Hi, a few of you know me from The Gear Page. I've mostly been lurking and reading for the past few weeks. Now that I have a KPA and am digging into it I figured I should introduce myself. I'm sort of a "Roger Gilmour" for the Pink Floyd tribute band Us Not Them (recent unreleased video here) and will be working up a bunch of Gilmour patches which I'll be happy to share when they're ready. Looking forward to participating in the community here and seeing where Christoph takes this platform! I also sell American-made guitars of my own design under the name B-Way Guitars.
I was a boutique gear hound for almost a decade (Bruno, Dr. Z, Skreddy, D*A*M, Hartman, Voodoo Lab, Retro-Sonic, Barber, etc.) before I demoed a DigiTech RP355 in a local store. I was impressed with how easy the RP355 was to dial in, how useful it was for low volume and headphone practice, how compact it was and how much closer I could get to my ideal tones than with the thousands of dollars of gear I had at the time. So I quickly ditched my entire rig and became a happy DigiTech RP355 user for a few years. The sounds weren't perfect, there was some digital hash on distorted tones, but it was still a great unit that handled my recording and gigging needs well.
I'd of course heard lots of great demos of the higher-end modelers, but until the KPA came out I resisted the temptation to upgrade either because of the limited tones available (11R), the intimidating deep dive parameters and user interface (AxeFX), or the bulky form factor. But then I heard David Torn's incredible KPA improvisations, and The Amp Factory came out with its Hiwatt DR103 profiles, and a used KPA came up for sale for a price I couldn't refuse, and here we are!
My control needs are for sure at the bottom end of the spectrum, so I'm grateful for the 2 SWITCH/PEDAL jacks in the back. I plan to use a 2-button footswitch made by This1smyne to do patch up/down navigation and a Yamaha FC7 expression pedal for volume/wah, placing the KPA up on a stand (which one TBD) so that I can see the patch names and tuner. The rest of my rig will consist of a Roland GR-20 guitar synth and a TC Electronic VoiceLive Play for my vocal FX.