Posts by Armin

  • Who here plays a Tele?

    Yes, the KPA goes well with the tele - especially crunchy tones.


    I own 3 Tele style guitars:


    [Blocked Image: http://www.soundside.de/studio/images/2007GuitarsSchecterTele.jpg]
    Schecter Custom Shop Tele (my first tele) ever


    [Blocked Image: http://www.soundside.de/studio/images/2008GuitarsClassicTele.jpg]
    Fender Classic Telecaster (a gift from my wife)


    [Blocked Image: http://www.soundside.de/studio/images/2010Guitars72Tele.jpg]
    Fender '72 Telecaster (a very nice old one)

  • Delete does not work sometimes

    When I browse my rigs and press 'Delete' to get rid of unwanted rigs - it sometimes works - just deleted the rig and I can continue to browse.


    Sometimes it seams not to delete anything, or jumps out of the browse-mode or hangs totally (either I have to press 'exit' several times or to reboot the KPA).


    It seams to work best in case I press delete - wait - press ok . wait.
    In case I press anything while the KPA is still deleting - then it leads to problems more often - but it does the same as explained above even when I wait (but not this often).


    I use the latest beta version and have about 420 rigs in my KPA.

  • Profiling a 57 Deluxe

    I used tone at 8 and instrument 1 (only) for all this profiles.


    As for the mic's I use a SM57, some MXL's, my secret weapon (ADK Hamburg) and even a neutral measurement mic - experimented with the right angle, position and mix until I found a spot were the profiles are extremely close to the sound of the amp in my room.


    I use large Adam S4XV speakers (with 12" woofers) this helps a lot to get the 'amp tone' via the speakers.


    The audio example on my homepage were done with my Fender Tele (neck pu).


    When I first heard this combination - KPA with the Deluxe profile and my Fender Tele - I made my mind to keep the KPA.
    I was not able to capture this sound with the AxeFx Ultra or II and not with the VB101 this close.


    After our last rehearsal the other guitar player (from my blues band) listened and could not believe that it was via a digital box ;)

  • KPA vs AxeFx II

    I got a big bunch of profiles - I believe they were created during the beta phase - and I don't like most of them.
    Did not download the recent ones because I wanted to avoid the 'Hex editor bug' - but then even without it - my KPA was toast anyway ;)


    I think with the profiles it's the same as with the speaker IR's - yes, there are some nice ones available for free - but the cool stuff you get here:
    http://www.redwirez.com/
    http://www.ownhammer.com/


    So I expect high quality profiles to be for sale in different places soon - and I'm currently profiling some of my tube amp collection as well ;)

  • Profiling a 57 Deluxe

    Wowa thats loud - the Deluxe has no master volume.
    I am looking NOT forward to profile a 100Watt none master-volume Marshall ;)


    In case you like to profile an amp as the Deluxe here is my tipp 'make a lot of profiles'.


    The Deluxe is quite below Volume level 2 (no sound at all).
    Then the volume increases until about 4 after that only the compression and distortion increased (ok, the level maybe a little bit).


    If you compare a profile made at volume level 2 (and then added gain with the KPA's gain knob) to a profile made at volume 3 - you'll find that it sound TOTALLY different.


    The deluxe changes not only the level or gain but the complete amp sounds different at different volume settings.


    That's why I created some profiles at all this volume levels:
    Volume 2
    Volume 2.1
    Volume 2.2
    Volume 2.3
    Volume 2.5
    Volume 3
    Volume 4
    Volume 6
    Volume 8
    Volume 10
    Volume 11
    Volume 12


    Yes it's strange but at the end - yes this amp goes to 12! - do we get a big change so that an additional Volume 11 profile makes sense.

  • KPA is toast (not more)

    Here is how it should have been implemented:


    1) First thing during the startup before loading the profiles -> check (a variable stored in flash) LastStartUpSuccessful==true
    If yes -> continue
    if not -> ask the user (continue, delete current rig, delete all rigs)
    2) Second thing during the startup before loading the profiles -> set LastStartUpSuccessful=false
    3) Load all the profiles
    4) After all profiles are loaded -> set LastStartUpSuccessful=true


    You could do similar things to detect a crash during the normal run and then ask the user the same or to reinstall a new firmware.

  • KPA is toast (not more)

    Yes, I've used all available modelers - and I could tell which one is the best modeler...


    But for me is the Kemper not a modeler - it's an amp - it sounds killer - much better than all the other stuff.


    I'm sure they fix the bugs soon.

  • KPA is toast (not more)

    Yes, I figured it out myself - it was not very complicated - wasted just 4 hours of my live ;)


    This KPA would need professional beta testing - but they seam not to want it.


    I wrote to support yesterday but no answer (beside an automatic one) until now.

  • KPA is toast (not more)

    Yes, but it's not this easy - you could kill the KPA in case you don't know what you do - but in my case - it was unusable already ;)



    I played with a lot of different key combinations - there is a 'Maintenance Mode' hidden in the KPA - but it seams not to work with the latest beta anymore ...


    But I found a way to load an old firmware version - with the Maintenance mode included.


    Update:
    I created a small website with some of my findings:
    http://www.soundside.de/support/KPARecovery.htm




    Here is what helped with the old firmware:
    01.) Switch off the KPA
    02.) Put old Firmware (6911) in root (!) directory of USB stick
    03.) Hold (both) < Page > and turn KPA on to tuner
    04.) Booting and burning from USB device - KPA starts several times - wait
    05.) The same error message appears since there is junk in the profiles/rig storage
    06.) Switch KPA off
    07.) Hold the left/top soft-key above the LCD - turn KPA on to tuner
    08.) Maintenance Module will be started
    09.) In the 'Test' menu a lot can be tested (buttons, knobs, led, memory, ...)
    10.) In the 'Maintenance' menu there is 'Memory' and 'Rig' available - I use Memory FormatFlash and InitFlash
    11.) Normal restart (without the USB stick)
    12.) It started normal - tuner works fine - but NO rigs in the KPA - all empty
    13.) Put my USB Stick inside - loaded my old backup and ... all the same errors - so for whatever reason the backup is corrupted
    14.) Did all again but not reloading my backup (Skip step 13)
    15.) Imported all my single rigs (it's a good idea to export all rigs from time to time - in addition to backup)
    16.) It takes some time ....
    17.) KPA reports 'successfully imported 424 files')
    18.) press ok - KPA reboots
    19.) Everything works fine - stock and my own profiles/rigs
    20.) I lost my input settings (for all my guitars) and the system settings (like KPA Name...) but that's ok


    Again - read all here carefully and don't complain in case it does not work - do not play with any of these settings 'just for fun' in case your KPA works fine.

  • KPA is toast (not more)

    Works again - I found a hidden key combination to activate a maintenance mode - unfortunately this mode was not working in the latest firmware.
    But then I found another key combination to load a firmware file from USB stick (during bootup).
    So I loaded an older firmware and was able to format and init the flash (where the corrupted profiles, rigs or whatever were stored).
    After some more time...
    Everything works again - beside some lost system settings - but thats ok.


    In case I install my old backup it crashed again - so I did it all again - and then restored my profiles/rigs from my exports.


    IT'S VERY importaint to make exports of all rigs - since the backup/restore seams to cause a lot of problems in the latest firmware.
    The same is true for the 'restore factory rigs' - it simply does not work - and I even think this may be the root of the problem.