Kemper Profiling Amplifier Head BK

Having dabbled for many years with numerous digital 'pro' solutions for guitar and bass amplification, both in the hardware and software domain, I still found myself going back to the traditional way of recording guitars through micing up a proper rig when needing to 'push some air'.

Then the KPA was announced and raving user reports soon started pouring in throughout the internet. Users were saying that this new digital amp sounded equal to, and greatly surpassed the flexibility of, a professionally mic'd up guitar amp and cab. With a fair bit of scepticism involved, realizing this was still a new arrival on the scene and all those positive user reports could very well be a case of 'awesome brand new toy' syndrome, I bit the bullet and ordered one to try out for myself.

Upon receiving the unit, I upgraded the firmware and plugged in my Gibson. And I kept playing for hours. Damn, this was it! It actually felt like playing the real thing. The dynamics, tone and natural response from a real amp, but with unsurpassed flexibilty of shaping the final outcome.

I've been working with the KPA in my studio for more than a year now, both for recording and re-amping, and I'm positive I will never part with it unless there's an updated version I'll switch to in the future. Having said that, I'm not missing much at all. At times, there's a lot of menu diving due to the sheer possibilities of this thing, but a unit at this level of complexity, I'd say that Kemper has handled this as good as they can. I would love to see a software controller for increased overview of all the parameters and profiles available in the future, similar to the plugin controller of the Access Virus synth, but for now, I'm getting by just fine tweaking the unit itself and saving my creations in the Favourites 'folder' of the KPA, which makes browsing your current project tones a breeze.

Adding real pedals works as a charm, but is very dependent of what profile you're playing into, occasionally needing a bit of gain staging and proper think-through of the recording chain. Same goes when experimenting by switching around profiled amps with different cabs. When in need to play things safe, I just record both the 'amped' and the DI signal for possible future re-amping, which is easily set up and accomplished.

A very cool thing is the vast range of user created profiles, both free and commercial, that broadens the usability of the KPA to near-ridiculous proportions. Again, a software controller to organize and overview the unit's current profiles would be most welcome, but it still works as is. And, just like with the Access Virus, you get continuous official updates with added features, effects and content free of charge. It has become even better with time, and is without a doubt an integral part of my studio setup when it comes to recording and re-amping electric guitars and basses. It's fun as hell on synths too.

Buy it.

I've been using the Kemper for a few months now, both in my (very simple) home studio and for small gigs. I'm actually running four instruments through it, a NS/Stick (fretless bass, effectively), electric guitars, a cello and sax with the acoustic instruments using a Mixing Link pre-amp. I've also put an Eventide H9 and Ditto X2 in the external stereo loop, and some other outboard processing in before the input (a sitar pedal and compressor).

In the studio, quality is excellent - running either line out or SPDIF into a Scarlett 18i6 interface produces beautifully clear noise-free recordings for all instruments. It's great to be able to plug in my bass, flick to an appropriate profile and record that, then switch to another instrument and with a single button press have everything set up to record that completely different sound perfectly. Fantastic when you don't want gear changes to interrupt your flow.

I've also used the profiler running directly in a variety of PA systems (conventional and a Bose line array on one occasion) for small gigs with a four piece 'prog folk' band. My main worry was that without a bass amp behind me I'd have trouble hearing myself (we're not playing in venues that would really justify conventional monitors) but it's not been a problem and I've had plenty of compliments on the bass tone. I'm also a big fan of the size and form factor in this case - gig bag for the bass on my back and one hand each for the kemper in its padded bag and my pedalboard and I can carry my entire rig in one go without breaking my back.

I've not actually tried to profile any amps, and I don't own the kemper remote (although I suspect I will soon), so I've really only used the 'off the shelf' functions of the device, including the pc/mac software for managing rigs (kemper's rigs are a combination of amp, effects, input configuration etc). I've used some free rigs from the rig exchange (something like 5000 of them on there last time I checked) and also purchased some from online sellers, one in particular which managed the 'edge of breakup' tone I was after for my telecaster.

All in all, not only is the kemper excellent quality and a pleasure to use, but it's actually replaced a load of gear that in total cost considerably more. It's saved me money, chiropracters's appointments, space, and made composing and gigging more productive and sound better. As you can probably tell I'm a fan, I'd recommend this to anyone but especially to multi-instrumentalists.

My only reservation is whether I'd have preferred the white one...

Best purchase I ever made for guitar. I've owned many modeling devices over the years, PODs, BOSSs etc., and real tube amps too. I've always needed the ability to get good amp tone when I'm gigging, at rehearsal or in my bedroom. This thing totally captures the nuances of the profiled amp, so you can have the tone that someone spent tweaking for hours with the best mics, preamps, ect. forever, except now useable at any volume. Better yet, once captured you can do things to it with the innovative controls that are impossible with a real amp. For example, a good amp cleans up as you pick softer and back your guitar's volume off. But if you back your guitar's volume too much, you'll lose too much volume to make it practical. In the Kemper with the built in compressor within the amp section, you can make it so that as you back off your guitar's volume, the amp still cleans up, but the volume will be compensated.

The unit is not only have the "factory snapshot" profiles, but you can download thousands of free shared profiles on the Kemper web, and you can buy professionally modeled profiles from 3rd party companies. Pair this with a quality powered PA speaker like the Yamaha dxr10, you'll never miss playing through a real amp again. Best yet, capture your best sound and have the ability to use it at more reasonable volumes.

If that's not enough, you can actually turn off the Cabinet modeling and run this thing through a real guitar cab. All you need is something to power your guitar cab with, (best solutions is a solid state poweramp which is not colouring your tone, or you can buy the Kemper Powerhead which have a built-in mono poweramp).

The effect section is wonderful, you can adjust every important parameter, and the sound is awesome. With a 3rd party MIDI footcontroller (Behringer FCB 1010 with UNO mod for example) you can easily handle the most musical situations.

After weeks of thinking of buying the kemper profiling amp I finally decided to order it at thomann. After about 3 weeks of using the kpa I only regret that I didn`t decide to buy it earlier.

I was using an hybrid amplifier and different modeling and multi effect units to get different sounds I needed to play cover songs within an sound near by the original. All this different modeling boards (for ex. Vox Tonelab and Boss-ME 25) had some good issues an some bad characteristics. So you get an good clear tone by the boss but if you use more distorted sounds it didn`t sound right and had nothing to do with an tube-amp. The Vox amp did better work with this but it also didn?t sound quiet right.´

When I first heard about the kemper I thougt: Ok interesting think for some studio freaks. But I wanted to buy good and lots of different sounds an I only own one amplifier and don`t have the equipment to profile it. But after some months I get more information about the kpa and did found out, that this exact the thing I want to have. Even so you will never profil any amplifier the benefit of the KPA is huge. If you start the kpa for the first time you will have over 400 different rigs. You get profiles of so many really good amplifiers and caps you can use immediately. And you also get lots of stomp-effects you can us to vary the sound and even create totally new sounds. This good base you can easily extend. At the Kemper Website there are over 4000 free rigs you can easily download. Within the free software rig exchange you can manage this profiles and rigs and find out what the sound about and even test the rigs without storing it at the kpa.

Usage of the kpa is very simple. Even if you have that many opportunities to configure your sounds it is easy to do so. You will do it exactly like you do if you use all the components in reality. So you choose your stomp effect, configure them, chose your amp, you cabinet, loop-in other effects afterwards and choose gain etc. separately like you use to do at your amp. But not with the same effect like you get from the amp, mostly you can vary the sound more effective.

About of the quality of the sound: First rule Shit in, shit out. But also Quality in, quality out. The profiles which are provided mostly are really good stuff. You can find a lot of discussions about If this profiles really sounds like the original. I couldn`t decide, but I don?t need to. But what I know is, the sounds are really great and that?s all I need to know. The have nothing to do with the modelers I mentioned above. You will really get the tone out of your fingers. To switch the pick-ups at your guitar or to change the setting of your tone or volume knob will have effect to your sound you will never get with a ?normal? modeler. This sounds right, it sounds like you are playing an tubeamp.

To store you´re sound as performances is also very easy and helpful. Yu can easily arrange and store different sound for one song in an performance and arrange different of it for using it for example at an gig. Within an midi-board you can easily control this.

I don`t think I will ever use more than 30% of what you can get out of this little toaster, but even for me as an person which makes music just for fun it is worth every penny.

I really felt in love with the kpa.

I've had the Kemper for one month, and only one concert, and I've had more than a dozen people (including professionals) ask me about it, take photos of it, or research it on their own, because it sounds so great. The crystal clear highs and low-end "whomp" of a tube amp--but not just one, but any one of hundreds of amps are available (Marshall, Vox, Orange, Fender, Peavey, and lots of great unknowns -- like a Rasmus Snake). I sound like a Kemper marketing employee, but I am not -- this is just the most incredible piece of equipment I have seen in over 20 years of playing guitar!

I'm going to find this a hard review to complete not because of a fault of the product but because owning one nearly turned me off completely from electric guitar.

First off, I was desperate to buy a Kemper for my studio as it represented the most satisfactory way of recording guitars without resorting to isolation cabs. When it first arrived, I profiled my amplifiers before selling all but one. The profiles were easy to do and very accurately represented my amps. The quality of the Kemper was beyond reproach but once setup in the studio I found I was playing less and less and when I was playing I was auditioning profiles and settings more than enjoying playing guitar. During this time I completely lost interest in the guitar and got more enjoyment out of keys.

A couple of months ago, whilst trying to scrape together the money for acoustic treatment, I decided to sell the Kemper. It has taken a couple of months to get back to enjoying playing again, now with an amp. What seems ironic is that the amp I play through was the same profile I used 9 times out of 10 on the Kemper and the profile accurately reflected the sound of the amp. The only conclusion I can draw is that, for me at least, whilst the Kemper sounds great and is very well made, it isn't as enjoyable and as inspirational as playing through a proper amplifier. For a composing studio musician that is a serious drawback.

For electric guitar and bass, nothing comes close to the sound quality of the Kemper profiler. I spent years messing around with Amplitube and other sims, with SGear being a top favourite in the end. But the more I read and heard about the Kemper, the more I wanted it so I took the plunge.

It's not needless to say, but I sold my amp and cabinet not long after as I only really use it in my home studio. Must say that the M Britt profiles complete the picture for me and I'm getting the absolute best guitar, harmonica, and bass tones in my recordings.

For those of you who have real world amps that you love, profiling them is as far as I can tell the only current way to capture their sounds without blasting your neighbours.

Very happy with my purchase. If you're considering taking the plunge in the profiling world, jump now, you won't regret it!