TONEX does capture better than anything I have heard to date. It may be "next generation" capturing that Kemper can't quite do, but I give a lot of credit to Kemper for long term support. It's not dead yet, and it will live on allowing users to use the effects and select either Kemper amp/cab Profiles or TONEX Captures. Kemper has solid effects, and the product functions flawlessly. But to get the most realistic core tone of amps and cabs, TONEX is the "drop and insert" solution. The Kemper Stage can handle the rest...well almost. I have two problems running the two together. I wondered why no YouTuber posted on using these two devices together, and maybe this is the reason (below).
The primary problem:
The TONEX Pedal is not changing presets when the Kemper Stage is sending MIDI Program Change messages. I have isolated the fault to TONEX expecting to see Control Change CC00 or CC01 to switch between the two banks of presets prior to receiving the Program Change number to select the preset I want associated with my Kemper effects presets. Other MIDI devices I own accept program change messages without the CC00/01 message from Kemper. TONEX doesn't respond at all. Darn!
The only way I can get these two units to change in unison is to have the TONEX Pedal send MIDI commands to the Kemper Stage, but now I only have 3 preset channels at my feet instead of 5 on the Kemper. I really want my Kemper Stage to control the TONEX Pedal with MIDI.
So, can IK Multimedia please add an option in the reception of MIDI Program Change messages to accept just the PC messages without the CC message in front of it? I know there is a limitation of 128 presets, but that is better than nothing. Maybe have messages with CC01 for selecting the upper bank only, and automatically default to the lower bank of 128 presets when no CC message is received??? That would solve the issue for (I'm sure) a lot of users who need pre & post effects synchronized for their awesome TONEX captures.
Problem two:
No one is talking about this, but there is a lot of delay changing between presets on the TONEX Pedal. It is actually hard to time changes during live performance. You have to anticipate, and that is very distracting. Can this be fixed? Kemper doesn't have this latency issue. It is instantaneous on Kemper.
Thanks for listening.
