Kris Barras Reveals His Favourite Kemper Features

[@teknical100]

This guy finally made me get a Kemper.

[@karolkozak64]

Nice playing! And a cool guy. Love the interview.

[@williama-d6]

A bit of jazz style playing? It's impressive

[@tisi8021]

Which sound do you use at 14:00? Thanks in advance

[@iansimmons735]

The best piece of guitar gear I've ever bought. The trick is to find the profiles that inspire you. Then you don't tweak, you just play, play, play.

[@tomldickinson]

I’m not really convinced about Kemper I’m afraid - I want to be (!) - because they’re easy to record, ship and the reliability etc. However, I think bands that use them have ‘a certain sound’ and I personally feel that is really lacking. I can even hear it on this video. I saw Bryan Ferry before lockdown at the Albert Hall, and one guitarist was using a Kemper, and the other was using a Marshall Plexi with a traditional pedalboard. They exchanged solos and the difference in the depth of sound and fidelity was night and day! The Marshall sounded 3D, and the Kemper sounded 2D. (Of course that could be the individual settings etc). Metallica are a band that’s adopted modelling amps in recent years, and they have the same issue. There’s an x-factor missing. I’m sure many will disagree…

[@PartyChicken407]

What you heard was user settings, not an ‘x-factor’. Tons of people buy the device on recommendation but never tweak it right because it’s too much for them so they either only get mediocre results or they sell it. The main problem with it is it’s not intuitive how powerful it is. It’s not a perfect unit, but it absolutely is more capable than your ears have you currently convinced. Try one for a while and you’ll see.

[@karolkozak64]

Just like with tube amps --- i have heard the absolutely worst and best sounds coming out of a kemper. I think the big problem is that you really need to play it out loud to find the right profile. Many people use profiles that are mix ready, overproduced, bloated in bass and treble. Those usually sound terrible when playing live. Fletcher Munson cannot be ignored. This is one of the reason people prefer profiles made by mbritt, ampfactory etc.... I am playing mine through the kemper powered kabinet and then straight to FOH and into in ears. I absolutely love the blend. Going through a regular cabinet would defeat the whole purpose for me although people are super happy with their results. You need to find a profile that is at least 85% there and do some adjustments but really you need to have the opportunity to test it live in a loud environment. (definition, hi pass/lo pass, clarity, try a soft shaper after cab block with small settings to mimic speaker break up...) The reason why the kemper sometimes does not sound right is because the player goes straight to the PA without any monitoring on stage. You need that acoustic pressure because else people in the front row do not feel the punch. So if you have a player playing a real tube amp smashing it through a cab and then compare it to FOH kemper it feels like the kemper is thinner, has las body etc. The worst is when you have this hybrid situation with clashing principles. I've had a boogie mark 4, mark 5, played a diezel vh4, herbert, bogner uberschall, peavey 5150, 6505+, evh 5150 III (all versions), marshall jvm, dsl, orange rockerverb... I'd never go back to a regular amp/cab. I just take one bag with the kemper stage, my guitar, a few cables, in ears.. and all takes literally 5 min to hook up. The best buy of my life.

[@tomldickinson]

@@PartyChicken407 fair enough, totally get your point. To play devils advocate - I would have thought Metallica, the biggest metal band of all time, would have someone in their huge organisation who could dial in a tone that could be totally convincing 🤷🏼‍♂️ (They use AxeFX, not Kemper. But both companies are modelling amp industry leaders etc).

[@PartyChicken407]

@@tomldickinson - The confirmation via effect can kick in too… people know Metallica is using axe FX so they hear with their prejudice. It’s not the only example but I saw Killswitch Engage plenty of times and the sound before and after they switched to Kemper was the equally well produced. I actually got a chance to talk to their FoH tech (I’m not a noob, I do Mon, FoH, Broadcast, RF, Patch, and studio tech work with a pretty solid resume) and he said quite honestly the switch to Kemper has been nothing but a good thing for them. More consistency, same if not better tone night after night, and the guys in the band love it. They trialed it extensively before switching and it hit the mark for them so they went with it. It’s not perfect kit by any means, but much of the complaints related to sound quality are settings induced, not ‘X’ factor related from my experience.

[@thomasanderson9202]

I am 100% sure you would never be able to tell the difference in a blind test.