I’m Del and I’m from Texas.
My story,
I played guitar in several Metal bands during the 80’s in the San Francisco Bay Area. All originals. Not really a cover guy. I put away the guitar for 17 years after getting domesticated with children to support. Picked it back up in the mid 2000’s. To be honest I am somewhat of a Marshall guy. I’ve developed my own tone (you know the one you hear in your head) over time using Marshalls. Haven’t found anything that comes close.
I’ve used modelers and snapshot devices from other manufacturers that would come close to what I hear from the real thing, but a lot of tweaking was involved after the fact or the sound was so far off that it just didn’t work for me. It left me with hauling around a lot of heavy gear. Which as I got older I’ve found is harder and harder to do. These days I play multiple styles from Prog Metal to Jazz to Country to Blues. I find myself looking to expand my tonal pallet. I’ve looked at several solutions to solve my problem of keeping my tone but also diversifying the tones I use.
I’ve been looking at other top tier devices and the eco systems just don’t work for me. I don’t want to be running out and buying a new unit with the equivalent price of another amp or half stack every three years. Another developer/manufacturer’s product doesn’t allow for simplification of my rig by forcing me to use outboard effects. And the third one, well let’s just say that their products are just not flexible enough for me, and require me to use just “their idea” of what a particular amp should sound like.
Enter Kemper. Picked up a Kemper Stage and it delivered last Monday. Finally got to update and fire up the device yesterday.
Me: impressed.
Most of the profiles are close to what I would expect. Very little tweaking required. I’m looking forward to micing and profiling my 2 JVMs so I can get my tones in the box. I did go and pick up some profile packages from topjimi and Dr. Z for some of the tones I need when composing for other artists and for video. But overall I’ve been..... well...... pleased.
I’ve attached a couple of pics. The studio pic was taken before all the acoustic treatment went up and the main monitors went up.
I’m sure I’ll have a few questions after I RTFM and watch a few YouTube vids. For the most part I’m a self starter.
Y’all have a great day!