Goodbye Kemper Profiler Amp Head :(

Fiftyshadesofjay

But hello Kemper Profiler Rack Unit!  

Yep, I decided to trade my amp head version for the rack unit. Looking forward to start using this live in the near future. I did use the head version a few times but was always worried it'll end up getting wrecked, as it's quite light and it was always a worry one stray headstock could fling it across the stage.

The trade off is you lose the bottom row of LED's and the modulation knobs, however I feel it's worth it in terms of road readiness.

Planning to use it direct to FOH with a 44 Magnum (courtesy of @guitarfishbay) to run an un-mic'd cab purely for feedback/feel etc.

ragingben

Awesome! I have the head and have the same worries, especially as there is now no board between guitar and head so one overlay enthusiastic lunge could send sixteen hundred pounds worth of digital amp hurling! How are you liking the rack version so far? Are you going to rack it up or sit it on your cab?

ICBM

ragingben said:

Awesome! I have the head and have the same worries, especially as there is now no board between guitar and head so one overlay enthusiastic lunge could send sixteen hundred pounds worth of digital amp hurling!

Loop the cable through the cabinet handle before it goes to the amp. I tend to do this anyway with any amp, to protect the jack - just as you do with the cable and your strap at the guitar end.

OK, you can still theoretically pull the whole cab over, but it would be much harder.

Accidentally clicked on this thread but hopefully that's useful .

guitarfishbay

I think the issue is the Kemper is so light that even with a loop you could pull it off the top of the cab.

I think the rack form makes more practical sense personally, looks cool too! Congrats.

Fiftyshadesofjay

Cheers guys! Really liking the rackmount, obviously it helps that it sounds identical and you can just use the backup from the previous unit.

I'll more than likely rack it in a decent metal flightcase and possibly leave it behind the cab out of harms way. Another issue I had was getting the head out of the case it was in and setting up/packing down. It seems silly but after a show on a dark stage it's easy to bash it about on its way out of/back into the case, I'll be much happier with the rack version living in the case permanently.

I use the FCB with it so I don't need to see the Kemper itself as all the info I need is on the controller.

ElectroDan

The rack one makes more sense because you can leave the cover over it, and nobody can see how uncool it looks.

Handsome_Chris

There is nothing uncool about the KPA.

Once you've had rack, you never go back. :P

Sassafras

Damn!

That looks complicated. I'd have more luck flying a jumbo jet than dialling that one in.

Fiftyshadesofjay

Ha, if you know how to adjust bass, middle, treble and presence and know how to turn FX on and off by pressing a button you'd probably be alright!

There's obviously more you can do with it but it's not necessary to get some decent sounds out of it.

drwiddly

It's not complicated at all. It's like an amp with a set of stompboxes above it. No more tricky than your normal amp and pedal board really.

ragingben

Peice of cake after an hour or so of messing around. I found it a little odd to use at first to be honest, but it didn't take much trial and error to get used to how things work in Kemperland. Once you get used to the interface you just have to get used to setting the values on some of the stomp boxes to what sounds good and not where you would automatically set them on the pedal counterpart as the range is often different.

darcym

how is your LCD pink ?

Fiftyshadesofjay

In the newer firmware you can set it to whatever colour you like via the system settings.

fastboy

I always wondered with the kemper how it works in terms of amp sounds?

Is there a community that you download peoples models from or are you relying on mates to have the amps that you then go and model yourself?

guitarfishbay

fastboy said:

I always wondered with the kemper how it works in terms of amp sounds?

Is there a community that you download peoples models from or are you relying on mates to have the amps that you then go and model yourself?

This is the central rig exchange, and these profiles are free IIRC.  http://www.kemper-amps.com/rigexchange

In addition to that there are a lot of companies selling amp packs, but I can't really comment on where best to go as I don't own a Kemper.

RaymondLin

Minor gripe...why do they use plastic knobs? I like my metal knobs, especially when things get to 4 figures.

fastboy

guitarfishbay said:

fastboy said:

I always wondered with the kemper how it works in terms of amp sounds?

Is there a community that you download peoples models from or are you relying on mates to have the amps that you then go and model yourself?

This is the central rig exchange, and these profiles are free IIRC.  http://www.kemper-amps.com/rigexchange

In addition to that there are a lot of companies selling amp packs, but I can't really comment on where best to go as I don't own a Kemper.

Thanks, I guessed it would be something like that. Just curiosity more then anything in case someone asks me about them at least I know something now as in terms of desire to buy one, my desire is zero...

Tried the Axe FX thing twice now and both times it was a waste of time for me personally. Far to complex and never yielded anything particularly special out them tone wise hence I have zero desire for the kemper also. I'm sure the patient guys can get really good tones out of them but I'm just not patient and really like plug and play amps that sound good out of the box with minimal tweaking. 

ragingben

To be honest the Kemper is about as plug and play as you can get. It can go fairly deep if you want to, but at the simplest level you pretty much just turn the chicken head to browse, then press the directional buttons to cycle through profiles, set eq and gain as desired just like with a real amp. If you want to get into parameters you can, but you really don't need to with a lot of the profiles. Perhaps you spend a bit of time adjusting parameters later on, but in terms of getting a killer heavy tone at home I've spent lots less time tweaking to get things sounding good with my kemper than any amp I've owned.

I know what you mean with the plastic knobs though @RaymondLin, they aren't the best compared to the rest of the unit.

crunchman

guitarfishbay said:

fastboy said:

I always wondered with the kemper how it works in terms of amp sounds?

Is there a community that you download peoples models from or are you relying on mates to have the amps that you then go and model yourself?

This is the central rig exchange, and these profiles are free IIRC.  http://www.kemper-amps.com/rigexchange

In addition to that there are a lot of companies selling amp packs, but I can't really comment on where best to go as I don't own a Kemper.

The Amp Factory is one of the main companies doing commercial ones.  They have some free ones (over 200) available to suck you in.  They are very good.

There are some good ones available for free on the rig exchange, but there are some pretty ropey ones as well.  I found some nice ones of a Victoria 20112 the other day.  You can rate them on the Rig Exchange and sort/filter to find the highly rated ones.

There are some good profiles available in the on board factory presets as well, but on the whole the ones from The Amp Factory seem to be better.  The Michael Britt ones have a very good reputation as well.

PVO_Dave

Top Jimi is worth checking out too. I've bought both the superlead profiles so far