Hey guys,
I'm a fairly recent Kemper owner and I'm absolutely besotted with this green little beastie. So many amazing sounds.
I've seen people in the forum wondering about the suitability of the SPL Crimson as a soundcard and I just wanted to say that it works a treat. I'm using it on an i7 Mac Mini with OS X Mavericks, set up in Logic X to use the custom Bit Accurate drivers from SPL. A 128 sample buffer works well for tracking and I usually bump it up to 512 while mixing. It took me a little while to get my head around a nice workflow, so I thought I'd share my findings for future forum searchers. Some of this might be duplicated but when I was trying to figure out how to use the Kemper the info came from many different sources and I'm hoping the next guy will find it all in one place here.
Recording:
- Kemper SPDIF Output set to Guit/Stack
- Kemper SPDIF Out -> SPL Crimson SPDIF In
- SPL Crimson SPDIF Out -> Kemper SPDIF In
- Kemper Main Out set to Master Stereo (sometimes Master Mono)
- Main Out XLR (balanced) -> SPL Crimson 3/4 TRS In (balanced)
For recording, on the SPL Crimson I turn the 3/4 input monitoring button on, starting the Monitor Mix knob at 1:1 and turn left until the guitar is suitably louder than the backing. The reason I set it up this way is so I can get the dry as well as the amped signal recorded while monitoring with the lowest latency possible. Something to watch out for is that the SPDIF on the SPL Crimson shares converters with the 1/2 outputs from your DAW so you can only hear one or the other.
Reamping:
- Kemper Input set to SPDIF Input Reamp
- Logic X Dry track > Logic X I/O Plugin > Bus 1 (Reamp Bus)
- I/O Plugin output set to SPL Crimson 5 out
- I/O Plugin input set to SPL Crimson 6 in
- Bus 1 Reamp set to No Output
- Kemper Wet Track set to Bus 1 Reamp as input
For reamping, I use the I/O utility plugin on the dry track in Logic X. I then route this through the Kemper and back into a bus specifically set up for reamping. Then I have a new track that takes input from the reamping bus and that's what records the processed guitar track. If you're layering reamped tracks, make sure you set Constant Latency on in the Kemper's output section. Otherwise you'll run into phasing issues. Before you record, make sure to hit the Ping button on the I/O plugin as this calculates the round trip latency so it'll line the tracks up perfectly.
See this pic for details:
[Blocked Image: https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2948/15509274585_91eb1b9552.jpg]
So with this setup I still have inputs 1 and 2 on the SPL Crimson free to use as I wish. I just use a fully modded GAP Pre 73 into input 1 as all I record are vocals and bass/guitar through the Kemper. The rest is all software instruments.
Hope this helps someone!
