Hello from Cincinnati Ohio. I am brand new to this forum. I would like to thank all of the members here for providing extremely valuable information. This is long but I hope you find it usefull.
First off some info on me. I have been playing guitar for 47 years. I have earned my living by giging in the past. I have been a part owner of a recording studio as the sound engineer. I have a recording studio in my home. I have traveled with a band as their sound man. I am considered an A-1 audio technician in my current job with an audio visual company. I am not an amp man & never have been an amp man. I have been on a life long journey in my quest for the ultimate guitar tone. I have owned most of the Line 6 processing gear. Carl Martin analog gear. TC Electronics/Helicon gear. Boss gear. Boutique pedals. I currently have 13 guitars in my collection. Most played are the Parker DF 824, American Delux Strat w/Soft V neck, Thinline Tele, & Godin LGX-SA. Bottom line is I know good guitar tone.
AxeFX2 - Had for a year & sold prior to purchasing the Kemper. The Axe2 stood alone at the top of my quest for tone. I was able to get some awesome tone at of that box. The rub for me with the Axe2 was that it took tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, & did I mention tweaking (you get the point) to get the tone I was searching for. Just about when I was all tweaked up, along came another firmware upgrade that wasn't supposed to change your sound much. For me it always did change the sound. I found myself tweaking again just to get back to a point that was close to the before update statis. The tweaking was overtaking my actual playing of the guitar / rehearsing. I am in a Contempory Christian Worship band. By the time I had tweaked to my satisfaction I had little time left to actually play & practice. I also found the Axe2 somewhat inconsistant in the sound that it put out. Sometimes it was shrill (ice picky) while other times it sounded great. That lead me to sell the Axe2 & all the associated gear. No regrets there.
Kemper Profiling Amp - Shortly after the sale of the Axe2 I bought the new Boss GT-100. Nice box but no where near the Axe2. I had been researching the KPA & pulled the trigger on a black one from Sweetwater. Straight out of the box I was amazed at the tone I was able to get with minimal if any tweaking needed. IMHO it sounded much better than any of my strenuously tweaked Axe2 patches. I deliberately waited for 2 months before making this post, because you know how we get about our new gear. It's what I call the Honeymoon period. When it is the most awesome gear aquistion made to date. I can honestly say that I don't believe that the honeymoon period will ever stop for this KPA. Everytime I plug in it just floors me how great the tone is & how very little that I need to do to acheive that tone. I am running 1.1.1 with only the stock rigs plus I purchased and44's first complete bundle. The stock rigs are fabulous. And44's rigs are flat out stellar! The KPA just nails that guitar tone that I have spent a lifetime chasing & 1000's of dollars trying to find. It is second to none when it comes to tone, pick response, palm muting, sustain, & how it cleans up with the guitar volume knob is amazing. On top of that the KPA is only going to get better with upgraded firmware releases that don't mess with my slightly tweaked tone. Hats off to Christoff & the entire Kemper team.
My onstage rig consists of: KPA setting on top of a Rolland SA-300 mini PA. The SA-300 is the perfect FRFR system because it has (2) Rolland Coaxial Speakers in the powered head & sets on top of an enclosed subwoofer. It keeps up with bass rig, an acoustic drum kit & the other electric guitar rig which is a Mesa Boogie Quad Pre-amp into a Mesa Boogie 50/50 power amp into a 412 cab with (2) EV12m's loaded. Imagine that, the Rolland mini PA is hanging in there with just fabulous tone and those volume monsters right next to me. I take two 1/4" stereo main outs from the KPA to the Rolland & 1 XLR left main out from the KPA to the front of house. I am using the Boss GT-100 as my midi controller to change rigs & turn on / off stomps. This works great because the GT-100 has a built in expression pedal that I use for volume control. It also is right there to backup the KPA in case for some reason it fails to boot up. I also have a JBL 15" Eon that the church supplies that I run my own band mix into through an Aviom system. The comments about my rig at church have been glowing. The sound man says it is some of the best guitar tones that he's heard & he doesn't have to touch anything. The other electric guitarist is a tone monster with his Boogie Rig. His rig does sound awesome. He told me this past week end that my tone was the best he has ever heard from me. This coming from a true tube amp lover. Another band member (tube amp guy) actually makes guitar amp cabinets for the big names like DrZ & Diezel emailed me this week to tell me that my tone was just perfect. I played the thinline tele this past week end & will play the American Delux Strat next week end.
I have giged now three times with the Kemper. The 1st night of the 1st gig did not go well at all. I bought a Fender Super Champ X2 with matching cabinet (upon recommendation of the amp guys in the band). On Saturday night it sounded terrible. I took it home & burned up the Kemper website to see where I went wrong. The Fender amp did not have a return to bypass the pre-amp. Kemper recommends using a power amp only (mosfet / digital) & then into a cab. That is why the Fender sounded so bad. On Suday I took in the Rolland SA-300 & was in tone heaven. I traded the Fender amp/cab for the Tele Thinline (great trade)
A few days before the 2nd gig, the KPA would not boot up. I tried all of the steps outlined in this forum & the only thing that worked was wiping it clean by turning on while holding the left soft button above screen. This worked but I lost all of my slightly tweaked patches because I had not done a backup yet. (Lesson learned Backup Backup Backup) Before loading any patches I looked at the rig files on my desktop only to discover a Norton 360 text file mixed in with my rig files. I have no idea how that got there. I believe that was what caused my problem. I only loaded the factory rigs & the and44 bonus pack. 2nd gig went great. I used my Parker DF 824 with the Rolland SA-300 & GT-100. Everyone said that was my best tone ever.
A few days before the 3rd gig, I updated the firmware from 1.1.0 to 1.1.1. Eveything loaded fine but on about the 3rd boot up after the update it would not boot up. Just the blank screen saying Kemper or something like that. I tried turning it off & then back on. Same thing, it would not boot up. I noticed that I had the Boss GT-100 turned on with a midi cable running to the back of the Kemper. So I turned off the GT-100 & tried booting up the Kemper & that did the trick. Maybe I discovered the boot up sequence that should be followed. My sequence is boot up the Kemper first, then the Boss GT-100, & then the Rolland SA-300. I have not had any further problems since using this sequence. It has now been on and off many many times without any problems. I reverse the order for shutdown. Rolland off first, Boss off second, & Kemper off last. The 3rd gig I used the Tele Thinline & the tone was amazing.
I tweak (very little needed) using Beyer Dynamic DT-770 pro headphones plugged into the the Rolland SA-300 headphone out. I have found that these headphones provide an awesome method to get you about 98% to what you will need live. I finish tweaking if needed through the Rolland SA-300. I also have some Adam A7x nearfield studio monitors but have found better results with the Beyer DT-770's & Rolland SA-300.
Only one slight problem now. There are soo many awesome rigs to choose from that I can loose track of time while jamming & trying to land on a favorite.
In closing, I could not be more pleased with my Kemper purchase. I really believe that my quest for tone is over.
welcome!
