Posts by Noisenet

So after living with the KPS for another week and another gig I've decided I'm just gonna go with a regular wah pedal out front. The latency I'm getting with the expression pedal as well as its toe switch turning it on and off isn't acceptable. For my use it needs to be dead on like a real mechanical switch. At last night's gig I again experienced more pedal sweeps not being registered & it kinda killed the whole vibe of what I was going for.

I've heard that if the pedal is connected directly to the KPA that performance improves greatly but this defeats the purpose - if I have to run cables out front I might as well have a real wah instead of an emulation. If I mount my wireless receiver on my pedalboard then I only have to have one signal cable running back to the amp. I can look that with the data cable and power cable easy peasy. This would also allow me to run my Dynacomp and alleviate the issues I've been having with the compressor stomp in the Kemper.

Best of both worlds - some old school, some new...

Quote from hafi19

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Did you plan to release your profiles?

TBH I thought about it but wanna wait a while to live with them, make sure my initial feelings on em are correct.

Quote from Guavadude

I’d just use the pedal. I use the Wampler Ego which is a more versatile dynacomp and it sounds great that way. I also use distortion pedals and a volume pedal in front too.

That's the way I''m leaning. I was hoping to avoid sending any signal out front to the pedalboard but I'm probably going to use my wah pedal as well. I'm not happy with anything I'm getting with the Kemper wah. I downloaded a bunch of presets and imported them but it's still not the same. The biggest problems are that there's a slight delay with switching on and off (using the Misson EP-1 Kemper expression pedal connected to the Remote), it doesn't track the pedal sweeps 100% and I'm not getting the wah sound I want with it. I'll figure out another use for the Mission though so no worries. That'd probably be the best solution all the way around. Still gonna try to make the KPA's comp and wah work for a little longer though LOL!

Quote from DamianGreda

Did you try to use Compressor parameter in the AMP block? Try to set it around ~ 2.3 .

I'll give that a try when I get the KPA back here to the house this weekend. Thank you!

Quote from aehaem

Did you try to profile your amp with Compressor? -just a thought...

Anyway, welcome!!!

LOL, I actually did try that but it didn't work so well. In the manual (Yep, I did RTFM, all 240-something odd pages) it says that's usually the case, that the profiling method doesn't work well with compressors and some tube screamer type pedals. I will say, though, that I did profile that same Fender with a Lovepedal Super Six /Stevie Mod in front and it's pretty darn faithful.

Having had my KPA only a couple weeks I'm still very much a newb. That said, I was able to find (purchase) some really great profiles that are in the ballpark of what I need tonally to get through my gigs. The first gigs were last weekend - night one was rough as, besides the new rig (totally new paradigm in fact) it was also my first time ever using in ear monitors. I bought both at the same time to move into this new way of doing things - no more volume wars, pissed off club owners or others saying I'm too loud.

So, the first night was rough but not terrible. I did some tweaking at soundcheck the next night, after that it all sounded really good.

So then I brought the Kemper back home for more tweaking - decided to profile some of my amps. I did my Fender '68 Custom Deluxe first with varying settings. Using the profile from the setting I use most often for gigging, it's damn near indistinguishable from the Fender.

I did a couple other amps using a Suhr Reactive loadbox and impulse responses, the results were mixed. Some turned out great, others not so much. My Bugera 1960 Infinium (cheap Plexi clone), both alone and combined with my Laney AOR100 turned out really good. My Marshall DSL100 with custom mod turned out pretty bad.

Then I profiled the DSL using an old Marshall 4x12 with WGS speakers using a 421 and 57. Holy cow! The profiles sound really, REALLY similar to the amp (and the amp has been custom modified by Voodoo Amps with my signature mod) - like if someone had gone into the amp and fixed up the infinitesimal things that weren't already perfect with the sound.

The one thing, thus far, that I haven't been able to grasp is getting the onboard compressor stomp effect to mimic the effect that my MXR Dynacomp has on my Deluxe. I've plugged that pedal in and setting it the way I normally do into the profile of the Fender, it reacts EXACTLY like the actual Fender does. Incredible!!!!! But I can't seem to get the Kemper's comp to be the same. Hopefully with some more tweaking I'll get it cause it's pretty essential for the sounds I use & I'd hate to run cables out to the front of the stage for one stinking pedal LOL.

We had band rehearsal last night, I used the KPA into a Marshall 4x12 (using the Kemper's onboard power amp). It didn't sound as good as I'd have liked, well, the clean sounds anyhow, mostly because of the compressor thing. The Marshall profile sounded immense!!!!! I did some tweaking throughout the evening but after thinking about it, I'm gonna restore the originally programmed settings from a backup I made before rehearsal because what I'd programmed sounded amazing through my studio monitors - I think that's a more accurate representation of what I will hear through the PA than what I hear from a 4x12 cab. I'm gigging in a few hours, so I'll be able to hear what the new sounds sound like - if they're not working I still have the performance setup from last weekend to fall back on for this weekend.

Anyhow, the moral of all of this is that, at least amp-wise, I'm astonished at the realism - especially now after profiling amps that I've owned for years (well over a decade in the case of my modded DSL).

Now - if I can just figure out a way to get all of my neighbors in the surrounding 3 or 4 blocks to take a day trip somewhere for 6 or 7 hours I'd love to get profiles of this Bugera Plexi clone, my Dual Rectifier, 1965 Fender Bassman and the Laney all using speaker cabs and mics LOL!!!! What heaven I'd be in then!

I love this rig!

Before getting my KPA my rig consisted of a Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb amp and an assortment of pedals. Whenever using a clean tone I'd kick on my trusty MXR Dynacomp compressor pedal.

This past weekend I profiled my Fender, TBH when I did it and compared the Kemper's amp with the Reference amp, I couldn't hear a difference. Even now when I listen, it sounds identical.

When I try to dial in the Compressor in the Kemper, however, I just cannot get it to do what the Dynacomp does with the sound. It's kinda hard to describe what I'm looking for. I run the Dynacomp with the Output at max and the Sensitivity between 9:00 and 10:00, just enough to barely effect the signal, then hit the front end of the Fender with a little extra oooomph (also, the drive pedals I use with the Fender sound better when they hit the front of the Fender a little harder so I dial in the comp to match that).

The other night I plugged the Dynacomp into the Kemper & the profile of my Deluxe reacted EXACTLY as the real amp does with the pedal - further testimony to just how lifelike the profiles are. While it was plugged in there I tried to mimic the sound with the onboard compressor. I got it sorta close but at band rehearsal last night I could definitely hear/feel the difference.

Can anyone with more experience with the Kemper help me out here? I have the Remote on a pedalboard and could conceivably add a Dynacomp out front but I'd prefer to keep my signal back at the Kemper if possible and use what's in there.

Thanks in advance!

I made some profiles using a Suhr Reactive Load box, into my interface, loaded IRs in my DAW and then fed that back to the KPA. Some turned out GREAT, others not so much. Profiles of a Bugera 1960 Infinium (don't dismiss, it's a great sounding cheap Plexi clone) along and combined with an old Laney AOR100 came out sounding really good. Profiling my modified Marshall DSL100 didn't come out so good. A couple days later I profiled the Marshall the normal way (speakers --> mic) and those came out sounding incredible.

Tonight I used the cable that shipped with the KPA & the wah worked about 98% better. I did notice a touch of latency and there were a few sweeps that seem to not have registered but I noticed at home the other night that sometimes when I'm scratching and sweeping the wah in quarter note increments, but not playing notes, the wah seems to miss that and not sweep, but if I'm playing actual notes while sweeping the pedal it's pretty much catching everything...

Did a little twaeking before the show, tones sounded 100% better!

Quote from sambrox

Wah tracking via the Remote is something that bugs me, too. I’ve learned to live with it by anticipating the lag and adjusting my wah foot movements accordingly, but it’s a pain for those fast movements. If you can get hold of a TRS cable that’s long enough, I really recommend using the input on the KPA instead. As for the toe switch, that’s a Mission thing. Mine needed a good few rehearsals and shows before the rubber washers had just the right amount of give in them to reliably be able to switch when needed, yet not switching by accident with the wah fully open.

I often have trouble engaging/disengaging the I-IIII switches, but that’s because I have very large feet. For me, I’d pay good money for Kemper to make me a Remote XL. I bought some Barefoot Buttons to help make I and IIII (the effect switches I mostly use) taller than the other switches, so I’m not hitting anything else accidentally and yet have enough confidence to fully depress the switch (fear of hitting another switch simultaneously was sometimes making me too gentle in my stomping, meaning nothing got switched!). It helped, but it’s still not comfortable and ideal.

The issue I've been having isn't so much of it lagging behind me, it's that simply isn't registering more than half of what I do. I said 60% in the original post but thinking back to last night, it's more like 75% or 80% of my foot movements (wah sweeps) weren't being registered. I'm really hoping it's the length of that ethernet cable that caused it. I'll know in a few hours...

So after doing a little digging, it appears the issue of switches 1-4 sometimes taking a while to engage is, in fact, bonehead user error. I purchased a different ethernet cable for use with the remote, one with a more 'mic cable-like' sleeve instead of the typical plastic sleeve that bunches up and is a a PIA to work with. The problem is I didn't RTFM before ordering the cable - the manual clearly states no more than 22 feet in length with AWG 24 - I purchased a 30 foot cable.

Because that gauge apparently won't support data transmission over that length it would make sense that it would affect the expression pedal's operation as well. I'm gonna go with the cable that came with the KPA Remote at tomorrow's gig and see if that makes a difference.

That said, though, I've had some issues with the wah effect doing this here at home when using the Kemper-supplied cable. I'll go through wah settings after the weekend's gigs (the rig is in the band's gear truck for now) and see if there's something in there that may be effecting the tracking....

Hi All,

I've had my Kemper now for a little over a week. I've dialed in a bunch of sounds & did my first gig with it tonight. All in all it was pretty good. After the first set my soundman told me my tones were a bit thin so I adjusted the 3 band EQ on the main output, problem solved. I'll go in and adjust my rigs after the weekend to account for this. Not a biggie - rigs dialed in using studio monitors are bound to need some tweaking in a live setting - definitely a user shortcoming, not a Kemper one.

The big problem I had is with the wah. I Use the Mission EP1-KP with the toe switch, it is connected to two of the inputs on the Kemper Remote TRS cable for out 1 on the Mission and mono for output 2, the switch), using the toe switch to engage and disengage the wah effect. The problem I had was that it seems the wah effect is barely tracking the pedal. For instance, something as simple as 'scratching', rhythmic picking with the left hand mitung the strings, rocking the wah back and forth on quarter notes. Maybe 60% of the time, the wah effect isn't following the pedal motions. No 'whakka whakka' thing happening. Also, quite a few times I'd click the wah on for a quick sweep, then kick it off, most of the time doing this, the switch wouldn't turn it off. Really irritating to say the least.

I've heard that expression pedals used for wah connected through the Remote don't work as well as when connected directly to the profiler but it can't be this bad, right?

I'm wondering if I didn't complete the calibration process or something? I went into settings and pressed the calibrate soft button while sweeping the pedal - other than the small horizontal line moving with the pedal, I got no real feedback saying calibration complete - am I supposed to? I'm hoping this is a case of user error because as it is now, it's not at all usable and a waste of money.

The second issue I had was that sometimes when I'd hit a button on the remote, it wouldn't immediately respond - a button assigned to chorus, or delay for example. Kinda like when working on an old computer and you click on an icon on your desktop to launch an app & it responds like 6 seconds later...

I never experienced this when playing it at home so I'm kind of at a loss here as to what that could be. I know the KPA is just a big computer but hopefully it isn't like an old Windows computer bogging down.....

I'm hoping all this can be chalked up to me being a newb and green with the KPA. Thank you in advance for your help!

I’ll check it out when I get back home after the weekend but I don’t think I’ve locked any slots. I use the toe switch on the Mission pedal to activate/deactivate the wah. I tried reversing the polarity but that had no effect. After doing that, though, on the nex power up, the way was on as usual but as soon as I moved the pedal it turned off.

Hi All,

I have a Mission EP-1, the Kemper version. I have it connected through the remote and use it solely for wah and it works fairly well. When I power the Kemper on, once it's booted, the wah engages for whatever rig happens to be active. Is this normal behavior or is there a setting somewhere I may have inadvertently nudged? FTR I have RTFM but haven't found this in there.

Thanks in advance...

This is great! Thank you for the zip file!

A little more information, I’m on MacOS Mojave., 2015 iMac, USB type A port (not USB C). I haven’t updated the Mac to the latest update yet as I’m in the middle of a project I need to finish Incase there are issues with the update. Latest firmware on the KPA. Worked like a charm Wednesday.

Hi All,

I came back from a couple days away from home, reconnected my KPA & now cannot get it to connect to my Mac. It won't show up in Rig Manager, it doesn't show up in Mac's System Profiler. I've tried multiple USB cables and ports, tried every combination of booting/rebooting/connecting/etc. Anything else I can try?

*Edit* - Ok, so now all of a sudden it connected. Not sure why. Will update if anything else happens...

Thanks for the responses! The wah is connected to the Remote. It's only set to do the one thing (wah), no morphing or anything. The bypass is set to the toe switch on the Mission pedal.

Hmmm, I 'll have to check to see if I can find a longer TRS cable to plug directly into the Kemper to test that.

Hi All, I'm a very new Kemper user, just got my KPA yesterday. Having never played through one before, I acclimated in stages, first booting the KPA and updating the firmware, playing with it for a while. I then connected the Remote & learned how to operate that, and then finally attached my Mission EP1-KP. IOnce I got that connected and a patch set up with wah and playing with it for a while, I noticed an issue where if I'm rocking the wah in time (quarter notes around 120bpm) and scratching 16th notes (that funk 'whakka whakka whakka' thing) the wah doesn't seem to be tracking 100%, the first few 'Whakkas' are either non 'wah'd or the wah effect is even reversed.

I did calibrate the pedal (I think - in System settings under that port exp slot 5, I just moved the pedal back and forth, there was no 'done, you're calibrated' or anything - perhaps I didn't complete the calibration?). When I updated the firmware of the KPA I did not have the remote connected - is it possible there might be a firmware mismatch? The FW on the KPA was 5.5.something, now is current.

Thank you in advance for your help, I'm already finding this community to be incredibly helpful!!!!

I finally got my KPA. As many have said, it's all about the profiles. Some are great, some are very not great LOL!!!!

I have a question: If I delete a bunch of the default rigs from my KPA through Rig Manager, are they gone forever or is there a way to get them back should I wanna grab 'em later? I've picked up a few packs from Tone Junkie and Top Jimi (as well as a few from the Exchange) and, for the time being, just wanna keep those on there to work with. That said, if deleting 'em from the unit means they're gone forever I'm hesitant about that.

Thanks in advance - I'm sure my questions are gonna be pretty boneheaded but that's how we learn.