Posts by lonestargtr

Rig Update... I uploaded the new firmware and I've been playing around with all of the new pitch fx (new to me, since my version was older). I ended up figuring out how to get everything I had been getting out of my Line 6 M5 out of the Kemper, so now it's just my Kemper with nothing in the loop. I've got two new smart harmony solo patches, a whammy patch and a really cool fx pad that takes the place of my Octo Verb on the M5. Here's a sample of the freaky organ thing I created:

https://soundcloud.com/lonestargtr/kemper-tell-her-intro-pad

I just love all of the new Pitch fx options. I created a cool patch using the chromatic pitch stomp with a +12 and a +24 voice with the mix really high and the ducking pretty high too. When I play soft it sounds like an organ or strings but when I dig in it sounds like my guitar until it decays and then turns into the organ sound again. You can hear what I did here:

https://soundcloud.com/lonestargtr/kemper-tell-her-intro-pad

Yay! I dug my pedalboard out of the trailer and tried the workaround out today and it worked great! Thanks guys for the help! I set my min vol at 4.9 and locked the volume pedal. I did have a couple of rigs where there was some audio bleeding through but all I had to do to fix that was to change the position of the pedal from "pre stomps" to "post effects". Thanks again for the help!

Thanks for the input. I have my kemper at home but my pedalboard with expression pedal is in our band trailer so I won't be able to check until Friday. Thanks for checking and for the help.

While I do see how some people can really use the default to Tuner Mode at minimum volume, I really don't use that feature and it makes it harder to check out my rig and check the patches between songs when my volume pedal is down. I run a separate tuner onstage from my wireless tuner out and I'm too far away from the KPA to tune with it anyway, but it's kind of a bummer that I can't have my volume pedal down and run over to my KPA and adjust something really quickly without worrying about hum and signal going into my monitor amp and cab when I get close to it. It'd be awesome if it was an option in the system menu.

thanks,
Mike

I just upgraded to the newest version and it's doing the whole Tuner Mode at minimum volume level, which may be useful for some people, but it's really something I wish I could disable. My volume pedal stays down most of the time before our show and it's kind of a pain for my tech to leave it up to check the display and make sure it's all working right, etc. Plus, my Kemper lives 15-20 feet away from my pedalboard so the tuner doesn't really do a lot of good. Is there a setting that would disable this feature or am I stuck with it?

thanks
Mike

IMO, there's a slight lag when changing profiles, but it's nothing I can't live with. I just have to anticipate the change by a fraction of a beat. The spillover does help. When compared with hitting two stomp boxes when going to a solo (i.e. gain pedal or amp channel switch and delay patch change) it's really a miniscule difference because I would have to anticipate slightly when hitting those pedals to be ready for the solo anyway.

I'm using a Ground Control Pro because I'm partial to an alphanumeric readout for presets as opposed to just numbers and I find the GCP to be very roadworthy. I also have a Line 6 M5 connected to midi in the loop of the Kemper and I have a Mission expression pedal connected to the GCP so I can control either the Kemper or the M5 with the expression pedal depending on the patch. Most of the time, the exp pedal is just a volume pedal for the Kemper. I also have a preset where it controls a wah patch on the Kemper and another preset where it controls the pitch glide (whammy) effect on the M5. The GCP lets me tailor the expression pedal to my needs without having to have multiple exp pedals. I use the 2nd exp pedal input on the GCP for a tap tempo switch for the Kemper, but it could also just as easily send tap tempo to the M5. It's quite the rig and pretty simple to set up.

As far as volume consistency, that might very well be my favorite thing about the Kemper. Its volume leveling is just fantastic. I had a Line 6 HD500 for a bit and it freakin drove me bananas because the preset volumes were all over the place. I had to jump through hoops to even audition sounds without them blowing my headphones out. The Kemper keeps everything very uniform but also leaves you with the ability to change volume levels if you need to.

[Blocked Image: http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/lonegtr/null_zps5d35e3c1.jpg]

So, quite a few more gigs in the bag and still loving the Kemper. I tried something a little different this weekend. I used a 5150III as my stage monitor amp. It seemed like a waste to just use my 3P for just its power amp section, plus the 5150III is louder (not that I really need it with IEM's). I think the biggest reason is that in case of a Kemper crash (hasn't happened yet), the 5150 will be a quicker plug-in transition. The 3P requires a bit more cable connections with the addition of an fx loop buffer and two channel inputs. Plus, I wanted to bring my 3P home to play it there and the 5150 is def not a small room amp.

I check with our foh engineer every night and he is still completely happy with the Kemper tones I'm sending him. I just step through our set list on my ground control pro pedal and I'm seldom if ever tempted to go over and tweak anything. And if I do, it's usually because I'm using a different guitar that may need an extremely minor eq adjustment in the amp tone stack. I looked over to my rig last night and thought, "I'm running entirely digital". I never would've thought that. I mean, I've done it before because I'm not afraid to try new technology, but I always went back to tube amps and pedals. At this point, I'm not really sure what I'm looking to get that I'm not getting and that is both an unsettling and satisfying revelation. I have spent years and thousands of dollars chasing tone and thought I had it caught a few times. I'm sure there will be changes again in the future, but it is really nice getting the tones I want to hear with the tweakability and consistency that I have them now and be able to use them on bus gigs and fly gigs. When I've heard tv tapes and youtube clips back of our recent shows, I think, "no one would ever in a million years NOT think that was a tube amp."

I honestly think the folks at Kemper have developed a true game-changer. Thank you Kemper.

Quote from troykennedy

Hey Michael, I was just at Jamie's on Monday and heard the Dreamweaver in person.
Holy cow......I need one!
Great demo, btw.

Troy,
Thanks. It is my favorite amp ever. Did Jamie put the orange glow boost on a footswitch yet? I need to get over there and see the latest incarnation.

IEM's are great, but I'm used to moving air when I play, so I use a monitor amp onstage. I run the monitor out of the Kemper into the pwr amp in/fx return of my 3P amp for onstage volume to augment my ear monitor sound. The great thing is that the monitor output volume is independent of the foh and IEM volume, so I can dial it in til it feels right and it feels like having my normal amp sound onstage but with the added clarity of the IEM's. And while I would not recommend it to most people, I have been using just my left ear monitor and leaving my right ear open to hear the "room" and my stage amp for years, so I don't feel that "closed off in a closet" sound. The only thing you have to watch out for is blasting your IEM (and your left eardrum) to keep up with stage volume. I set the volume on my IEM pack with both ears in and then back it down just a tad when I take the right mold out. I am actually able to run it quieter because of the isolation and seal of the IEM. On terribly small stages where you can't run from drums and cymbals you just have to fight the urge to turn up sometimes.

It took a little time for me to tweak my Kemper rigs before using them in a live situation as well. I tweaked and listened to my amp rigs using studio monitors, studio headphones, custom ear molds, fx loop input on combo amp, powered Mackie p.a. speaker, and even rented a rehearsal room for 2 hours to listen through a p.a. Granted, this is probably more than most people have access to on a regular basis.

What I found was that the rigs always sounded slightly different and I wanted to tweak them accordingly. I decided to start eliminating some of the variables by using fewer amp rigs, limiting myself to about 10 that I liked the best. Then if the tones were similar, i.e. medium gain or high gain, I would find the cabinet profile I liked the best and the same cabinet profile for different rigs when I could. When the entire rig changes, sometimes there are eq curve differences and it takes about 15-20 seconds for your ears to adjust and in the meantime, it sounds "weird".

When I play live, we use in-ear monitors, so it's a pretty flat, even response except for the midrange bump in the resonant frequencies of the molds themselves. So between the ear monitor signal I get and tweaking to a powered p.a. speaker at home and limiting my work to as few amp rigs that I need to get by, I was able to get some great basic sounds. I eventually got an Atomic Reactor FRFR tube powered wedge and I've been using that to tweak sounds at home and for stage monitoring at smaller gigs where I don't have ear monitors. The problem with being dependent on floor wedges in most monitor systems is that the eq's are carved up heavily to keep vocal mics from feeding back, which murders from the Kemper.

If you can work diligently through the initial tweaking process and get a decent FRFR powered speaker, you can dial up some pretty amazing tones that are consistent from night to night and get even better as time goes by as you fine tune in the live environment.

Quote from troykennedy

Hey Michael,
Have you ever tried the Kemper into the effects return of the Dreamweaver?

When we're doing full band dates with our own gear, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm using the Dream Weaver and 212 cab for stage monitor. I'm sending the monitor out of the Kemper to the fx return of the 3P. I've run it both ways, with cabs on and off and for what I need, the cabs on works fine. I'm using one ear monitor so I'm getting high end clarity there, so I don't need the 3P onstage to sound perfect, just to move some air and act kinda like a sub. I like being able to walk over and get some feedback if I need to, which still blows my mind because there are no mics.

Quote from millstudios

I have to say I to like the compressor particularly the fact that you can blend it like the wampler ego (my always on compressor normally)

Same here. I've been using the Ego comp as well. I actually a/b'd the Kemper comp with the ego when I was trying to dial in my main compressor sound. I was using the Kemper comp on all the time at first, but I've slowly started removing it from some of the patches. I probably have it on about 60% of the time now. The Kemper does such a good job of volume leveling that it's not as necessary as with a traditional rig.

Quote from gibson5413

Love the tone and the Anderson T. I have 5 Anderson guitars and love them all. Great sounding rig!

Thanks! I've been particularly happy with the Anderson Hollow T lately too. It sounds pretty close to perfect through the Kemper. My main guitars are Andersons, but I also have some Gibsons and Fenders on the road as well. My pickups are stock on the Hollow T but most of my other guitars either have Duncan Antiquities or Lace pickups. I'm glad to hear that they may be updating the Kemper with a pre-amp delay feature. That would be nice. I have a Line 6 M5 in the fx loop of mine, so I can put just about any effect anywhere in the chain with that there.

Quote from Glowing_Tubes

Oh and a good tube amp with a good drive pedal in front of it is nothing to sneer at, it's often glorious.

You are so correct! Which is why I profiled my 3P numerous times with my Timmy and Klon pedals too.

And thanks about our show on Fox and Friends this morning. I am on a flight home, but I'll listen online later. The Kemper sounded fantastic in my ear monitors so I hope it translated to the tv mix. Every show with it gets better and I'm almost to the point where I'm not going over to tweak it anymore.

I'm still doing some fine tuning and tweaking of patches and we just worked up a new show, so as it stands now, the Kemper will be my rig for the near future. The minor trade offs of it not being "my" amp do not outweigh the ease of use and the versatility. Being able to get cleaner clean sounds and a wider variety of amp settings instead of just setting the amp a certain way and using a couple of pedals is really nice. I really like the delays in the Kemper and the rotary speaker is phenomenal. And we just added a couple of songs that require me playing acoustic, so in a matter of minutes, I downloaded an Avalon preamp patch and voila! No need to take up an extra mic line on the console, and it's in stereo (with a teeny bit of stereo widener on it). Don't get me wrong, I still love my 3rd Power Dream Weaver proto and it's my favorite amp I've ever owned, but from a practical standpoint, the Kemper has a lot of benefits and very minor, if any, sacrifices.

Pros:
smaller pedalboard footprint (PT2 as opposed to PT Pro)
presets keep me from pedal dancing all night and tapping tempo on every song
ability to fly entire rig on plane
variety of tones available
the sounds are MY amp sounds, not someone else's idea of a Marshall, etc.
stereo output to foh
tone to foh isn't dependent upon stage volume, i.e. I can turn down my monitor cab without sacrificing tone out front
delays and rotary fx (among others) are great
guitar signal goes through no more than 3' of cable, even with fx loop
I don't have to carry sensitive ribbon mics on the road
the tone is absolutely consistent from night to night, not dependent on speaker environment, mic placement, stage volume
I can record direct into protools at home without disturbing neighbors
my princeton reverb can sound as loud as my Marshall
it has pretty flashy lights. ha

Cons:
it's not a real tube amp and there may be a very slight bit of latency or dynamic range loss
harmonic content may not be identical to my tube amp
takes more time to tweak and eq sometimes
amp snobs look down their nose at me

just my thoughts.

Can I just say how nice it is that I'm not GAS'ing for any new amps lately? I am one happy Kemper.

tried sending a pm but not sure if it went through. Interested in getting a pcb for FBV. thanks!

Thanks! I appreciate that. It was hot that day but I thought it was a good show.

Quote from Dlaut

I Tivo'd the whole weekend....and watched the WHOLE weekend. You guys sounded great!

My son, who was *there*, thought that you guys, Toby Keith, and Florida Georgia Line were the best of the weekend...I concur!

Hey guys,

thanks for the comments. Yes, the Stagecoach gig was a fly date. I initially began looking at the Kemper as a means to get my usual 3rd Power amp sounds on fly dates without having to fly heavy amps and such, since they're not a common backline rental amp. It was always hard to go from "my" tone to a hot rod deville and a pedalboard with pedals for gain. So I got a Kemper and profiled all my amps at home and programmed it for the Lonestar gig. I'm not sure if it'll just be used for fly dates or for all dates as of yet, but I've been in the fine-tuning/tweaking mode for the past few shows and it's about 99% dialed in now.

At Stagecoach, I just flew the KPA, M5, and G50 wireless and backlined a Mesa Lonestar (no relation, ha) to use a stage monitor since I keep one ear open. I thought it sounded great and am curious as to what the audience thinks. I've heard clips of my live tone since I've started using it and I'm literally blown away. It sounds and feels like "my" rig.

I'll have to check out the new beta with the pitch fx. I will need a whammy for one song from our new cd when we add it to the show and I'm using the M5 mainly for a tube screamer and an octo verb. I find that the screamer in the KPA is too much gain even set at "0". I'm really liking the compressor (after much a/b'ing with my Wampler Ego) and the delays in the KPA.

Our foh engineer is loving the Kemper as are the guys in the band. I like being able to set the volume and eq of the stage monitor amp totally separate from my main output signal. It's just a well-thought-out piece of gear and I haven't played through any other digital amp that feels like a real amp. Thanks Andy Sneap for the demo a few months back! Now I've demo'd mine for a handful of people and some have even gone out and bought one.