The Kemper Foot Controller: Evolution

    Thanks for your answers.
    I don't have an actual picture available right now, so I'll explain by words.


    The Up button will not be in a third row, so you don't have to reach that high. Down and Up are both in the second row, left aligned.
    They are left aligned, because the five slot buttons are left aligned, too.
    The five slot buttons are left aligned, because the TAP button in the bottom row has been voted to be the button most to the right in the bottom line.
    I moved Down and Up to be left aligned, so they are close to slot 1. I assume you will active a chosen Performance by slot 1, 2 or 3, rarher than 5
    The toe/heel story is more a picture than a real advice for use. It means that you can chose a new Performance and activate it without moving your foot all over the board.


    My impression is that the Up button should not be in the third row, but right above slot 1 on the very left position, for the likely case that you go Performance Up and Slot 1. For all other cases all buttons - such as Down, Slot 2 etc. - are in the very vicinity of the left side.


    Here are the options for the two lower rows:


    Down Up I II III IIII
    1 2 3 4 5 Tap


    or


    Up Down I II III IIII
    1 2 3 4 5 Tap



    (I to IIII are the four effect buttons from our previous sketches in this thread)

    Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying. So I guess it looks a little more like the larger option from the beginning of this thread.


    I guess there would still be the option of keeping the traditional Down-Up arrangement but moving the tap button to the left, so that Slot 1 is directly under Up again? So it would be:
    Down Up I II III IIII
    Tap 1 2 3 4 5
    ...but you may have ruled that out already for other reasons.


    Either way I'm sure I could get used to Up-Down (but I haven't used that many other pedals with the traditional placement anyway).


    And you're right: most people probably organise their performances so that after switching to a new one, the first slot to be used will more likely be 1 or 2 than 4 or 5. So regardless of the very specific Up+1 scenario, having Up/Down close to the lower slots is generally a good thing.

    I could pretty easily get used to CK's option 2.


    Up Down I II III IIII
    1 2 3 4 5 Tap


    Unless the KFC is bigger than I'm picturing it, you might need to have teeny feet to do the Up/Toe, Slot1/Heel thing :P
    However, Up/Toe then Slot1/Toe are two easy taps most people are accustomed to doing.

    Of those 2 I prefer the second. Though my ideal (like Clifford it seems) would be


    I II III IV D U


    1 2 3 4 5 Tap



    But really as long as tap is on the bottom row I'm a happy camper! :)

    I have a question regarding the Tap switch (sorry if it's already been answered or questioned).
    Will the Tap only control tap and not do anything else?
    I know many, including myself, that never use Tap so it would be great if the Tap could be programmed to control other things as well, on/off, A/B or something.

    I'd be ok with either option :)


    BTW, why do we have to select a performance and then the slot? Couldn't it default to Slot1 when you change performance (or at least to be settable this way in the device's menu)?


    The way I see it is that each performance is related to a song, so it'd make sense to start from 1 anyway. OTOH, if a performance was not enough for a song, even more so things would be easier if the slot were selected with just one pedal pressure.


    What am I missing?


    Each performance may not be a specific song. If I get the Kemper foot controller, I would use each Performance simply as a bank of five different sounds that can work well together in multiple songs. So, if they consider making Slot 1 automatically activate, I also would like them to include a device menu on/off switch.


    My switch layout vote:
    I would be OK with either option, but will vote for the 2nd option.

    My vote is for:
    Up Down I II III IIII
    1 2 3 4 5 Tap


    By the way, I personally would really like to see performance pre-selection still be included- that's a very useful feature for switching between banks.


    Excited to see what you guys have planned!

    Does seem more popular:


    Up Down I II II IV
    1 2 3 4 5 Tap


    I'm wondering if the looper has more functions than merely hold down button to loop. I noted that the information brought back by lightbox doesn't clearly state that the looper will only be available with the KFC (which would defeat the purpose of saying the Kemper will have a looper, I don't think Mr CK would do that to his userbase).


    Mr CK hasn't revealed the details, but my reckoning, the looper will be more than barebones. That button is just to turn looper mode on and off. it could be a more functional looper, perhaps with multiple record slots that could be overlapped, turned on/off, etc. A lot of buttons that could have a double use on the board for that purpose, such as the tap. ^^


    At any rate, I'm betting it's not just a normal looper, that just isn't the Kemper Amplifiers style. It'll definitely bring something new to the board, otherwise people would be happy to just buy one of those Boss stomps.


    How about clearing up some of the myths surrounding the KFC, Mr CK? ^^

    A thousand gazillion times YES TO THIS :D

    It's nice to be consulted, but another vote will inevitably take time.


    Where are we in the design stage if we are still debating the configuration of foot switches?


    If the bulk of the commercial designs follow a standard footswitch configuration then we should follow it and minimise the learning curve.


    I really think we deserve an update the whole KPA floorboard issue.

    Quote from Raoul23

    I'd prefer this ^ this seems more normal to me as your are more likely to use the I II III IV in a song as you are to skip about going up and down while playing a song. This makes way more sense to me !!


    Now the I to IV buttons can be reached by the right foot. Why would that be a disadvantage for those that use these buttons frequently?


    Question to other posters: Why would you prefer the D U buttons to be on the right side?

    I could imagine the Down and Up buttons having 3 selectable modes:


    1. Bank Switch mode
    While I play e.g. Performance 3 (P3) - Slot 4 (S4) I can already preselect Performance 4 (P4) and still continue playing the P3-S4 until I press the S1 button to switch to P4-S1.
    This mode requires 2 buttons to actually change to a slot in another performance. As far as I understand that's the mode CK is talking about. Correct me if I'm wrong.


    2. Next/Previous mode
    In a well prepared show with a strict setlist, the Up/Down buttons immediately switch to the next or previous slot, even across performances. Could be from P1-S5 to P2-S1 with the Up button ... or from P5-S1 down to P4-S5.
    Mode name is pretty much self explaining, it could also be called "Direct Switch mode".


    3. Slot 1 mode
    When you press the Up button, you will immediately activate Slot 1 of the next performance. If you press the Down button, you will immediately activate Slot 1 of the previous performance.
    This mode doesn't take into account which slot of the current performance you're currently playing. It will always take you to the first slot of the next or previous performance.


    Looper Modes?
    These 3 modes are about rig changes only. We currently have no info about the looper and its capabilities. If we had some info about this and depending on the feature set of the looper, I could imagine a few "combined modes" for the Up/Down (and other) buttons.


    If these modes are NO option, I would prefer this configuration:
    Up Down I II II IV
    1 2 3 4 5 Tap


    But if the button modes explained above are an option, I would certainly vote for this:
    I II II IV Down Up
    1 2 3 4 5 Tap