Posts by geddonarchon

Interesting to see a hardware update after so long. Personally nothing really makes me want to upgrade. I think we already hit serious diminishing returns with guitar processors years and years ago. The original Kemper was mind blowing and to me everything else was just small changes, nothing really that exciting since. Kudos to Kemper for a heck of a run with the original device and still supporting it for who knows how long into the future. 14 years is insane for this kind of thing. I also picked up a fm3 a while back and the og kemper + fm3 combo is a ton of fun. I can't imagine needing anything else. It is already overkill for me. What is novel about the fractal stuff is the versatility in chain building. I'm surprised Kemper still has not gone that route, but really most people don't need it and I bet most fractal owners don't even really take advantage of it and stick to a typical chain. anyway fun times whatever hardware you are using. Go play some guitar.

Here is an example of some stupid fun to be had with this setup. two big muff opamps, one in each kemper loop and vary the tone knob in each. It is interesting. This is what the smashing pumpkins did but with 2 guitars. bringing them in around 30% mix is all that is needed.

This is ridiculous and great. I have a large mixer so plenty of channels to bring this stuff in on. So I'm bringing in both kempers in stereo and the monitor output for the stacks. then I also bring in dry guitar and my plus pedal and Stereo from a Fractal FM3. So 10 channels of guitar to play with. It is silly and I'm having fun. It is pretty cool to just bring all this stuff in and I can mute and adjust faders to hear what I want. I'm considering getting something to convert the SPDIF outputs to feed more channels to the mixer since you can pass just the effects section or the mod section I think?

Browsing ebay I was amazed how cheap the toasters can be had for these days. I have others over to play every once in a while and I figured what the heck maybe 2 kempers is more fun than one so I ordered another one. The practical use, other than having something awesome for someone else to plug into is having 2 amp/cabs to blend together for some extra fun and 2 effect loops might be nice also. Anyone else doing this kind of nonsense? If so what amp combinations do you like? I know could just get an axe fx but I kind of like the versatility of two kempers and heck I paid $800 for the 2nd Kemper. Seems like a bargain.

I’m always amazed how many people get stuck in a tone obsession. It drives the amp and pedal industry. To anyone on the outside it looks like insanity. I’m as guilty as any. I had a friend come over a while back and look at the 25 guitars I have in my music room and ask what the difference was. I said they sound different and I played a bit on two of them for him. He said yeah they did sound a little different but who cares. This is how everyone else sees our insane behaviors. Anyway I’m glad he said it because I think it was what got me putting lots of guitars in different tunings which has had me picking up more of them more often. I feel the same way about the quad cortex, kemper, axe fx 3, and helix. All of them are excellent tools and any one person is probably better off sticking to one and learning it in and out rather than chasing the latest thing. Gear obsession is mostly just a waste of time.

Your dog and cat can’t stand your playing? Brutal.

Ok I’m trying to create some performances. I usually just stick to the browser mode but I finally want to use my remote. So I go to performance mode and stick some things in first few slots. But for some reason slot one has “slot enabled” grayed out so I can’t make it enabled. It’s like it is just stuck disabled and I can’t seem to get it to do anything. The rest of the slots seem fine and let me check or uncheck that box.

From an old thread I found people say that slot one is always enabled and you can’t disable it but I have the opposite problem. It is disabled and doesn’t let me check the box to enable it. Anyone know how to fix this?

edit:

Seems I have it working. It seems kind of flaky though where when I switch scenes it doesn’t always switch the sound. But I now have what I want in slot one and two and can switch so I think I’m ok. I guess I don’t understand why slot one cannot be set to disabled or not, but I suppose that’s how it is.

I think I have around 40 Guitar profiles on my kemper but I use one most of the time. I could probably dump 20 of them. I’m now looking for some bass profiles I like because I am getting a new 5 string bass tomorrow. I made the mistake of having tons of profiles on my kemper the first few years I had it and I do much better keeping it simple. I will get on rig manager and try some different profiles sometimes but rarely add a profile to my kemper. The idea is find a few tones I really like and play more and tweak and mess around with profiles less. It is easy to waste a lot of time messing with tons of profiles. I also think spending time with a profile that is close will yield better results than trying to fish through hundreds of them for the perfect one. It doesn’t exist. Everyone has a different guitar and play style so it’s more about getting close then playing and tweaking some to find what works for you. just my experience.

This is some good advice. I have found that my ear has really honed in on a particular MBritt profile and I think it is a few things. First I just know what to expect out of it. It sounds great as is and I know what will happen when I start turning knobs or change guitars or start turning on pedals. It just works as a great platform for all the other myriad of variables and I think that’s why I like it so much and keep coming back to it. I want to branch out a bit so I’m going to have to find another profile that is different enough to make the effort worthwhile to spend the time shaping it and learning what guitars, pedals, and settings I like to use with it. My setup is kemper, pedal paletttes, a&h qu32 mixer and I have some jbl 305 monitors and some jbl pa speakers. I’ve found I prefer the monitors for day to day practice. Anyway that setup provides a ton of shaping possibilities beyond the ton the kemper has built in. Spending time experimenting and learning about gain staging, eq, mix level in the chain, concepts like series and parallel, phase, compression, noise gates and effects goes a long way to being able to dial in tones that are great for you. So get experimenting and don’t forget to backup once you are happy with something.

I think the kemper sounds awesome through headphones. I use sennheiser hd 6xx. I run the xlr outs to an Allen and heath qu16 and headphone output from that is also excellent, but if I’m just playing guitar by myself I usually use the output from the kemper.

I recommend those cables that have the silent plug end. It doesn’t engage until the plug is fully in the guitar. I will never go back since I discovered them. They are a bit expensive but easily worth it.

just got a remote new direct from kemper and when I plug it in it keeps going to "updating firmware" the bar never makes any progress and then it resets, performs power test, says waiting for connection, connected. then it goes back to waiting for connection, connected updating firmware again and it starts the loop all over, never getting done.

what do I do?

Headphones? You think you can find something that sounds better through headphones? Good luck with that. I just got a kemper and some mbritt profiles. I play it through a jbl powered pa with an 18" sub. It's fucking amazing. I guess I can't speak to headphones because I hate headphones. I want to hear the sound in the room without shit on my ears but all I'm saying is the kemper is not the problem.

Someone let us know if you found it in a store. I'm assuming it's the February issue? What is on the cover. I haven't bought a magazine in probably 10 years.

Apparently it brought a price reduction. Seems like a $200 discount across the line.

Decided to get a kemper after reading a lot about it and watching videos and whatnot and I'm glad I did. I have an axe fx standard that I've hardly touched in years. I'm not sure exactly why but that device rarely inspired me. Playing the kemper with some mbritt Morgan profiles immediately impressed me. I play through an a&h qu series mixer into jbl powered sub/speakers and find myself always using a little compression on my mixer and typically want to push bass and mid up a bit on the kemper. Mostly been playing a strat with noiseless pickups. sounds great. I find the noise gate good enough to keep any of my other guitars quiet and damn any guitar sounds awesome through the kemper. I'm considering the remote but since I just play at home I can get by without it in the meantime. I like how the controls are fairly intuitive. I've yet to mess with rig manager and really delve into the unit but first impressions are very good.