Not new but not introduced myself here

  • Well here a short story from zero to KPA. I started my real band journey with a self build solid state, cause no money and the first Squier Strat in 1982. I was able to create a good tone with my fingers and a super tube screamer and was respected for that in my community. But I wanted to have a great clean tone, a good gain tone and a blasting lead tone. With my first big salary and busting the bank I bought a Mesa Boogie Mark III combo in 1988, which was top of everything at the time and very expensive..... very! This amp on one day sounded like heaven and the other day like shit. Today we know about bad electricty and I learnd that there would have been much better choices, but honestly...in my major music store we were treated like unwanted kids and the employees acted like goods. How could you check out any options that need shop support for setup in such environment...... after years between love and hate I sold the combo with hugh loss and bought a Roland GP100 in 1994, added a Marshall tube power amp and the Marshall 4x12 cab, which I still use. This setup had three good tones and sounded the same every time. When the KPA came out I thought this could not work, but after I read the test from Peter Weihe I gave it a shot in a music store in Munich. I was very impressed and after buying it in 2013 it took me some months to find the profiles that fitted my needs and the right setup for amp and speakers. My choice became/is a solid state Marshall power amp, which is set to linear output and the mentioned Marshall 4x12 cab. Since then... what can I say. I am a happy KPA-user. I barely add new profiles to my setup of usage but if there is a sale from MBRITT I like to buy sometimes and browse through his really great profiles. Anyhow, I bought a s/h rack version, which is in our rehearsal room with the mentioned setup. My old toaster is my giging and home unit and I add sometimes my active kone, which is my last Kemper purchase, if needed. But most of the time I use house monitoring. Oh and I do not have specific profiles for my guitars. I like to have the individual response of the profile to the guitar/PUs.

    Edited once, last by Hudiluma (January 17, 2023 at 1:56 PM).

  • Its taken you 10 years to say hello?

    Then a very big hello to you :)...interesting regrading bad electricity. I also think there is an amount of psychology that sometimes it doesn't sound as good from one day to the next. The Kemper reduces ( but doesn't eliminate because we are all human) this because we know the output is consistent :)

  • ..interesting regrading bad electricity. I also think there is an amount of psychology that sometimes it doesn't sound as good from one day to the next.

    That might be sometimes the case, but if you know about power conditioners, what they do and would use them, you can ensure that it is your personal condition of the day. In those days I not knew about those and I am not sure that they were available. Honestly I think I learned about them recently in a rig rundown from Brian Mays tech. Which is worth to watch anyhow. I dig the part at the end, when the tech explains what the rig sounded when another player used Brians Red Special with Brians Rig/Amps. Recommended to watch on Youtube.

  • That might be sometimes the case, but if you know about power conditioners, what they do and would use them, you can ensure that it is your personal condition of the day. In those days I not knew about those and I am not sure that they were available. Honestly I think I learned about them recently in a rig rundown from Brian Mays tech. Which is worth to watch anyhow. I dig the part at the end, when the tech explains what the rig sounded when another player used Brians Red Special with Brians Rig/Amps. Recommended to watch on Youtube.

    Theres a lot of myths around power conditioners and also I believe ( I could be wrong ) that dodgy electricty is less impactful of digital signals than analogue - obviously depends where in the chain.

    I run a cheap power conditioner and I suspect it makes no difference.

    In my personal view, I've experienced way less electrical noise with digital amps than vavle amps, but even then unless you play in many different countries and at festivals with generators, its not that common...

  • Theres a lot of myths around power conditioners and also I believe ( I could be wrong ) that dodgy electricty is less impactful of digital signals than analogue - obviously depends where in the chain.

    I run a cheap power conditioner and I suspect it makes no difference.

    In my personal view, I've experienced way less electrical noise with digital amps than vavle amps, but even then unless you play in many different countries and at festivals with generators, its not that common...

    I could not agree more :)