The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Just wanted to mention that I picked up a kemper. It is a modeling "amp"/profiler which can playback profiled amps. The unit is fairly expensive (i picked mine up for $1650 used) and the model that I bought doesn't have the amp built in so I run it through a $250 Alto TS110A 600w FRFR powered speaker.

    It's the best sounding amplifier I've ever owned and can sound (subjective) exactly like just about any amp ever made including the old ampeg jets, polytone, BF Fender, various and sundry solid state amps, old gibsons, matchless, badcat, etc. There are even profiles of various boutique preamps available.

    Additionally, it has a zillion effects which are extremely well done and routable to be anywhere in the signal chain.

    You can also use it through a traditional guitar speaker cab which I was doing for a while but found that the PA style speaker actually sounds better to me and more realistically sounds like the original profile.

    It sounded so good I sold my boutique Gries 35 amplifier because frankly the kemper actually sounded better. Better in that I could make it sound like the gries when the gries was turned up pretty high whereas the actual amp has to be turned down to a teeny fraction of it's capabilities in order to practice with.

    If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

    here's a real quick clip. Didn't spend more than 10 seconds dialing it in.



    Here's another clip with a different amp model and reverb (unfortunately, I had the reverb mix too high)



    Last edited by jzucker; 02-26-2015 at 09:45 AM.

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  3. #2

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    I've converted to digital too recently. A barb eq (blackface preamp), zoom ms100bt (several effects) and a logidy epsi (cab simulator) trough a Mambo PA cab. I just need to change the preamp and the speaker in the epsi to get a new amp and it's the best sound I ever had in a very small, light package. My Mambo amp is about to be sold too.

  4. #3
    i almost went that route too Jorge. I know several other guys using that rig who get great sounds. I bought a Genz Benz Shuttle 6 as a backup amp and/or for playing through a standard cab.

    I still have a pair of blackface showman style preamps that I'll probably sell though I suppose I should keep one as a backup. I did try the kingsley squire (dumble flavor) and found that it didn't sound as good as my showman preamp or the kemper's clean dumble/two rock setting.

    I would like to get the kemper remote to do away with my pedalboard but it's fairly expensive ($600) and the kemper does not have a good univibe so I'm still using a couple pedals.

  5. #4

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    How does the unit work, Jack? How many independent components does one need to carry in order to use the unit live?

    It speaks very well of the device if it prompted you to give up your Gries, as I know how much you enjoyed that amp.

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by jzucker
    i almost went that route too Jorge. I know several other guys using that rig who get great sounds. I bought a Genz Benz Shuttle 6 as a backup amp and/or for playing through a standard cab.

    I still have a pair of blackface showman style preamps that I'll probably sell though I suppose I should keep one as a backup. I did try the kingsley squire (dumble flavor) and found that it didn't sound as good as my showman preamp or the kemper's clean dumble/two rock setting.

    I would like to get the kemper remote to do away with my pedalboard but it's fairly expensive ($600) and the kemper does not have a good univibe so I'm still using a couple pedals.
    Yeah I also have a Roland AC-60 as a backup amp because I got one very cheap, it sounds decent with archtops for an acoustic amp and one never knows... always good to have backups.

    I am positive the Kemper sounds better than my rig, specially the preamp part but it's too big and expensive for me - I can carry the 3 pedals and the Mambo cab in a small trolley. And as you say I've heard complaints about some of the effetcs too and when I get a box I like that I don't want any extra stuff.

    Good to know the Kingsley did not impress you, I am tempted to get one because the Barb EQ is on a long term loan but Jon at Mambo amps is making me a pedal to replace the Barber, which I love.

    Anyway, digital is the future. You can get tons of sounds in one package, easy and cheap to upgrade (just get a new preamp or IR or in your case a profile) and most of all... endless headroom without the beams of guitar cabs. This must be the bigges advantage of all... you can use a 30w Celestion with real power of 500w and no need to use stuff make it always off axis. The speaker / cab is VERY relevant for tone to me and I can have EVs, JBLs, Jensens, Celestions and several cabs (12s 10s 8s 15s 2x open closed ported etc...) at a switch. I am using Jensens with the Barber and EVs with an RC Booster which is great for a mre "jazz amp" sound.

    With time amps will be like vynil, an aficionado niche.

  7. #6
    Yeah, the gries was overall my most favorite amp in history.

    You can get away with the kemper and a powered PA cab like the Alto TS110A I mentioned. It's 600W and has more than enough power for almost any gig but I have a pair of them so I can run in stereo and I can also plug in a mic for vocals and an acoustic guitar. The added benefit is that the kemper and the Alto cab blow away any acoustic guitar amp on the market.

    The kemper weighs 14lbs and the cab weighs 25lbs.

  8. #7

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    Well done, I don't think people can hear the difference in quality between good analog and good digital sounds. There's no way that our ears and brains can hear the spaces in the higher digital sample rates.

  9. #8

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    Yeah, that's other advantage, you get an acoustic amp too.. I am also getting a second cab and a small mixer so I can have a mini-pa. To me also better than any acoustic amp.

  10. #9

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    Isn't this the same theory behind the trademark NYC amps? Basically sansamp built into a PA. I had a trademark 60 years ago, and liked the sound for jazz a lot, but had some headroom issues with it in my playing situation. Probably an inferior implementation of the idea, but much cheaper.

  11. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
    Yeah I also have a Roland AC-60 as a backup amp because I got one very cheap, it sounds decent with archtops for an acoustic amp and one never knows... always good to have backups.

    I am positive the Kemper sounds better than my rig, specially the preamp part but it's too big and expensive for me - I can carry the 3 pedals and the Mambo cab in a small trolley. And as you say I've heard complaints about some of the effetcs too and when I get a box I like that I don't want any extra stuff.
    Yes, I know what you mean re: effects. When I first got the kemper, I was disappointed in the reverb (no spring reverb) and the fuzz didn't react like a fuzzface and the univibe wasn't very good. Most jazz guitarists probably wouldn't use the fuzz or univibe but I use them frequently so I was disappointed. However, I since learned a couple tricks from one of the kemper experts for making the fuzz work and I'm now very happy with that. After I learned to live without the spring reverb and to give the kemper's reverb a chance I realized its reverb actually sounds very good. Just different from the spring reverb I was used to. The univibe is a different story and I just use a pedal in front of the unit which goes to your complaint about not wanting to use anything but the kemper. The effects on the axefx II are much better but while the axefx sounds fabulous, it doesn't quite sound exactly like the amps it's imitating. To me it sounds like an idealized version of the amps it's imitating whereas the kemper would be hard to discern from the real thing in an A/B test.

    Quote Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
    Good to know the Kingsley did not impress you, I am tempted to get one because the Barb EQ is on a long term loan but Jon at Mambo amps is making me a pedal to replace the Barber, which I love.
    I wouldn't say I wasn't impressed with it. I did like the way it sounded going into the front of my showman preamp. In that situation it made the showman sound like a slightly distorted marshall plexi (in a sort of Axis/Hendrix kind of way). However, when I replaced the showman preamp with just the kingsley, my SS amp no longer sounded like a tube amp to me. Also, the same guy who made the showman preamp made a dumble preamp and it's clean channel sounded more dumble-like to me than the kingsley.

    Quote Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
    Anyway, digital is the future. You can get tons of sounds in one package, easy and cheap to upgrade (just get a new preamp or IR or in your case a profile) and most of all... endless headroom without the beams of guitar cabs. This must be the bigges advantage of all... you can use a 30w Celestion with real power of 500w and no need to use stuff make it always off axis. The speaker / cab is VERY relevant for tone to me and I can have EVs, JBLs, Jensens, Celestions and several cabs (12s 10s 8s 15s 2x open closed ported etc...) at a switch. I am using Jensens with the Barber and EVs with an RC Booster which is great for a mre "jazz amp" sound.

    With time amps will be like vynil, an aficionado niche.
    Yes, you nailed it. In fact, when I first got the kemper, I was using it with a SS amp and into my standard 1x12 open back cab with a tonker. I have used this setup for a few years and really love the way it sounds for both jazz and rock and fusion. However, i always have to angle the speaker away from me or it sounds bright and ice picky. The kemper through a FRFR doesn't have this problem. I can point the speaker right at my ear and it sounds great. And of course, if you go through a house system it'll sound just like you hear it.

    And I agree that with the FRFR I can play through a 4x12 or 1x12 open back or an ev or jensen without having to waste all the money on speakers. I can't even remember how much money I spent buying speakers folks recommended me that when I heard them, I realize don't have a chance to work for me.

  12. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by nopedals
    Isn't this the same theory behind the trademark NYC amps? Basically sansamp built into a PA. I had a trademark 60 years ago, and liked the sound for jazz a lot, but had some headroom issues with it in my playing situation. Probably an inferior implementation of the idea, but much cheaper.
    Yep, pretty much the same theory. By decoupling the amp and cab (virtually) from the output amplifier you make it much easier to get a great sound through any number of PA cabs. It's much easier to design a good, flat PA cab than it is to subjectively design a good cab. Of course, having 600W of headroom in a powered 25lb cab ain't bad either.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by jzucker
    Yep, pretty much the same theory. By decoupling the amp and cab (virtually) from the output amplifier you make it much easier to get a great sound through any number of PA cabs. It's much easier to design a good, flat PA cab than it is to subjectively design a good cab. Of course, having 600W of headroom in a powered 25lb cab ain't bad either.
    I got the Altos from Amazon on a special blowaway sale and I am very happy with them too. I am not as much an amp connoisseur as you are, so I am using them with Pod HD500X and a GR-33 and I feel covered for much everything.

  14. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
    No offense but... seriously? I could do just the same with amps, put links of people having issues with them...

    The thing about digital rigs is you need to know how to use them - just like computers or mobile phones. It's not plug and play... but they're very reliable.

    And, of course, I bet you never tried one.
    I have tried plenty of modeling amps and in my humble opinion the are not worth the money and I would never rely on one for gigs. This is just my opinion after using all kinds of amps for 40 yrs. I have played analog tube & solid state amps and never had one fail like these digital amps will do. Trust me it will fail and when it does you'll be in the middle of a gig and you'll be gooched.. Again this is just an opinion of live gigging for 35yrs. In 35 yrs I have only ever had an amp fail on me at a a gig and all it needed was a new set of tubes which took 20 mins to replace. Please keep loving these digital amps if you must but for me as a working musician amp failure is not an option.

    Of course your response will be something like "Yes, other amps can fail as well" however I would hate to see the repair bill for one of these failed digital amps. I need gear I can rely on at all times not gimmicks.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by OldGuitarPlayer
    I have tried plenty of modeling amps and in my humble opinion the are not worth the money and I would never rely on one for gigs. This is just my opinion after using all kinds of amps for 40 yrs. I have played analog tube & solid state amps and never had one fail like these digital amps will do. Trust me it will fail and when it does you'll be in the middle of a gig and you'll be gooched.. Again this is just an opinion of live gigging for 35yrs. In 35 yrs I have only ever had an amp fail on me at a a gig and all it needed was a new set of tubes which took 20 mins to replace. Please keep loving these digital amps if you must but for me as a working musician amp failure is not an option.

    Of course your response will be something like "Yes, other amps can fail as well" however I would hate to see the repair bill for one of these failed digital amps. I need gear I can rely on at all times not gimmicks.
    I've been gigging for 10 years now and have gigged with analog and digital rigs and a mix of both. So far, so good with both. Which digital units did you tried?

  16. #15

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    The technology is still too new (read: expensive) for me to make the jump yet, but this is definitely the future, here right now, and I find it quite exciting.

  17. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by OldGuitarPlayer
    I have tried plenty of modeling amps and in my humble opinion the are not worth the money and I would never rely on one for gigs. This is just my opinion after using all kinds of amps for 40 yrs. I have played analog tube & solid state amps and never had one fail like these digital amps will do. Trust me it will fail and when it does you'll be in the middle of a gig and you'll be gooched.. Again this is just an opinion of live gigging for 35yrs. In 35 yrs I have only ever had an amp fail on me at a a gig and all it needed was a new set of tubes which took 20 mins to replace. Please keep loving these digital amps if you must but for me as a working musician amp failure is not an option.

    Of course your response will be something like "Yes, other amps can fail as well" however I would hate to see the repair bill for one of these failed digital amps. I need gear I can rely on at all times not gimmicks.
    If you have not tried a Kemper or Axefx II than what you are saying is like saying that you have heard a tube radio and therefore you know a tube amp wouldn't work for you.

    I have been gigging longer than you. 40 years. And I have had tube amps fail on me at a gig plenty of times. I used to tape preamp tubes to the inside of my cabinets. I've had tubes fail, i've had reverb pans fail, i've had speaker connections fail and i've had power / output transformers fail.

    I always brought a second (tube) amp to the gig with me as a backup. Later, I bought a small class D amp and left that in my car. I can do the same thing with the kemper. Frankly, if you look at the failure rate of tube amps vs. computer hardware, computer hardware is more robust.

    Look at it this way. The military uses printed circuit board based designs on the battlefield. They do not use hand-wired, point to point designs. They would if they were more reliable. But it's an absolute fact that properly design printed circuit boards are more reliable than hand soldered components.

    And the kemper is completely modular. Every major component is on a separate board and on it's own buss so if it does need replacing it can be done easily.

    Frankly, there are fewer and fewer places that can repair a tube amp these days. Last time I needed some work done, I had to pack my tube amp up and ship it to someone 1000 miles away. Which was a *HUGE* hassle.

  18. #17
    and regarding not worth the money...I sold a very expensive, hand-made, hand-tuned vacuum tube amp after buying the kemper.

    Not only did I replace that amp, but I replaced a two rock, vox, matchless, fender (gries), /13 and marshall stack.

    In the 7 or 8 amp profiles that I've dialed in, I have saved myself probably $15,000 and that's not including all the various speaker cabs I would have needed to be able to authentically get the sounds out of each individual amp.

    At some point it doesn't matter what tubes sound like because the younger players don't have the same affection for the tones of yesteryear and as the tube amps' sales decline, the tube manufacturers will eventually go belly up.

    I used to hear the same argument in the film industry (i'm also a photographer). The local camera shop told me that digital would never be as good as film and they refused to carry digital cameras. They went belly up 6 years ago.

    I find it fascinating that almost all of the arts are converging on digital technology as a fantastic technology. Photography, mixed media, music (first CDs and now amps).

  19. #18

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    And also kemper (or my epsi) are giving you a miced cab.. so very expensive mics, preamps, mixers, power amps, etc... were used to make them to sound like that. It's a lot of money saved, really.

  20. #19

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    How easy is it to model the sound of amp using the Kemper's software? Does it have its own mic, or do you need to record the sound you want modeled separately?

  21. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Klatu
    How easy is it to model the sound of amp using the Kemper's software? Does it have its own mic, or do you need to record the sound you want modeled separately?
    I have not done it, mainly because the only "amp" i currently have is a genz benz shuttle which does sound good with the 1x12/tonker and my fender showman preamp but I have not bothered.

    However, it's very easy to do. You basically just mic the amp with something like a cheap SM57 or whatever floats your boat and you plug the profiling output into the input of your amp and set it's volume and tone to where you normally would and then you let the kemper automate the rest. You can do additional things to fine tune it of course.

    There are tons of folks on the kemper forum who have done things like invite someone over to their house because they have a great amp and it's very quick to create the custom profiles.

  22. #21

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    Jack how's the EQ on the Kemper? If I understand correctly the Kemper stores the amp as it's sounding at that moment and then you're using a different eq from the original amp if you need to tune the sound... right?

  23. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
    Jack how's the EQ on the Kemper? If I understand correctly the Kemper stores the amp as it's sounding at that moment and then you're using a different eq from the original amp if you need to tune the sound... right?
    i haven't completely figured out all the nuances but according to what I've read the eq spots are the same and the eqs are similar but the relative positions of the knobs (5 vs 8 or 9) may not be the same.

    One pleasant surprise is how well the gain knob works, even on amps that don't have a gain control. For example, I can add gain to a fender amp to get an SRV tone even if the amp itself had no gain control and it works really well.

    I haven't had any problem with tone controls from amps with very different tone stacks such as fender, marshall , dumble and matchless although a straight-up rock guy in the studio might have a better understanding of where it falls short.

  24. #23

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    Another Kemper user here....very happy with it.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Rowland
    Another Kemper user here....very happy with it.
    How long have you been using yours, how long was the learning curve, and what amp models do you use most?

  26. #25

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    @Klatu...congratulations to you and your wife on your new baby girl!
    I've had the Kemper about 9 months. To be honest I haven't explored every nook and cranny. I use a modified profile to get an approximate Pat Metheny tone and the Dumble profiles from MBritt for the usual stuff. I only play bop and fusion. The learning curve is pretty easy. It's also pretty much plug and play. What floored me is how it responds to your touch and the type of pickups you're using...amazing!. Also, there are many, many amp models to choose from (Fenders, Marshalls, TwoRocks, Fuchs, etc. etc. and many variations thereof and also individual cabinets to mix and match. You can download hundreds of profiles! I would say most of the cats using the Kemper are rockers and med to hi gain users. However the sounds (tones) you can get and the versatility is unlimited. When I bought it I pretty much jumped in the deep end without knowing how deep the water was but I'm very happy with the unit, considering my limited knowledge of how to get the best out of it. I'm definitely not the most knowledgable person to ask about the tech details of what the KPA can do but you can get a lot of info from the kemper amp forum and the kemper wiKPA page. Hope this helps.
    Last edited by Eric Rowland; 02-12-2015 at 03:18 PM.