The 'Foundational Sonics of the KPA' thread (officially sanctioned by CK)

I like to lower or even shut off the noise gate, that gives me the feel I like.
I am never really expecting 100% real amp vibe, that is not why I got the Kemper, if it gets there cool.
For recording I do find it matches the vibe of when I am in the studio and my amp is miked and I am tracking with headphones on.
I play with just fingers a lot and I am getting the response I need.
It is not the same as when I am in the room with my amp but it is damm close.
I like the raw feel.
For chord work I feel no stiffness, for lead stuff on mild breakup is the only place I notice it fighting me back.
I am satisfied, and I know it will still keep getting better.

Well said Radley.
Hopefully it does keep getting better

Quote from JonG

Now you're talking my language

You're married, stop it!

Radley: Did you ever try an external distortion unit, like Mi Audio Crunch Box or Suhr Riot or similar, with a clean preset? The feeling of that combintation is so real! I love how Crunch Box or Riot combine with the stock 'Sultan' preset.

Maybe you should 'unload' your guitars pickups with any external booster/EQ/something like that to make the combination of guitar, cable and input analogue again? Try some stomps when you have them lying around, maybe that the trick for you?

Quote from Radley

Thanks - I will try that. Have you not had similar luck using the KPA's overdrives into a clean amp rig?

The soundquality of the internal overdrives is quite good. There could be some more controls I think, but the sound is ok. But when you use the internals it would not help your request for a more realistic feeling, because then you are using the same input as always. When you use an external stomp the feeling changes a bit and gets (to my ears and fingers) more real, maybe because that part of the soundchain is just real gear and not digital. I was surprised a bit how good the kpa took the stomps and the sound and feeling was very real to me.
The only thing that is not working like in reality is a very loud boost, because you can run into clipping then, something that a tubeamp would not do. OK, that's maybe the point where it would be too much for a real amp anyway, at a certain point, you only get crap without dynamic with a real amp.

YMMV, as ever.

I find many posts a bit confusing.
I will quote and answer them individually and hopefully we can find some points here.

Quote from Radley

Christoff - I am trying to be helpful. I am very impressed that the KPA can copy my show-tested presets from another modeler so well - it is a very handy function indeed! I profiled 3 more of my amps yesterday, and it's getting better and better. (I guess I still don't understand why my requests for thread deletion have not been honored - they were not posted to create a 'kerfuffle'!)

How does it happen that it get's better and better?
You are learning to refine your modeling amp in a better way?

Quote from Radley

[quote='Radley',index.php?page=Thread&postID=25881#post25881]This thread is a chance for me and *anyone else* including Mr. Kemper, to speak their mind concerning the KPA. The idea here is not to simply complain, but to offer helpful suggestions to improve the product for everyone:

Take your favorite distortion pedal or overdriven amp - play something sensitive with your fingers - that's right, bare flesh on the strings (a la Jeff Beck). Listen to the way the attack translates into tone - now do the same on the Kemper with a similar gain patch. It is *not* the same - it is a different feel/response altogether. My 12 year old Boss GS-10 does it way better than this, and that is why I used it as an example. The KPA is a whole new generation with so many incredible new features - I just don't want to see us lose some of the most foundational aspects for building great tones...

Radley, do I get it right?
You take only modeling amps (Axe Fx, Boss) as a reference for evaluating and comparing the sound of the KPA?

Quote from JonG

I agree with you. I raised this a few times in other threads in that although the profiled version of my amp may initially "sound" the same as the real amp, it certainly does not respond as well as the real amp. I find that when I play the real amp there is lots of reaction from the amp which makes for a "lively" playing experience. However, the profiled version of the amp lacks the same "liveliness" completely, unless of course you start using compression pedals, but I don't want to use a compression pedal because that then changes the sound completely.

I would be interested in listening to an A/B comparison to your amp and the profile.
You should definetely get the same feel from the profile.
What amp model did you profile?
Did you refine it?
Please send an A/B audio file to our support hotline for me to listen.

Quote from kilihahn

[quote='ChrisBeaver',index.php?page=Thread&postID=26507#post26507]

what he said. this helps a bit. i also belong to the "still-missing-a-little-bit-of-true-amplike-response-crew", especially with extremely dynamic picking styles, as described by radley. stop beatin him for having a point here fellas...

Are you refering to your own profiles or factory/user profiles?

My experience has been that the KPA behaves and responds very similarly to my amps. Close enough to where I can fool myself listening back to blind tests. Having used pretty much every amp sim I know of, this unit is a huge step forward in the "believability" department from both a sonic and feel perspective.

Quote from ckemper

i'm refering to my own profiles. don't get me wrong here, i'm still absolutely stunned what this little green box delivers and i wouldn't trade it for any true amp for what it does to me as complete package.

[ seriously, the only things i'm sort of missing are 3 things: a looper (i hope so much it could be done one day..) and a stomp pitch shift (octaver would be fine, whammy would be killer) and some fun-delays (reverse, swell, ...). this is just because i love this box so much and don't wanna carry anything else... erm, exept the even more convenient floor-version one day... ]

whishlist end. sorry. so: i'm referring to my own profiles, but still i imagine i can also feel the same thing with the other profiles. it's not as noticeable with normal plek-picking, but with when clearing up distorted profiles with the guitar-volume and rather dynamic finger picking it becomes more obvious: it does not "entirely" react like my amps. not bad in any way, but not the same either. it's very hard for me to find the right words in english, max twang tried and i think it hints in the same direction:

Could you share this suggestion with us?

I've played with the deep amp parameters but I'm missing something in the 'feel' of pick responsiveness. The Definition parameter is in the ballpark, but I'm wondering if it would help to have the Definition parameter decrease as input voltage increases (less Definition with harder picking) and being able to set the sensitivity of this.

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to me it sometimes feels similar to as if the noisegate would still be a bit "on", in spite of beeing dialed out to zero. so you could assume that i'm talking about some detailed parts of the compression and attack characteristics here. "give" and "bounce" are also blurred words that come to my mind.

i could say, that similarly slightest traces were also noticeable in the "sound" of my profiles, but it's so subtle, that i really don't care in most scenarios. it's just the last bit of "wood", "earth", "dryness" i can't get translated into numbers, but i'm propably just dreaming of the 192khz-and-0,5-ms-latency-kemper due in 5-10 years...

summary: we're absolutely not talking about dealbreakers here, it's just that it would be even unbelievably more überawesome if these last little traces of the slightest digital behaviour would be blurred to "not existent" even more.

thank you ck for this exiting chapter for us tone-nerds. A LOT!

Why are so many unable to use the quote function properly. It's really confusing

yepp, easy to get lost..who said what??