Thinking hard about getting down to just a gig bag and leave the toaster home for recording. I think I can get all the sounds I need for my regular gigs from it. Did you get your’s direct?
Yes.
There was about £100 of VAT and duty to pay on bringing it into the UK unfortunately.
This is not my device, perhaps for new Kemper users with existing pedalboard looking for something like HX Stomp or ToneX.
Unless I can copy my rigs one-to-one on a player device, it doesn't make sense to me.
I've sold most of the stompboxes and won't start again.
In the end you end up with additional stomps and the Kemper-player, just as bulky on a pedalboard as with a Kemper-Stage,
but with additional limitations in functionality.
A nice introduction to the Kemper world, but not a real replacement or backup.
Display MoreThis is not my device, perhaps for new Kemper users with existing pedalboard looking for something like HX Stomp or ToneX.
Unless I can copy my rigs one-to-one on a player device, it doesn't make sense to me.
I've sold most of the stompboxes and won't start again.
In the end you end up with additional stomps and the Kemper-player, just as bulky on a pedalboard as with a Kemper-Stage,
but with additional limitations in functionality.
A nice introduction to the Kemper world, but not a real replacement or backup.
I totally agree. It isn’t a replacement although I is a decent backup for an emergency. But I think ypu are right that it is really a product for a totally new market that is huge but Kemper haven’t had an offering for so far
If thinking of existing KPA owners as a backup:
Missing 4 efx slots and premium efx will lose many potential customers, but it's the only game in town if you want to have KPA sounds in a small form factor.
If thinking of direct competition to stomp FX in the sub $700 market, it lacks a color LCD making it a tough sell considering the competition.
My opinion is that the market for existing KPA users gives a quicker return, but less in the future than a product aimed at new users.
The current player is lacking in both use cases IMO.
That is not to say it isn't good, only that it could have been great.
If thinking of existing KPA owners as a backup:
Missing 4 efx slots and premium efx will lose many potential customers, but it's the only game in town if you want to have KPA sounds in a small form factor.
I thought it will be great for me as a backup but it will be just to at least have some sounds if my stage or rack stop working.
Missing the slots is already a problem but for me more missing some of the effects. Most of my sounds have the studio EQ included for example. With some other effects missing I can use maybe 10% of my current rigs as they are. Some I can't use at all (with Pitch Shifter for example).
I use about 120 performances live in rotation at the moment with up to 5 rigs each so changing all of them or creating them again from scratch is too much work.
So at the moment as it is it will be just a small amp if I play with others for fun or a very basic backup.
I hope they announce the (paid) upgrade soon. Otherwise I will send it most likely back within the 30 days.
4 fx should be enough to handle a jam or a small coffeehouse-gig.
For everything else..folks...use your KPA-HEAD and the remote and the 3-4 EPs..or the STAGE...
To me, a backup is like the small spare tire for when you get a flat. Never an exact replacement.
Not as good as the regular…..but enough to get you through just fine.
To me, a backup is like the small spare tire for when you get a flat. Never an exact replacement.
Not as good as the regular…..but enough to get you through just fine.
You have already the limitations when you are using it. No display, less banks, not a good option to select the 5 rigs per bank etc.
Here you have a spare tire where you need many hours setting it up before you can put it into your car. So when you have to set it up from scratch for a backup why not do the same with a ToneX for example for a lot less.
You have already the limitations when you are using it. No display, less banks, not a good option to select the 5 rigs per bank etc.
Here you have a spare tire where you need many hours setting it up before you can put it into your car. So when you have to set it up from scratch for a backup why not do the same with a ToneX for example for a lot less.
I see no reason for hours of setup. Drop my favorite rigs in. Tweak….if even needed. Done.
Rarely do I need more than three sounds. I can’t recall ever needing five at one time.
Tonex would require a bunch of effort. I haven’t spent 5 years working with it.
As an fx and complicated rig nerd I say that the player is perfect as it is. It's not a big deal to take my HX stomp along, if I need more but still want to keep things small. Whenever 4 fx are enough for a gig, then carrying less is so much more.
I totally agree. It isn’t a replacement although I is a decent backup for an emergency. But I think ypu are right that it is really a product for a totally new market that is huge but Kemper haven’t had an offering for so far
I agree, the product it is aimed to a new type of customer standing in the pedal market, not in the FX processor market, necessarely.
Maybe it is "late" for existing Kemper users, who even provided mockups of this idea, while ago, but it is just in time for the new trend of amp stomp boxes we see in the market. The product price is in the zone of HX (now US$649), with Player offering less FX, no screen, but studio-grade unlimited amp sounds and more convenient I/Os. KP Player is positioned twice the price of the Boss IR-200 (US$350), it does not have the screen but, again, it offers unlimited amps and more FX than that box, although it is not positioned as an FX processor unit.
If we want to speculate what KP was thinking, let's look the product from that customer's point of view.
It looks like the KP Player buying persona is the premium pro/semi-pro pedalboard guy, who is used to pedals with no screen. The same pedal player that never liked FX processor units effects and is willing to pay above $349 for dedicated single FX Strymon pedals or $399 for a Universal Audio '68 Super Lead "authentic" amp pedal. Now, with the Player, for US$300 more that customer gets, not only tons of authentic '68 SLs, but unlimited authentic amps sounds, additionally it offers a true amp backup or a second amp in the floor. No brainer.
At some point the product may lower its price in the future, but we can be sure that Kemper dedicated a lot of brain power (marketing, pricing, product, R&D, finance, etc.) and time, certainly more than we do, in order to decide where to dedicate important amount of resources and how to roll out the product. We can be sure that they did the math to get the right amount of sales to continue growing the business.
From a Kemper's user perspective, it does not offer a full backup, but I have some questions:
1. If we use the Player in the Kemper's FX loop, pre/post stack, we get the second amp in the path and additional pre/post FX slots that some were asking for, right?
2. The Player has a BIG "PROFILER" name on it for a reason?. Does it have profiling capabilities?. Maybe the hardware supports it and KP did not want to overkill the competition in this segment, yet, and there's is a pretty attractive updates coming...
Now let's request the Kemper Studio rig plugin player for studio DAWs, FX included, no LCD screen needed!!! 
Can we all just sit down and acknowledge that the Player is NOT supposed to be a full substitute for a Stage or Rack/Toaster Profiler? If you need a full backup / replacement for a Toaster, Rack or Stage, essentially: get a second one! That's the option for the professional making a living from playing live - have a full spare that you can just drop in. No muss, no fuss - all done.
For everyone else: the Player is just a different beast - mainly focused at being the last element in a pedalboard chain - that's where it excels. And: it can also be used as a stripped down version of the Stage, which will help you when you can get by with a somewhat reduced feature set (no morph, fewer FX slots, fewer effect options). Ideal for going for a quick jam with a friend, a small club gig, etc, when you just want to pack a guitar bag with the Player in it (and you can rely on some FRFR wedge or a clean amp on-site). And I know a number of guitarists who could easily get by with the reduced feature set with the Player as their only piece of on-stage equipment - it all depends on the style you are in.
Personally, I wouldn't buy the Player as a fallback option for my Stage - for that, I have a far cheaper option that has decent sounds and would allow me to limp through a gig should my Stage fail mid-gig. I wouldn't have the full functionality and sonic space my Stage gives me, but I would get through a typical gig without the audience noticing too badly.
So I don't really see the Player as a "cheaper backup" option - if you want a full backup, see above; if you need a "just-in-case" backup to somehow get through a gig, get a Pod Go or a Valeton GP-200 for half the price of a Player and save yourself some money for drinks and snacks...
If we want to speculate what KP was thinking, let's look the product from that customer's point of view.
It looks like the KP Player buying persona is the premium pro/semi-pro pedalboard guy, who is used to pedals with no screen. The same pedal player that never liked FX processor units effects and is willing to pay above $349 for dedicated single FX Strymon pedals or $399 for a Universal Audio '68 Super Lead "authentic" amp pedal. Now, with the Player, for US$300 more that customer gets, not only tons of authentic '68 SLs, but unlimited authentic amps sounds, additionally it offers a true amp backup or a second amp in the floor. No brainer.
1. If we use the Player in the Kemper's FX loop, pre/post stack, we get the second amp in the path and additional pre/post FX slots that some were asking for, right?
At first, the thought of no screen bothered me. But I hardly worry about my stage screen now, especially live. I'd have a few banks of Rigs meant to go together that I'm familiar won't need tweaking and need only the visual cue that I'm in the correct bank, which the Player gives me. Any deeper editing, or if I got a new bank of Rigs I haven't used live before, I'm either going to use my old banks of rigs that day if the new one's aren't cutting it, or if I have the time I'd connect to my phone and use the app. I can't remember the last time I got on the floor and tweaked my Stage beyond setting the global output level.
1. I believe you could do something like that with the Player in the Stage's effects loop. Stereo and mono would come into play though to where you'd want the Player to be in the X slot to utilize its stereo effect slots. In this set up you could make profiles of overdrive pedals and place them in your Stage/Head/Rack's amp section with Cab bypassed. Then with the Player in its X slot, place and amp/cab profiles on the Player. You'd then have 2 additional mono effects in the Player to place after the Stage's overdrive profile, along with 2 stereo effects on the Player after its amp and cab section. Since you'd be using up the X slot on the Stage for the effects loops, you'd have a total of 5 stereo effects, 4 of which would have spillover.
Conversely you could place the Player in a mono effects loop in the A,B,C or D slots on the Stage/Head/Rack. In this case you could load the Player with profiles taken of overdrive pedals and have a total of 7 mono effect slots prior to the amp section (some before and some after the overdrive profiles depending on which slot you place the effects loop)
On the other hand, Dual amps in parallel is what many of those that want dual profiles are looking to do. This would only be possible with the Stage because of it's stereo out then stereo back in effects loop; the head and rack can only do mono out and stereo back in. But even this would require a firmware update for the Stage that allows its amp and cab section to only be applied to the left or right and for the effects loop to only be applied to left or right. Then in theory you could have parallel amps.
I would love it if Kemper offered the “Remote” without a screen for a few hundred dollars less.
Heh heh
Display MoreAt first, the thought of no screen bothered me. But I hardly worry about my stage screen now, especially live. I'd have a few banks of Rigs meant to go together that I'm familiar won't need tweaking and need only the visual cue that I'm in the correct bank, which the Player gives me. Any deeper editing, or if I got a new bank of Rigs I haven't used live before, I'm either going to use my old banks of rigs that day if the new one's aren't cutting it, or if I have the time I'd connect to my phone and use the app. I can't remember the last time I got on the floor and tweaked my Stage beyond setting the global output level.
1. I believe you could do something like that with the Player in the Stage's effects loop. Stereo and mono would come into play though to where you'd want the Player to be in the X slot to utilize its stereo effect slots. In this set up you could make profiles of overdrive pedals and place them in your Stage/Head/Rack's amp section with Cab bypassed. Then with the Player in its X slot, place and amp/cab profiles on the Player. You'd then have 2 additional mono effects in the Player to place after the Stage's overdrive profile, along with 2 stereo effects on the Player after its amp and cab section. Since you'd be using up the X slot on the Stage for the effects loops, you'd have a total of 5 stereo effects, 4 of which would have spillover.
Conversely you could place the Player in a mono effects loop in the A,B,C or D slots on the Stage/Head/Rack. In this case you could load the Player with profiles taken of overdrive pedals and have a total of 7 mono effect slots prior to the amp section (some before and some after the overdrive profiles depending on which slot you place the effects loop)
On the other hand, Dual amps in parallel is what many of those that want dual profiles are looking to do. This would only be possible with the Stage because of it's stereo out then stereo back in effects loop; the head and rack can only do mono out and stereo back in. But even this would require a firmware update for the Stage that allows its amp and cab section to only be applied to the left or right and for the effects loop to only be applied to left or right. Then in theory you could have parallel amps.
I would think that the best option for people who really want Dual Amps would be to put the Player in Stomp B on the main KPA and enable Parallel Path. This would give a Mono player signal alongside a Stereo signal. In fact it may be possible to set the Player to Stack and the main KPA to Dly/Rev as the output source for a Wet/Dry/Wet signal from a single device. I haven’t tried it myself as I mainly run mono and don’t care about dual amps but it might be worth experimenting with for those that dig that sort of stuff.
4 fx should be enough to handle a jam or a small coffeehouse-gig.
For everything else..folks...use your KPA-HEAD and the remote and the 3-4 EPs..or the STAGE...
I regularly play considerably larger gigs than that with sounds that only have a subtle delay and a bit of reverb.
Bigger gigs doesn‘t mean you need bigger fx chains - at all 
I regularly play considerably larger gigs than that with sounds that only have a subtle delay and a bit of reverb.
Bigger gigs doesn‘t mean you need bigger fx chains - at all
+1. I played at the Montreaux Jazz Festival (3 gigs in 3 day) with 3 rigs (comp, drive, chorus, delay). I could have do it with the Player as well
I regularly play considerably larger gigs than that with sounds that only have a subtle delay and a bit of reverb.
Bigger gigs doesn‘t mean you need bigger fx chains - at all
Exactly. I rarely use a fraction of my Power Head’s capabilities because a great sounding mono amp is all I need for 90% of my playing.
If I had a Stage or unpowered classic Profiler along with a powered Kabinet instead of my Powered Head and Passive Kabinet, I could easily see the Player virtually replacing my Head for live work.
I got my Player a day before x-mas and here's my 2ct: I was a long time user of a Kemper powered Toaster, that I used to profile my Marshall DSL when I got it and lived happily ever after... until the Quad Cortex came along. Gigging quite a lot, carrying my own stuff, form factor and weight are extremely important to me, and so I switched to the Cortex, even though in my taste the Kemper profiles sounded just a smidge better than what I got out of the Cortex.
Enter Kemper Player. The chance for me to get my beloved profiles back (including my own Marshall DSL) and downsizing on weight and size yet again, so I ordered it the minute I heard about it. The last 3 days I spent more or less solidly playing, which speaks for itself. Only a few of my old rigs used more than 4 effects, so that isn't too hard a limitation for me.
However, the fact that -so far- Kemper have rigourously limited the available effect algorithms in the Player is really inflicting pain: In the 'pitch' effect group there is merely *one* effect, which is an octaver. No whammy, no simple harmonizer, let alone one that is diatonic. And that currently kills my idea of switching fully back to Kemper 
I asked the support guys from Kemper if we can expect additions to the effect algorithms in future; the guy stated that that is yet in discussion in the company...
We'll see, but I'll keep the unit definetely, maybe for the time being adding an HX one to make up for missing effects....
who recalls the first releases of the original Kemper?
much functionality not included, limitations, knobs/buttons that were useless but destined for future use. Still the unit sold and those who had faith in were rewarded with the future upgrades.
Kemper have now made a product to compete with other compact units. the primary mission being the amp/cab/profile/whatever-you-call-it sound that is the main reason for owning a Kemper. They could have taken longer and developed it further before releasing it but instead have got their foot in the door.
If their past track record is anything to go by, the KPLR may well end up with the same functionality (albeit limited control interface) of the main units.
They never tell us whats really coming anyhow. Lets watch this space.....
