The Kemper thread

Freebird

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Freebird said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

So we tracked yesterday and today, and did some profiles at the end of the day. Our other guitarist had never used a Kemper before.

He was very impressed with it. He could spot a difference between the profiled amp and the real amp, as could I. But both of us agreed that the differences weren't that important and that it still sounded great. He was particularly impressed by the ability for a distorted rig to go from clean through to massive super high-gain, and he started fantasizing about using an expression pedal to get all the range of gain-tones. So did I.

Are you talking about the amp in the room sound or the recorded sound?

recorded

It would be interesting to hear both files, I like a good shootout  

FarleyUK

Had a gig last night in front of around 800 people, headlining a brewery member's night. The loan Kemper sounded superb! It's the first time I've left the sound to a sound technician, and he was amazed at how good it sounded out front.

He also was very appreciative of the fact he could just give me two cables, and hey presto, there's the guitar

Again, massive thanks to Andertons for getting me a loan unit while mine is repaired!

WiresDreamDisasters

Hey guys, been psyching myself up for a Kemper Stage. I'm not 100% yet. Had a few questions that a deep pour of the manual could answer, but you guys might be able to answer quicker and with a more real-world answer too.

When it comes to the four pedal switches on the unit (remote users would know this too I suppose) -

can I assign them to any effect or any effect parameter?
Likewise for expression pedals, can I assign an expression pedal to any parameter?
And can I do this on a per-rig basis?

Are rig changes in performance mode completely seamless now?
I know delay and reverb trails only apply to the existing delay+reverb slots, and that if you put those effects into the other slots, then you don't get trails... but if I have FX Loop into slot D, and it's enabled in all profiles, will it be a seamless switch?

What would be the best way to have IEM's with vocals and the Kemper feeding them?

schrodinger1612

Are you lot missing your pedalboards yet? Or are you using both together?

Freebird

schrodinger1612 said:

Are you lot missing your pedalboards yet? Or are you using both together?

As a somewhere in the middle alternative, the Kemper & FX8 using the 4CM works well for an all digital solution, and they are quite reasonably priced now. I'd still like a few well chosen Drive/Fuzz pedals though..

FarleyUK

So, that editor eh.....

Jonathanthomas83

FarleyUK said:

So, that editor eh.....

Has it been released?

FarleyUK

Jonathanthomas83 said:

FarleyUK said:

So, that editor eh.....

Has it been released?

Haha, nope...! Still waiting.

Jonathanthomas83

oh dear!

Freebird

Stop bumping the thread without news about an editor!

sweepy

Freebird said:

Stop bumping the thread without news about an editor!

Or hardware failures with the new Stage unit

WiresDreamDisasters

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Hey guys, been psyching myself up for a Kemper Stage. I'm not 100% yet. Had a few questions that a deep pour of the manual could answer, but you guys might be able to answer quicker and with a more real-world answer too.

When it comes to the four pedal switches on the unit (remote users would know this too I suppose) -

can I assign them to any effect or any effect parameter?
Likewise for expression pedals, can I assign an expression pedal to any parameter?
And can I do this on a per-rig basis?

Are rig changes in performance mode completely seamless now?
I know delay and reverb trails only apply to the existing delay+reverb slots, and that if you put those effects into the other slots, then you don't get trails... but if I have FX Loop into slot D, and it's enabled in all profiles, will it be a seamless switch?

What would be the best way to have IEM's with vocals and the Kemper feeding them?

K, so I went pouring through forums and manuals. Here's the sitch....

- You can assign the four number switches on the Kemper Stage to the bypass state of any of the effects. They cannot be assigned to any continuous "knob" based parameters. But they can be assigned to on/off "switch" based parameters. You can assign them to multiple effects at once, and "action and freeze" parameters, and you can do both of those at the same time according to the manual.

- You cannot assign an expression pedal to any parameter. The Kemper does not work that way. It's a little different. You get four options for your expression pedals - wah, volume, pitch, and morph. Wah is routed to the wah-wah effect, volume is routed to the built in volume effect, which every rig has and it can be positioned from rig to rig. Pitch gets routed to any loaded pitch effects. Finally Morph gets routed to the parameter morphing capabilities of each rig.

- Parameter morphing would be the way that you would increase the feedback of a delay, or change the speed of a tremolo or phaser or other modulation effect. Parameter morphing can not engage the infinity and freeze actions for delays and reverbs, which is the only little snag for me because it means I might not be able to do my tape-delay oscillations all from one expression pedal. I *might* have to figure some other way to do that.

- There are 125 performances, each with 5 rig slots. The performance load preference determines whether performances change instantly, or whether they queue up, allowing you to select a rig within the newly selected performance bank. Rig changes are seamless from what I have read on the Kemper forum, and you get spillover if you use the dedicated delay+reverb slots.

- An IEM setup would require ... er... obviously a set of IEM's... but also a small mixer to take a signal from a vocal mic and the Kemper at the same time, and then route the output of that to the IEM's. Or I could trust FOH to set all that up for me.

WiresDreamDisasters

If I got the Kemper Stage I'd be using it for all the obvious things - home recording with my custom profiles (made using a friends profiler) straight into the DAW. Also there is a chance that for touring I could use it as my amp and go direct to FOH.

But I am also thinking of using it as an effects-only solution. I know that isn't the most obvious use of it, but I think it could work very well. I run everything in front of the amp usually anyway, which means I can use the standard delay+reverb slots, which means I'll get spillover. I can switch the amp via midi.

Mainly what's making me want to get into that is the morphing features, the pitch effects, the huge sounding delays and reverbs, and the fast rig changes in performance mode, meaning I'm not limited to just 8 snapshots like I was with the Helix. I can essentially jump from bank 1 slot 1 to bank 5 slot 5, all in one fell swoop. Meaning I can queue up my changes, and simplify my singing+playing life.

Eventually I may very well end up going over to Kemper full stop for the live show, but that isn't my immediate concern.

WiresDreamDisasters

When you activate "Infinity", another Action & Freeze function, Feedback will be switched from the regular value (between 0 and 100%) to the Infinity feedback value that spans from 100% to 200% and is separately controllable. This feedback lets the delay repeats build up instead of decaying – this pushes them deeper into tape saturation, where they will repeat indefinitely, as the sound degrades over time. To ensure a pleasing, lush result, you should adjust the sound of the tape saturation with the High Cut and Low Cut parameters. Set Mix Location to "Post" if you wish to control the signal level of the saturated delay by the Mix control.

In contrast to the Freeze function, Infinity Feedback still lets you add more signal to the delay, creating intermodulation with the repeated signal.

This is actually cool. It means I don't have to do my delay oscillations with an expression pedal. I can just assign one of the number switches to that function, and hey preseto!!!

Sorry for bumping the thread a bunch of times. It's just all this is a bit new to me, haven't used a Kemper really in anger since 2014 or so, and I've never used the Remote or Stage.

cbellanga

Reg. IEM setup:
- An IEM setup would require ... er... obviously a set of IEM's... but also a small mixer to take a signal from a vocal mic and the Kemper at the same time, and then route the output of that to the IEM's. Or I could trust FOH to set all that up for me.

The way I'm doing that is:
1. L/R feed (currently from my computer but when rehearsing / live potentially from the mixing desk) into returns L/R on my kemper

2. TC Helicon Guitar headphone cable - https://www.gear4music.com/G4M/TC-Helicon-Guitar-and-Headphone-Cable/1CAT?origin=product-ads&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxcbh6KPg5AIVTlXTCh37vwVpEAQYAyABEgKjH_D_BwE

3. IEMs

So basically the kemper functions as my mixer, and I have only one cable between the kemper and my guitar. Works like a treat

WiresDreamDisasters

Also, sanity check.... One thing I'm puzzled by, the Kemper direct output and main 1/4" jack outputs seem to have the same specs according to the manual... so a guitar amp is expecting a Hi-Z signal as far as I am aware.... so what would be the downside of using the Kemper main output or monitor output into the front of a valve amp be???

It needs to be the main or monitor outs, so you can get the full effects path in the signal path. I'd be bypassing the STACK section completely.

Or am I overthinking it? Coz the Strymon pedals don't have a selectable instrument/line output levels. It's just 100ohm line out. And they work fine in front of a valve amp.

According to Kemper in this thread (https://www.kemper-amps.com/forum/index.php?thread/7096-kemper-direct-output-send-impedance-and-type/):

The story is different with the tube amp input. It has a very high impedance and will not color the connected device. You can connect everything to it, the impedance does not matter, only the level has to be adjusted.

So that reads to me that as long as the master output is 0.0dB, and as long as the rig volume is 0.0dB, and as long as I disable the STACK section, and basically as long as the signal path is unity gain (excusing any possible boost pedals I might have in the chain) then plugging the main left output of the Kemper into the front of an amp shouldn't be any different than having a Boss tuner in the signal path.

@ICBM - what say ye, oh lord of knowledge?

WiresDreamDisasters

Had an interesting email from Kemper on those questions today. Suffice to say, they put no real stock in using the Kemper Stage for effects-only. Comparisons to owning a Porsche and not using the engine were made.  

It made me giggle, but it also pissed me off a bit. I wanted a technical response, not a marketing response claiming the Kemper made all valve amps obsolete. Pretty much word for word.  

sgosden

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Had an interesting email from Kemper on those questions today. Suffice to say, they put no real stock in using the Kemper Stage for effects-only. Comparisons to owning a Porsche and not using the engine were made.  

It made me giggle, but it also pissed me off a bit. I wanted a technical response, not a marketing response claiming the Kemper made all valve amps obsolete. Pretty much word for word.  

engine size doesn't matter when you just use it for dogging.

Jonathanthomas83

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Had an interesting email from Kemper on those questions today. Suffice to say, they put no real stock in using the Kemper Stage for effects-only. Comparisons to owning a Porsche and not using the engine were made.  

It made me giggle, but it also pissed me off a bit. I wanted a technical response, not a marketing response claiming the Kemper made all valve amps obsolete. Pretty much word for word.  

Fractal get stick for this, but Kemper are just as bad. That's a shit show of a response.

ie. "You're not big enough to help as you won't showcase our equipment on a stage or to an Insta following of thousands, so please move on and take your technical questions, that we've not even considered in our architecture, elsewhere."

I guess Fractal's saving grace is that they have indeed thought of most things and have integrated into their product.

FarleyUK

Jonathanthomas83 said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Had an interesting email from Kemper on those questions today. Suffice to say, they put no real stock in using the Kemper Stage for effects-only. Comparisons to owning a Porsche and not using the engine were made.  

It made me giggle, but it also pissed me off a bit. I wanted a technical response, not a marketing response claiming the Kemper made all valve amps obsolete. Pretty much word for word.  

Fractal get stick for this, but Kemper are just as bad. That's a shit show of a response.

ie. "You're not big enough to help as you won't showcase our equipment on a stage or to an Insta following of thousands, so please move on and take your technical questions, that we've not even considered in our architecture, elsewhere."

I guess Fractal's saving grace is that they have indeed thought of most things and have integrated into their product.

They probably sent that response as they're busy releasing the editor.

*cough cough*