Posts by GCNC8068

I have the Westone AM Pro 30x as well and love them ... I've used several others and these are hands down much better. The included silicone eartips work great for me (although I having customs made as well). I'm now using them with an Audio Technical ATW-3255 ... an expensive unit but it provides literally all UHF frequencies legally available in the US. Most others at that price (e.g., Shure PSM300) provide a very limited range of frequencies and you have to purchase a unit with a set bandwidth based on where you think you'll be using the system the most. The AT provides all frequencies, so you're covered (in the US) even when the FCC changes the available bands a little.

I have to disagree with DonPetersen a bit -- the transmitter/receiver hardware matters, but only to the point it can provide a clear channel to broadcast on. I've used cheap and not-cheap rigs, and the difference isn't so much audio tone as susceptibility to interference (both in frequency band to find a clear channel, and RFI/EMI). If you buy the right frequency range in the hardware, finding a clear channel is somewhat binary -- you find one or you don't. Once you do, the quality of the audio doesn't change much from the $100 units to the $1,000 in my real world experience.

The quality and fit of the earbuds, however, matters tremendously and determines 90+% of the quality of the IEM experience, especially the seal of the earbud in the ear. Again, as long as you have a clear channel, the earbuds are the single biggest determiner of quality sound in IEMs.

I love the Westone's because they seal great, but the passive ambience still provides some outside sound and doesn't make them feel so isolating.

Quote from StefanErtle

What would require a proper WiFi-Connection. I would love to have that first 🤓

yeah ... my freaking light bulbs have had WiFi connectivity for years and years.

Quote from Kellerblues

Cannot talk for TJ, but MattFig ones are great as they are.

Agree completely. Mattfig JCM800, SLO-100, and Friedman Plexi are my go to rock amp liquid profiles.

+1,000. RM is frankly kind of embarrassingly dysfunctional for a company with the technical chops of Kemper in 2026.

I have a Mk1 rack and remote. Use it for live performance, very little recording (and that’s mostly band demos). I’ve yet to hear or read anything that makes Mk2 or OS14 a necessity, and plenty of issues seem to come with OS14. The v2 Profiles don’t sound that hugely different to warrant a $1,600 upgrade, and the few add’l “features”‘of the Mk2 aren’t worth it for me. I have a great set of profiles and performances I’ve developed over the years, most of them purchased (Britt, Figg), so I’m happily covered.

If Kemper releases some really good new features that help me in live performance I’d be in quickly.

Quote from JoeM

I’m extremely happy with my mk1 toaster. It’s on 13.something firmware. I’ve never had an issue with it. I will not be updating the firmware on the toaster , nor on my rig manager anytime soon. . If or when I get bored with my current favorite profiles , I’ll just tweak some of the hundreds of free and paid for profiles stored on my laptop and my toaster…..just saying …. carry on !

I’m exactly in this camp. Love my Mk1 Rack and unless/until the Mk2 offers “must have” options, and especially until the OS stabilizes, I’m happy with what I’ve got.

I don’t disagree with BayouTexan but I’ll give you another perspective. I have an unpowered Rack. Since I need the Remote and an expression pedal, I still have a pedalboard. So I use a Seymour Duncan Powerstage as my amp for my Kone-loaded monitor cabinet. I like having a separate amp in case of any malfunction I can swap out the amp easily without affecting my Rack. I would want to have to send my Kemper for service if the amp failed, or to have to buy the custom Kemper amp module if it can be user replaced.

Quote from Robrecht

The Monitor Outs have their own "no cab" setting that's a little deeper in the Output menu (for when you're monitoring through a real cab or Kabinet), but no cab sim on the Main Outs would mean the Cabinet section itself is actually disabled. I don't have a Stage myself but I think that would show as the Cabinet button LED being unlit.

Pretty visible, in other words, so I suppose the chance is rather low that this was the case in your second gig. 🤔

Do you usually play through your Kabinet? If so, another possibility is that you're just not used to hearing your Profiles on their own, with their own included Cab sections – which is the sound the audience will hear through the PA. Do you have somewhere you can test the Main Outputs on a PA system or just a neutral speaker? Do your Profiles sound good when you plug a pair of headphones directly into your Stage's Headphones output?

Some PA folks will take every XLR coming from the stage and treat it as a microphone signal, which it traditionally is, even for guitars (a mic in front of a cab). But the Kemper's signal is much hotter than that, so it should be treated as a line signal. Since you were using TRS cables, that mic/line mix-up is a little less likely, and you said the signal didn't show as clipping on the board, but you ever know.

You said you were running two cables to the PA. Is that because you have stereo effects that you want panned L/R? If you're just playing mono, one cable is enough.

I'm now wondering if maybe the mixer person got your two signals, which weren't clipping by themselves, but just left them both panned in the middle, so that, summed together, they became much louder and clipped somewhere downstream in the PA chain.

To avoid this, you should either tell the PA person to pan them L/R, or use just one cable if you don't need stereo.

That's all I can come up with for now. 😄

Edit: now that I've read this, that summing scenario sounds even more likely:

Unless you're using stereo effects, a single cable is enough, and it doesn't need to be TRS: TS is fine since the ¼ inch Main Outputs are unbalanced anyway.

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My guess, from running a Kemper rack with and without a Kemper Kone and running FOH, is that this^ is the right analysis. The summed signal at the board would be an issue. If you're not running stereo FOH then just send one cable and avoid the confusion. I also think the OP should confirm he isn't using Imprints on the Kabinet as that will sound very, very different than the standard cab sim going to FOH via the Main Output.

It's a great thought, but a new Kemper MK2 Rack is $1,540 in the U.S. How much would any Mk1 owner be willing to pay for a "Mk2 upgrade" if you have to ship it to and from Kemper and pay for the install? Used Mk1 racks are going for around $600-$700 on Reverb. Hard to imagine Kemper could/would do an upgrade of electronics and sell it at retail for under $1,000 - otherwise it could be cheaper to buy a used Mk1 and have it upgraded.

Given everything I've read about the Mk2, OS14, RM 4.1, and the absence of V2 profiles, I'm in zero hurry to upgrade. My Mk1 Rack and Remote still sounds great and does everything I need, and the "extras" I'd like to have are not part of the Mk2 anyway, so no big reason to upgrade until things change ... a lot.

Quote from GearJocke

Sure, there some great free profiles but wading thru at least 90-95% trash profiles just to find the good ones? No thanks. I don't waste my time any more with that.

This is my experience as well. There are some good profiles in Rig Exchange, but the ratio of good/excellent to bad/unusable is waaayyyy too low and with 20K+ profiles piled in there, with inconsistent or nonexistent naming and info, it’s an enormous waste of time. I’d rather spend $20 on a Britt or Figg pack that I’m 95+% sure will be excellent and save the time for actually playing.

well, in the absence of other thoughts I did a factory reset and then reinstalled my backup. So far it seems to work.

I turned the Rack off for a bit and let it sit. I turned it on straight to Browser mode, and it worked for a bit. Then it lost tone again ... it's not losing 100% of the signal, but it's like it loses the Rig that's been selected and just gives out a very low generic signal. No selections or buttons affect this very low tone. I'm very puzzled.

I'm running a non-powered Mk1 Rack (OS 13.05.61298), with Rig Manager (v3.10.13). All runs great in Performance Mode. When I switch to Browser Mode to check some different rigs in Rig Manager, I lose virtually all sound -- Just a whisper of signal which seems unrelated to any rig (it doesn't change at all changing rigs in Browser mode). I checked all cables and connections, tried different guitars, and rebooted a couple times ... no joy. On one reboot I went straight into Browser Mode and it worked for a bit then went bad again ... when I switch to Performance Mode all was fine. Doesn't matter what Rig I try in Browser mode. When I switch back to Performance Mode all is well (without rebooting).

Any thoughts from anyone? I have a backup I can install, but I've made a few tweaks in the last week on my Performance Rigs that I don't want to lose, so if there's something I can do short of a reinstall that would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Glad Kemper added this feature to RM ... but given Wheresthedug experience, doesn't it still seem a bit like a "half baked" implementation? It just seems RM is always an afterthought, or certainly way, way down the list of priorities at Kemper. Perhaps they should consider contracting this effort out ... lots of contract software houses out there that could do a good job with this.

You can bet your lunch money somebody is going to do this. You feed the AI your gear, upload a reference tone (say, Page Black Dog), tell it what profile rig you’re using (assuming it’s essentially the right one for the tone you’re after), and AI tells you what values to use for the settings. If it got automated as joassouza contemplates, this would be stupid popular. It’s the logical evolution of modeling and profiling.

Since I’m on Mk1 hardware, I think I’m just gonna stay on OS13 until a couple 14 updates get officially released. Kinda like I do on my computers.

I have the rack, not player, so I’m not sure. I thought the player had an Ethernet port so maybe that would be the ticket.

Apple does not currently have a laptop with touch screen. Rumors are they may be releasing one late this year.

Have you considered an iPad with a connection dongle? They make them with USB and Ethernet, plus other goodies. This way you can have a wired connection with the touch screen iPad.

To me the “classic” AC30 sound is with 12”Celestion Blues. I know people mix the 2x12 with a less bright Celestion sometimes - like the G12H picture above — to cut down on the top end a bit.

well -- your Squier has already been significantly upgraded ... tone rider pickups, CTS pots. The only other upgrades in my opinion would be tuners and bridge/saddles. Better tuners just make life easier ... I love locking tuners, but that's completely a personal preference. The bridge/saddles make a big difference in Tele tone in my experience ... especially brass barrel saddles (although they are criticized for being tough to intonate ... I've not had that problem on 3 Tele's).