The Kemper thread

Kebabkid

I was at a friend's theatre gig tonight and he was using an unpowered Kemper through a Redsound speaker (another mate is the UK distributor for them and brought one along for him to try). I must say, it was very impressive.

It was clear, powerful, and also fed the desk, and had some thump to it.

On stage, the player friend and band said it could be heard really clearly and even when he stepped away from it, wasn't directional.

Kebabkid

More Kemper questions - what's their reliability like? Any one had any issues with things/components going wrong or breaking - is it robust enough, particularly the toaster version, for live? With regard to the latter, I've heard, and don't know if it's true, that you have to be careful not to knock the knobs as they're directly mounted the circuit board and can break the whole thing and also the foot pedal cable if damaged can cause all sorts of problems to the unit.

As I said, just what a couple of users have told me, but they haven't experienced it themselves and just heard this.

drwiddly

I've been using an unpowered Kemper rack for 6 years. It's always been rack mounted and used for home, studio and live. Only one issue so far when about a year ago it wouldn't boot up properly and had to be returned to Germany. They replaced the main board and, as it was out of warranty, I had to pay about £120 for the repair.

Because it's racked, it's not been battered so no issues with the front knobs. I use other Midi gear so I use an FCB1010 with an uno chip rather than any of the dedicated foot switches.

My current set up is a Red Sound powered cab with a pole mounted Yamaha DXR10 which IMO sounds better than either on their own. I have used the Kemper with guitar cabs and power amps and had very good results. I found it works better with SS power amps or very neutral valve power amps - e.g. Matrix, Fryette Power Station and the Harley Benton GPA400.

Hope some of that's helpful @Kebabkid ;

octatonic

Kebabkid said:

With regard to the latter, I've heard, and don't know if it's true, that you have to be careful not to knock the knobs as they're directly mounted the circuit board 

I believe so- which is why I have a power rack.

I've had no problems with either the unpowered toaster, or the power rack I have now.
I don't bash my gear about though.

Fiftyshadesofjay

I had an issue with a toaster that got dropped and stopped working. To be fair it didn’t actually break, it’s was one part of the board that became disconnected to the other. I opened it up and reconnected and it was fine. (Obviously wouldn’t recommend if it’s in warranty).

Bear in mind this was in a soft case, I think any equipment that gets dropped on a pavement from about 5ft is going to have an issue if it’s not cases properly.

If you’re using live I’d strongly recommend the Rack version and flight case. The toaster is pretty light and I can see it easily being knocked off a cab etc.

Musicwolf

I’ve had my, unpowered, 19” rack Kemper for about 4 or 5 years.  It’s been used a lot in my home studio and I’ve gigged it (moulded abs case, Kemper Floor Controller).  It’s never let me down live but I have had problems on 2 or 3 occasions at home when noise has been present on both the main and DI out (I’m talking noise that makes it unusable not something in the background).  Normally solved with a reboot but once it took several attempts.  I lost a bit of confidence so used it as an excuse to buy a Helix.  Of course the Kemper has performed perfectly ever since.

It does now leave me in a position to compare the two.  They both have their strengths but, to sum it up in a couple of sentences - I think that the Kemper is the better unit in the studio but the Helix has the edge live.  Either is perfectly capable of performing both tasks.

Kebabkid

Thanks guys

Freebird

sweepy said:

On another tack, why haven't Kemper bothered to put a "delete preset" on the unit itself, such an easy way to tidy up the mess of an excuse for a file system.

It's terrible, and my solution is not to store any profiles on the Kemper unit itself. I can get away with it as I use it in a studio setting, and the Rig Manager is actually an advantage as I store copies of specific profiles in a song folder for easy access. Firmware updates are also much faster this way.

FarleyUK

I get very very confused between performance mode and the other one that has all the amps stored in it.

I never go out of performance mode because of this - can't wait for the new Rig Manager and editor!!

Jonathanthomas83

This guy knows his shit...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/mark-knopfler-is-now-using-kemper-profiling-amps-onstage

Freebird

Jonathanthomas83 said:

This guy knows his shit...
https://www.musicradar.com/news/mark-knopfler-is-now-using-kemper-profiling-amps-onstage

What a sell-out!

So when are you coming back Jonathan? 

Jonathanthomas83

Haha! :-)

I'm happy. I'm not missing it just yet. Still have a lot of love for the Kemper though - it's the best out there!

FarleyUK

New Beta firmware out:

https://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php?thread/44279-fw-6-0-0-14574-public-beta-feedback-thread/#post490066

PJH

I put this clip together to demonstrate a comparison between the captured profile of my live rig and the actual tone using an SM57, an MI Audio Crunch Box and a Marshall JCM2000 TSL. 

I initially posted this with two Soundcloud clips but I think that switching between the two sources in a single clip is a much better way of demoing.

I’ve been using this rig for a number of years and always wanted to capture it’s tone and character. The Kemper does a great job! 

I've split the clip into 10 second sections where I switched between the amp and the Kemper. The clip starts off with the amp. The Kemper was recorded directly into the DAW.

Cheers
Peter.

Kebabkid

That's impressive Peter.

I'd say I can detect a very slight difference between the amp and Kemper (the amp just seems to have a little more body behind the single notes as opposed to the chords) but that wouldn't be a deal breaker or be heard live.

Thanks for that

AndyJP

Nice job Peter! thx for sharing..

FarleyUK

Just ordered a TC Electronic Mimiq doubler for live use, to try and thicken up the sound....

Freebird

Kebabkid said:

That's impressive Peter.

I'd say I can detect a very slight difference between the amp and Kemper (the amp just seems to have a little more body behind the single notes as opposed to the chords) but that wouldn't be a deal breaker or be heard live.

Thanks for that

It wouldn't be heard in the studio either with a Nebula plugin in the chain.

PJH

Thanks guys,

Yes  I do pick up a slight difference but in a mix or if you listened to one clip and then the other would you still hear the difference?

Maybe not.

Cheers.

Keefy

PJH said:

I put this clip together to demonstrate a comparison between the captured profile of my live rig and the actual tone using an SM57, an MI Audio Crunch Box and a Marshall JCM2000 TSL. 

I initially posted this with two Soundcloud clips but I think that switching between the two sources in a single clip is a much better way of demoing.

I’ve been using this rig for a number of years and always wanted to capture it’s tone and character. The Kemper does a great job! 

I've split the clip into 10 second sections where I switched between the amp and the Kemper. The clip starts off with the amp. The Kemper was recorded directly into the DAW.

Cheers
Peter.

Wow - I would struggle to identify a difference between those two - and I just listened on my Adam studio monitors, not my phone btw!