Posts by Chris Duncan

  • Should I buy a Kemper?

    Quote from Bigeclipse

    I just looked it up...looks like this has been out since 2013?!? Long time without a new one...

    Because they still don't need a new one.


    They overbuilt this thing so much when it was designed that after all these years they're still doing things like a massive reverb update and the Kemper's processing doesn't even squeak. In fact, I think this is one of the biggest bragging rights that they have. Other companies release a new version of firmware and it trashes all your old presets. Or, equally prevalent, they'll release new hardware that you have to buy before you can get all the cool features of the next software version (looking at you, Pro Tools).


    That said, there's also another perspective. If a Kemper 2 came out tomorrow, would my current Kemper suddenly stop working and not play the gazillion profiles that it currently plays? When Marshall released the Origin series, the vintage Plexis over in the corner of your studio kept on rockin' just the same. I currently have a little green box loaded with amps that I'd probably have to pay $100,000 or more (seriously) to buy individually. I couldn't possibly care less if there's ever a Kemper 2. I'm too busy trying to make my playing sound as good as my amp. :)


    So, I wouldn't worry about obsolescence. This is one of the few companies in tech that seems to guard against it.

  • Living in an apartment where neighbors are constantly complaining. Playing at lower volumes while still maintaining sound integrity?

    Quote from keem85

    I took your advice Chris Duncan and bought a pair of Fluid F5 monitors. Oh my god what a sound!!! Do you guys advice to turn down the volume on the Kemper itself, or the monitors? (trying not to lose audio quality)


    Here's my baby! Kemper

    Nice!


    I would imagine society's seen the last of you for a while. ^^


    My preference would be to set speaker volume so that whatever the sound source going into them, the max volume is safe for the speaker. For instance, if you have them hooked up to a computer and play music, I turn the music all the way up on the computer then slowly bring up the speakers until it's no longer safe to go further. Or, as Eddie Van Halen once said, until I feel the hair on my arms vibrate. :)


    Then you can just turn up the Kemper's master volume to whatever is sensible at the given moment and won't annoy the neighbors.


    Now go play guitar!

  • Pedal train etc

    Quote from LiamUK

    Is there any issue with the different brand of pedals, with regard to the varying Milliamps?

    I know they're all 9 volts, but from brand to brand, the milliamps of the original mains transformers differs.


    I'm not an electrical type, so I don't know.

    Yes, but the various Voodoo offerings typically have higher and lower sections so you can put the pedal that draws a lot on a higher one, and a lighter load on one of the smaller ones. I believe I got the 4x4, which had a couple of different sections. As digbob mentioned, all yo uhave to do is look at the pedal specs to see what it draws, it's not at all complicated.

  • Should I buy a Kemper?

    Buying a Kemper costs a decent chunk of money, so out of pocket cash, yeah, it's not cheap. However, there's another side to this.


    I bought some profile packs from one of the highly regarded commercial guys here. It was high gain amps, and cost me something like $35 bucks. In some other thread (I forget where), as a thought experiment I went out and got the price it would cost me to buy each of the heads I'd need to recreate that profile pack. It came out to around $18,000. Sure, you don't get every position of every knob like you do when you buy the amp, but I don't need all the positions. Just the ones that sound good to me.


    The way I looked at it for my own purchase was that the pain in my wallet would go away fairly quickly. The benefit of having $18,000 worth of sounds from high end and boutique amps lives on day after day. And that's just one profile pack. I have many others. I also didn't have to spend the $35 since there are 13,000 free profiles on Rig Exchange. So, in addition to the cost of the unit, you might consider total cost / benefits of ownership. From my perspective, it's an insane bang for the buck.


    There's another aspect that you should also consider. Modelers like Fractal Axe Fx and Line 6 Helix are a different type of creature than the Kemper. With the Kemper, a profile is a "snapshot" of a miked up amp, i.e. what you hear on the record. Someone a) gets a cool amp and cab, b) mikes it up properly, c) dials in a killer tone and then d) creates that profile. I'm not very good at dialing in tones, so that's a lot of critical work that someone with more talent does for me. With Fractal and Line 6 you can also get great sounds, but they're modelers, so you spend a lot of time in the software building the signal chain from the ground up.


    If you love spending hours and hours tweaking, modelers can be a good experience. I don't enjoy that at all, so I press a button to bring up a profile that already sounds great, and just play guitar. I don't see it as one's better than the other, they're two very different things.


    I bought the powered head so I can run into both active and passive speakers. Regarding speakers, I'll offer this. It sounds great in my studio reference monitors, so I bought an FRFR cab (DXR-10 in my case). However, before that, I was running (monitor cab off) into a Marshall 4x12 with V30s. Does that sound the same as the FRFR? Absolutely not. So how does it sound? Absolutely awesome. It's just a different shade of awesome.


    Those are some of the considerations that I went through in my purchase. I bought it over the holidays so I've only had it a couple of months. For what it's worth, after owning it one week I sold every amplifier in the studio.

  • A few questions before pulling the trigger.

    1. The switches are the hard metal typical of quality stomp boxes. The unit itself is built like a freakin' tank and will probably outlive half the gear I own.


    2. Regarding MIDI, I'd encourage you to download the full manual. Working from memory, each of the five slots in a performance are automatically assigned a PC number, so performance 1 has PC 1 - 5 to directly access any of the profile slots, performance 2 -> 6 - 10, etc. That said, I believe there is a fairly rich set of CCs that are supported as well and if memory serves at least some of that applies to the stomp effects. I haven't delved into that, but I recall the manual being very well written in that regard.


    3. Haven't used the switches, so others will help you with that.


    In general, I find the remote well thought out and implemented. The LCD screen gives you pretty much everything you see on the profiler itself, large enough to be readable, including the strobe tuner. It's not an inexpensive piece of gear but I was very happy with the purchase and how it behaves.


    By the way, unless you're trying to control the profiler externally via MIDI, like from a computer, MIDI isn't really a factor for basic remote operation. You plug it in (one cable for both power and data), and it just works.


    Hope this helps.

  • Rig Manager 3.0 Editor

    Quote from hjscheffler

    the editor will be controllable from the actual PROFILER hardware. That was demonstrated in various NAMM videos.

    While I'm enthusiastic about the new editor (you guys are doing really nice work from what I saw), the hardware controller conversation is the part that I find entertaining.


    I spent $1200 on a Mackie MCU Pro hardware controller so that I wouldn't have to fiddle with a mouse when mixing in my DAW, since it's easier to just grab a fader or a knob. Of course, the profiler already is a hardware controller. So naturally, we need an editor so we can fiddle with a mouse.


    But of course, I'm easily entertained. :)

  • Pedal train etc

    I would recommend that you look into Voodoo Labs power supplies as well. It will save you a lot of ground loop and noise chasing grief down the line.


    Used them on my Pedaltrain board before the Kemper.

  • Rig Manager 3.0 Editor

    Quote from G String

    By the way: keep your fingers crossed for Arne, Oskar, Georg, Timo and a couple of others brilliant guys. Rig Manager is a real team effort ;) I know you can't know that but it seems to be the perfect moment to mention it.

    A tip of the hat to you all! I know what it takes to get such good quality software out the door. It ain't easy, in a number of ways. :)

  • Is there a way to decrease the attack?

    Quote from SoManyGuitars

    I realize this might be taken the wrong way, and it’s not my intent, but...

    An awful lot of this is the result of technique, and how the hands/fingers/pick are used.


    Proof of this is when George Lynch played through my rig, and sounded exactly the same as he always does.

    Unfortunately, when I played through his, I still sounded like me... only louder. :)

    An excellent point. I heard the same story about Steve Lukather playing through Eddie Van Halen's rig.

  • Soldano profiles now more important than ever

    Quote from deadpan

    He actually sold the brand so he could focus on designing circuits vs sales etc.


    There will be new SLO models manufactured in the same factory that manufacturers the Friedman amps from my understanding.

    Yeah, the interview I saw was very sketchy on details and I couldn't find much from the Google-plex. Regardless of what the actual reality is, I'd bet a couple of cold beers that used Soldano amps are about to get significantly more expensive. Because, you know, vintage and rare!


    Ironically, my first exposure to the rather excellent sounding Soldano has been hearing great profiles of them on the Kemper. :)

  • Profiler OS6 Operating System

    Quote from guizmobro

    Chris Duncan Thanks. That makes total sense. I bought 7 amps so my target will be to have max 5 profiles to cover each amp in order to fill up 1 performance.

    Something else you may not be aware of is that when you're using performances, they don't "link" to profiles, they actually make a copy of the profile and store it in the performance's memory. So, if you have a Fender on your profiler, then select that to be in slot 1 of a performance, you now actually have the Fender twice. If you tweak the actual Fender profile and save it, it will have no effect on slot 1 of your performance. So, if you're using nothing but performances, you could delete all profiles (i.e. the browse knob would be empty). I don't do that, just pointing it out to illustrate the notion.


    Also, before you delete stuff (including factory profiles) from the unit itself, make sure you copy anything you need to the local library using Rig Manager.

    Quote from guizmobro

    I feel like Tom Cruise. Like mission impossible...

    I see it as more of a Bilbo Baggins quote, "The road goes ever on..." :)

  • Profiler OS6 Operating System

    Quote from guizmobro

    As a newbie I'm really struggling with this. I have +600 profiles on the Kemper and these are just the ones I bought

    I have 2000, which is insane. I blame Black Friday. :)


    Burkhard's point, which I completely agree with, is about the profiler itself. I probably only have 20 or so profiles on the unit (I even deleted the factory ones I don't use after copying them to the local library). When you get into large numbers, scrolling through them on the LCD alone would be tedious. Instead, as he pointed out, this is an area where Rig Manager shines.


    I have all of my profiles in the local library section. When I want to audition sounds, that's where I go. Double clicking on any of of them will copy the profile to a temporary buffer in the profiler itself so that I can play around with it. When I select a new sound in my local library, the profiler immediately updates to reflect that.


    With this workflow, I do all my testing, etc. via Rig Manager and when I find ones that I know I want to use, only then do I copy them to the profiler. And more often than not, I'm actually putting them into performances (locally) and then copying that performance to the profiler.


    So, no need to take your +600 profiles offline. Just keep your entire collection in the local section of Rig Manager, do your experimentation there, and then copy the winners to the profiler. Your Browse knob will thank you. :)

  • Soldano profiles now more important than ever

    Saw a NAMM video that Mike Soldano is retiring. He may hand off some of his stuff to another company, but it'll no longer be him so that may affect future quality. With that in mind, I suspect that the resale value of Soldano amps will spike since they're now an endangered species.


    Every day there's a new reason to be glad I bought the Kemper. :)