Posts by Hedge

just played out last night for the first time with the kemper running into real cabinets. i did a quickie 45 minute set a couple of years ago straight to FOH and hated it.

i'm a feel junkie, it's gotta be accurate for me to be comfortable. i gave the ISP stealth a try, but i felt like there wasn't enough juice on its own for me. i also do not think i like the totally transparent power thing. i ended up with 2 quilter tone block 200s running into EVM 12Ls. sounded good. i had 3 hours and 30+ songs to tweak, and here's what i discovered...

first of all, i used a gordius little giant to control from my feet, with one exp pedal hooked up to volume. at first i decided to set up performance mode and assign individual performances to each song, with effects loaded in place for each spot pertaining to the song, yadda yadda. took a bunch of time, and it's just not how i play! i'm used to having one pedalboard with the stuff i need on it, and then grabbing what i need for when i need it. i like to experiment even live, so i tend not to do the same thing twice. before the gig even started perf mode was out. when 3.0 came out, i profiled 3 of my favorite amps and went to the gig.

the quilters are loud. i play with another guitarist and an 80s infested drummer with 9000 drums. i did not mic myself. the quilters did well for me - the transparent thing didnt seem to give me the 'oomph' factor i'm used to feeling when playing a tube amp. also, i can run the quilters full out and have them be silent enough to just use the master volume on the kemper to keep things dialed in. i like simplicity, especially with all these lights. there was a top end thing going on at first for me, but it was quickly relieved by some tweaking at the tone block's contour setting.

speaking of which, the contour knobs on the tone block have a 'middle of the road' bit of the dial that is supposed to be closer to transparent. i have not AB'd them against one of my flat response power amps, but i will very soon.

i was VERY apprehensive to play out all night with no real amp. it turned out much better than i had anticipated. the last time i tried the modeler + power amp + cab thing was maybe 4 years ago, with an axe ultra -> mesa 50/50 -> v30s. sounded great at home - did not cut live. ironically enough, having a solid state amp this time was definitely better in the 'feel' department, though i did have to move my second cab around to hear myself after a bit (the crowd thought levels were fine, so i didnt want to mess with that!).

the real trick is getting the gain to power ratio right. all of these modelers are doing a great job perfectly replicating (profiling?) amps in the studio. now we have this direct profiling stuff, and we know its very very close to how the amps react to begin with - so why does it tend to turn to shit live? i think it's because we're used to our amps pushing a certain amount of air depending on how angry we need them to sound. i'm learning you need tons of headroom out of solid state preamps to achieve this - and that i need to figure out how to utilize every bit of this headroom to make it really work!

other comments: the EVM12Ls are not really my favorite speakers in the world. yes, they are fantastic, but they are a little dated sounded in the midrange department for me. i only used them because i have 2 1x12 cabs, and the wattage capacities made me feel safe about my first gig with 2 200 watt solid state things that i have no experience with! will try a seventy/eighy and v90s next. cheers.

looks as expected. any other details? weight? availability?

2 or 3 space would be just fine with me honestly. maybe you should make a few plates for us to upgrade with

i have heard the KPA is a bit rough to disassemble - what are your thoughts on that statement?

i think this is important as well. there's really no reason why CC's should be fixed from a unit.

so far i've tried a few....

roland fc-200 - old school but still fantastic. built like a tank. perfect for switching presets, and the expression pedal is already assigned for use as a volume pedal. there is also a 'stompbox' mode but i'm not sure if you can change the actual CC #'s on the fb to make them coincide with the kpa. i haven't used it thoroughly enough.

ground control pro - might be a great option for you. allows you to run instant access stombox switches on the top half of the unit while still being able to switch patches via the bottom row. fully programmable for CC's.

FCB/Uno combination - i'm still learning about this, and i'm starting to think this is the overall best way. yes, you'll have to pull the thing apart, but for the money you'll get some great flexibility.

gordius little giant 2 - what i'm using now. very small and insanely powerful. this unit will do whatever you can dream up. however, if you're not interested in programming the thing i'd advise against it. i'm a tweaker myself and it still took me a couple of hours to get the thing up and running the way i wanted to.

if you're looking for as close to plug and play as possible i'd say do the GCP or the FCB/Uno setup.

just sat down with my kemper again. indeed ck is correct - the tap tempo and tempo information works, but the BPM display does not change numbers to coincide with the change. i can live with that for now!

thanks CK, timo, and everyone else that contributed. onto the next question!

no it is set to a specific channel as i am looking to use multiple devices. however, all my other device (that are on their respective channels) are receiving tempo information just fine.

thanks, gave that a go and no good. it just displays current tempo and does not change. tempo lock is also off.

i have a setlist program on my ipad that sends midi messages. i am currently using the app to send program changes to the KPA, which works perfectly. however, the app also sends tempo information but the KPA does not seem to register this. i have tried sending this information to another MIDI effects unit and it works just fine, so i know it's not the app.

is this not supported yet, or am i missing something?

nice to hear about a sneak peak feature on the controller

i've actually been using the wah booster and the wah combined with the stomp invert to get the job done. works just great, but while we're on the subject i'd LOVE more stomp invert options - like maybe invert only A&B, or B&C, or any other combination. i have to leave my MOD and X stomps blank so they dont invert with my wah/vol setup, but for now that's fine as i don't use mod or x too often.

thanks again for the help, ck!

i don't see how that could happen, but i'm interested in hearing somebody with more knowledge than me's opinions on this.

i'm also a boogie poweramp fan. i use a fifty/fifty for live gigs. for practice and little things, the EHX magnum 44 all the way.

i was actually playing with the wah pedal booster earlier this evening. it works just lovely for saving me an expression pedal on my board, but it doesnt look like i'll be able to have both the pedal booster and a wah stomp in the same preset to switch between. am i right to think this wont work?

i am sorry. i am not so great with words, and i tend to ramble! i will try again

the real issue i'm having is if you have an expression pedal plugged into the KPA, push it down to the 'toe' position (127 value) and then unplug the pedal, the KPA defaults back to a 0 value.

the not as simple explanation:

the SP-2 expression pedal has 2 separate outputs. it basically functions
as 2 expression pedals in one unit. using a stomp switch at the toe you
can switch back and forth between the pedal's 2 outputs. this in turn connects one output to a potentiometer while disconnecting the other.

my original
plan was to use this one pedal for both volume and wah, but not at the
same time. hookup is easy - one output to pedal 1, and the other to
pedal 2 on the KPA. in the system/pedals menu on the KPA i can confirm
that the pedal controls both pedal inputs and values with no problem.
the issue is when i switch outputs from the pedal. the switch is located
in the normal toe position that you would expect, so naturally when i
go to stomp on the switch my control value for that given channel will
be 127 (toe position). as soon as i switch channels, however, that
control value drops to zero.

in other words, if i'm using my volume pedal and i goto switch to a wah
setting, the volume drops to zero, and if i'm using my wah and switch to
volume, my wah sound drops to the 'heel' position. ANY expression pedal
i use functions the same with the KPA if i simply unp

if i accept this for what it is, that means i can only use my volume for
a nominal to boost function, and i can only use the wah with the
'bypass @ heel' option. both of these things are the exact opposite of what i need. i was hoping to use the volume pedal for all the way off @ 0 and normal unboosted level @ 127. the wah i'd like to bypass at the toe, for tone reasons.

in my experimenting, i have found that some MIDI controllable devices (ground control pro, KPA) exhibit this behavior (CV = 0 @ switch off/disconnect) while others (axe fx, g major 2) do
the opposite and jump to 127.

this is certainly not a flaw, just an observation about the KPA. would
it be possible to implement some sort of feature that would invert the CV's of pedals in their off or unplugged state?

mr kemper, first off, thanks for a wonderful product!

unfortunately the bypass @ toe doesn't work with my configuration. my mission pedal defaults to the heel position (CCV = 0) when switched off. bypassing at heel or stop would work, but isnt' how i'd like to use the system, and would also still not help with my volume switching capabilities.

since i have the master of the KPA in my thread, can you explain why some midi controllable units like the kpa or axe fx default control values to 0 while others default to 127 when you unplug/unswitch expression pedals?

a little update...

just took my sp-1 and rewired it to make an extra sp-2, strictly for experimenting. no matter what i did i could not get the unswitched channel to default to 127 - even if i reversed polarity. i could get the pedal to sweep backwards, but not invert its 'off' state.

after trying a few combinations, i decided to move onto a different MIDI unit. the KPA and the ground control pro exhibit the same behaviour - 0 value when bypassed. however, my g major 2 processor defaults to 127 when bypassed! from what i have also read it seems the axe fx's do the same as the g major - which is ideally what i'm looking for. any MIDI gurus want to elaborate on why different units will behave differently, and is there a way to rewire these expression pedals so they play nicely the way i want them to???

Quote from DigitalTube

...i use the Mission SP-2 with the MFC/Axe, and when I switch from Volume to Wah obviously because i have to press all the way on the pedal to switch it, when it switches into wah it keeps the volume of the Axe all the way up, is that what you're trying to do? To me that's what makes more sense and what I wanted to do to accomplish both volume and wha with just one pedal...

this is exactly what i want to do. i can make my wah bypass automatically by bypassing at the heel position, but i prefer my wahs to bypass at the toe - i dont like that overly insane super high frequency sound of a wide open wah. as for the volume, the sp2 defaulting to 0 makes my volume settings completely useless. is it possible i can just rewire the pedal for reverse polarity, or will that also make the pedal sweep inverted as well?

just found a brand new mission dealer in my area. ran down to them and picked up an sp-1 and sp-2 for use with the kpa.

the plan was to use the sp-2 as a wah/volume pedal, and the sp-1 as a wah with the switch to act as a boost. i will not be running both pedals simultaneously.

i have 2 different issues, one for each pedal.

issue 1:

on the sp-1 the wah works exactly as it should. no issues. however, when using the switch i find that i have to click the switch more than once to have it cycle my boost on and off. if i click it once, the boost will come on, then the next click will do nothing, then the next click will turn it off. in other words, every other switch click seems to work. my guess is this is a kemper issue - anyone else having this issue?

issue 2:

on the sp-2 the wah and volume both work perfectly while they are enabled. switching is perfect as well. however, when switching channels the unused channel control value drops to 0. this is fine if i set my wah to bypass at the heel (which i dont want to do anyway), but this is no good for volume - if i goto use my wah the volume drops to nothing! not sure if this is KPA related or not.

i am using both pedals through my ground control pro, but i get the same reaction by skipping that and just running the pedals straight into the kpa.

anyone with these pedals have similar or different stories?

i had this problem, too. still not sure if it is my error or not. i can't remember if i'm switching midi presets between or not. if i make a change, i've been hitting the 'quick' button first to make sure my midi assignments are right, then i hit store and i've had no problems since then.

i've also noticed a little number in the corner of the title screen that coincides with the assignment number - maybe that has something to do with it?