Organising sounds on a Kemper

Bucket

How do you do it?

I'm aiming to buy one in the next couple of weeks. I'm giving myself a couple of weeks to find my way around it and get some good sounds together. But here's my main question:

I'm pretty anal about organising everything so it's all in the right place - what is the best way of sorting the millions of different patches into something I can find my way around? Do you set it up so that you have a bunch of different "rigs", with various combinations of switchable effects that work like individual pedals? Or do you just go through finding the best sounds and putting them all in one place on the unit so you can access them whenever you need?

What do I do with the footswitch? a) How do you tell it which sounds you want from each button? b) What is the most useful way of configuring it?

Also, another question - should I buy new or used? I kind of want one that hasn't been touched by anyone else, so everything I do with it from the get-go is all mine - I feel as though that'd be less confusing. But then the price...

tl;dr - about to take the terrifying plunge into Kemper ownership and don't know where to start.

drwiddly

I've had a Kemper for a while and, like most high end, digital gear, you can configure things in different ways to suit your needs. I don't have the remote as I have other gear that I need to control via midi and I don't want separate foot switches for each thing.

Unlike most digital kit, the Kemper doesn't have a computer editor so all adjustments must be made from the front panel. However, the controls and layout are pretty straightforward so it's easy enough with a bit of practice, to find your way around. There is the Rig Manager software which allows you to organise your rigs / profiles as well as allowing direct access to the Rig Exchange and all the Rig Packs that Kemper have released. You can audition rigs via the Rig Manager without loading them into the KPA.

It's tempting to load up the KPA with tons of profiles but you're much better off keeping it lean and mean as it boots up much faster. As for organising rigs on the KPA, you have browse mode which allows you to track through all your rigs or performance mode which loads 5 rigs into each performance. I think the remote will allow you to switch between those five rigs on one row of footswitches and effects on the other row.

Like any of this stuff, there's a bit of a learning curve but it's worth it for the flexibility and the sounds are top class.

Bucket

Lean and mean appeals to me - I don't want hundreds and hundreds of different sounds, just a good bunch of solid tones that I can adjust. The idea of having that many different sounds doesn't appeal to me at all - 90% of them wouldn't get any airtime.

I have two weeks off work for October half term, so I'm planning to use that time to get to know the system.

I've also found that the powered rack-mount (which is what I want) and the footswitch bundled together cost a bit less than I thought, so I'm probably going to buy new for the peace of mind.

Wazmeister

Top class sounds, but the Rig Manager software is a right faff to use... the organisation apsect is the worst side of the Kemper imho

darcym

Rig Manager is reasonably straight forward to use if you set it up with a bit of effort first time and can lay it out how you want in terms of patch order. if you're comfortable making some notes then laying it out and managing patches on a 1:1 ratio rather than just hitting the "import" button, you'll be ok.

Having to use the USB on the back is a ball ache to connect it to your PC. If you get something simple like a midi mouse you can actually make play list orders where you just cycle through it, or have your common / most use ones on say banks 1 - 10 to make it easy. If it's not for live use, you can get really nice midi "pad" controllers for £50 and just label the pads with clear patch names and just press with your hand for which patch you want.

The kemper foot switch maybe overkill for you.

The rigmanager as Wazmeister says is the weakest part, more so when you compare it against say AxeFX, but it's more than workable.

dangriffiths

Just operate with the concept of rigs on your computer and then rigs in the Kemper.

If you like something add it to the Kemper and maybe favourite. Otherwise it can be a real pain to scroll through a huge bunch of profiles. 

Dominic

Surely that's what the "favourites" function is all about

dangriffiths

Trouble is if you can easy end up with a large number of favourites which makes it a faff too

crunchman

When you first get it, you will spend some time trying out different rigs and auditioning them.  Eventually you will settle on the ones you use the most.

As @drwiddly says it boots a lot quicker with less rigs on.  I did have well over 100 but now I'm down to around 50 (including 4 or 5 bass ones I use for recording).  I'd like to lose a few more when I can get round to working out which ones sound similar to each other.

The performance mode allows groups of 5 rigs.  That could be 5 the same amp with different effects if you want to work that way, or it could be 5 different amps.

Within a rig you can turn effects on and off.  If you want to add a solo boost to an amp you can do that with an effect rather than by having to switch to a different rig.  I have Behringer foot controller as the official remote wasn't out when I bought my Kemper, but I've got one row of footswitches to change rig, and one to turn effects on and off within a rig.

@Bucket, from what I've seen of you, you will be more into higher gain sounds than me, but if you do want classic sounds then it's worth getting one or two of the Michael Britt profile packs.  They are the best I've tried.  The free Morgan AC20 one on the rig exchange is very highly regarded as well.

Cabicular

My favourites are the MBritt lighting Jack 3 and 4
mid to higher gain crunchy good
i have about 20 on mine
the footswitch does have the advantage of allowing xy states for each rig so I almost always put a solo boost in which is more volume more mid, more or less gain depending on the type of thing I’m doing

maxdown

Bucket said:

I've also found that the powered rack-mount (which is what I want) and the footswitch bundled together cost a bit less than I thought, so I'm probably going to buy new for the peace of mind.

You could also consider the toaster version (+ Remote bundle if you want) and stick a 'Camplifier 360' amp module in it - it's a dual 180W per side into 8 Ohms amp. It's not bridgeable - so if you have only one cab then it's capable of 180W mono only - but if you've 2 cabs you can run dual mono to push more air or use stereo FX to create a stereo field.

Some caveats though ..... if you run both channels in stereo and want to send a cab emulated DI to FOH then you'll be stuck in FRFR mode for the stage cabs too (you'd need FRFR cabs).

I've just got my Toaster/Remote a short while back and still getting to grips with it ..... I have an AxeFX + Matrix amp rack and MFC foot controller and a few expression pedals ...... and lovely as it all is, carting it about is becoming a pain - needs a 80cm wide pedalboard to fit the floor stuff and 4U rack for the rest - then add 2 1x12 cabs and guitars etc and you're doing 3 trips to the car to get the stuff in. The amp loaded Kemper + Remote plus cables fits into a small bag (I'm using a double kick drum pedal bag) and weighs very little - bag over shoulder, padded 2 guitar gig bag with back straps on my back, a cab in each hand and I'm in with a 360W complete stereo rig with 1 journey.

The fact that it sounds a bit shite at the moment as I haven't set it all up properly yet is of course secondary

(It's not that bad - I got a few decent commercial profiles/rigs and they made an immediate difference .... and it's much more immediate to manually tweak/save the basics like BMT and volume balance on the fly than the AxeFX ...... have a gig in a couple of weeks and I'm confident it will be in shape for it)

KrisGee

I've a powerhead + remote, keeping everything organised is easy peasy. In browser mode you can sort profiles by amp/gain/author/favorites/recently added etc. so browsing or jumping to the on you're after is quick.
Performance mode is where you can create patches for live use, lower row of buttons on remote for amps and upper row for fx. Five different rigs per one performance, best grouping them in a similar style, say performance 1 for blues stuff, starting from a clean sound from the left and going thru all gain stages to the right ending with a solo patch. 
I agree a pc/mac editor would be great, apparently kemper are working on one.

Bucket

Thanks for all your responses - very helpful.

I'm picking it up tomorrow!