all the profiles available and I'm trying to do my own bass profiles (with several bass amps and all-in-one boxes) but no matter what I try too much low end is missing. I opened a ticket with support but I haven't found a solution yet.

    Please keep us posted about this, pacocito.


    The profiles I've tried have sounded fantastic to me, but I haven't had the luxury of being able to A/B them with the source amps, so I'm keen to hear what your solution or the outcome of the ticket is.


    At face value, I find it difficult to believe the issue is due to a shortcoming of the Kemper, so I sure hope you get to the bottom of it. Get it? Bottom of it? Uugghh...

    This is what is happening to my bass profiles. In this case, It's a VT BASS DI from Tech 21. I'm monitoring through the Kemper in profiling mode so levels are equal. In the video I change from the profiled version to the reference amp. There are some profiles of this box in the Rig Exchange and the response of the lows is similar to the one I profiled. What do you think? There is a difference of 5 dB in the lows.

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    Personally, I wouldn't sweat it. The "major" loss is below 50hz anyway, which is kick territory IMHO.


    Also, I suspect there's a slight level mismatch which could be skewing the result a little.


    If you were to ask me if there was any issue with the sound, I could only say, "Noise, matey!". Mind you, it mightn't be as bad as it sounds on my Mac speaker, which has no bottom end to speak of.

    There is no level mismatch. Once you make the profile and while comparing, volumes are matched by the profiler.


    The problem below 50 Hz is not a problem but look the difference around 100 Hz. 5 dB at 100 Hz for the bass is a big difference. That is not due to level mismatch. Listen to the video with monitors.


    I'm not holding the bass so the single coils are freely making that noise they like to do :)


    This is the clip I sent to support. Here I'm using a looper to record both versions.
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.…Test%20profile%20bajo.wav

    I run my Ibanez SR1805 thru the Kemper. Sounds fabulous to my ears. In my "bass" folder I have some great bass profiles available by:


    Willi Dammeier
    Uwe Bossert
    TopJimi
    ToneVision
    toneclone
    STL
    Sonic Underground
    Sinmix
    Samjones
    Rod Gonzales
    Pete Turley
    Oliver Poschmann
    Noxtherox
    nakedzen
    MillA
    Michael Wagener
    Mau70
    Mark Sottilaro
    M.Wienstroer
    M.Franzkowiak
    Jp+
    James Stephenson
    Icem4n
    Guido Bungenstock
    GRUF
    Erik Stam
    Double Impact
    D. Petersen
    CR Novak
    CBC
    ARTHURD
    And44


    I'm a guitar guy first so maybe I don't require everything a real bassist would, but for me the Kemper provides pretty much every bass tone I'm ever gonna need for recording purposes. Bought the Kemper for guitar. Works fantastic for bass - extra bonus!

    Tried the VT Bass profiles in the Rig Exchange and they work like mine. The dynamics and the way the amp distorts are very well cloned, but the lows around 100 Hz are a bit weak. Tried to compensate it using eq, but didn't succeed.


    I tried to profile another amp today. Same problem. No matter how much I refine, the real amp's peak is at 80 Hz while the profiled version is always above 100 Hz and the lows are weaker...


    I'll send this information to support through the opened ticket and go back to bass amps. I'll use the profiler for the guitar and bass amps for the bass... sad...

    Edited 3 times, last by pacocito ().

    Quote from frr85

    I see a lot of bands using Kemper for Bass for live (without any poweramp just kemper).
    Bands like: Sick Puppies, Sabaton, Amon Amarth, Muse (but he uses another poweramp)...

    AxeFX 2 too, but doesn't work for you...


    I bought the KPA on Jan 2012 and I've been using it every day since then for guitar. It's the best gear I've ever bought but I would try before buying if you are going to use it only for bass.


    Can you record a DI bass signal? If you can't try the profiler before buying, I could reamp your bass with some profiles from the Bass pack.

    That's very kind of you, pacocito.


    Quote from frr85

    I see a lot of bands using Kemper for Bass for live (without any poweramp just kemper).


    Bands like: Sick Puppies, Sabaton, Amon Amarth, Muse (but he uses another poweramp)...T

    Don't forget Baby Metal! LOL Both guitars and bass AFAIK.