Cornerstone Gladio or Thorpy The Dane. Had both on my old board and they are just incredible. No real need with the Kemper though
Source Audio Multiwave Distortion
Ceriatone Centura
KoT or klone.
GENERAL USE
Fulltone OCD or clone of it. I have a similar style clone of it I always use and I tend to use the one in the Kemper way more than anything else.
SPECIFIC USE
A friend suggested the Nobels ODR-1. Nashville studios hidden secret sauce. It has a cleaner sound, less OD style. More like a twangy compressor with some boost. It accentuates the picking a little. So it works great for country twang OD and making a raging distortion sound clearer. I made some profiles with the Nobels driving a Metal Zone.
King of Tone.
There isn't a bad sound in it, and it works with every type of guitar.
I have a version 4.7 Fulltone OCD that sounds good to me no matter the amp I put it in front of. That would probably be the one for me. However, another one that I really like is the Friedman Dirty Shirley. Both of these pedals have spent a long time on my pedal board. I could work with either of these with no problem.
Source Audio Multiwave Distortion
Holy obscure, esoteric and out-of-production callbacks.
You mean.....Kemper Drive won't do that one? /ducks, runs
Not sure if you are interested but I fall in the camp of "none" because I always have used amp gain and distortion.
For me, this is even more relevant with the KPA because you have such a choice of amps, whereas ( and I realize I'm open for a large amount of criticism), I feel like OD pedals came about because the existing amp didn't have the variety of sound.
In other words, I feel that gain pedals are born out of trying to make a Fender sound more like a Marshall, you need a distortion pedal as most people won't carry both amps.
Every time I've tried to use a Tube Screamer or OCD etc. I've never got on with them.
Over simplistic I know but I don't think I'm the only one
....and now realizing this is in the "other gear" section, my comments are even less valid...doh!
Holy obscure, esoteric and out-of-production callbacks.
You mean.....Kemper Drive won't do that one? /ducks, runs
OP specified "Kemper Stomps and or plugins not included."
I've been having a good time with this.
My mooer blues crab is fantastic , based on the marshall bluesbreaker pedal ( just like the rare & expensive KOT )
dirt cheap, I use it on most of my leads : transparent boost at 9 o clock , dist under 3 o clock and above for fuzzy lead, but also on Rh to cut the mix
I might soon do a profile and some NAM captures soon
During Covid, I went down a real rabbit hole with acquiring and flipping gain pedals.
My friend of mine who is a sound man and not a serious guitarist gave me his original Green Russion big box Big Muff. Not really my thing but I was amazed by how my Kemper behaved with that unit in front of it. It felt totally alive.
Some of the overdrive pedals, I have gone through: MXR distortion +, original TS9, Rat 2, Walrus Ironhorse, R.A.T. TACK, ARC Effects Klon Klone, original Timmy, Barber Burn Unit, Van Weelden Royal Overdrive, Honey Bee, Lovepedal ZenDrive, Vertex Ultraphonix, Ultraphonix MK2, Hotone Grass, Purple Plexi, Les Lius, High Power Tweed Twin, Joyo American Sound (Tech 21 Blonde copy), Joyo AC-Tone, King of Kings (Not recommended KOT clone), Rockett 45 Caliber, Blue Note, Box of Rock, Weehbo Plexface, Cornerstone Gladio.
I prefer gain stages using only low amounts of gain from each pedal.
When employing primarily Blackface/Brownface clean sounds I used nothing but the Arc Effects Klon Klone and a Timmy for about a year. - The Klone primarily to warm up the sound and the Timmy as a boost.
Eventually I started using warmer Tweed cleans for my basic sound and didn't use anything but the Kemper; I used the treble booster more as an EQ pedal, then I would have Green Scream and Mouse for different amounts of gain within the Kemper. - but more often I would just switch to a different higher gain profile.
I think this is what makes the most sense with the Kemper as it adds many advantages of simplicity and quietness to the rig. I would just recommend using different profiles and tweaking the existing Kemper stomps. There is tons of depth there if one is a dedicated tweaker. - but it isn't what I currently do.
For external gain, I currently go Vertex Ultraphonix > Rat 2 > Timmy into a custom warm Tweed clean sound
The Vertex gain is less than 9:00 and acts more light a smooth boost or compressor, adding almost-clean sustain to my sound. I love this. I step on the Rat which is at around 8:00 (gain almost not engaged) to add a midrange that makes my sound 'push forward' a bit and is better for rhythm, then I have the Timmy just as a 'more' button not really using its gain but as a boost that also enhances tremble.
Synopsis: One essential pedal?
Blackface core sound - some kind of Klon (I think the Tumnus version with the 3 band EQ is one of the best)
Tweed core sound - Ultraphonix (original not Mk2)
Many years ago, I attended a church that met in an assembly hall locally on a Sunday.
During the week the hall was used for other purposes, sometimes a concert was held there, now and then.
The hall held about 200 people at most, and one night a group called “Traffic” played there. There was also a bonus appearance.
At the height of his acclaim, Eric Clapton turned up with his musician pals and simply jammed along with them the whole night. A legendary event locally.
I think most people thought they had got their money’s worth from the price of the ticket.
The point and its relevance to the theme of this thread is, Eric said that what you should do is to attain a killer clean sound first and foremost.
When you have achieved that, (which isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do, as many a lacklustre clean guitar sound reveals, far too often to my mind).
You then add distortion to an already superb sounding guitar tone. Eric achieved this with simply his guitar and amp alone and no distortion pedals whatever at all.
I have an elderly American Big Muff pedal, which sounds great with the right guitar, but I never really use it at all much. I get distortion when I want it simply from the guitar and amplifier alone.
Some guitars have higher output pickups and some amplifiers have lower headroom tubes, so break up early into mild distortion, and some guitars have linear pots that enable one to turn the volume down on the instrument for a clean sound and by turning the volume up a little, overdriving into distortion.
But basically, I get distortion if needed, for acquiring the best possible clean sound from the equipment first and then adjusting it a little to add distortion.
I have this theory that really great sound and tone comes primarily from the player themselves rather than the instrument and equipment. And that overuse of and too much processing and effects, more often than not, detract from the players contribution.
Virtually all the greatest players I ever heard could be recognised when recorded, almost the instant one heard them.
I have another theory, that the less processing and effects are used, or perhaps the moderately or occasionally they are used the more effective they are.
We could by analogy liken this to the use of melismatic gymnastics by modern pop singers. It is now so widespread that every singer sounds very much like every other singer.
The emotional power, meaning and strength of the words and memorability of the actual melody are almost entirely lost on the audience who are expected to be momentarily held and impressed by such excess.
However, when every does it. All the time. It simply loses its power.
If it were rarer. Occasional. The performance dependant upon other, more fundamental qualities and characteristics of musicianship, it would be far more special, effective and emotionally powerful.
Over the years I have had opportunity to be involved on projects with artists whose music and approach to music I really didn’t like that much. One reason was they never had much embellishment to their music if anything at all.
But I learnt that what they left out of their musical production actually made the artists performance, and the power of the words and music all the stronger and more effective for that. Less was more and the essential cardinal elements shone through.
To me, there is too much over processing of sound in most modern recordings
And too little of simply capturing great playing that reveals the touch and gift of the player itself.
I had to laugh one day when Al Schmitt was congratulated on the great tremolo sound, he got on George Bensons, “Breezing” album.
Al was completely unaware of it, he had miked Georges Twin Reverb amp set as it was, and neither of them had realised that the tremolo effect had been very subtly set “on”.
I do appreciate that effects seem to be de rigour for certain genres of music.
But the best performers to me at least, seem not to need them.
And when they have them they didn't mean to.
Catalinbread Naga Viper.
Amazing Treble Booster pedal.
I found my chain link with this. I'm using it with my Vox AC on the Normal Channel cranked or with my plexi cranked.
Just incredible.
Special mention also to : Maxon 808, Boss SD1 and Fulltone OCD.
There is good Bukovac video where he does blind testing of quite a few OD pedals. I found it interesting.
Homeskoolin’ Special Episode, “Uncle Larry's Hearing Test” - YouTube
