Curious... what external pedals are a must with your Kemper?

dragonfly66 · August 20, 2019 at 6:50 PM

This question came up in my head as I was looking at an email of new pedals that have come out recently. Particularly some new Pre-amp pedals from Benson and Hudson. I was thinking they were cool pedals, but if you have a Kemper, why would you need them. Then I thought, do you even need any pedals at all if you have a Kemper? If you have the amp in a profile and you have boost, reverb, delay and other effects on board what else do you really need?

I recently received my Kemper Stage. I'm looking at putting it on a board. It is quite heavy and long all on its own. Once I add my Shure GLXD, two fuzzes and two expression pedals this is a behemoth. I also use a Play Acoustic vocal harmonizer which needs a clean guitar signal. On some songs I play an EHX B9, no other special pedals, at least for right now. It is always a game to see what is the least amount of gear I can get away with and so far I absolutely need my fuzzes.

I'm curious what external pedals YOU absolutely must have with your Kemper?

Ingolf · August 20, 2019 at 9:52 PM

The Digitech Freqout stays on my board.

GearJocke · August 20, 2019 at 10:07 PM

My modded Maxon-od9. For profiles that don't have od baked in.

Ruefus · August 20, 2019 at 10:14 PM

A Wampler Tumnus Deluxe is almost always around. A Wampler Euphoria is a close second.

Those are the ‘must’ pedals. If I want a Big Muff, the JHS Muffleta buries the Muffin stomp.

With the new reverbs and delays, I see guys still using a Timeline and Big Sky. Seems unnecessarily redundant to me.

Chris Duncan · August 20, 2019 at 10:24 PM

When you consider the fact that the Kemper is at its heart a guitar amp, there's no reason you couldn't dial up a profile that made for a good pedal platform and do it all through a traditional pedal board. I would imagine there are folks who do exactly that.

Personally, I've been enjoying the fact that I can get what I want without any additional pedals at all. Plug in a speaker and the remote and I'm done. But it's pretty cool that you can go from this extreme all the way to doing a full pedal board, and all points in between.

That said, the one pedal I may eventually experiment with is the Freqout. The Kemper's resistance to feedback is pretty weird, but I've been largely in the studio. Once I get back out into the bars and play at that level, I may find I don't need it.

digbob · August 20, 2019 at 10:32 PM

kingtone

freqout

H9 max

paults · August 20, 2019 at 11:18 PM

The only FX pedal I use with mine is a talkbox. If I wasn't using it to actually form words, I would just use the Vowel Wah in the KPA - it sounds great for traditional talkbox vowel sounds

dragonfly66 · August 21, 2019 at 1:36 AM

Thanks for the replies, this is all very interesting.

MuddySludge · August 21, 2019 at 2:28 AM

How about profiling your pedals with a real amp and using that.

Ruefus · August 21, 2019 at 3:19 AM

Quote from MuddySludge

How about profiling your pedals with a real amp and using that.

I prefer the option of changing and choosing, muh-self.?

Wheresthedug · August 21, 2019 at 10:46 AM

In my case I don’t feel the need for any pedals and am loving the simplicity of not having a pedal board anymore. remote and expression pedals = job done for me.

As for you point about the Vocal Harmoniser needing a clean guitar tone to work I would set the direct output to Git and send this to harmoniser . No need to split the signal going into the KPA so no need for A/B pedals or DI boxes etc on your board.

Chris Duncan · August 21, 2019 at 3:03 PM

Quote from MuddySludge

How about profiling your pedals with a real amp and using that.

I enjoy that approach when available. My default rock sound is a MB Friedman that was profiled with a Klon. I love the simplicity of just selecting that profile and playing.

skydog · August 21, 2019 at 3:12 PM

Dawner Prince Boonar

PSloan · August 25, 2019 at 9:24 PM

King of Tone i beautiful with some profiles. Much warmer than anything I can get with the built in overdrives. But that's it. All else the Kemper handles perfectly, in my view. That's part of its appeal.

Ruefus · August 25, 2019 at 9:28 PM

Quote from Wheresthedug

In my case I don’t feel the need for any pedals and am loving the simplicity of not having a pedal board anymore. remote and expression pedals = job done for me.

I don’t drag a pedal board anymore. One, maybe two dirt pedals in a distortion loop. Remote only at my feet.

Hoki Toki · August 25, 2019 at 11:26 PM

Sometimes I hook up my old gold Fulltone Deja´Vibe to get in "the mood" ......

That´s about it The internal "UniVibe" sounds a little off to me compared

to the "real deal" . But that´s me

alerich · August 26, 2019 at 3:43 AM

Quote from Ingolf

The Digitech Freqout stays on my board.

Now *that* is a cool pedal. That's the one thing I struggle with when I use my Kemper and DXR10 monitors. Even at hefty volumes controlled feedback is difficult, at best. I am getting one of these. Thanks for the heads up. I have a Boss Feedbacker but it's pretty lousy. Do you just run your pedal straight into the main input?

jmt321 · August 26, 2019 at 5:38 AM

I use a strymon sunset. Amazing pedal!

Ingolf · August 26, 2019 at 8:23 AM

Quote from alerich

Do you just run your pedal straight into the main input?

I have it in a loop in slot 1 and control it from the Remote.

ToneDeaf · August 26, 2019 at 12:48 PM

Like Ingolf said, we also have a Freqout, for us in front of the Kemper. It is magnificent.

We also have a Mimiq in the (stereo) external effect loop that used to get more use, it is still there though.