Posts by domsch1988

Ok everyone, i'm not sure i'm in the right subforum, but i'd like to share a currently evolving idea i have.

So, first things first: I need a midi board for my kemper. I have a Pod HD for that, but thats to big. The Behringer is to big too. Everything else is in my personal opinion way overpriced for what it does. I'm sure not paying 600€ to switch some profiles.
After browsing for options, i thought that that should be doable as a diy project. After some research i came up with two options: Doepfer makes a Midi board, thats midi in/out/through plus connections for i think 4 buttons and 4 potis. The other option is arduino. There is a native arduino library for midi commands. Since arduino is cheap, readily available and the only downside (the need for programming it yourself) is irrelevant as i'm a software developer i will give that a go.

Alright. The arduino uno has 6 analog inputs and 14 digital ones. Since i want to keep it expendable, i'd like max 15 Buttons and two expression pedals. I'f you want a display and an LED for every button you're quickly runnig out of ports. There is a bigger arduino, but i want to fit it into some kind of smallish enclosure.
As a workaround, every button gets a different resistor. They are than hooked up i series to a single analog port. The Arduino will "measure" the resistance and by that determin the button pressed. That way you may have nearly unlimited buttons on one port. With 15 Buttons and a bit of math you are even able to sense every two button combination.

To keep this project flexible, extendable and portable, i'm not throwing 15 buttons into a big box. The Idea is a "central unit". This houses the arduino, 4x20 display, ports for midi and expression and 4 buttons for the for rigs per performance. Additional buttons are than put into extenders. Pretty much a box with 5 buttons each. They are connected with standard mono patch cables (ground and one data for all buttons). These are infinitly stackable (nearly), and switchable in order. So they can be arranged on the pedalboard as desired. This leaves room for other formats and positions in the future (a single button mini box for Tap Tempo e.g.). The extenders are cheap to make (a box, switch, resistor and two mono jacks).
Best thing is, the arduino is powered over 9 volts or USB. So you can use either your pedalboard PSU or a seperate batterybank/wallwart.

The Base unit comes to around 80€. Thats mainly because of a high quality aluminium case for 30€. Thats not to far of commercial 4 button midi boxes, but with extening further, the cost gets significantly lower.

I've attached a little "concept drawing" of my current idea. Let me hear what you think about this and how you would improve on my design. I might be missing something, since i'm not using the kemper for that long.

I just uploaded the Clean channel too. I feel it sounds nice, but not really like the original. Much of the clarity and top end sparkle was lost. I'm not Sure what the problem was. Also, KT88 Poweramp with a rather hot bias setting was used. Again, direct profile and added a Cab from my Profiler.
Feedback is very welcome!

Hello Everyone,

i finally got around doing a Profile myself. Since most others didn't work direct for me (through a PA), i finally made my own. In this case it's the Anvil preamp. Thats a diy soldano x88 clone. Channel 3 gain for days here. I made a direct Profile. Find it in the RE and feel free to leave feedback on what you like/don't like so i can improve my Profiling capabilities

Edit: Clean Channel is Up too.

My personal choice would be AKG K701 for Reference and Beyerdynamic DT770 or 880 for "casual" listening. The AKG are open back, which i find great for at home playing. Gives a bit more room to the sound. Closed Back Headphones sometimes can sound a bit "claustrophobic". Especially when playing without reverb or such...

I gave all the MBritt profiles from RE a whirl. I surely see where they are totally different eq and might work great direct through a PA. I also started turning up the volume on the headphones and they opend really up in sound. Really Interesting stuff

Tried it again with my shure se215. Now, i've got more high end clarity obviously. But not as major a mid push as i experienced on the PA.

Maybe we could try a different method. I'll be in our rehearsal room on Sunday. Could anyone tell me a profile of either a Mesa Mark 4/5, 5150, or Bogner XTC/Shiva which they really like played direct? I'll then use those and relisten. Maybe i just need to reset my expectations coming from years of playing through a 4x12 cab...

So, what would you recommend for checking my profiles for "direct tone through PA"? Sadly, i'm not allowed to play loud in my apartment, so basically it's down to headphones. Plus i'd like to not spend massive amounts of money on them...

Quote from tylerhb

Ask yourself whether you play for yourself or play for the audience... I think the answer is obvious or at least it should be. From my own experience i suggest to use some decent and not too small near field monitors to setup your rigs at home. Finetune by playing along and record yourself to some multitracks or instrumentals similar to the style of music that you will play live. Keep the guitars at mix level there while judging the tone. This will help you to get the sounds balanced and translating nicely for the FOH PA when playing live.

Your own live monitoring is a different story. Going FRFR has a lot of advantages compared to using guitar cabs but it will take some time to get used to it. Chosing a FRFR monitor that suits your own listening "flavour" nicely can also be a challenge.

So you're saying my Headphones might be the culprit? I already record tracks for our upcoming studio session (backing tracks) and they sound great. It's just that all Profiles sound vastly different through the PA at out rehearsal room. Nearly as if the Cab simulation is off...

Hi everyone,
i hope you don't mind me opening like a gazillion threads on different subjects, but the whole kemper thing is new for me and i have loads of questions

So, i currently play through beyer dt770 at home and through a H&K 4x12 at rehearsal. I find both solutions sound great. I adjusted the global eq for the cab a bit, but mostly i'm really happy. But every time i run through any PA or such and use the build in cabs i really don't enjoy the sound. It's harsh, fizzy and generally lacking warmth.
One of the points of getting a kemper was to play direct live. So, since a new cab is on the horizon i'm debating going either normal 2x12 and keep micing my cab live, or go with a FRFR and start tuning my profiles/eq's for that. I'm not sure i'm able to get the sound through PA close to the Sound through Headphones though. Is there any difference between Headphone out and Main out? They seem to sound really different. Or is it just, that I've only played through bad PA's?

Any input on that matter is welcome

Hello everyone,

After having recorded the first tracks with my kemper, i started to question some things. So, currently i run guitar to kemper, kemper Main out left to scarlet 2i2 and direct out to 2i2 (for processed and guitar serperated should i want to reamp). That goes to Reaper and i Monitor with the direct Monitoring on the Interface.
Problem is, the monitoring out of the Interface sounds a bit lacking. It lacks "punch" and clarity. The Recordings are nice though.

So, how would i go about wiring for Monitoring through the kemper? I'd like guitar to kemper, kemper to interface (As Above), then Interface output to Kemper. Headphones into the kemper and then listen to my PC through the kemper. Any Input on how to correctly wire that up?

Thank You very much. It's a killer Profile. I swapped the Cab to a 4x12 Mesa OS. Killer tones in there!

For me it's always been quite easy: If you rely on the thing to work (KPA or Phone or PC) don't install any Updates without having proper feedback if they work perfectly. At work we Update Firewalls regularly. After a new release of Software (even stable) we wait a week, read some forums and test on a test system. Although the manufacturer says everything is fine and it's non beta. Thats because the firewall is the most critical part of our networks. Any small bug/failure might have huge implications.
TLDR: If you need it to work, don't install updates that where just released.

The rest is how the kemper guys want to work with it. I agree with you, that many versions (especially in beta phase) are counterproductive. But I'd much rather have it like that then them going the samsung way of releasing updates 1 year late und doing nothing to keep users up to date on the status...

Hey, i'm not sure if thats the right section of the forum, but here goes:
I'm searching something like the FCB1010 but smaller. Specificly the pricerange is relevant. There don't seem to be any budget midi controllers. The FCB is way overkill for my needs and way to big. But everything smaller is way more expensive... So basically 6-8 buttons and an optional Exp in. All pedals that do that are well above 200€. Maybe a Arduino diy project? Any input on cheapish controllers is very welcome. (And sorry if that's been asked a million times before. Couldn't find something "relevant").

Quote from Grooguit

I went back to 3.3. I was using 4.03 but the visual lag was slightly annoying. Trying to name something was absolutely maddening, as trying to get the letter you wanted to pop up. If you wait more than a second to give the visual lag time to catch up it auto places the character before you have time to turn the knob. Since this apparently isn't addressed in 4.04 or 4.05, no point in trying them out.

I'm not quite sure what is going on with these updates. Why bother releasing even a beta if there are still plenty of issues that you know need fixed? I though the whole point of betas was "this thing is probably ready to go, but try it out and let us know if we missed a glitch here and there." Why not just release a new beta once you've fixed the known issues first and then get feedback?

Not really. The point of Beta's is "We have something ready we think is great. Test it and tell us what you think". Sometimes bugs like the ui latency aren't easily fixed and it hasn't been out that long. I personally think they should add some kind of "kown problems" part to the download page. Apart from that the lag is annoying but not funtionally breaking the KPA. Maybe they aren't sure what the problem is, so 4.0.4 and 4.0.5 where attempts to fix the behavior, which didn't work out. Such a complex Software isn't allways easy to troubleshoot or fix.
Apart from that (coming from a android developer background) if some ui hiccup is bothering you, you are maybe not the target audience for Beta Software. I'm not trying to offend anyone, but if you expect everything to work as good as the last stable, the beta version is not for you

Quote from Monkey_Man

I think the best method would be to record both, using the same PUs, guitar and riff, domsch1988.

If there's one thing the Kemper is besides awesome, fantastic-and-authentic-sounding and super-playable, it's... consistent.

Many of us have fooled…

Did that yesterday. It's non conclusive. There seems to be a difference. V4 sounds a bit tighter and clearer. But it's impossibly close. might be nothing... I just found that the JP-2C patch started sounding "bad/weird" to me on both firmwares... Maybe my ears are fatigued as i have the same with other patches... If your focusing to much things start to get weird

No soundclips yet, but i've set up a JP-2C profile. Start is lowish gain, mids a bit rolled back and no fx. Morphs to lead Gain, pushing mids a bit, mix of delay and reverb up. That way i've got my normal rythm tone on the start and can morph through varying degrees of solo. I play some songs where besides the "main" guitar solo there are some lead parts that i wanted to pop a bit more. Really convenient

Thank you everyone. That's been the warmest welcome i've had to any forum to date You guys rock
BTT: i just downgraded to 3.3.0 and will now try to understand how this whole performance mode is supposed to work First impression is indeed, that 3.3 has a faster UI...

Edit:
Is it just me or is there a significant Sound difference between V3 and V4. I can't really pinpoint it, as Updating takes a while and my ears might be fooling me. I feel that especially my JP-2C Profile doesn't sound as refined. The distortion is rougher, with less clarity to it. When i come home form work i'll try to re-update to V4 and verify that.

Quote from sambrox

That'll be fine. Same procedure as updating. 3.3.0 is the most stable release.

Thank you very much. I'll try that tomorrow morning.
Also i noticed, that what ever delay i choose, it only says "Legacy Delay" as a name. Is that how it should be?

Quote from Zappledan

And welcome to the forum!

Thank you! I already feel that this forum is really great and full of knowledgeable people. I'm having a great time playing the catch-up game and reading back all the interesting threads here.

Just wanted to chime in. I'm a new User since Saturday. Really stoked!
I instantly Updated to 4.0.4
I too have the Lag when setting Values (Master Volume, Gain...). I thought it's just the way the Kemper "works"
I had one complete Audio Crash. After trying several Profiles from the RE with the Preview function, Audio Output stopped completely. The Interface would still respond, but no Audio Output. After a reboot everything was fine. Had no issues ever since.

For the time being: Can one simply downgrade to stable 3.x with the same process the Update worked? Are there any Profile related (Amp only, no additional fx's or such) that would be missing? So will all the Profiles work properly like on firmware 4? Sorry for the noobish question, but i'm just starting out..