Kemper KPA Storing/Recalling Rigs, Presets, and Backups
The Profiling Amp can store and load entire rigs, section presets, and individual block presets. Rigs contain all the blocks in the signal chain, including the amp and cab profile blocks, as well as additional rig-level settings, such as tempo. Section presets contain all the settings for the blocks within the section - including the amp/cab profiles in the case of the stack section.
Contents
Storing, Loading, and Deleting Rigs
Storing
Storing rigs is performed by pressing the Store button. If you are in edit view for an effect block, you'll get a dialog to select whether you want to save the block or entire rig; select entire rig. If the current rig was loaded from the KPA itself (as opposed to loading from the Rig Exchange or Local Library via Rig Manager), you'll get another dialog to Replace the current rig or Store As a new rig. Now you'll be brought to naming dialog. Once finished naming, press the Store button again.
The KPA can store a maximum of 1,000 rigs - you'll get an error if you try to store a rig using Store As once you hit 1,000 rigs.
You can only store rigs directly to the KPA, not to Rig Manager or a USB stick.
Loading
Rigs can be loaded directly from the profiler itself, or via Rig Manager. While in browser mode, the D-pad left/right buttons will load the previous/next rig. Up/Down skip to the next group of rigs depending on how they are sorted. For instance, if sorted by name, up/down skip to the next rig with a different first letter for the name - this is handy for quickly jumping through profiles.
Another way to load rigs directly from the profiler controls is to turn the Browse knob. This will bring up the rig browser view. The browse knob can be used to cycle through rigs, and you can also navigate by using the d-pad buttons. Holding the d-pad buttons will cycle through them quickly, as though you are tapping it very quickly. Notice the checkbox for auto-load under the soft-button. If checked, every time you highlight a new rig, it will automatically be loaded. This may make it easier to quickly audition rigs, but it will also take longer to scroll between rigs.
The simplest way to load rigs is via Rig Manager, as noted on the Rig Manager page.
Rigs cannot be directly loaded from a USB stick plugged into the KPA. They will have to be imported first.
Deleting
Rigs can be deleted directly from Rig Mananger using the delete key or right-clicking and choosing delete, or buy using the browse view mentioned above and pressing the soft-button above "delete".
Note: if you have many consecutive profiles you need to delete, you can select them all in Rig Mananger by selecting the first one, then holding shift and selecting the last - this will highlight them all, then press delete. If you need to do the same thing on the KPA itself, you can quickly press delete, yes, delete, yes - even though the KPA screen may not display the confirm delete dialog as quickly as you press the buttons, it will still register and delete them properly.
Importing/Exporting
Rig Mananger
Rigs can be imported and exported via Rig Manager. Rig Manager is all drag and drop. You drag files from your local computer into Rig Manager, and you can drag and drop within Rig Manager into different Local Library folders, or the KPA itself. Unfortunately, presets and amp/cab profiles cannot be imported/exported via Rig Manager. You would have to load a rig that contains the preset/profile, then select it and store it via the KPA's Store button.
USB Stick
Rigs and presets can be imported/exported via USB stick. It must first be formatted. Be sure your USB stick is completely empty. When you first put it in the KPA, it should prompt you to format it. This will create a number of folders on the drive - these correspond to the proper location for backup files, rigs, profiles, and presets.
To import from the USB stick, you must connect it to your computer and place the .kipr files for the rigs in the "\Shared\Rigs\" folder. Place presets in the appropriate folder under "\Shared\". For section-wide presets these would be "Stomps", "Stack", and "Effects". For individual block presets, these would be "Input", "Stomp", "ToneStack", "Effect", "Delay", "Reverb", and "Output". For amp and cab profiles, this would be "Amplifier" and "Cabinet". Then connect it to your KPA, and you'll see a dialog to import. Select yes, and it will start importing all rigs and presets - if the same rig (same name and timestamp) already exists, it will not overwrite or create a duplicate - it will skip that rig.
Be sure when importing presets to put them in the correct folder. If the preset is for the entire Effects section, place it in the "Effects" folder, not "Effect". Same thing for "Stomp" vs. "Stomps". When in doubt, just copy the presets into all 4 folders to guarantee they import. Also, remember Delay and Reverb are distinct from Effect/Effects and have their own folders.
Rigs can be directly exported to the USB stick - click the External Storage soft button, and you'll see the option to export the current rig. Presets are trickier to export - your only option is to create a backup, open the backup file in a computer, and copy out the presets from the appropriate folders.
Creating and Restoring from Backups
Backups save down everything on your Kemper, from global settings to rigs, presets, performances, and profiles. Backups must be created on a USB stick plugged into the Kemper. Once inserted (and formatted), pressing the External Storage soft button in Browser mode will display the Backup option below one of the soft buttons. It will take a little time for the Kemper to create it, but not as long as you might think.
Restoring is a similar process - you select External Storage > Backup > Restore, then you'll see a list of the available backups. You just select the one you want and press the soft button to restore. Restoring will wipe out everything in the KPA and replace it with the data in the backup. It's often a good idea to create a backup before restoring a different backup, just in case.
After creating a backup and putting the USB stick in your computer, you'll find the backup folder has a .kpabackup file with the datetime of the backup in it. A .kpabackup file is a simple archive file, and can be renamed as a .zip file to be opened by the operating system. Or you can open it with an archiving program, such as 7-zip (recommended). You'll notice inside the backup, there's a similar folder structure as the KPA creates in the USB drive's "Shared" folder - Rigs, Amplifier, Cabinet, Effect, Effects, Performances, etc.
I like to copy a backup file, then open it up and remove all the rigs and presets, and rename it as "blank.kpabackup". Then if I ever need to clear out my Kemper, instead of deleting rig after rig and preset after preset, I can simply restore the blank preset.
Similarly, rather than simply importing rigs and presets, and deleting unwanted ones individually directly from the KPA, it can be simpler to create a backup, add or delete presets and rigs on your computer where you can use Rig Manager and browse older backups, then restore from it. This will wipe out any rigs/presets not in the backup.
Backup files can also be imported into Rig Manager, which then let's you load the rigs from each backup and drag-drop them into Local Library folders or your KPA. This lets you easily find some of the best rigs you had in prior backups and carry them forward.
Naming and Text Editing
When storing rigs/presets and editing tags, the KPA will prompt you to enter/edit the name. The left/right d-pad buttons are used to select a character, one wheel will change the character, another changes case, and a button above is used to delete a character.
You'll soon realize if you have to do this a lot it can be quite cumbersome. There are two easy ways around this. First, you can connect a USB keyboard into the KPA's USB port, and it will work exactly like you'd expect. Another option is to give it a short name - just enough to recognize it later on. Then you can open the rig in Rig Manager and edit the tags and name quite easily on your computer keyboard. If it's a preset instead of a rig, you have to export the preset to USB and copy it to your computer, then you can simply rename the preset there. Then you can import it back in.